Jack glanced back over his shoulder at the woman behind him. She was not much younger than him, short, slender, pretty in an elfish sort of way, wearing a lab coat, and, perhaps most importantly, had a small handgun leveled at his back.
Her hands were very steady.
He was cursing a steady stream in his head, but all he let out of his mouth was, "You don't look much like the super-villain-secret-underground-lair type, Miss."
"Doctor," she corrected, but not sharply. "Dr. Alice Stomski. Who the Hell are you?" she demanded, but it still wasn't sharp, just calm and determined.
"My name's Jack," he began, keeping his hands where she could see them, but starting to turn toward her.
"Bup, bup, bup. I didn't say you could move."
He stopped. "Dalton," he finished. "I work for a think tank that consults on a lot of different things. We're looking into some suspicious activity on the power grid that the DWP ID'd as Terminus." He paused, glancing over his shoulder again. "I'm guessin' that'd be you."
"You'd be guessing wrong," she said plainly, shaking her head so that her dark bobbed hair brushed her cheeks. "Nothing I do here could be called suspicious by anybody."
He could see it out of the corner of his eye. He heard her sigh softly.
"Although I suppose I may be responsible for it."
"How's that?" he asked, venturing to turn again.
This time she didn't stop him.
"Well, I suggested these access tunnels be built so maintenance and other non-critical tasks wouldn't get in the way of our scientists. And I suggested that we start using AI for repairs and unskilled lab work."
She didn't lower her weapon, but Jack thought she was starting to look inclined. He lowered his hands slowly, to gauge her reaction. Her eyes were glued to his every move, but she didn't look trigger-happy.
"Those sound like smart ideas, not that I know much about smart lab geek stuff."
"Well, then what would you be doing investigating things here?" she asked sharply, looking just a little twitchier.
"I'm field security for the smartest guy I've ever met, that's what." Jack took a step toward her. "And right now he's up that tunnel and he ain't answerin'. So how're you responsible and what am I gonna get myself into when I go up there lookin' for him?"
She frowned. "Do you have any ID?"
He shook his head. "No ID, but…" He gestured carefully. "Reach?"
"Go ahead."
Jack fished in his pocket and came up with a business card fold. He handed her one of the cards from inside and slipped the fold back in his pocket. "If it'll get that toy you're wavin' around pointed somewhere else, you go ahead and call that number."
A number was the only thing on the card.
"There's no signal down here. It's basically one big Faraday cage," she said, examining the card, but also lowering her weapon. She was getting the sense this guy was a professional, and while he looked dangerous around the eyes, she also had a sense he wasn't dangerous to her. In fact, he might be the help she needed today.
"I'm gonna pretend I know what that even is and ask you again—"
"You don't want to go up that tunnel at all," she interrupted. "I'm only down here because it's the weekend and I knew no one else would be here. I've noticed some things going missing. Including a number of the bots. And then I noticed Five was missing, too. So, I think maybe someone reprogrammed my AI … or…"
"Or what?"
"Or they've gone off programming themselves."
Jack swallowed hard at that. Back to the robopocalypse again.
"And the other stuff that's missing is some genetically modified…"
"Nope. Don't want to hear it." Jack was past the point of being able to deal with the plural of apocalypse. He hadn't thought it was funny before when Mac was saying stuff like that as a joke.
One corner of her mouth lifted like she knew what he was thinking. "Well, whether it's Five … that's one of my robots … or someone who's up to no good with him, those tunnels are cramped. A guy your size would definitely be at a disadvantage in a fight in one of them."
"Well, my partner's not as big as me, but he ain't exactly small either, as I found out coming down here and being used as a human air bag," he offered without further explanation. "I'm gettin' a little nervous about him not answering. And the more you talk, the more nervous I get."
She nodded. "There's a central storage room down here that the AI is programmed to head to to recharge once their task is done. There's an elevator back to the top in there, too. I suggest we start there."
Jack didn't see that he had anything to lose. She wasn't wrong about the proportions of that tunnel. He'd been worried he'd get stuck heading down it when she'd come up behind him. "Alright."
She gestured with her empty hand. "After you."
"I appreciate that, but ladies first if you've decided I'm reasonably trustworthy. I haven't made up my mind about you just yet."
She simply shrugged at that point and started up the slight incline of the seemingly endless hallway.
Jack picked up his gun and followed close on her heels.
0-0-0
Mac groaned and slowly opened his eyes.
It was dark.
It was cramped.
He felt a little bruised and scraped up, like maybe he'd been dragged.
And his head felt roughly like someone was banging symbols over his ears.
What the…?
Mac reached up to touch the most painful spot behind his ear, expecting to find blood, but instead feeling the edges of a fingerprint sized burn.
"Sssst," he hissed.
Burns were the worst. And if anybody knew it, it was Mac. He was forever scorching himself on hot engine parts, Bunsen burner flames, or Heaven forbid, kitchen equipment, when he decided to try learning to cook for the millionth time.
The air felt close and stale, but it wasn't warm. In fact, Mac finally realized he was shivering a little. The hallways he'd left Jack in had been almost warm enough to make him want to take off his jacket. Weird.
Then he remembered thinking it was cold in the smaller tunnel right before … whatever left that burn behind his ear had happened. The area was probably cooled for the electronics. Or … it was cold storage for biological material. Knock it off, Mac. You sound like Jack, he lectured himself silently.
He started feeling his way around the dark … closet? Yeah, it feels like a closet. He couldn't find a doorknob though.
After a couple of minutes, his real thoughts made their way through the headache and he got out his keys. There was a tiny LED on the key chain. He thought maybe if he ever upgraded his Swiss Army knife, he'd get one with its own flashlight and kinetic battery. The light from his keychain was a dim pale blue indicating the watch battery that powered it was getting low, but at least he could see a little bit now.
He was in a closet for sure. Its narrow walls stacked up to several feet above his head with boxes of files and little else. He could see light seeping in around the rectangle in front of him, indicating a door, but he'd been right when he was feeling around in the dark. No handle. Damnit.
He used the faint light to try to locate hinges but came up empty. He had the brief disquieting thought that it was like being in a coffin. Now you really sound like Jack! he groused at himself.
He realized that his body and his limbic system didn't care if his rational brain considered the thought ridiculous because his heart was beating too fast and sweat was running down the center of his back in spite of the cold.
He opened the small, slightly sturdier, knife in his arsenal and began trying to pry the edges of the door open. He stopped when he heard a faint whirring sound right outside.
He was suddenly, irrationally convinced that not only was he starting to sound like Jack, but that Jack was right about the robopocalypse.
The door rattled.
It shook.
Then it fell away, off to the side.
Mac blinked in the light, trying to will his eyes into adjusting quickly so he could see what was going on. He fervently hoped that it was that Jack had found him.
When he was able to focus on what was in front of him, it wasn't Jack.
It was one of the short, squat robots that he'd first noticed wasn't where it belonged. A red light on top of it was blinking ominously.
Once again his own voice in his head sounded a little like his partner.
Well, shit.
0-0-0
The squat little rectangle on wheels in front of the closet backed up, rolled forward, then backed up again, making a beeping sound that Mac could only interpret as, "Come on out."
Mac got carefully to his feet, using some of the boxes for leverage because the pounding headache he had made him feel vaguely nauseated and more than a little dizzy. Having had a little experience with someone deciding that tasing him was a good way to put a stop to him going anywhere, he was positive that the burn he'd discovered was the result of some kind of electrical weapon.
He steadied himself for a minute and the little machine made a long, "woooo" sound that went up on the end like a question. Mac tilted his head, frowning at it for a minute. The bots upstairs seemed to be mildly sophisticated drones that operated on pre-programmed coordinates. He had the strangest impression this little guy was trying to communicate with him.
Once he felt less like he was going to fall over, he moved to step out of the box he'd been locked, trying to get his bearings.
The small robot rolled toward him again. It had an appendage that looked like a combination between a cigarette lighter and a taser. Thinking of the pain behind his ear and remembering a faint crackle before he blacked out, Mac dropped back a couple of steps and bumped into the boxes behind him.
The device rolled forward a few inches, then backed up again, and made another soft beeping noise.
Mac frowned although it set his head throbbing more intensely. "Well, you don't sound dangerous, I guess."
It spun around a couple of times and advanced toward him again. It made a little whirring sound that seemed like an agreement.
Mac's apprehension melted and he was intrigued enough that his headache seemed to fade into the background. He felt his lips twist into a smile. "I just picked up my own R2 unit and Jack's not here to see it. He's gonna be pissed."
It moved side to side and Mac had the strangest idea that it was doing the equivalent of shaking its head. The small digital display on its front (where eyes might have belonged if it had a face) flashed the number five.
"Five? Five what?" Mac asked, then shook his head.
It's not like this thing could possibly understand him. But like it had, it rolled toward him, then away, then toward him again, and Mac got the impression now that it was nodding at him. Then it made a couple or urgent beeping noises, and the number five flashed a few more times.
"Sorry little guy, I don't know what you…" He stopped. "Wait … Are you Five?"
The series of enthusiastic beeps that followed told Mac two things very clearly. One, this little box would answer to the name Five. And two, it definitely understood what he was saying.
"Wow. That kind of voice recognition software is really advanced. Somebody pretty smart programmed you."
Five agreed again. Mac stepped completely clear of the closet he'd been shut in. Ow. He'd definitely been dragged here. And maybe run into some stuff. He frowned at Five. "Did you put me in there?"
"No waaaaay," scrolled across the display screen and Mac gave a little snort of laughter. So whoever programmed this little guy wasn't just smart as hell, they had a sense of humor, too.
"I'm guessing you didn't zap me either, huh?"
It made a noise that almost sounded offended and Mac found himself chuckling again. He'd better not let Jack catch him chatting with R2-D5 like this or the Star Wars references would never stop. It then flashed the universal first aid symbol several times on its screen, the ubiquitous little red cross.
"Oh, no, not you, too," Mac laughed. "I'm fine, thanks. Well … I'm annoyed and I need to find my partner and figure out what's going on down here. But other than that, I'm good."
A digital thumbs up blinked on the display. Another series of beeps combined with a flashing arrow signaled a clear message of "Follow me."
"Alright, Five. Lead the way."
The robot spun on its multidirectional castors and rolled across what appeared to be a storage room for old files and spare parts. It was poorly lit and dusty but that didn't seem to slow Five down.
Mac peered around at the boxes and stacks in the dim cavernous room. "Hey, Five, hang on."
The little bot stopped and turned around, almost like it was watching what he was doing. Mac was too busy to pay much attention, as he was pulling items out of the component boxes and talking to himself. Well, he was kind of talking to Jack. Mac had discovered over the course of recent missions that despite getting annoyed by Jack's incessant questions, he sort of found that explaining things to his partner helped him think as his plans evolved on the fly.
After a while, Five made an inquisitive series of beeps.
"Just a minute, Five. I'm almost done."
Some more beeping.
"I'm making something to keep from getting zapped again."
Five extended a slender arm from its side and the small round tip sparked unmistakably.
"You did zap me!" Mac said in an accusatory voice that he probably would have found funny if he'd heard someone else using it on a squat little beeping box. Five made a slight whirring sound and rolled back away from Mac. "No? You're offering to zap someone else?"
An affirmative sound. Then the arm disappeared into Five's body again.
"I appreciate that, Five," Mac said, but still eyed the little machine warily. He filled his pockets with his thrown together (I really hope these work or that I don't need them) defenses. "Let's go … um … wherever you were going to take me."
Five rolled up to a wall panel and extended another appendage from inside its main box and plugged it into the keyhole beneath a keypad. A hidden door slid silently to the side. Mac hesitated for a second. He glanced up and down the low-ceilinged hall and finding it empty, followed Five a second later.
Mac didn't have to duck here, but only barely. He followed the robot for what felt like forever. He was thinking to himself that if Jack was wandering around down here, he must be getting a crick in his neck.
Almost like the thought summoned him, Mac heard a thud and a mumbled curse from around the corner up ahead of them. "Jack?" he called softly.
"Mac?" Jack answered in his characteristic totally-not-soft voice.
Then Mac heard another voice, a feminine one, ask, "Your partner?"
Mac and Five rounded the corner. Mac skidded to a stop and put his hands up. A woman was leveling a gun right at his chest. "Whoa!" he began.
Jack stepped forward and threw her a very irritated glare. "Put that damned thing away. I told you, that's Mac."
As she slipped the weapon into one of the pockets on her crisp lab coat, Mac lowered his hands with a grin. "Gotta tell you, pal, hearing you tell someone to put a gun away is almost funny."
Jack closed the distance between them, still frowning, ignoring the little robot who almost tripped him up rolling toward the scientist at his back. He was aware of her very pleased exclamation of, "Five!" and of the fact that talking and typing on the keypad on the side of the robot's head was happening, but mostly he was caught up on what the Hell must have been happening with his partner in the last hour or so.
"Jesus, kid, what the hell happened to you?"
Mac shrugged. "I wish I could remember." Jack's frown deepened. "I was in the side tunnel thinking I'd better turn around to get you because it narrowed down pretty fast, and something zapped me behind the ear."
"Zapped you?"
"Yeah, it's fine." Seeing that his assurance wasn't even semi-adequate he turned his head and brushed his slightly shaggy hair out of the way. "See, it's…"
Jack reached out.
Mac pulled away. "Don't touch it!"
"It looks like someone held a lit cigar to your head, kid."
Mac shrugged again. "Kinda feels like it, too. But I think the results are the least of our worries. Because I'm pretty sure one of this little guy's siblings is responsible. And is clearly okay with violating Asimov's Laws of Robotics."
"Pretty sure you're right," the woman said, stepping toward him and extending a hand. "Dr. Alice Stomski."
"MacGyver." He shook the offered hand, but didn't elaborate when she cocked an eyebrow at him. He was familiar with the expression. At least she didn't follow it up with a comment about mononyms, he thought. "I take it that Five belongs to you, Dr. Stomski?"
"He does."
Mac didn't miss the affectionate 'he' in her reply. Like the little robot was a favorite pet.
"And feel free to call me Alice, since it seems like we may be in the middle of the robopacalypse together."
Mac grinned and raised his eyebrows at Jack. She caught the expression and he tried to cover it by clearing his throat. "That you programmed apparently, if that little guy belongs to you."
"Well, you're half right," she said with a sigh.
"Come again?"
"Five does belong to me. And actually I did the original programming on all fourteen of the lab bots we developed. But Eric must've reprogrammed at least some of them if one of them injured you. Which I've been worried about for a while."
"Eric?" Jack asked. Mac's eyebrows lifted again, but since Alice had turned to answer Jack she missed him subtly teasing his partner about any compatibility or competition.
"One of the other scientists here."
"Oh."
"And also my ex-husband."
Mac didn't miss Jack's grin. She did say ex.
"MacGyver, may I have a look at where you were…" She searched back through their conversation for his phrasing. "Zapped?"
"Call me Mac," he said pleasantly.
"Alright, Mac. May I?"
Mac's eyes rolled involuntarily and blinked a couple of times because it reminded him his head still hurt. "Sure, I guess. But like I just told Jack, don't, and I seriously mean don't, touch it."
He bent down slightly so she could see the burn behind his ear.
She dutifully kept her hands at her sides but leaned closer to peer at the spot. "Hmmm."
"What have you been worried about?" Mac asked. "Just him reprogramming things?"
"At first." She sighed. "I think Eight must have done this." Her tone was clipped, irritated.
Mac straightened back up. "You can tell which bot jumped me just by looking at the burn?"
She was already working on the keypad on the side of Five again. "I can guess. Eight isn't an independent bot, more of a drone. Meaning Eric was probably piloting Eight remotely. Because I don't think one of the autonomous units could have been reprogrammed thoroughly enough to hurt a human."
Jack's frown was back in place. "Why would he want to do that? Either thing?"
Five started rolling away down the hall and Dr. Stomski started off right behind him.
Mac and Jack threw each other a look, then fell quickly into step with Alice.
"What happened with Eric?" Mac prodded gently.
"Well, both our proposals made it to the most recent final round with the board for funding. But mine was fully funded and his wasn't."
"And that led him to start the robopocalypse?" Jack asked.
"No. He wasn't really interested in my boys before."
"Alice?" Mac prompted. "What was his project?"
She frowned, but not at him. "He was looking into a new method of modifying viruses to improve vaccine research."
"Modifying viruses?" Jack asked, his face the picture of blank horror.
Mac sighed. "And let me guess, you were down here in the maintenance area to begin with because something's gone missing?"
She nodded. "Several somethings."
Mac chewed his lip. "Okay. I think I have an idea, but I'm gonna need a few things."
"You gonna tell me you know how to stop the zombie apocalypse and the robopacalypse all at once?" Jack asked, daring to feel hopeful. He even flashed a grin at Alice when she arched an eyebrow at his phrasing.
Mac grinned. "I already have the robopacalypse in the bag. Need a few items to keep us from that whole needing to know the plural of apocalypse."
Alice took out a large set of keys from the pocket of her lab coat. "What do you need?"