Edited for your enjoyment, with thanks to 'Beth!

The Rainmakers
Chapter 22, Doorway in a Bottle

Mac’s Voice-Over:
We’d done it… we’d finally reached the Third level of the KIVA.

It looked like hell.

The damage down here made everything we’d seen so far seem superficial. As we picked our way toward Steubens’ lab, we passed the massive generators that powered the KIVA – what was making so much unholy noise. The generators were still running, but at a great effort; several of the great units were damaged, and the others were picking up the slack, some beginning to fail because of the huge amount of stress that they were enduring past their design capabilities.

Beyond the generator banks, we encountered something that few people have experienced three hundred feet below ground – it was raining! Broken water pipes on the upper levels were draining down through huge cracks in the ceiling, and it fell in curtains. Luckily the foundation was equally fractured, and the water drained almost as fast as it fell. There was some flooding between us and the lab, but thanks to a suspended walkway we managed to cross it easily, though we were utterly drenched by the time we made it across the little bridge. The chamber beyond was flooded also, but only with about a foot of water.

I hesitated to step into that water – heaven knows what kind of chemicals could be in that runoff – but Barbara was eager to reach Steubens and she had her head; she splashed through it before I could say a thing. Luckily – again – it turned out to be just plain water.

I was worried about how quickly we were going through our luck. I still had a bad feeling about things – and we were headed to what looked like Ground Zero – I was pretty darn sure that neither of us was going to like what we were going to find.


“It’s usually a lot easier to get to the lab,” Barbara called over her shoulder. She was terribly anxious to find Steubens, but she was forcing herself to be optimistic; she knew she was babbling, but MacGyver didn’t shush her. As she strode briskly along, absently wringing water from the sodden scrap of MacGyver’s shirt that she still wore knotted around her neck, she let herself talk. “With the stairwell and the elevators out of order, this backdoor through the labs comes in handy.”

“Who has access down here?” MacGyver wondered aloud.

“Other than the engineers, just the lab directors and their assistants,” she answered. “To all other personnel this area is restricted. Far too dangerous – what with all those vats of acid lying around – and all the chocolate bars up in the Second level commissary,” she gave him a friendly smirk over her shoulder.

MacGyver chuckled and shook water out of his hair. “Glad to see that you’ve managed to keep your sense of humor dry.”

Mac’s Voice-over continues:
I didn’t want to mention the fact that, according to my wristwatch, we were down to mere minutes on our deadline; very soon, a flood of sodium hydroxide was going to begin making its way through the complex, devouring without prejudice everything soluble in its path – including Spencer and myself – if we couldn’t find a way to communicate with Pete.

He stayed close to her as she half-ran down the hallway. Ahead, he could see an open doorway, beckoning light spilling over the threshold. Barbara ran the last few steps, hesitating only a moment at the doorway before she crossed the room; but she was forced to stop suddenly when she found the way she sought was buried under a heap of shattered equipment and rubble.

“Oh no! There’s a door to Steuben’s lab right there, but with all this in the way… I don’t know how we’re going…”

“Well, we’re just gonna have to build ourselves a new door. Is there any way to communicate with them?” MacGyver cast around the room, his mind awhirl as he absorbed everything he saw.

“There’s a lab-to-lab intercom. I’ll try it.”

Barbara turned away, leaving MacGyver to investigate the rubble clogging the doorway. To Mac, it looked as if most of the equipment had been blown through the doorway from the other room; marks and the scatter patterns of the debris indicated the direction of the blast, and he could tell that they were close to where the initial explosion had occurred – very close. In the middle of this charred rubble, a few blocks of stone and some computer equipment were less damaged than they should have been, showing a pattern that he had seen often before – in his days of working on the bomb squad in Vietnam. He ran his fingers along the edge of a shelled-out computer monitor.

Barbara switched the intercom on and spoke loudly and clearly. “Doctor Steubens! Doctor Marlow! Can you hear me?”

MacGyver examined his hand; his fingers were coated with residue. He sniffed it, confirming what he had expected. “Plastique,” he murmured softly, disappointed to have his suspicions proven. “A bomb.”

I hate being right, sometimes.

Sidney Marlow looked up in surprise as he heard a voice cut through the thick air of their tomb. “D-did you hear that, K-Karl? Isn’t that your assistant – that nice young woman Barbara?” With an effort, he got to his feet and stumbled across the room.

Karl Steubens dragged himself up, managing to make it about halfway. Barbara’s voice was so clear and loud, she sounded as if she were right in the next room – but that couldn’t be! No, Steubens thought, so much has gone wrong so far… not this, too! Barbara was meant to be safely away on the upper levels – where the explosion wouldn’t have reached.

Just as Marlow reached the intercom, Barbara’s voice called out again. “Please! Can you answer this? Are you all right? Doctor Marlow! Can you hear me? Doctor Marlow?”

Marlow pressed the button on the intercom. “Yes!”

Barbara felt her knees go weak at the sound of his voice. Eagerly, she asked, “Is Karl all right?”

“Oh, yes, he’s all right, but…”

Barbara interrupted him excitedly to tell him, “We’re down here on the Third level in Metallurgy, just behind the back wall of your lab!”

Steubens had finally made it to his feet, though he was leaning heavily on the rail of the stairs. Hearing Barbara’s announcement, he grimaced. “No!” With a wobbly step, he fought against his own body to get down the stairs. He needed to get to his desk… he needed to finish the job once and for all.

Marlow was oblivious to Steuben’s distress. He turned and pointed at the far wall, “It’s them, Karl! They’re right there! Th-th-they – they’ve come to get us!”

Outside of the lab, Barbara leaned her cheek against the intercom, overcome for a moment with relief to hear that Karl and his friend were still alive. She wanted to keep talking… just to hear Marlow speak back to her, for the chance that she might hear Steuben’s voice, too; but when MacGyver come up behind her and laid his hands on her shoulders, she willingly moved to one side so that he could speak to Marlow. She rested against the wall and hugged herself.

MacGyver’s voice was steady and commanding. “Doctor Marlow, I want you to build yourselves a barricade as far from the back wall as you possibly can. We’re gonna try and blow an opening in that wall. Do you understand?”

Marlow was relieved to hear the confidence in the strong voice speaking to him. Determined despite the dust and damage, he leaned against the intercom and said, “W-we’ll do it.”

Barbara reached over and turned off the intercom. MacGyver didn’t glance at her; he was looking everywhere else.

“Blow an opening? With what?” Barbara demanded, “Don’t tell me you know how to make a bomb out of a stick of chewing gum!”

“Why – you got some?” MacGyver quipped, challenging her with a lifted eyebrow. She gave him a sour look. “C’mon. This is a lab, right?” He pushed himself away from the wall and began actively searching the ruined room. “There’s gotta be something in here we can fake it with.” He half-turned toward her again. “What kinda lab is this, anyway?”

“It’s metallurgy,” Barbara said levelly.

“Metallurgy . . . metallurgy, metallurgy.” MacGyver muttered, eyes tightly closed. “C’mon, MacGyver…” He leaned his head back, stretching his neck and forcing tense muscles to relax. His eyes sprang open, glowing with calm light. He had the answer! “Sodium metal. That’ll do it. Any idea where they might keep it?”

Barbara blinked in surprise. Even knowing what MacGyver was capable of, she was taken aback at how quickly his mind worked. “In here.” She walked a few paces to a metal cabinet, opened the door and briefly regarded the variety of containers. She picked out a smooth, metal cylinder and handed it to him.

MacGyver examined the label. “Bingo. Awright, we probably won’t need much more’n a few grams, but we’re gonna have to contain it in something.”

“Test tube?” Barbara offered.

“No, much too big. And it’s gotta be water-soluble. Something cellulose.”

Barbara pondered for a moment, then she grappled in the pocket of her dress. “How about a cold capsule?” She brought out the foil package that she had nearly forgotten she had with her.

MacGyver accepted it with a smile. “Yeah. Y’know, Spencer, I think you’re startin’ to get the hang of this. But I do wish I’d known you had a cold before I kissed you.”

Barbara rolled her eyes at him, her own smile getting away from her. Karl Steubens was behind a brick wall; they were all minutes away from being flooded with deadly chemicals… and MacGyver was cracking jokes and worrying about catching her cold! The only thing she could think to do was to smile.

⌂

On the dusty surface above the KIVA labs, soldiers worked in the blistering heat of the day. Colonel Keele stood under the shade of a canopy, where it was only marginally less hot than standing in the full light of the sun, and sweated under his uniform as he watched his men putting the final touches on a missile assembly. The warhead had been specially designed to penetrate the earth a specific distance before detonation. The firing of the missile had to be synchronized with the chemical flooding of the complex, therefore a reliable means of communication had been set up, linking the colonel’s headset with the director of the KIVA who was still operating inside the control center.

Keele wished that Burke would say something, but all he heard through the connections was background chatter. It had been more than an hour since they had last heard from their daredevil – and Keele knew that meant that they weren’t likely to. KIVA’s doom had been not been spoken, but Keele was in position to makes sure it was sealed… in more ways than one.

He watched as the digital clock counted down the last few minutes. He wasn’t in a hurry – in fact, he was greatly reluctant to proceed – but he had his orders. He told himself to find comfort in the fact that soon he’d be able to get his men out of the godawful heat and put this ruin behind them.

Cold comfort for a helluva day.

⌂

Barbara watched with interest as MacGyver assembled his supplies. He set the canister of sodium metal on the flat surface of a 50 gallon drum, the cold capsules beside it. He dipped his hand into his game bag and came out with his trusty Swiss Army Knife.

“Right,” MacGyver said as he folded out the smallest blade, “now try to find me a glass jar – about a quart size, with a stopper in it – and put some water in it, awright?” Barbara nodded and went immediately to perform her task.

MacGyver popped one of the capsules out of the package and twisted it apart, dumping the grainy contents out. He opened the canister, wary of the fact that sodium metal could react badly when exposed to air. Luckily, the canister had been well-stored and was undamaged, and the element was preserved in a stabilizing substance. Using the blade of his pocket knife, he scooped out a small amount of the sodium metal and carefully scraped it into the capsule.

He recapped the capsule and the canister as quickly as he could, and by the time he had finished Barbara had returned, triumphantly displaying a vessel that matched his exact specifications. He took the jar from her and nodded with approval.

MacGyver walked along the wall until he found what he needed next; the biggest crack in the wall shared by Steubens’ lab. A large pile of dirt was heaped beneath the fracture, which seemed promising to MacGyver. The wall will be weakest here.

⌂

Back in the control room, the final evacuation was now in progress. Harried technicians gathered up what they could carry in their arms and hurried out past the men who were filing in. These men were clad in silver protective suits, their featureless masks staring like ominous single eyes as they hauled a large hose into the building, winding it through the labs and down toward the access hatch – the very same one which had permitted MacGyver to enter the lower levels of the KIVA.

As the men came and went in the control room, Ed Gantner watched from Operations, gnawing on his thumbnail to keep from screaming at people. The reality of the loss of MacGyver was sinking in, and he knew as well as anyone how deadly and disastrous the acid leak would be if it spread, but when he saw the men walking in with that hose – he had to turn away to keep from becoming sick. There would be no body, he realized suddenly… nothing left but bones, and those would be buried forever beneath the stone with all the other souls lost under the New Mexico desert.

Gantner glanced up as Charlie Burke walked past. Burke saw him, saw the misery in the man's face. He opened his mouth to say something, but there were no words. Forcing his eyes back down, he continued. He had to supervise the distribution of the sodium hydroxide and get back to Keele.

Burke wondered where Andy Colsen had gotten off to. Joined the evacuation perhaps... though Burke doubted this as soon as it occurred to him. Andy would be around here somewhere; Burke was absolutely certain that he had not heard the last from him.

⌂

MacGyver dug a few inches into the dirt with one hand, cradling the jar in the other arm. Spencer stood nearby and listened as he explained to her what to expect. “When the capsule hits the water and dissolves, the sodium’ll give off hydrogen in enough of a reaction to ignite it.” He set the glass bottle firmly into the hole he’d made. “Call Marlow. Tell ‘em to get down. We’re ready.”

Barbara crossed the room and flicked on the intercom. “Doctor Marlow – we're going to try and blow an opening in the wall now.” She huddled down and prepared herself as best as she could for the next explosion.

MacGyver dropped the capsule into the bottle and put the stopper firmly in place. With both hands he heaped dirt over the top of it, then he hurried across the room and joined Barbara, placing himself between her and the bottle. If his calculations were correct, the blast should be just strong enough to make a hole in the wall... and not bring down the ceiling. If his calculations were correct ...

Mac's Voice-Over:
At the same time that I was trying to figure how powerful my little sodium firecracker was... I also kept thinking that the explosion in the lab shouldn't have been enough to cause all the damage that the KIVA had suffered. There must have been something else that contributed to the blast... and that made me wonder what the bomb had really been intended to do. I figured the amount of plastique in the original explosion would have been enough to destroy just Steubens' lab... and anyone who happened to be inside.

And since most of the research data from the Rainmakers project had already been destroyed, that made it pretty clear to me what – or rather who – the targets had been.

The questions now were 'How did the bomb get into the lab?', and 'Why kill Marlow and Steubens?' If it had just been Marlow that they were trying to kill, wouldn't it have been easier to try to take him out during his long trip from England? Why wait until he was three hundred feet below ground in a top-secret, high-security lab?

Unless...

“Spencer,” MacGyver placed a protective arm over her shoulders, “do me a favor, will ya?”

Barbara was holding the scrap of MacGyver's shirt over the lower half of her face. She lowered it briefly and said, “Name it.”

“Let me go in after Marlow and Steubens. You wait out here, all right?”

Barbara gave him a puzzled look. “Why?”

MacGyver didn't want to mention the bomb until he could absolutely prove who had planted it. Instead, he just ducked his head and said, “Well, chalk it up to superstition, all right?”

The pile of dirt under the cracked wall suddenly erupted, and MacGyver and Barbara huddled against each other as dirt and debris began to shower down around and over them.

Like it!
*LOL* Mac and Barbara kissing on a tree... *LOL*

Anyway... oh, can't wait to see what Pete will think of everything and what he's gonna do. He's very overprotective of MacGyver. Heh. Always loved the foster father-son relationship they have.

I'm happy you got to work this next chapter. At the same time I'm sort of happy you didn't post it before... since I had to keep my attention in my thesis. But hey! I got it finished this morning and my teacher has it and I don't have to think about it again until next monday (my appointment to find out if it passed or if I have to correct anything from it!). So this update in the story is a real "gift". Can't wait for the rest of it!

Booo! Sorry, had to be said

Great chapter, Lothi! Love the voice overs -- you have a knack for getting inside Mac's mind. Keep it up!

Booo! Sorry, had to be said

Sssssss! LOL!

Thanks!

I love Barbara commenting about the absence of handy chocolate . . .