Phoenix RisingOne: Castle QueensideThe car that met Pete Thornton at the Oakland Airport was bland and nondescript – on the outside. Inside, the upholstery was unobtrusively luxurious, the appointments were world-class, the legroom was generous, and the ride had the weightlessly smooth quality he’d have expected from a limousine.
Within the first five minutes, he had recognised the professional expertise of the driver, but despite all Pete’s best efforts at easy informality and confidential charm, when the 25-minute drive to the Presidio area ended, he still didn’t know anything more about the driver than when they had started. He knew the man’s professed opinions of various sports teams, the price of gasoline, the Bay Area Rapid Transit System, and the weather, but he suspected that all of it could easily have been invented for his own benefit. Most of all, he didn’t know where the man had learned his unacknowledged tradecraft.
When the car drew up in front of the restaurant, Pete had to admit defeat and bail out. “Gregory, am I correct that if I offer you a tip, you’ll turn it down?”
“There’s no need for any of that, sir. It’s been a pleasure.”
“I’ll just bet. Okay, I’ll offer you a tip anyway: if your current employer is ever enough of a damned fool to let you go, come to me and you’ll have another job on the spot. Not that I think you’ll ever need it.”
“Thank you, sir. I appreciate the compliment. Have a good evening.”
“I’ll do my best.” Pete waggled his hand as the car pulled away, then squared his shoulders before he ascended the steps. Even a friendly dinner with Ruth Collins called for a certain degree of fortitude.
The restaurant was unquestionably Ruth’s kind of establishment: so exclusive and elite that it didn’t bother with an external sign, and probably wasn’t even open to anyone without a personal invitation or a pedigree, preferably both. Pete hadn’t been there before, but it was never a challenge to find Ruth in any restaurant; he simply headed for the most likely location of the best possible private table, wherever the view would be best and the diners could be well attended in splendid isolation. In the corner of his eye, he caught the sudden movement of the maître d’ headed in his direction; Pete smiled privately when the man checked himself a moment later and he was allowed to proceed unhindered. Ruth Collins’ guest had been recognised.
The view of the ocean and the Golden Gate was truly magnificent; the furniture was Chippendale and the linen was immaculate. Ruth herself looked mysteriously in tune with her opulent setting, despite her casual dress, the setting sun over the Pacific gilding her silver hair. She rose as Pete approached and held out a gnarled hand to him; he pressed it gently but warmly, feeling, as always, a ridiculous impulse to bow. Instead, he held her chair for her before he seated himself.
“Pete Thornton. It’s been far too long . . . thank you for fitting me in on such short notice. Any problems with your flight?”
“Are you kidding? If there had been, you’d have been informed while I was still in transit, and you’d probably have reorganised Oakland Airport’s Air Traffic Control Centre by now.” Pete settled himself in his chair. “I suppose you’ve taken the liberty of ordering?”
Ruth smiled slyly, the wry gleam in her eyes making her seem suddenly much younger. “Believe it or not, I have bowed my head to the immutable fact that you are a man who prefers to make his own decisions. So no, I haven’t ordered for you.” She gestured towards her wine glass. “I did take the liberty of ordering the wine, however . . . knowing your absence of expertise in that particular field.”
“I hope I know when to leave a key decision in the hands of an eminently qualified expert.”
“Now that opens an interesting line of thought.” Ruth’s pleasant expression set Pete’s hackles on edge; he could almost hear the snick of a rapier drawn to begin a formal challenge. “Can any of us be experts in our own futures? Can we claim to know what will be best for ourselves down the road – months or years from now?”
Pete reached for the wine bottle. “You’ve spent months trying to convince me that you’ve got a better idea for my own future than I do myself.”
“And how you’ve resented the arrogance of that, even when you couldn’t help being intrigued.” Ruth pushed her half-empty glass towards him. “But that’s not why I asked you to come have dinner tonight.”
Pete raised an eyebrow. “You mean this isn’t about the job offer?”
“Actually, Pete, I’ve changed our minds.”
He opened his mouth to reply and then shut it again, considering first. “Have you.”
“Oh, don’t look so crestfallen, Pete.” Ruth held her glass up to the light from the window, admiring the ruby sparks kindled by the sunset. “I still want you.
We still want you.”
“Should I worry about how easily you swap those pronouns around?”
“Not if you’re half the man I take you for.” Pete wasn’t certain what the signal had been; the waiter seemed to materialise from the woodwork. Once their orders had been given, he faded away as effortlessly as he had come.
Ruth leaned forward, clearly ready to come to the point. “I’ve grown greedy and grasping in my old age, Pete.” Pete snorted. “Now, no flattery! I don’t just want you. I want that protégé of yours as well.”
“MacGyver?”
“You’re wasting him, Pete!” A fine-boned hand slapped on the table, sunset fire blazing in an antique ring. “Just how much have you been giving him to do, playing spy games? Ferrying bits of microfilm back and forth across assorted borders? A handful of rescue operations and the odd dabble into security? Hardly seems like enough for that set of talents. Do you really think you’ve got his full attention?” Ruth looked at Pete searchingly. “Wasn’t it just last winter that some old pal of his waved a scientific expedition in his direction? – poorly thought out, badly equipped and pathetically unsupported, but it was
science. And just like that he was haring off to the Amazon for weeks at a time . . . and damned near didn’t come back, from what I’ve heard.”
Pete had managed, so far, to keep his face straight, but his eyes had narrowed. “Your sources always were impeccable.”
“And wouldn’t you love to be able to identify them? Don’t waste your time trying.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. I’ve got my hands full enough chasing bad guys without trying to beat my best teacher at her favourite game.”
This time Ruth snorted. “I thought I told you no flattery. And don’t even get me started on how badly the DXS are wasting
you.”
Pete set his wineglass down; his face had hardened, crumbling the mask from inside. “And you’ve got something better to offer? ‘The Phoenix Foundation for Research’ – okay, maybe it’s going to be science that saves us in the long run. I’ll admit you’ve done some pretty remarkable things. But Ruth, I’m not young enough to wait that long. Intelligence is what I know, and I’m damned good at it.”
The old woman started to reply, but Pete cut her off with an impatient gesture. “If you’re about to point out that you’re older than I am, don’t bother. You know damned well just how much I’ve lost already – or sacrificed – to be in a position to make a difference to the future. Do you really expect me to give all that up and settle down at a civilian think-tank? I’m sorry, Ruth. I’m just not patient enough.”
Dinner arrived and Pete welcomed the interruption. He dug into his entrée, determined to fortify himself against the expected lecture. He chewed resolutely for several minutes before the protracted silence across the table broke his resolve, and he looked up to meet Ruth’s sardonic gaze.
“Pete.” She set down her wine glass. “After all these years, you have finally managed to disappoint me. No, I don’t mean with your refusal – it’s the very least I’d have expected. But did you really think I’d sideline you – commit you to babysitting scientists after the kind of work you’ve done? Admittedly, they do take a great deal of babysitting, but there are others better suited to that particular task.”
Ruth speared a cucumber slice and held it up as if considering its fate. “You must have looked through the files I showed you last time on our operational side. I know I wasn’t able to leave them with you, and that’s half the real reason I asked you here tonight. As far as public knowledge goes, we’ve merely begun to branch out into a new field as security consultants – and not before time; technology is going to transform that industry before it knows what’s hit it. But trust me, that’s not even the tip of the iceberg. It’s the rime of frost on the tip.”
She looked at Pete again and her eyes were diamond-hard. “Pete, we need you. Far more than the DXS does now or ever will again.” She reached into her purse, drew out a square envelope and offered it to Pete. As he took it, he realised from the hard outlines inside that it held a computer disk. “This should bring you up to speed.”
“What if the rest of your board objects?”
Ruth raised an eyebrow. “Are
you planning on telling them?”
“What’s the password?”
Pete saw her nod with satisfaction. “I remember a younger man who resisted making assumptions – he hadn’t learned to trust his instincts, let alone act on them. Good riddance to him, I say. I’m sure his older self will remember the name of my favourite waiter in Toulon.”
Pete tucked the computer disk into his pocket. “You’re taking quite a risk.”
“A calculated one.”
“I haven’t forgotten how much you liked taking risks – except with your people’s lives.”
Ruth laughed, a deep throaty cackle. “Another thing we had in common! Ah, Pete, if only I’d been twenty years younger when we met. Except you were married then . . . we both were . . . oh, look, they’re bringing dessert already. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed; I certainly won’t be.”
Dessert was a fantasy confection of chocolate and cream, accompanied by a vintage brandy. Ruth’s lifelong pursuit of fine restaurants had always been driven by her sweet tooth. But she hardly took a mouthful before returning to her subject.
“You’ll recall, back when you were still considering our job offer, we also discussed the possibility of mounting some joint operations?”
Pete started to laugh, and Ruth broke off to glower at him. He ignored the steely look. “Who are you, and what have you done with the real Ruth Collins? Since when did you ignore chocolate in favour of shop talk?”
Ruth laughed in turn, picked up her brandy snifter, and held it out in a toast. “Touché, my friend! I promise, I’m nearly finished. But hear me out. Call it an old woman’s obsession if you like.”
“Not a chance.”
“Very well. In that case, you can sit there and suffer the consequences of your own gallantry. I’m telling you that you’re wrong – you’re wrong about your own career, and you’re wrong about MacGyver. It’s high time you both gave up the intelligence game: the world’s changing anyway, and the DXS are going to start falling behind the curve soon, along with the CIA and Interpol and MI-5. You need to get ahead of that curve: it’s where you belong. You need to come work for me, where you’ll be able to go on making the world a better place to live, not moving pawns around on a board that will soon begin to become irrelevant.
“Pete, if you were a betting man I’d make this a bet. But you’re not – at least, I’ve never seen you bet anything except your own life, and only when the stakes were high enough and there was nothing else to hand. So I’ll make this a challenge instead.”
She leant across the table. “I told you I wanted both of you. Lend me MacGyver for one mission. I need him anyway: that’s the other half of the reason for your invitation. Not but what I welcome the company.”
Pete nodded cautiously. “It will depend on the mission. You know he’s essentially free-lance – it’ll be his own choice, and I won’t try to convince him.”
“Understood. I won’t even offer him a job. But by the time he’s done, he’ll know he wants to come work for us – full-time, not just as an odd-jobs man – and he’ll tell you to come too.” Ruth looked Pete full in the eyes.
“If he does, you say yes. That’s the challenge. Will you take it?”
Pete sat back in his chair, trying not to smirk. “You’re on, Ruth. But I don’t think you’re going to find Mac all that easy to manipulate.”
Ruth dug into her dessert with a satisfied smile. “That’s just the point, Pete. I won’t have to.”
φThe main building for the Phoenix Foundation in downtown Los Angeles housed both offices and laboratory facilities – administration and research in the same place. Where other skyscrapers seemed to hunch their shoulders aggressively in the cramped, competitive airspace of the LA skyline, the Phoenix building reached up mirror-bright towards the sky. It seemed astonishing to MacGyver that, in all the years since he’d first moved to LA, he’d never been there.
Now, I can remember exactly when and how I first heard of the Phoenix Foundation for Research; but most folks don’t, and they don’t realise how long it’s been around. It was founded not long after World War II, right around the time the Cold War was starting to heat up, but it kept a real low profile until maybe ten or fifteen years ago. Up till then, you mostly saw the words “sponsored by the Phoenix Foundation” in a tiny line of fine print at the bottom of grant proposals or scholarship awards or patent applications or formal papers reporting the results of groundbreaking scientific studies.
The ground being broken started getting bigger and muddier and more noticeable, and in the course of a few years the fine print got bigger too. Then it turned into paragraphs in the news. And then it was headlines. The security guard at the entrance to the visitors’ section of the parking garage had a frank, open face and a friendly smile; MacGyver also noticed that his eyes were alert and that the glance he gave Mac’s visitor’s pass, although quick, wasn’t cursory. He’d held it at just the right angle for the watermark to show up plainly – the watermark that Mac hadn’t yet figured out how to duplicate accurately.
I think it must’ve been after the first Earth Day in 1970 that folks first really sat up and took notice – while other groups were predicting the end of life on Earth and arguing over what was gonna kill us first, or spinning thin theories out of pseudoscience and self-interest, the Phoenix Foundation was there with solid studies and plans for research, hard data and workable ideas. They were also there when the big corporations tried to sweep everything under the table, and they were tough to ignore and impossible to discredit. They’d started as a civilian alternative to government-backed research, and when Vietnam was grinding to its miserable end and a lotta folks wouldn’t trust the government if it said the sun would rise in the east, they trusted Phoenix.The main lobby was elegant but functional, sheathed in warm brown marble the colour of well-seasoned oak. Mac’s appointment was for the early afternoon, and a returning lunchtime crowd streamed past him, laughing and joking. He noticed a tendency towards casual dress, a surprisingly wide range of ages and ethnicities – the same crowd at the DXS building would be dominated by white males in suits and ties between the ages of 25 and 40 – and a high percentage of women. Several were pretty enough to catch his attention, and they smiled back easily when they saw him looking; one statuesque brunette looked him over deliberately and winked.
The Foundation had deep pockets, unimpeachable credentials, and a reputation so spotless it could’ve been used for a soap commercial. I figured they must have been the most respected scientific institution in the country.
What I couldn’t begin to figure out was why the heck they would want me for a job. By the time MacGyver had been smoothly and politely passed through the outer perimeter, he still hadn’t spotted any substantial holes in the building’s unostentatiously tight security – for all his brash imaginings, he wouldn’t really have wanted to try to break in himself. He wasn’t quite sure he could pull it off. And just how long had it been since the last time he’d thought that about any place?
When Ed Gantner, my old buddy at the State Department, called me up and said they wanted a chat with me, I thought he was pulling my leg. Heck, if I’d been fifteen years younger and stupider, I’d’ve wanted to sneak into their tall shiny office building just to see what they were cooking up. As it was, I had an official appointment and a guest pass that was going into my keepsake drawer . . . if I could only manage not to have to give it back at the end of my visit.The guard at the lobby desk had escorted him into a comfortably furnished waiting room, lined with enough books on one wall to make any length of wait seem trivial; but Mac’s attention was caught by the rest of the room. A massive relief map of the planet, festooned with markers, showed locations of past and present expeditions. The remaining walls were covered with a gallery of beautifully framed photos showing Phoenix employees at work on a variety of projects, in settings ranging from ordinary labs to dense jungle to mountain peaks and polar icecaps. Glass display cases held more memorabilia from the organisation’s history – scientific curiosities, historical artifacts from archeological digs, and design schematics and prototypes of various inventions, some of them now household items.
One prominent case held an even greater surprise: under a large placard bearing the words “Lessons Learned the Hard Way” was a rogues’ gallery of spectacular mishaps, failed experiments, and scientists – some of them quite famous – caught in moments of ignominy. Mac grinned when he recognised one of his own mentors ruefully posing with an engineering mockup and what had to be the prototype model, twisted and melted beyond recognition.
He was still grinning when the door opened to reveal, not the expected bureaucrat or flunky in a suit and tie, but a thin young man several inches shorter than Mac, with light brown hair and intelligent brown eyes behind slightly askew glasses with large lenses. He was wearing a tie under his lab coat, but he didn’t look or talk anything like a flunky.
“Hey there – are you MacGyver? I’m Willis. Sorry you’ve had to wait so long. Ruth’s in a meeting that’s running late, so she asked me to show you around in the meanwhile. Hope you haven’t been bored.”
“Not a chance. Pleased to meet you, um, Willis . . .” The young man’s badge simply read ‘Willis’ and “Research’; Mac let the name drag out, hoping for some context. He waggled his fingers in the air in inquiry.
The immediate response was an unaccountable flush and a sidelong glance. “Um, just Willis – it’s my last name. I
hate my first name. Please don’t ask.”
Mac held up both hands. “Hey, no problem, I totally get it.” Their eyes met, and after a moment their grins mirrored each other in perfect mutual understanding.
φBy the time MacGyver had seen the chemistry and engineering labs, he’d completely forgiven Willis for the tie and was trying not to let his envy show too much.
“This is the main electronics lab. We’re getting pretty cramped for space, as you can see – they’re talking about setting up another facility that’ll be all lab space, but for now we’re having to outsource some of the new projects and contracts to assorted partners.”
Mac had dug his hands into his pockets; it was all he could do not to start picking up the equipment and examining it in more detail.
Okay, fiddling with it. “You don’t like that much, do you?”
“Hell, no. I’d way rather keep it in-house.”
“Better job security?”
Willis looked startled and almost confused. “Oh. Well, sure, I suppose. But that’s not the real point. It’s just that – well, our kind of work really needs top-notch facilities with state-of-the-art equipment and trained specialists, and whether you like it or not, that’s mostly found in the corporate labs. And here, of course. But like I said, we’re kind of busting at the seams.”
Mac started to pick up an especially intriguing prototype, remembered in time, and stuffed his hands back into his jacket pockets, feeling like a kid in a candy store with his mother’s eagle eye on him.
Willis hadn’t noticed. “The more we can keep in-house, the less chance there is for any conflict of interests, if you know what I mean. Oh,
damn it!” He fumbled at his glasses as they slid away from his face; one of the earpieces clattered to the floor, and he groped for it myopically.
MacGyver retrieved the errant earpiece. “Got a screw loose?”
“That’s what my brother always insists, but not on my glasses.” Willis peered at the frames. “Oh, hell. I knew it wasn’t going to hold much longer – I should’ve gotten new glasses months ago, but I never seem to have time. God, I
hate having to tape my glasses. If we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we get an all-night optometrist?”
“Here, lemme take a look.” Mac studied the broken pieces. “They work you that hard around here?”
“No, I just keep forgetting to stop. Last week my manager called me a ‘mad scientist’ – said she ought to have me escorted off the premises and not allowed back till I got some sleep. Of course, it
was two o’clock in the morning . . . I think I scared her a bit. But I was getting such good results on the computer projections, I just couldn’t bear to give it up and go home.” Willis was digging through his pockets. “Here. I keep tape handy . . . oh, damn it, the roll’s empty.”
“Never mind,” Mac said. “Didn’t I see a first aid kit over there?”
Willis brightened. “Of course! There’d be tape in there.”
“I was hopin’ for something a bit better than tape,” Mac murmured. He’d already noticed that first aid kits and fire extinguishers were prominently located in every lab they’d seen so far; once open, the kit proved to be well-stocked.
Mac fitted the broken earpiece together and held it out to Willis. “Here, willya hold that in place for me? Thanks.” He took the band-aid he’d extracted from the first-aid kit, opened the scissors on his Swiss Army Knife and cut one of the ends free of the central bandage pad. “So do you have to come in that late to get computer time?”
“Are you kidding? If we were that short of resources, we’d enlarge the mainframe again.” Willis watched with fascination as Mac peeled back the tab on the section of band-aid and wrapped the adhesive strip tightly around the broken earpiece. “Wow. Cool. I never would’ve thought of that.”
“It’s less bulky than ordinary tape, just as strong and a lot more flexible. But you really do need to get them fixed, okay?”
“Yeah, you bet.” Willis replaced his glasses and beamed at Mac. “C’mon, let me show you the main computer room. It wasn’t really supposed to be on the tour, but . . . would you like to see it?”
“You bet. Lead the way.”
φIn the end, it wasn’t a flunky but a brisk assistant who corralled the two men from the fascinating depths of the computer lab and marched them up to the operations centre. “
Honestly, Willis, you’ve got a watch – can’t you remember to look at it? Ruth’s been waiting for half an hour!”
“Hey, it’s not really
his fault – ” MacGyver tried to intervene.
He was no match for the high-heeled human bulldozer who’d been sent for them. “Those who don’t read clocks are no better off than those who can’t.” She threw open the door and chivvied them through like truant schoolboys.
Mac’s eyes darted around the operations centre as they passed through; it wasn’t at all what he would have expected. They’d had to pass yet another security cordon to enter, which had required both a cardkey and a voice-recognition protocol. The large, well-lit room hummed with activity; there were computer terminals on nearly every desk and an intensity to the murmuring voices that sent ripples up his back.
The room was dominated by another wall-sized map of the globe, this one in ochre and white, backlit and apparently equipped with some kind of sophisticated computer-generated display controls. The locations flagged on this map were very different from the map in the public waiting room below: Mac picked out numerous political hot spots as well as environmental and scientific ones. And the markers all looked like current items; this was a working operational map, not a brag display. Just what kind of operations was Phoenix running?
The office of the Ops Director was at the far end of the computer bay; glass walls and a glass door delineated rather than separated the inner sanctum from the working operations centre. As they were ushered in, a familiar figure turned to face them from one of the windows.
“Well, it’s about time.”
MacGyver beamed. “Pete! What’re you doin’ here?”
“Waiting for you, of course. I hear you were led down the garden path.”
On the far side of the Director’s wide antique desk sat a silver-haired woman whose ramrod posture belied her small stature. Her suit was expensive and impeccably tailored, and her eyes were bright and shrewd as she studied MacGyver. “So it would seem. Jocelyn?”
The human bulldozer snorted. “It’s a good thing computers don’t use machine oil. They’d both be covered in it.”
“Dear me. Willis, the last time we found you head-down in the mainframe, you came out swearing that the entire thing would be completely obsolete in ten years’ time. Do
please tell me you’re feeling less apocalyptical today.”
“But it will, Ruth. Trust me,” Willis said earnestly. “We’re just going to have to be ready when the time comes.”
Ruth sighed and waved a hand. “Off with you, Willis. Come back in half an hour’s time and tell me how much it will cost. Or perhaps you’d better wait till after dinner; I’ll probably need a stiff drink.”
As Jocelyn and Willis left, Ruth studied MacGyver thoughtfully. “I’m very pleased to meet you at last, young man – I’ve heard a great deal about you.”
“Anything good?”
“I
did ask you here, didn’t I? The word is you’re resourceful and enterprising. You’re known for improvising your way out of tight corners, which means that you don’t require detailed and precise instructions, particularly when a situation makes that impossible.” Ruth’s smile became briefly enigmatic. “You’ve a fine sense for the peculiar smell of rats, and, as we used to say, you know how many beans make five. More to the point, you’re highly regarded as a security expert . . . and you have a solid scientific background.”
“Um . . . “ Mac looked sheepish. “I’m not sure why you included that . . . it’s been a long time since college . . .”
“Not so long that you can’t appreciate the Foundation’s essential purpose.” Ruth stood up and leaned across the desk, her hand outstretched. “But I’m getting ahead of myself; we haven’t even been properly introduced. I’m Ruth Collins, Director of Operations pro tem for the Phoenix Foundation.”
“Ruth Collins?” MacGyver‘s face lit up. “
The Ruth Collins? Ruth
Somerset Collins?”
Ruth looked at Pete and arched an elegant eyebrow.
Pete shrugged. “No, I haven’t told him anything about you. But he reads a lot . . . including random samplings of files from the archives.”
Mac gave Pete an aggrieved look. “You mean you
know Ruth Collins, and you never told me about it?”
“Good lord, young man,” Ruth broke in. “By the time my files were declassified, I’d have sworn nobody was left alive who would give a damn about the Résistance. It’s becoming far more politically convenient to focus on Vichy.”
Mac looked from Pete to Ruth. “An old farmer in Alsace saved my neck last year when I was being chased by some Stasi agents. He said that for the sake of ‘Madame Root’, he was glad to help an American
espion, even though my French was bad and my shoes were ugly.”
“Ah, let me guess . . . would that have been Gaston Boucher by any chance? Don’t take it personally; not even my French was up to his standards. But you must have gotten along well with him. He used to have a fine knack for blowing things up, especially Nazi-controlled railway lines.” She settled back into her chair and eyed MacGyver speculatively. “And if I recall correctly, he has a granddaughter of a fine and tender age.”
Mac looked flustered and started to stammer out a reply, but Ruth cut him off with an emphatic gesture. “Time enough for war stories another day. For today, the Phoenix Foundation is hoping your unusual talents might help us resolve some concerns about one of our projects. I asked Pete to be here because the DXS have agreed to offer their support with additional information, if they have anything to offer – Pete and I have been discussing the possibility of cooperative work when the situation merits, and I think this one does.”
MacGyver settled into one of the chairs in front of Ruth’s desk. “Sounds good to me. What’s up?”
“We’ve quite outgrown our current staffing and facilities, and until the problem can be addressed permanently, we’ve had to subcontract some of the work on select projects to corporate partners.”
“Yeah, Willis mentioned something about that.” Mac unconsciously picked up a paperweight from Ruth’s desk, a small jade carving of a bird rising in flight, its wings entwined in carved flames, and started to trace the fine lines with his fingertips. “He also mentioned conflicts of interest.”
“Yes, that’s always a concern; but in this case, the worry goes deeper.” She handed Mac a thick buff folder. “Have you ever heard of a company called Brookhearst Chemical?”
φAfter MacGyver had left, Ruth flipped an intercom switch on her desk. “The coast’s clear, Willis. Come back in now.” She looked at him expectantly as he entered. “Well?”
“What do you mean?” Willis glanced uncertainly at Pete.
Ruth gestured imperiously. “I
mean, what did you think? Is he all he’s cracked up to be? His old teachers couldn’t say enough about him – when they weren’t grumbling over his unforgivable treason in not following in their holy footsteps into theoretic physics, or mechanical engineering, or electronics, or biochemistry.”
“Oh, that.” He looked at her in surprise. “You mean there was any question about it? He’s brilliant. Absolutely amazing . . . the most complete natural synthesist I’ve ever met. Do you remember when I was telling you about the problem we were having with the modem signals?”
“I remember you
trying to explain it to me.” Ruth’s expression became long-suffering. “I told you to use shorter words, and you said you couldn’t get them below one syllable.”
Willis looked long-suffering in turn. “I was trying to tell you about the problem we were having with the mainframe not sustaining recognition of modem signals from car phones over variable distances.”
“Gesundheit.”
“It’s a minor problem right now, but it’s going to become a bigger issue every year,” Willis continued in exasperation. “Excuse me, it
was going to become a bigger issue.”
“I beg your pardon?”
The young man shrugged. “Problem solved. I could kick myself for not spotting the solution myself, but . . . never mind. Do me a favour and hire him
fast? I’m going to need his name on the patent application.”
“Willis, I assure you that I’ll do my damnedest.” She turned to Pete, who had remained silent and impassive, although his mouth occasionally twitched with amusement or pride. “Are you certain you wouldn’t entertain a small side bet, Pete? Let’s say – a round of golf at any set of links in the country you care to name, against dinner at any restaurant I might choose?”
“Ruth, that’s crass,” Pete retorted, but his eyes had grown distant. “
Any golf course?” He knew that with her social connections, she could pull it off.
“No holes barred – if you’ll forgive the expression.”
Pete snorted, then shook his head decisively. “Nope. Not a chance.”
“Oh, Pete, don’t be such a stick-in-the-mud. It’s not as if a side bet would harm anyone.”
He shook his head again. “That’s not the point. I just realised that if I take your bet at all, I’d be betting against MacGyver – and I’m not enough of a fool to do that.”
I love that scene from the show! 
Sounds like you were just drawing from ol' Minnesotain ingeuinuty 
