All right, here we go...the next installment. I'm glad you are enjoying my work, and as always I truly value and appreciate your support and readership! Thank you!
Quarantine Part Five
Rated: PG
“Pow! I gotcha, you lousy crook!” A boy shouted, springing from behind a tree, pointing a gun at MacGyver.
Startled, it took a moment for MacGyver to realize the identity of the boy, but gradually as he observed his mannerisms and appearance, he noticed he was staring directly into the innocent, youthful face of his childhood friend Jesse. He was so young, merely a boy, yet he was holding a dangerous, deadly weapon in his small hands. Making the connection, all the traumatic memories of his accidental death by bullet wound surging back, MacGyver reacted quickly, knocking him to the ground and yanking the gun out of his hands.
“Jesse, no!” He shouted.
“Hey! Jeez Mac, what the heck’s the matter with you?” Jesse said, squirming beneath him. “You’re not playing the game right! I got you! You’re supposed to play dead!”
Releasing Jesse and looking down at the gun he had managed to grab from him, he noticed it wasn’t real, made of plastic. They were playing a game. Looking around, MacGyver saw that they were in the woods that surrounded his childhood home in Minnesota. In those same woods, only days later, the gun wouldn’t be a toy, and Jesse would actually die, no games or rules could magically revive him, and he would never live again to play another round.
“Cops and robbers,” MacGyver said, still staring at the plastic gun sadly. “You wanted to be in law enforcement when you grew up. Instead, look what happened to you, all as a result of my stupidity and carelessness.”
“Come on, Mac, would ‘ya get offa me?” Jesse asked, still wriggling beneath him.
“This isn’t fair! You’re not supposed to tackle me like that when I got you! You’re breaking the rules!”
“I’m sorry, Jesse,” MacGyver said, meaning it more deeply than the boy underneath his pinning grasp could ever imagine or understand. He released him and they both stood, MacGyver rising to his full adult height, towering over the boy. Jesse did not seem to notice their difference in either age or stature, still treating MacGyver as if he were a boy too, stuck in the past.
“Say, what’s the matter with you, anyway?” Jesse asked, brushing the dirt off his clothes, still slightly angry and annoyed. “Why didja have to ambush me like that?”
“I’m sorry, Jesse, I really am,” MacGyver said. “God, I wish you knew how sorry I am...but…as much as I missed you, as much as I enjoy being here, with you again, this isn’t real. This is a memory and somehow I’m trapped inside it. I’ve got to get back somehow to the present. I’ve got to get home.”
Jesse looked up at him, momentarily puzzled. “Why do you have to get back at all?” He asked. “Why can’t you stay here?”
“Because I don’t belong here.”
“How do you know that for sure?”
Jesse’s question stunned MacGyver, the gaze in the boy’s brown eyes suddenly wiser than his years, indicating he knew more than he was willing to say. Unsure how to respond, he heard the sound of his mother’s voice calling him in the background.
“Honey, it’s time for dinner!” She shouted.
Her voice shifted and blended with a familiar male voice, this one sounding not like his father’s but someone from a more recent time, someone in an authority position but also a friend. It was Pete, his voice sounding strange, faint, and distant, echoing around him.
“MacGyver…MacGyver, can you hear me? Oh please, don’t do this! Come back to me, please…” “My mom’s calling me,” MacGyver said, looking at Jesse, who was still watching him carefully. Tears welled up in his eyes at the thought of saying goodbye to his close childhood friend once again, the time spent knowing him and being with him all too brief. “I…I have to go…I’m sorry…”
“I hope you find your way and don’t get lost, Mac,” Jesse said, sounding once again like a sage, older man instead of a boy. “Either way, I’ll be waiting here for you.”
Turning to look at his friend more closely, he saw that Jesse now had a cryptic smile on his face. He vanished, leaving nothing but an empty forest.
***
It had been days since Sandra had been inside the quarantined area where MacGyver was being kept isolated, toiling for ceaseless hours in her laboratory with her team of scientists on the arduous task of creating a new vaccine for a virus that had up until recently never existed before. It took her a moment to recover from her initial shock after seeing MacGyver’s withered, frail appearance and sunken cheeks before she spoke through the communication device of her protective suit to Pete and Dr. Robertson, holding up a syringe of clear liquid.
“Is that the vaccine?” Dr. Robertson asked.
“Yes,” she said. “At last, all our hard work has produced something.”
“Well, what are you waiting for? Give it to him!” Pete said.
“I’m still uneasy about this whole procedure. I don’t mind telling you gentlemen that,” she said, glancing at both of them through the face shield on the suit. “My team at last managed to successfully weaken the organism sample we extracted. We made the vaccine similar to the flu vaccine and tested it on lab rats that had contracted the virus, but unfortunately we found the results to be inconclusive. It didn’t improve their health or worsen it. They merely remained in the same condition as they had prior to administering the vaccine. So you see, it could still prove ineffective in treating MacGyver.”
“Look we don’t know that for sure until we try it on him,” Pete said. “Even if it does nothing for him, we’ve got to do something!”
“I’m afraid Mr. Thornton is right,” Dr. Robertson said, looking down at his patient. “MacGyver’s body continues to grow weaker. His organs are beginning to slowly fail. He’s in a coma, and it could be only a matter of a few hours before he starts to die.”
“You see? Now do it! Give it to him before it’s too late!” Pete said.
“I’m aware of your concern for him, but once again I must insist that you understand that vaccines are not always a panacea,” Sandra said. “We are still taking an enormous risk with a man’s life, here. This will be the first trial of the new vaccine on the only human to have contracted this new virus, and the unpredictable could occur. I’m concerned about the ethical issues involved.”
Pete snorted. “All of the sudden you’re worried about ethics?” He asked snidely. “Since when has ethics or an attack of conscience ever stopped you?”
“I care about MacGyver as much as you do,” Sandra said, glaring at him sternly.
“The fact is, I’ve done all that I can for him,” Dr. Robertson said, interfering before a major argument ensued between them, wasting valuable time when his patient’s life was at stake. “It’s time to try something else.”
“There, you see?” Pete asked. “And if you still have any qualms about going through with this on the grounds of ethics, you should know that I can legally give consent for any medical procedure that might save his life. It’s a new clause in his contract and mine. We visited an attorney together and had it arranged. He is fully aware that something like this could happen to him due to the dangerous nature of his occupation, and he wanted to be prepared for it. So go on, go ahead. If it works, you will have made an extraordinary, brilliant breakthrough. Just think of it that way.”
“If you still think that all I care about in the outcome of this research is personal or scientific accolades, then you’re wrong,” Sandra said, tightly clenching her jaws in anger and irritation.
“You created this thing, this virus, and like it or not you have to clean up the mess you made,” Pete said. “You said you could find a cure and now you’ve potentially found one. So, use it. Let’s find out if it works.”
Sandra looked at MacGyver’s pale, wasted form, a trace of sadness on her otherwise expressionless face. His current condition reminded her of the many famine victims she had personally encountered during her work in Africa, amazed that life could still be contained inside that wispy body. She remembered seeing him before the virus had infected him, vibrant and healthy. The virus had worked quickly to whittle all that away, the rate of deterioration the fastest and most devastating she had ever seen. For the first time she was fully aware of the power and destructiveness of what she had inadvertently created, and how it was beyond her control. She had spent most of her career believing she could play God, that she could master science and have it bend to her will. Now, she was witnessing for the first time that this was not always the case. Unconsciously, she reached out for him with her gloved hand, tears moistening her eyes.
“All right,” she said, quietly, clearing her throat. She carefully handed the syringe to Dr. Robertson.
“Here we go,” Dr. Robertson said. “I’m administering the injection into his I.V. now.”
Both Pete and Sandra watched as Dr. Robertson injected the potentially life-saving liquid into MacGyver’s I.V. line, following it as it flowed down the tubing and into his fragile, prominent veins.
“How long before we see any change?” Pete asked.
“Since there wasn’t any noticeable change in the lab rats we tested, I’m uncertain,” Sandra said. “MacGyver is the first human subject, so…”
“I suppose we will just have to wait and find out,” Dr. Robertson said. “It’s up to him now. His body can either accept or reject the treatment. There is little else we can do at this point.”
For the moment, MacGyver’s body remained still, almost lifeless except for the rising and falling of his chest and the hissing of his life support machines. All they could do was watch and silently pray that the vaccine would begin to show some kind of restorative, curative effect on him, a wait that they knew would be long and agonizing.
***
MacGyver still found himself in the woods, except this time they seemed different, not quite as wild, landscaped and trimmed. All around him were gravestones, and he had to step carefully around them to avoid tripping over them disrespectfully. In the distance, he saw a massive gathering of mourners all clad in black, attending a funeral. There were so many of them that he wondered who the deceased was, perhaps an important official or head of state of some kind. He knew of few funerals with such a large amount of attendees. Not even people as well-liked and respected as his family members had that many to grieve over their bodies during their burials. He knew. He vaguely remembered the funerals given for his father and grandmother, feeling nothing but a deep emptiness in his soul as he watched their coffins get lowered into the earth, his mother and grandfather Harry there to comfort and console him, to reassure him that he still had guardians that would protect him and care for him, that he wasn’t alone in his misery.
As he approached the funeral, curious and quiet, he began to recognize many of the faces among the vast sea of black. Some of them he knew were still alive, like Pete, Nikki, Jack Dalton, and Penny. Others were dead, or should have been—Mike, his parents, Jesse, and various other acquaintances he had known over the years, some of whom he had befriended only to have them killed during missions while he survived. He couldn’t explain their appearance at the funeral, and as he came closer and carefully nudged his way through the throng, he saw that the coffin they were all staring at sadly and pensively reflecting on the loss of the soul inside seemed to divide them evenly among the living and the dead. He heard footsteps behind him. Turning, he saw Harry, standing in between the separate groups but leaning closer towards those who were dead.
“How’re you doing, Bud?” He asked, placing his weathered, craggy hand on MacGyver’s shoulder.
“Harry, what am I doing here? What is this place? Why do I see so many people I know, even some I thought were dead?” MacGyver asked.
“They
are dead, Bud,” Harry said, gesturing towards the group that contained MacGyver’s parents and close friends who had passed on. “So am I.”
MacGyver looked at him sadly. “I know,” he said, smiling slightly and gently squeezing his hand. “I miss you, too. But, how is this possible? How are you here? How are they here?”
Harry smiled. “Funerals aren’t just for the living, you know,” he said. “Celia recently told me she attended mine.”
“But…who is dead? Who is in that coffin?”
“Take a closer look.”
Hesitantly, fearing he already knew the answer to his question, MacGyver peered into the coffin. Surprisingly, he found it open where it hadn’t been before. Inside, he found that he was staring at himself, his body motionless and in peaceful repose, his eyes closed.
“No, no that can’t be,” he said, recoiling in horror at the surreal vision. He looked at his grandfather, his eyes wild and filled with alarm. “Harry, please tell me this isn’t real.”
Harry shrugged. “It’s as real as you believe it to be,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
Harry looked out over the crowds of people, living and dead, separated by MacGyver’s coffin. “Life is divided by a slender thread, separating you from the dead. It’s so easy to cross it, and once you do…you can never go back,” he said.
“So what are you saying?”
Harry looked at him. “You’re not dead yet, but you’re fighting it,” he said. “Sooner or later you’re going to have to make a decision about which side you’ll end up on—life or death.”
“Well, that should be an easy decision.”
“Is it?” Harry asked, arching a grizzled eyebrow. “I’ve been watching you. I’ve seen how you reacted to seeing people you’ve loved and lost, being reunited with them again. You miss them. You love them. You want to be with them.” He smiled. “You might not feel the same way about your gruff, mean old grandpa, but I know you do about the others.”
“True, but what about the others I know who are still alive? What about Pete? I can’t just leave him.”
“Sooner or later you’re going to have to, you know that.”
“I know, it’s just…does it have to be now?”
“Of course not, but I’ve already told you that you have to be the one to make that decision. No one else can make it for you. You have to choose a side, and you have to choose it quickly. You don’t have much time left.”
“But how? How do I choose? How do I get back?” MacGyver asked, staring out over the bleak scene of the funeral, still trying to adjust to the bizarre, morbid sensation of seeing his own dead body.
When he heard no response, he turned and saw that Harry was gone. Turning back to the funeral, he saw that it was gone as well. All that was left was a single, solitary tombstone in the middle of a vast, empty space. Crouching down to read it, he saw that it was engraved with his name. The inscription included his name and the date of his birth, but where the date of his death should have been was nothing but a question mark. He began to shiver, feeling unbearably cold. A harsh, unforgiving wind whipped through the empty cemetery, and he gathered his jacket closer around him, studying the tombstone for a long time.
“So there is a chance,” he said. “I haven’t died yet. I can still get back, but how?” He stood, looking around the graveyard, looking for Harry. “Can you hear me?” He shouted. “How do I get back?”
All he received in response was the blowing of the chilled, biting wind.
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
And I don't know why, but I always see Harry as dead, maybe because he was so distant in Mac's life? 
I don't know. Anyway, thank you for pointing that out. I can see how it would seem inconsistent. I guess I should have explained it better before continuing. 
Again, I'm sorry for any confusion! 
