Quarantine Part Two
Rated: PG

MacGyver moaned, thrashed, and squirmed around on his hospital bed, his body soaked with sweat that also saturated the linens. His breaths came from him in sharp, raspy, wheezing gasps, and he shivered uncontrollably. His dark eyes had a glassy, glazed, and bewildered look to them as they wandered around the room, empty and not focusing on anything, barely conscious or aware of his surroundings. Numerous I.V. lines and machines were attached to him, monitoring his vital signs. The heart monitor beeped rapidly and irregularly, indicating how seriously ill MacGyver really was.

“How is he doing?” Pete asked Dr. Robertson, the physician in charge of MacGyver’s care while quarantined in the medical facility, his voice sounding altered, electronic, and hissing through the communication device of his protective suit. He touched MacGyver’s forehead and swore he could feel the intense heat of his fever radiating through his thick glove. He felt tremendous sympathy and pity for his stricken friend, wishing there was more he could do to help him, hating to watch him suffer, writhing in constant torment, agony, and misery, panting heavily, unable to draw adequate breaths into his straining lungs, delirious and lost to the world.

Dr. Robertson stared at his patient through the protective shield of his suit with a sober expression on his face. “Unfortunately, he’s not doing well,” he said, sighing. “His condition is rapidly deteriorating. He has a high grade fever of 106 degrees and climbing, he has developed a cardiac arrhythmia, and his lungs are congested. I might have to intubate him to assist his breathing, because right now he is straining and fighting to do so unaided. It’s almost as if this virus is behaving like a particularly virulent strain of influenza, yet he is not responding to any treatment.”

“I don’t understand,” Pete said sadly, fighting back tears that threatened to emerge. “How could this have happened, and so quickly? He was wearing a protective suit, just like we are.”

“They found a small tear in his suit before they incinerated it in the decontamination process,” Sandra said. “The damage must have been caused during the fight that ensued between him and the thieves.”

“And they have escaped,” Pete said angrily, wanting justice, almost wishing in his outrage that a similar fate had befallen the treacherous, devious men before their plot was thwarted. He gently took MacGyver’s limp, warm, and moist hand in his. “This just isn’t right. This shouldn’t have happened to him. He doesn’t deserve this.” He looked at Dr. Robertson. “What are his chances for survival, Doctor?” He asked. “Will he get out of this?”

Dr. Robertson shook his head and then shrugged. “Right now, there is little I can do except try to make him as comfortable as possible,” he said. “The rapid progression of the virus and the fact that we don’t have a known cure since this is a new strain makes any prospects for recovery remote at best at this point. I’m sorry.”

“How long does he have?” Pete asked, choking on his tears, his throat tightening, reluctant to ask such a horrible question.

“Without proper treatment? Hours…days…I really can’t say. His lungs, heart, and other organs could begin to fail. Until we have a means to cure him, there is very little I can do. Right now, I recommend that we leave him alone and allow him time to rest. This room is monitored constantly, and should there be any changes my staff will alert you.”

Pete nodded, looking at Sandra. Through the mask of her suit he tried to read the emotions on her face, wondering how remorseful she truly was after such a disastrous outcome, but she remained cool and inscrutable, not revealing anything. After leaving the quarantined area and undergoing the decontamination process, his fury began to rise over her irresponsibility. He was no longer able to contain it, and he met her in the hallway, his eyes ablaze.

“Now do you realize what you’ve done?” He asked. “You’ve created some superbug and put MacGyver’s life at risk! That’s already bad enough, but what if those thieves had succeeded in stealing it and sold it to some rogue government? What if it had been unleashed on a city as a biological weapon? Do you care? Do you have any sense of morality at all, or is this all about the advancement of your own personal interests and scientific career?”

Sandra’s eyes burned with rage and intensity. Her tightened jaw twitched and jutted out as she grappled with the buried emotions that threatened to surface, boiling beneath her calm, placid exterior.

“You have every right to be angry with me Pete, but don’t you dare lecture me!” she snapped. “Every scientific experiment can lead to unintended and sometimes tragic consequences. That is the nature of theory and inquiry. It’s an exploration into the unknown, and sometimes the unthinkable can occur as a result. It’s unpredictable! Do you honestly believe I would intentionally create something harmful? That I wanted this to happen? I was trying to benefit humanity by finding a cure to other diseases when an error occurred and I somehow managed to create a different disease instead. It’s too late to be pointing fingers and assigning blame! It’s unproductive and will get us nowhere! If you want MacGyver to live, you’re going to have to start trusting me.”

“Trusting you? To do what?”

“Find a cure,” Sandra said with strong conviction.

“I don’t believe this,” Pete said, scoffing. “Even in a crisis where MacGyver might be dying, you arrogantly want to grab all the glory and credit for yourself by finding a cure so that you can look like a humanitarian when in reality you have ulterior motives for doing so, wanting your research to be noticed by the scientific community, wanting their attention and praise. Who knows? You might win some high honor or award! Visit with foreign dignitaries! Have your name mentioned in prestigious journals!” He shouted, his voice laced with bitter sarcasm.

“You may criticize and express your intense dislike for me and my methods if you’d like, but you’re going to have to admit that right now I’m all that you have. If we’re ever going to solve this and restore MacGyver back to health, then you’re going to have to rely on me. I’m the only one who knows about the virus. After all, I created it, remember? I still have a smear left over in my lab that I can analyze and perform further tests on. Now is not the time to cower in fear and hopelessness or try, persecute, and sentence me to the stake out of irrational anger and professional disagreement. We cannot afford paranoia, mass hysteria, or any histrionics about this issue right now. Now is the opportunity to learn something about the structure and behavior of this virus so that I can do what I started out to do when I first began this project—save a life.”

Pete heard her voice quaver slightly even though she remained composed, her face stony, revealing little emotion. He realized that even though she could seem callous and her colleagues regarded her as such, she did care, perhaps too much.

“All right,” he said quietly. “Maybe I have been too rough on you. Just…do what you can, for MacGyver’s sake. Please.”

“It won’t be easy,” she said. “I may never unlock its secrets or the answer might come too late to help him.”

“I know,” Pete said, closing his eyes. “Just please…try.”

***

MacGyver felt his heart hammering against his chest, beating wildly and erratically. He heard someone gasping, someone fighting to breathe, choking, slowly suffocating…was it him? His entire body felt stiff and sore, and he alternately shivered from cold or sweated profusely from heat. Despite his pain, dull aches affecting every joint and muscle, he felt disconnected, numb and floating, drifting away, incredibly light, everything around him spinning dizzyingly, his ears ringing. Voices spoke around him, but he couldn’t understand them, their utterances foreign to him, sounding like garbled, broken, babbled gibberish and animalistic, primitive grunts. Their blurred, blob-like, indistinct forms stood over him, continuing to speak in slow, distorted tones. Gradually, he began to lose them, slowly fading away…


“All right, get ready to cast your line,” a male voice said, sounding tender and paternal, echoing around him.

Slowly opening his eyes, MacGyver saw he was on the shore of a lake in the high desert southwest, the landscape barren yet beautiful and pleasant, the sky a vivid blue and cloudless, the sun warming his back, a gentle breeze caressing his hair. Turning towards the source of the mysterious voice, he saw his father, dressed in fishing gear.

“Dad?” He asked, his voice also echoing. “How…?” Puzzled, he searched his surroundings again. “No, this can’t be real…this isn’t possible. How are you here? How am I here? What’s happening? How…how can this be?”

James MacGyver smiled, seeming to ignore his son’s questions. He looked down at a shiny silver gum wrapper that had been folded and attached to the end of the fishing line, glinting brightly in the clear sunlight.

“Hey, that’s pretty clever,” he said, chuckling. “Did your grandpa show you that?”

Looking down to where his father was pointing, MacGyver saw the gum wrapper he was referring to.

“Yeah, he did,” MacGyver said, deciding to play along, glad to see his father again but still confused as to where he was or how he got there.

“Well I’ll be,” James said, grinning a handsome grin that was strikingly similar to his son’s. “What will he think of next? Or, for that matter, what will you think of next?” He asked, looking up at MacGyver with a teasing, playful smile, fatherly warmth, pride, and affection in his deep brown eyes. He winked.

Holding his hands in front of him to examine them, MacGyver saw that they were the hands of a full grown man, large and masculine, not the hands of a small boy, a child that his father seemed to believe he was, speaking to him as if he was one.

“I remember this place,” he said, looking around the desert again. “We used to come up here all the time when I was a kid. But what am I doing here now? What is this? Why are you here?”

“Come on now, let’s catch some fish,” James MacGyver said, still seemingly oblivious to MacGyver’s questions.

“Dad, listen to me,” MacGyver said. “Can’t you hear me at all? Tell me, what am I doing here? How are you here? Can’t you see that something about this isn’t right, that I’m a man now and not a child? Can’t you see that everything is different somehow? I shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be here. Yet somehow, we are. I...I don’t understand…”

James looked up at his bewildered son and laughed slightly, perplexed by his strange behavior. “What are you talking about?” He asked. “Is this another one of your fantasies? We come up here all the time.”

“I know we do…we did…it’s just…something about this isn’t right. I shouldn’t be here. It isn’t real.”

“It’s as real as you want it to be,” James said, a wise expression on his face, now addressing him as an adult. “It’s here for you, only when and if you’re ready and willing to accept it, when you’re finally ready to let go…” his voice trailed away and then he vanished, his form evaporating into nothingness.

“Wait, what does that mean?” MacGyver asked, chasing air, chasing an apparition, a mirage that was no longer there, lost in the desert heat. “Dad, come back! Tell me where I am! Tell me what this is! What’s going on?”

All he received in response was another slight breeze rustling the dry sagebrush and stirring the calm surface of the lake, forming small ripples.

***

Inside the quarantined area, MacGyver began to arch his back and pull away from the bed, his limbs taut. His breathing became more labored, fighting to find a clear passageway in his lungs against the heavy sludge of fluids that had built up there, rattling in his chest and causing shuddering spasms throughout his entire feverish body. His sounded like an asthmatic, the breaths short and coming in convulsive gasps. He tossed his head from side to side, his mouth gaping wide, desperately gulping for air. He was unaware of the sudden entrance of medical emergency personnel in suits swarming around him in the urgency of the situation, struggling to save him, tilting his head back and preparing to insert the breathing tube…

“What is it? What’s going on in there?” Pete asked a suited Dr. Robertson after seeing all the commotion, grabbing him by the arm before he had a chance to enter the quarantined area.

“He’s losing the battle to breathe unassisted,” Dr. Robertson said, his voice sounding mechanical from behind the mask and the communication device. “There is simply too much fluid buildup in his lungs. We’re preparing to intubate. Now if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Thornton, I have to get in there immediately.”

“Of course,” Pete said, releasing him and watching him hurry inside the quarantined area, his suited form disappearing behind the heavy plastic and glass.

He could only imagine with horror the ordeal his friend was going through at that moment, drowning on land. Exhausted, he settled back into a chair he had been sitting on outside the quarantine in the safe zone, waiting, not wanting to leave. If MacGyver’s breathing had become worse, then he knew it was possible, if not probable, that his other functions would soon begin to fail and cease as well, and that he would succumb to the deadly effects of the virus.

“Come on, Sandra,” he whispered. “Find a cure for this thing. Please…”

To be continued…

Argh!!! Just kill the witch!! Kill her all over again!!!
*sigh*
I really really hated that character.

Oh, I love Mac's interaction with his dad. Wooooooooooo! Since this was BEFORE Harry's death, Mac is his young, thin, brown hair self - which is the one I like the most!

Got me on the edge of my seat with another intersting story, MacsChick. Thank you!

Realy great chapter! (Kinda what I'm hopin heaven is like too...)

I liked how Mac's dad was there for him. Usualy it's his grandfather.
Thank you MacsChick! I do appreciate all your hard work!

Has Sandra found a cure yet???

Don't think so. She just need the proper motivation, though. I'll get Kyrian to deal with this matter.

*Yawn* (Stretches and extends claws to shred carpet...)
"Somebody call me? Hey, Ghostdoll! Motivate Sandra?.... hmmm... easy enough..."

*Backs scientist into corner and lets her see claws (and fangs)...*
"Get movin on that cure, or I'll claw you into fishbait!!" (Roars VERY loudly)