Shiny and Edited for your mental consumption!The Rainmakers
Chapter 18, Under GlassThe lab was swimming with thick, bitter air. Sidney Marlow tried not to move around too much. He felt dizzy and sick, and he didn’t wonder if the cause of it was the fumes he was breathing in or the fact that the oxygen might be running out. It didn’t really matter. He was more concerned with the condition of his friend Karl, who had been unconscious ever since the explosion.
Isolation and entrapment in a strange place where the cracked walls creaked and groaned and occasionally rained down chunks of plaster was doing nothing to sooth Marlow’s frayed nerves. He sat beside Karl on the stairs and fidgeted. He tried to whistle a tune, but his throat was too dry for such work; he thought longingly of the bottle of water he'd left, half-finished in the back of the limousine.
With the air becoming thicker and more difficult to breathe, Marlow was beginning to think it might be a better thing if Steubens didn’t wake up. That was when the scientist moaned and moved slightly, startling Marlow.
“Karl – Karl – ?” Marlow said as he bent close, to hear more easily if Steubens should speak.
Steubens groaned again, lifting his head a little. “We’re – still alive?”
Marlow was so excited by the fact that Steubens had finally awakened, he failed to notice that the man’s weak voice was laced with disappointment. Marlow began to chatter, glad at last to have someone with which to speak. “Well, after that explosion, it’s a miracle we are, but… ah… w-we’re trapped down here, and the intercom… it – it’s on-off, on-off.”
Steuben’s head ached as if it were being pressed in a vice. “They – they know we’re here?” he asked brokenly.
“Yes, they’re trying to get to us, and… ” Marlow paused as the ceiling creaked loudly. “With all the damage on the upper levels, it’s a – it’s a – ”
Steubens looked around, slowly beginning to take in his surroundings. There was something that was supposed to have happened, but he couldn’t quite remember what it was… he only knew that this was wrong. Sidney was alive, he was alive… and that should have made him glad, but instead he was filled with doubt and confusion. Suddenly he remembered, as the ceiling groaned above them – he felt a surge of hope that it would come crashing down and bring back the darkness.
But the ceiling did not fall, and the death of that dark hope delivered clarity to the rattled man; he realized that his designs had failed… with the worst possible results. “Oh, no.”
oxo
MacGyver’s Voice-Over:I’m impressed. Whoever designed these airlocks, they didn’t skimp on anything; materials, technology, or security. The place was tight. There were no access panels to rewire, no cracks in the seals that could be pried open, no air vents that an intruder could crawl through. Tight.
On the other hand, there were no air vents.
Which left Spencer and me in a tight spot!
The only way out of this trap was through the glass that separated us from the deadly gas lurking in the lab below. As far as I could tell, it was just regular glass… unlike the reinforced transparent materials that made up the airlock door. I could probably break it with a sharp blow… but that didn’t seem like such a wildly good idea at the moment.
I had to call on my eavesdropping angels. Gant, Charlie, and Pete – I mean, Andy Colsen – would have to come through for us somehow.“Um, Colsen?” MacGyver clipped the microphone onto his collar again. He’d discreetly moved it away from his mouth when he began following Barbara down into the KIVA, so that their every word wasn’t being broadcast to anyone in hearing range of the receiver on the First level. Contrary to what Barbara Spencer thought, MacGyver was aware of the concept of ‘classified intelligence’.
“We're all here, MacGyver.”
“We’re in a bit of a pickle, here, guys… the air locks didn’t seal themselves until after we tried to go through. We’re trapped just adjacent to the gas lab on the sub-level between Two and Three.”
“How much air have you got?” Pete asked.
MacGyver had done the math on that particular concern. “About an hour’s worth, judging on the size of this room and the rate that we’re using it.” He glanced at Spencer, who had turned her back to the glass so she didn’t have to look at her dead co-workers. MacGyver could tell it didn’t matter; she’d be seeing them many years from now – no matter where she was or what she was really looking at. So would he. “More air than luck, at the moment,” he muttered.
Barbara felt MacGyver’s eyes upon her, but she didn’t meet his gaze. Hope that had been burning through her now turned to water and flowed out of her. She slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor. Absently tugging her skirt below her knees, she then folded her hands across her lap. Maybe if she was composed on the outside, the disarray of her mind and heart wouldn’t show.
“Is there any way that you can open these doors from up there?” MacGyver asked.
“We’re looking into that,” Burke’s voice answered promptly. MacGyver would have been happier to hear Pete’s voice. Burke’s continued, “Andy’s gone to get the hard copies of the security protocols for that area. Some of the computers on the Third level are working – we’re getting some data from there – but we’re pretty blind on the sub-levels. We should be able to reroute the substations and access the security network, but… it – it may take some time.”
“We’ve got a little of that,” MacGyver said calmly. He paced out the length and breadth of the room, reaching up to get a better guesstimate of height to recalculate the cubic space. The answer he got didn’t improve the situation. He returned to the window and looked again, hoping to spot something that might broaden their options. There were several banks of instrument panels, but they were too far away for him to read.
Then he remembered his bag. Tapping his forehead as if to jar loose any other good ideas that might be hiding up there, he pulled out his mutilated binoculars.
One lens was still intact. Using it like a telescope, MacGyver scanned the panels below. The thick smoke pooling three or four feet deep all through the room made it difficult to read most of the instrument panels. Of those he could read, nothing suggested any ideas.
To Barbara, he said, “Where are the exits in this lab?”
Barbara rolled her eyes toward him tiredly and sighed, “On the right, a short stair that leads to the main corridor for this sub-level. The elevator and stairwell are outside that door. There’s an emergency exit in the center of the lab… but it only leads into another lab just like this one. It used to be one large lab, but when we modified it for gas research, we subdivided to get more use of the space.” She spoke listlessly, as if she didn’t care if her information was useful or not.
MacGyver squatted down beside her. “Spencer.” She looked at him blankly. “We’re going to get out of here, you know.”
“Are we? Of course we are,” she said with tired cynicism. “You’re the Boy Scout. I forgot.”
MacGyver smiled. He sat himself on the floor, facing Barbara. “So, it seems we’ve got some time. Anything you want to talk about?”
“Talking will use up our oxygen,” she said absently. “As if that mattered,” she muttered. “What do you want to know?”
“You know what
I want to talk about,” he said, “the experiments Dr. Steubens and Dr. Marlow were working on today.”
“Today… it seems like years ago when this day started,” Barbara said softly. She let her head fall back against the wall with a gentle bump. “I can’t tell you… I can’t even admit that they were or weren’t working on something. It’s classi– ”
“Classified,” MacGyver said, expecting her refusal. “Yeah, I know. So let’s talk about something else. Who do you like for the Cup this year?”
“What?” Barbara blinked and focused on him.
MacGyver stretched his legs out in front of him. In the small room, his and Barbara’s feet nearly touched. “The Stanley Cup. You know – professional hockey. Who’s your team?”
Barbara began to laugh lightly. “I live and work in New Mexico … I’ve never seen a hockey game in my life!”
“Oh, then we
are definitely getting out of here,” MacGyver said, bumping the toes of his boots against Barbara’s shoes. “And when we do, I’m taking you to a game. You’ll love it.”
“Right.” She rolled her eyes up and then let them close. She was glad that MacGyver wasn’t going to push her to talk about the things she couldn’t say. “Why don’t you tell me about hockey… while we wait to get out of here?” She still wasn’t convinced, but she found his idle conversation soothing – maybe because it was so silly to talk about such things under these circumstances. Or maybe it was the sound of his voice… the accent that seemed to wax and wane… the way he could make everything sound reasonable and hopeful.
Barbara needed MacGyver to give her hope, because hers was just about used up.
xox
Pete had three other people besides himself looking for the security protocol manuals – he would have had more helping him, but space in the filing room was very limited. Every second that expired in that room weighed on Pete like a stone – lives hung on the balance, and a few grams of paper could tip those scales toward life or death.
As Pete’s tired fingers located a folder containing routing schematics, one of the other men rifling through the filing cabinets suddenly barked out “I found ‘em!” Pete grabbed his folder and the thick manual the young technician was waving around excitedly, rapping out a ‘Good job, fellas!’ as he rushed back to the computer lab with his prizes.
“How’re MacGyver and Spencer doing?” Pete asked Gantner as he spread the papers on the table.
Gantner sighed before he answered. “Not good, Andy. They’re gonna run out of air.”
Pete felt sorry for Gantner. The man was not looking good himself; there were circle under his eyes as dark as bruises, his shirt was drenched with perspiration, and he was so nervous that he twitched at every noise.
“Not if we have anything to say about it,” Pete stated firmly. “What do you know about computers, Ed?”
Gantner looked morose. “I know you should never spill coffee on a keyboard,” he muttered darkly.
Pete laughed in spite of himself. “Okay, you can help me. Be an extra pair of eyes for me and watch the power levels on those terminals,” Pete pointed to a set of glass dials on a console nearby. The trembling needles were hovering at various levels. “If any of those needles gets close to the red area, let me know at once.”
“All right.” Gantner sounded marginally better, relieved to have a task to perform that might help the situation.
A shrill jangling sound cut through the chatter in the lab. Pete raised his head, recognizing the distinctive sound that an army radio-telephone made. Gus answered the thing, then passed the receiver to Burke.
Pete watched Burke’s face as he listened. By the set of his jaw and the way his eyes darkened, Pete could tell that whatever he was hearing, it was sure to be more bad news. He remembered then what Burke had said about the ‘solutions’ that the Army was working on.
Burke murmured a word and set the receiver back in its cradle. Sidling up to his Head of Operations, Burke spoke softly into his ear, so that Gantner could not hear. “We’ve got about fifty-five minutes, Andy. The tankers are almost here.” He flicked his eyes meaningfully toward Gantner. “Don’t tell him yet… he’s too emotionally invested. We don’t need someone flapping around here, panicking and making things worse. Okay?”
Pete nodded, but he felt a little bit like flapping and flailing himself. Swallowing the ache in his throat which the thought of MacGyver trapped underground with a river of sodium hydroxide destined to be heading his way, he turned his full attention to the diagrams and documents spread in front of him.
He traced the circuits to the airlock doors, finding all the routings and alternate routings that were available. There were hundreds of connections to examine, but he stayed calm and began to go through them methodically. It was up to him to get Mac out before it was too late.
~~~
Link to Chapter 19
Everyone, sometimes, needs a camel.
Old troubleshooters never die...
They just wait til the last moment and then rescue themselves!
