Okay, everyone! I have a new story finally! I hope you enjoy it--this is the first part!
Murky Depths Part One
Rated: PG
Jack Dalton kicked MacGyver on the leg, and still there was no movement. He tried shouting at him, and he still didn’t respond. Finally, losing patience, he yanked the pillow out from beneath the sleeping MacGyver’s head and swatted him with it, causing MacGyver to bolt upright.
“What?” He yelled, his eyes still half-closed and his sandy hair disheveled. Creases from the sheets had imprinted themselves on his cheek.
“Jeez, MacGyver, get up you lazy bum!” Jack Dalton said. “I’m usually the one who sleeps until noon, not you. Come on!”
“I had a twelve hour flight,” MacGyver groaned, rubbing his exhausted face with his hands. He blinked slowly, and the cozy accommodations of the hotel they were staying in came into focus. He looked at Jack. “So, what do you want?”
Jack grinned. “I thought you’d never ask,” he said. “Listen, you know I invited you out here to Scotland as kind of a vacation, right?”
MacGyver nodded slowly. “Yeah, you wanted me to see your newest investment idea. A pub near Inverness, right? Doesn’t sound like much of a vacation to me.”
“But you came!”
“Yeah, I must be out of my mind.”
“Mac, my boy, you are sane and sound, and I’ll tell you why. I didn’t ask you to come out here just to help me get started with my pub. Oh, no. That’s just the tip of the proverbial ice berg. You can uh…do some research while you’re here. Yeah, that’s right. Didn’t you say you had ancestors here? You could look them up…or something.”
Jack Dalton’s eyes were dancing with light and glee, and his left one was twitching. Those two things combined were always a signal to MacGyver that something was dreadfully wrong.
“Oh, no,” he said.
“What, MacGyver? You look worried. Is something wrong?”
“Jack,” MacGyver said, swinging his long legs over the side of the giant king-sized bed and throwing back the sheets, “you’re hiding something from me. Again. Come on, what’s the real reason for bringing me over here?”
“The real reason?” Jack asked, sheepishly dropping his eyes to the floor, trying to hide the twitch from his friend.
“Yeah, the real reason.”
MacGyver’s dark, piercing eyes were now wide open, staring at Jack intensely, demanding an answer. Jack always hated that look. He’d never admit it, but it intimidated him. MacGyver always managed to get the truth out of him, one way or another, and it didn’t require torture, either. All he had to do was give him that look, the one that wouldn’t accept anything but an honest explanation. And he’d seen MacGyver hold out, too. He could wait years if he had to, just so he could finally hear some truth escape from Jack Dalton’s lying lips.
“All right, Mac, I’ll tell you,” Jack said, sighing. He moved over to a thickly upholstered, plush chair in the hotel room and sat on it, glancing up at MacGyver. “I uh…I want you to help me look for the Loch Ness Monster.”
MacGyver raised his eyebrows and began laughing. “You what?” He asked, his voice a combination of amusement and anger. He fell onto his back on the bed, still laughing. “Jack, that’s ridiculous! I thought I’d heard just about every crazy scheme you could ever come up with, but this one takes them all!”
“It’s not that ridiculous,” Jack said, slightly defensive. “People really believe it exists.”
“It’s a myth, Jack!” MacGyver said, sitting up again. “You want me to waste my time hunting for something that doesn’t exist with you? For what?”
“Well…I thought it might bring a lot of business to my pub. Think of it, Mac! If we could prove it’s real, then I’ll be raking in tourist dollars in no time! People will pay to have a drink at my pub, and then they’ll go out to see the monster! It’s the perfect business, and you could be my partner! What do you say?”
MacGyver simply shook his head. The whole thing was so wild, even for Jack Dalton. He couldn’t even begin to think of a way to respond to his friend’s foolishness. He got out of bed and began trudging toward the ornate armoire where his suitcase was kept. He walked around the room gathering his clothes and packing them.
“MacGyver, what are you doing?” Jack asked, watching him.
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m going home,” MacGyver said.
“But, why?”
MacGyver tossed a shirt into the open suitcase and glared at Jack. “This is never going to work,” he said. “You do realize that, don’t you? I mean, the whole thing’s so…out there, I can’t even begin to…do you know how hard it is to start a business overseas, monster or no monster? You don’t even have any money! As for finding Nessie, well…I’m sorry, Jack, but that just isn’t going to happen!”
“Maybe it won’t,” Jack said in serious tone, getting up from the chair and approaching MacGyver. “But, maybe it will. Look Mac, all I’m asking for is that you give me one day, that’s all. I have a biologist from the university anxious to perform some new research on the lake, and he’s agreed to help us.”
“Where did you meet this biologist?” MacGyver asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Well…that’s a long story. He is interested in my pub idea, though. Will you come with me to meet him?”
MacGyver sighed. “All right, I’ll give you one day,” he said, wincing. “I just know I’m gonna regret this.”
***
The green, lush, windswept hills surrounding the massive, deep body of water known as Loch Ness had a calming effect on MacGyver. Just for a moment, he could take in the haunting beauty of the Scottish scenery in peace, forgetting about monsters and Jack’s crazy business schemes. He closed his eyes and felt the breeze and the mist caress his face and his hair, and he truly felt like he was home. He thought about his ancestors roaming those hills, and he felt a link to the land. Maybe after he was finished humoring Jack, he would go perform more research on his ancestors.
“Jack!” A man called out with a heavy Scottish brogue.
MacGyver opened his eyes and turned towards the direction of the voice. He saw an older, stout man wearing a hat and a tweed vest approaching them.
“Ah, Professor, you came!” Jack said, grinning and eagerly shaking the older gentleman’s hand. He glanced back at MacGyver. “This is the friend I was telling you about, MacGyver.”
“Ah yes, MacGyver,” the professor said, smiling and shaking MacGyver’s hand. “It’s nice to meet a fellow countryman.”
“Well, my ancestors came from here,” MacGyver said, smiling slightly.
“This is Professor Douglas Mackenzie, but I like to call him Doug,” Jack said.
“Jack, don’t start,” Douglas said, winking at him. He turned and looked at MacGyver again. “So, you’re from The Phoenix Foundation.”
“Yes, how did you know?”
“Jack told me.”
MacGyver glanced at Jack. “I’ll bet he did,” he said.
“I also worked with Peter Thornton a long time ago.”
“Really?”
“Yes, I understand he’s your boss. How is the old man?”
“He’s doing well.”
“Listen, can we catch up on the small talk later? I’m anxious to find a monster, if you know what I mean,” Jack said.
MacGyver looked at him and rolled his eyes. He knew this was going to be painful. “Professor, you don’t actually believe there’s a so-called monster in this lake, do you?” he asked.
Douglas smiled at him, his eyes crinkling nicely when he smiled, making him look friendly as well as intelligent. “You’re a skeptic,” he said.
“Well…yeah.”
“Don’t worry. Skepticism is healthy, and perfectly natural. As a scientist, I admit that I’m somewhat skeptical myself. Which is why I’m conducting several studies on this lake to see if I can find any verifiable signs of unusual life forms in the loch. Your friend Jack here decided to come along for the ride after he expressed interest in the pub that a friend of mine is selling. When he told me you were coming, I knew we would have the foundation of a small research team, as it were.”
“You see, Mac? We’re going in there with science on our side!” Jack said.
“Yeah,” MacGyver said, still doubting the purpose of the entire expedition.
“Come on, gentleman,” Douglas said. “I’ll show you to our boat. We’ll get our equipment set up.”
***
“Wow, would you look at this stuff?” Jack asked, examining the electronic equipment on board the boat they were using to travel the surface of the lake.
“Sonar, underwater microphones…it looks like you have all your bases covered, Professor,” MacGyver said.
“Yes, well, I’m fortunate to have access to any of this equipment at all,” Douglas said. “It seems the rest of my colleagues at the university believe me to be a crackpot for looking for the Loch Ness Monster. It’s become harder for me to obtain enough grant money to perform my research.”
MacGyver looked at him with sympathy, but his eyes were also set and hard, revealing once again his doubt. “Did you ever consider that they may be right?” He asked.
“Mac, how could you say something like that?” Jack asked.
“No Jack, it’s a perfectly legitimate question.” He looked at MacGyver. “Mr. MacGyver, you’re an intelligent man. I can understand how all of this appears to be ludicrous to you. It is to me at times, as well. Don’t think for a moment that I have doubted whether searching for Nessie is a complete waste of time or a foolish fantasy, like looking for a mermaid or a unicorn. But consider this. Many people hypothesize that the Loch Ness Monster is a Plesiosaur, which is—or was—something that actually existed.”
“They’re extinct,” MacGyver said.
“Yes, but consider—everyone thought the Coelacanth, a prehistoric fish, was extinct as well—until it was rediscovered in 1938.”
MacGyver shrugged. “Maybe you do have a point,” he said.
“If I can rediscover a Plesiosaur, something everyone thought to be extinct, well then, that would be a valuable discovery for science, wouldn’t you agree?”
MacGyver smiled. “I guess so,” he said.
“After all, it would mean one less species is extinct. We could study it further, and protect it. I think that would be worth something, don’t you?”
“You know Professor, I’ve always been a curious person,” MacGyver said. “I try to balance my curiosity with skepticism, but maybe science is and has always been about proving the improbable.”
Douglas smiled. “You know, I think I’m beginning to be quite glad you’re on this trip with me, Mr. MacGyver,” he said.
“Say Professor, why can’t we just dive down there to find this monster?” Jack asked.
“The water is too deep and cold, not to mention difficult to see through. There’s a lot of peat in this water, and it clouds everything up,” Douglas said. “On a previous expedition, I used small submersibles to look underwater, but that was a few years and a lot more money ago.”
“So, you actually think this snazzy sonar equipment is going to help us find the…”
“Jack, watch out!” Douglas shouted, but it was too late.
MacGyver had his head turned away from Jack, so he didn’t notice the heavy piece of equipment Jack had in his hands swinging directly towards him. He looked just as Douglas shouted, and he felt something smack hard against his forehead, cutting a deep gash and knocking him unconscious as he toppled into the lake.
“MacGyver!” Jack shouted, watching helplessly as his friend sank beneath the placid surface. He looked at Douglas in panic. “What do we do?” He asked.
Douglas frantically looked around the boat, feeling almost as panicked as Jack was. “I have some ropes,” he said. “Maybe we can tie them together and fish him out.”
As MacGyver sank deeper and deeper into the murky, cold water, in a state of semi-consciousness, dazed and unaware of his surroundings or what was happening to him, he was slowly drowning, his lungs taking in huge amounts of the muddy water. Everything grew darker and darker as he suffocated, and soon he was completely unconscious, blood from the cut on his forehead spreading in the water. It seemed as though his body would never stop sinking when suddenly something formed in the water beneath him. A massive, undefined form appeared and seemed to be pushing him towards the surface, causing massive disruptions and waves in the water. It pushed and pushed him until he broke the surface.
“Look!” Jack said, pointing off the port side of the boat.
Both he and Douglas stared in disbelief and fascination as massive, frothy waves appeared, breaking the surface and tossing MacGyver’s limp body on board their boat. It all happened so quickly they barely had time to notice the humps of the creature before it disappeared back beneath the water. Jack and Douglas rushed to MacGyver’s aide, amazed.
“What the hell was that?” Jack asked.
To be continued…
"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer."
--Henry David Thoreau
brains+brawn+beauty+personality=MacGyver
so don't take too long! 
*wink at Pseodym* 
You are writing about our beastie!! 
