Phoenix Field Agent
Posts: 1,889
Joined: 10 Jan 2006
Gender: Female
Country: USA
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Season: season 3
Episode:Passages
Vehicle: Jeep
Jacket: Black leather
House: House boat
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When He Wakes…
Part Eight
Rated: R
A few days later…
“Por favor, (please)” MacGyver whimpered, squirming against the restraints, grimacing in pain, sweat beading on his forehead. “Por favor…”
He mumbled and moaned as he continued to wriggle, babbling incoherent fragments, clenching and unclenching his fists so tightly his knuckles turned bone white. Yanking harder on the restraints and chafing the skin around his wrists and ankles until they turned red, rough, and raw, he began to make violent twitching and jerking movements as if he were having convulsions. He released a series of loud, terrified screams that left him gasping for breath, tears leaking from his tightly squeezed eyes. The screams echoed down the corridors of the psychiatric institution, alerting the attention of the nurses who were on call to monitor him. They rushed to his room, finding him thrashing around wildly, struggling for breath.
“He’s having an anxiety attack,” the head nurse said. “Prepare another dose of tranquilizer.”
She attempted to feel for his pulse even though his erratic, uncontrollable motions made it difficult, his head tossing from side to side. Once she managed to place her fingers on the pulse point on his neck, she felt it beating rapidly, fluttering and straining. She knew that his heart rate couldn’t sustain itself long at that level without running the risk of cardiac arrest.
“Hurry with that sedative!” She shouted.
Feeling hands on his neck and thinking that El Diablo was about to strangle him, MacGyver bit at the hands, digging his teeth deeply into the flesh, defending himself the only way he could.
“OW!” The head nurse bellowed as MacGyver sank his teeth into the delicate, tender area between the thumb and index finger, quickly retracting her bloodied hand away from him once he released the clamp of his jaws.
“Mary, are you all right?” One of the other nurses asked, rushing to her aid, examining the bite. MacGyver’s teeth marks were clearly visible, creating a deep impression, the skin torn open badly and bleeding, a sizable chunk of her skin missing. It looked as if a wild animal had attacked her, or a vicious, rabid dog. “You need to get that treated right away.”
“Not now! Tend to the patient first. I’ll be fine,” Mary said, staring down at the bite, wincing in pain. “Is that sedative ready?” She asked.
“It’s ready,” another nurse said, tapping on the syringe.
“Good. Go ahead and administer it. Be careful—he’s in restraints, but as you’ve noticed he’s still extremely violent.”
The nurse who was about to inject the new dose of sedative studied the deep gash in Mary’s hand warily, approaching MacGyver nervously. His body continued to writhe and contort in spasms, and he grunted and snarled, drooling, his saliva mixed with the iron color of blood from biting the nurse. He arched his back as far as the restraints would allow him and howled. Finding a good vein, the nurse worked at a fast but steady and accurate pace, plunging the needle and the elixir that would once again relieve MacGyver of his torment and send him into peaceful, blank sleep into him, quickly but gently removing the needle when she was finished. All of them watched and waited in the room until the sedative began to take effect, MacGyver’s frantic, short breaths slowing, the creases of pain of his face relaxing and smoothing, his screams, howls, yells, and pleas growing fainter and weaker. They wiped the blood and saliva from his mouth once they felt it was safe. Soon, he was flung back into unconsciousness, blissful oblivion, his body still once more.
***
MacGyver felt the sensation of moving and rolling at a fast pace again, as if he were in the back of a vehicle. Gradually, the motions ceased and he heard voices echoing in the darkness. One of the voices, cool and dispassionate, belonged to a woman. The other voice was that of a young man.
“It’s simple, really,” he said. “If we’re going to slowly dismantle and discredit the current leadership and policies of the Phoenix organization and insert our own operatives, we’re going to have to start with MacGyver. From there, we can eliminate some of their other top men, and Peter Thornton…well, let’s just say I would love to have the honor of forcing him into early retirement.”
Struggling to open his eyes, once again feeling as if weights were dragging his eyelids down and keeping them closed, MacGyver at last managed to open them to slits, the blinding, round surgical light beaming down on him again. He flinched and moved his eyes away from it as best as he could, feeling as if they were glued in position in his sockets. The woman with the syringe stood over him again, and when he moved his eyes in the other direction, he clearly saw the man this time, no longer hiding in the shadows. He studied the young man’s features for as long as he could, his eyes threatening to snap shut again, unable to keep them open for long, feeling weak and groggy. His features could be considered handsome if the eyes and nose weren’t so closely set. He was clean-cut, but appeared to be growing out his brown hair, the shape and appearance of it resembling MacGyver’s hairstyle. As MacGyver stared up at him he thought about Nikki’s description of Brandon, how he wanted to be like him…when he awoke, if he ever did, and found himself back in the present reality, he would have to tell Nikki what he saw.
“There is just one, final concern. Are you sure this will work?” The young man asked, returning to the familiar script of what MacGyver had heard before.
“There is no need to worry. The serum has successfully passed all laboratory tests we’ve conducted, and it’s ready to be used. Its chemical structure is so complex that it will be untraceable once it enters his bloodstream and breaks down into his system. When I inject it into him, the needle I will use is so small, it will barely leave a mark. No one will ever know. And when he wakes…he won’t remember a thing…”
MacGyver was ripped violently and suddenly away from the room and brought back to the desert, vast emptiness and desolation surrounding him, no sign of civilization around for miles. The air was hot, still—dead. The ochre canyons appeared to be set ablaze by the intense heat of the sun, contrasting sharply with the vivid, deep turquoise of the sky. Millions of years of erosion and other geologic forces had shaped them, yet their gnarled, naturally formed spires seemed to be winding hurriedly towards relief, twisting in pain as the sun scorched them alive. No sounds emitted from the barren, hostile wasteland environment, completely devoid of life. Creatures that used to inhabit the forbidding landscape were wiser and now sought retreat, abandoning it, burying themselves beneath the hot, burning sand or just vanishing completely, some leaving behind dry, brittle bones bleached by the sun, their ghosts joining the many others that haunted the desert and were a source of legend and mystery. It looked like an empty location set from one of MacGyver’s favorite western films, the principles and crew having long deserted the area as well, taking all influences of man with them, leaving the land untouched and unspoiled, no evidence that they ever existed, or that anything out there had except the desiccated, fossilized remains of what was once a thriving ocean floor.
Lost and alone, he felt as if he was the last remaining survivor of mankind after the torch of a natural holocaust from the sun set the earth on fire. Its glowing orb dominated the horizon, ripples of heat undulating, radiating from it, distorting it so that it looked like a mushroom cloud in the aftermath of an atomic explosion. Its rays wrapped around him like insidious tentacles, searing his flesh, wringing profuse amounts of sweat from him, draining him of whatever energy he had left. Yet, he knew he was in danger and had to continue walking, even if he stumbled, so weak he could barely remain standing. He instinctually felt that someone was pursuing him, that someone wanted to do him harm, although he didn’t know the source of his fear or who the party was that was pursuing him. He didn’t know how he got there, or where to walk, or why—he just kept pressing onward, his throat dry, his head pounding and aching, nausea and exhaustion overwhelming him. He walked in a weaving pattern, everything around him becoming a blur, his head spinning with dizziness. Stumbling again, he collapsed to the dusty ground, in a groan, unable to lift his body or move his legs any longer, blackness encroaching and invading the corners of his eyes until it completely swallowed him, leaving him exposed to the harsh elements which soon threatened to render him as lifeless as the rest of the desert, his bones becoming part of the legacy of death and ghosts, claiming him in his defeat in the battle for survival, the desert once again succeeding as the victor.
***
Nikki smoothed back MacGyver’s unruly hair, plastered to his warm forehead, dampened by sweat. He pulled at his restraints and made weak mewing, distressed sounds, his whole body trembling. He was panting heavily from his exertions, and between gasps for breath he spoke in gibberish, none of his nonsensical ravings carrying any meaning for either her or Pete.
“I feel I’ve failed him,” Pete said sadly, staring down at him, his lower lip quivering as hot tears stung his eyes. “If I had never sent him on that assignment to South America, he would never have ended up in here, losing complete control of his faculties, tied up and caged like some animal…” he quickly wiped away his tears, but it did little to prevent them from continuously spilling down his cheeks, the dam that held them back cracking and unleashing a deluge, a torrent of now unburied emotions. “I haven’t just failed Mac, though. Those men on the East Germany assignment died in that bridge explosion, and still I have no explanation to offer to their families to comfort them—not a single, solitary, damn clue.” He clenched his jaws and gnashed his teeth, working them furiously in frustration, anger, and helplessness.
“You had no idea what the outcomes of those missions would be,” Nikki said, still caressing MacGyver’s forehead and hair the way a mother would to a child with a severe fever, trying to soothe him in his worsening illness. She no longer saw the MacGyver she knew when she looked at him, strapped to a bed and sedated for his protection and the protection of others. He had become a product of El Diablo’s depravity, an embodiment of suffering and pain, his humanity stripped from him. “Anyway, you can’t modify the past. It’s a waste of time to speculate on what might have happened. All you can do is try to improve things as they are now. You owe it to those men, and you owe it to Mac, if he’s ever going to get better, and he will, Pete—I know he will. You have to believe that.”
Pete sighed and shook his head. “You know, I’ve never given up on MacGyver, not even during his most hopeless moments after his torture. He’s never disappointed me, always exceeding my expectations with his incredible resiliency, but now…this is the worst I’ve ever seen him. It’s as if he’s being tortured all over again, except this time it’s not physical—it’s mental,” he said. “The body can heal, but the mind? It’s a complex thing. I just don’t know. I want to have hope, I do, but it’s difficult…”
Nikki went over to him and embraced him. Near them, MacGyver continued to mutter in a garbled, unintelligible language only he could understand in his confused mind, tugging on his restraints and crying weakly. It was as if he was trying to communicate something. Pete and Nikki only wished they could decipher his message.
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
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