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Don’t Forget Part Four
Rated: PG
“Something’s bothering you,” Pete said, watching MacGyver as he stared blankly out the windows in his office, clearly preoccupied.
A shudder ran through MacGyver as he wondered if in mere seconds they would be engulfed in flame and shrapnel, the explosion he envisioned in his dreams becoming a reality.
“Well…yeah Pete, it is,” he said, turning to face his friend and boss. “First it was the inexplicable behavior of Russ when I went to visit him, and now…”
“Now what?”
MacGyver sighed. “I should’ve told you about this before. I don’t know why I didn’t. It just didn’t seem important at first, but…well, I keep having these recurring dreams involving two men speaking in the shadows. No matter how hard I try, I can’t identify them and I can’t hear exactly what it is they’re discussing. After seeing them for awhile, the dream shifts to this building. At first, all I saw was this building, appearing before me harmlessly. Now, whenever it appears…my dream ends with it exploding.”
“What? MacGyver, why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”
MacGyver shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t want to worry you,” he said, “but the dreams keep coming, and the explosion seems more violent and destructive the more I see it, almost as if it’s a foreshadowing of events that are actually going to occur.”
“You think someone’s plotting to plant a bomb and blow up this building? Mac, you know how secure we are. Everything and everyone is inspected thoroughly before given clearance to enter. If there was a bomb, surely our security team would find it and disarm it before anything could happen.”
“I know, but I’m telling you…this dream is disturbing, and I can’t seem to get rid of it.”
“Well, maybe you should see if you can try to control your dream, manipulate it so that you can learn more,” Pete said.
MacGyver raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?” He asked.
“We have several researchers here at the Foundation studying the science of sleep, particularly lucid dreaming. Now, I scoffed at first, but apparently it is possible to exert conscious control over your dream environment if you’re aware you’re inside a dream. They’ve been developing a prototype device designed to enhance the ability to lucid dream, a mask that covers the eyes and senses when they have entered REM sleep. It triggers a series of flashing lights that don’t awaken you but instead allow you to know that you’re dreaming, often incorporating the flashes into the dream so that it stimulates your overall awareness. I’ve been reading their results, and I find them quite fascinating. The success rate varies depending on their subjects and their receptivity, but if you tried the mask you would not only provide them with another test subject to experiment on—you might be able to decode the mysterious images you’ve been seeing.”
“I’ve heard of lucid dreaming,” MacGyver said. “I believe it’s possible.”
Pete looked surprised at his usually skeptical friend. “You do?” He asked.
“Sure. I didn’t realize you were so interested in this stuff, Pete.”
Pete smiled. “You think all I ever do is sit behind this desk giving you orders?” He asked.
MacGyver returned his smile. “I guess not,” he said.
“So, what do you think? This might help you.”
“I’ll give it a try.”
“Sounds good. I’ll let the sleep research team know. What you’re dreaming could just be another aftereffect from your concussion, or…”
“It could be something more serious. Let’s do it.”
***
MacGyver examined the eye mask he was supposed to wear as he went to sleep. It looked like an irregularly large pair of sunglasses that he imagined would make him look ridiculous once he put them on, but he knew it didn’t matter if their purpose was to help him learn more about his dream. Despite its clunky appearance, it seemed to be a well-constructed, sophisticated mechanism that he could appreciate, knowing that eventually the technology would become even more advanced and streamlined. Although he didn’t believe in prophecy, the inner workings of the brain, especially in the dream state, were valid and a worthy avenue of exploration and inquiry. After all, dreams were reconstructions of a day’s events simply written in a different, albeit indecipherable at times language. If the eye mask could act as a dream translator, it could prove useful in the intelligence field. Perhaps the recurring dreams he was having were a part of his memory that he couldn’t quite grasp, the concussion wiping away all conscious traces of it. He realized it was possible he could have forgotten much more after his head injury than just a fight breaking out during his hockey game. Something else might have happened, something far more sinister in its intent than a few angry players losing control. As he slipped the device over his eyes and began to relax in his bed, he hoped he could find out for certain.
Once MacGyver’s closed eyes began to dart back and forth rapidly, signaling he was entering his dream state, the sensors in the eye mask activated, blinking a series of flashing red lights. Those lights appeared in his dream as taillights of a car, disappearing into the night. As MacGyver became aware of where he was, he noticed the building housing the ice rink behind him. He was standing outside, the other players getting in their cars and driving home in the darkness. So far, everything seemed clearer than it had when he dreamt unaided by the device, shapes, sounds, and sights becoming better defined, almost as if he was really there, but with his heightened alertness, he knew he wasn’t.
This is incredible, he thought.
This thing actually works. I know I’m dreaming. He tried to concentrate more on his dream surroundings, paying special attention for the arrival of the mysterious men. He saw them, standing at a distance, huddled against the rink building as if to remain unnoticed, their silhouettes moving in the darkness. Approaching them stealthily, he tried to see their faces, but no matter what he did, they remained cloaked, the cover of night cleverly concealing them, forever masking their identities. Abandoning the notion that he could see who they were, he focused on listening to them instead, hoping he could actually hear the content of their conversation at last.
Come on, MacGyver…focus. Listen carefully to them. This is your dream. You can do it. “I…I don’t like this idea at all,” a familiar voice said, although MacGyver couldn’t quite place where he had heard it before, its tentativeness sounding similar to Russ, but in his altered dream state, he had trouble hearing him sound exactly like Russ. It was someone else, someone with his shared traits of timidity and uncertainty.
“What are you so worried about? This is the perfect target! This is what we’ve been planning for years!” The other voice said, sounding rougher and stronger.
“I know…but that’s where MacGyver works.”
“So what?”
“I’ve come to like him. I thought you did, too.”
“When it comes to decisive moments in our battle for independence, friendship doesn’t matter. Look, Mac might be a nice guy, but he’s still an enemy—an enemy of freedom and liberty to our oppressed country, an enemy of peace, and enemy to our
cause, understand?”
“But, how does it advance our cause to blow up a government building?”
“Do I have to spell it out for you? It sends a message that there are some of us in America who know the truth about how government is trying to suppress us, trying to take away what is rightfully ours and controlling us. We have to fight back to show them that we won’t be daunted, that we will fight back and take what is rightfully ours, that we will rebuild the government to better suit our needs.”
The men stopped talking when they sensed MacGyver’s presence nearby, turning to look in his direction. Although he still couldn’t see who they were, he knew they were looking right at him. They had discovered his location. He began to run, hearing their footsteps move quickly behind him, trying to catch up to him. He picked up speed, rounding the corner of another nearby building and hiding himself behind some dumpsters, trying to catch his breath before they arrived, wanting to remain as silent and undetected as possible. He heard them as they approached the area where he now hid, their feet scraping hard against the ground, panting heavily.
“Where did he go? I saw him run in this direction,” the gruffer sounding man said.
“I don’t know. Who was that?”
“I have no idea.”
“You don’t…think it was MacGyver, do you? I could barely make him out in the darkness, but…”
“Well, we can’t take any chances. If it was MacGyver, then he heard every word of our plan. We’ll have to stop him before he can take any action against us.”
“But he couldn’t see us, either! There’s no way he’ll ever know who was talking.”
“It doesn’t matter! Don’t you get it? If MacGyver spills what he heard to The Phoenix Foundation, that place will be crawling with more security than it is now and we’ll never get that bomb through. He could also go to the cops, the FBI…you know how relentless those government pigs are about persecuting the righteous and the innocent in this war.”
“Well…what are we gonna do to him? I don’t wanna kill him.”
“Got any better ideas?”
“I’ll think of something. You just follow my lead. I promise you, it will take MacGyver out of the picture without eliminating him.”
“All right. I’ll hear that plan, but for now we’d better split, in case he’s still around here somewhere.”
MacGyver heard them as they departed, and he tried to follow them, but his surroundings shifted until he was on the street, looking up at The Phoenix Foundation building again, their target. It exploded just as he was about to reach it, the heat and the force of the explosion knocking him back, burning him, the shrapnel cutting into his skin…
MacGyver released a terrified cry and awoke with a start, for a moment disoriented with the glasses still covering his eyes. He frantically yanked them off in order to establish a connection to his reality again, panting and sweating, his eyes darting wildly around his bedroom.
What just happened? Was that real? Could…could I have…? Reaching for his phone once he had settled down, he dialed Pete’s number.
“Do you realize what time it is, Mac? It’s four thirty in the morning, so this had better be good,” Pete said groggily.
“I just tried the lucid dreaming device,” he said, still shaken.
“And?” Pete asked, sounding more awake, probably sitting up to attention in his bed.
“I heard the men. I still couldn’t see who they were, but I heard every word they said. They were plotting to blow up The Phoenix Foundation building, just as the former, vaguer images in my dreams before seemed to suggest.”
“Oh my God,” Pete said. “What if this is real?”
“I know, Pete.”
“Did they say when?”
“No. That’s the worst part. It could be happening any time now.”
“I’ll alert security and tell them to intensify their searches.”
“There was something else.”
“What?”
“They mentioned me specifically. It was as if they knew I overheard what they said. They were going to devise a plan to get me out of the way. Pete, what if this actually happened? What if I can’t remember it happening because of the concussion I received during the hockey fight? Somebody wanted to use the fight as the perfect cover to getting me out of the way. A serious head injury like that leads them to conclude I’ll forget about the plan I was eavesdropping on, at least long enough for them to make their move. After all, concussions can cause temporary amnesia, isolated to certain events leading up to it.”
“But why not just kill you?”
“Maybe a murder would have attracted too much attention. Besides, I think the men planning to do this play on my hockey team. That’s how they were able to start the fight. They expressed a liking for me that suggested they didn’t want me dead. At least the one who protested did.”
“You’re suggesting that your teammates could somehow be planning an act of homegrown terrorism? How well do you know these men?”
“That’s the point—I don’t know them that well, except on the ice.”
“You don’t think Russ…”
“He certainly was behaving strangely enough when I met with him to indicate he might know something. For all I know, he could be another witness to the conversation and is too afraid to tell even me, someone he trusts. I’ll have to try to get in touch with him again and ask him more questions, but for now, I’ll have to ask the others on the team more about the fight and how it started to see if they saw anything suspicious or staged in it.”
“You really think what you saw in your lucid dream actually happened, don’t you?”
“Yes I do, Pete. For awhile, the details have remained fuzzy, but I think something is coming back to me.”
“Well, just be careful, all right? You don’t want whoever these men are to know that you remember and that you’re on to them. We have to try to beat them at their own game. We may not know when they were planning to strike, but at least now we can be better prepared.”
“Don’t worry, Pete. I’ll be careful.”
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
I know it's been awhile...I've been busy. 
