Secrets and Consequences Part Three
Rated: R

“Listen, are you sure you’re going to be all right?” Pete asked.

They were back at MacGyver’s houseboat. It was late in the evening, and the rain was still falling heavily outside, pounding on the roof. MacGyver lay on his sofa, a pensive, morose expression on his face.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine, Pete, thanks,” MacGyver said, sighing. “I’m just tired.”

“Well, that’s understandable. You had an emotional day. I’ll leave you to rest. Do you want anything before I leave?”

“No, I’m okay. Just turn off the lights.”

Pete smiled. “Will do,” he said. “I’ll come by and check on you in the morning. Goodnight, Mac.”

“’Night, Pete.”

Pete turned off the lights and gazed fondly at MacGyver for a moment before leaving, buttoning up his coat all the way to the collar to shield himself from the rain. MacGyver barely heard him as the door closed behind him. The steady rhythm of the rain as it hit his roof combined with the mental and physical exhaustion of grief gently relaxed him and lulled him to sleep within minutes.

***

Several men dressed in black to conceal their movements in the night stealthily entered MacGyver’s houseboat, picking his lock. Quietly, they approached where he lay, sleeping on the sofa. Their leader grinned.

“Perfect,” he said.

He pulled out a syringe filled with clear liquid and injected it into MacGyver’s bare arm. MacGyver didn’t even stir, his body remaining motionless.

“That should do it,” the man said, placing the empty hypodermic needle back inside the folds of his black clothing. He looked at his men and smiled. “It really couldn’t be any easier. Load him up. We’ll take him to the laboratory.”

***

MacGyver awoke feeling groggy and dizzy, his mouth filmy and cottony. He didn’t recognize his surroundings as they blurred and spun around him. He was aware that he was no longer in the comfortable, familiar atmosphere of his houseboat but had been moved to some strange, unfamiliar location, nothing but hard, unforgiving, cold concrete floor beneath him. Trying to get up but finding it difficult to move, his legs wobbly, numb, and uncooperative, he staggered and stumbled around the room a few times before his legs quivered and weakly gave out beneath him, causing him to collapse. Cruel, vicious laughter echoed around him, taunting him, amused by his feeble, pathetic attempts to stand.

“I wouldn’t try to move around too much just yet if I were you,” a voice said, sounding distorted in the drugged, foggy, confused haze of his mind. “Your efforts are futile. I gave you muscle relaxants that cause temporary paralysis so you wouldn’t be able to resist me. They’ll wear off eventually.”

Gradually, as the area where he was being held became clearer to his vision, MacGyver saw that he was in a laboratory setting of some kind, scientific instruments, equipment, and a sterile environment surrounding him. He was confined in an enclosure of some kind, separated from the men outside dressed in white lab coats by a pane of glass. From his position, lying helplessly on the floor, he studied the men, trying to see if he recognized any of them, but he didn’t. He had never seen any of them before. He tried to ask them who they were and what they wanted with him, but he was unable to speak, his tongue hanging slackly and uselessly in his mouth and feeling as numb as the rest of his body. Once again, he tried to move, pushing his limp body along the floor, slithering towards the panel of glass, curious as to its thickness, wondering if there was some possible way for him to shatter it and escape once the muscle relaxants released their incapacitating grip on his body. With a trembling hand he reached out cautiously and touched it, only to receive a painful shock that sent electricity jolting through his body. Releasing a strangled cry out in pain, he fell back to the floor, twitching violently. The sinister men outside observing him once again laughed.

“The barrier is electrified to prevent your escape,” the man who had spoken earlier and who was clearly the leader said. “We took every precaution necessary. I mean really, MacGyver…do you take us for fools?”

Lying there, recovering from the pain of the shock, his hand burning, MacGyver looked up at the men and tried once again to ask who they were and how they knew him, but he once again found himself incapable of speech, his lips feeling loose, puffy and rubbery, as if he had been given a Novocain shot at the dentist.

The leader smirked and laughed, staring down at him with a menacing glare. “You can, of course, try all you’d like to invent some clever escape from here, but you won’t be successful, not this time,” he said. “And if you touch the glass barrier again, all you’ll receive is another painful shock for your pointless efforts. Then again, that’s the least of your worries.”

MacGyver heard him laughing again as he slowly faded back into unconsciousness, too weak and drugged to remain alert.

The man on the other side of the glass studied his captive for awhile, making sure he was truly unconscious before proceeding with his plan. “That should do it,” he said to the others. “Prepare him for surgery and the implantation process.”

***

Despite anesthesia being administered to him to keep him in a state of immobility and unconsciousness, the men took no chances, restraining MacGyver’s limbs to the operating table, clamping his head down with a vice-like device to expose it to the small drill-like instrument that was prepared to pierce his skull and enter his brain. On the tip of the needle-like instrument was a tiny chip, like a microchip for a computer but much smaller in scale, almost undetectable and impossible to see with the human eye. The men in the operating room wore special glasses that magnified it so they could see it and perform the operation successfully and accurately, placing the chip right where they wanted it inside MacGyver’s brain.

“We are ready to begin,” the head surgeon in charge of the operation said from behind his surgical mask.

“Dr. Warren, are you sure this chip is ready for human trials?” One of the other men asked. All of them were properly dressed in hospital scrubs and latex gloves.

“It has gone through several tests and the development of its design had been modified to the point where it is no longer in the prototype stage,” Dr. Warren said. “I believe it is ready and should produce the desired effect.”

The leader of the men grinned from behind his mask. “Wonderful,” he said. He looked at Dr. Warren, peering at him through his magnification glasses, a cold, threatening, and unsettling glare in his icy grey eyes. “Proceed with the insertion.”

Dr. Warren didn’t know why, but as he aligned the long needle with the chip attached in position over MacGyver’s head, he hesitated. There was something about the vulnerability of the patient, pinned helplessly to the table, unaware of the torment he was about to suffer as a result of his creation that deeply affected him.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Get on with it!” The leader snarled.

“I must perform the operation delicately,” Dr. Warren said. “Remember, this is brain surgery. This is the first time I have intentionally introduced a foreign element into someone’s brain, and if I do not do it properly, it could seriously damage him, perhaps even kill him.”

“As much as I’d like that, I certainly don’t want him to die on the table,” the leader said. “That would defeat the entire purpose. All right, then. Be as careful as you need to, but remember that you made this thing, and it should work as you said it would. I have full confidence in your abilities, Doctor. Now, proceed.”

Turning back to his patient, removing all doubts and reservations from his mind, Dr. Warren began, moving the needle downward, watching as it pierced MacGyver’s skull and penetrated deeply into the folds and layers of his brain tissue. MacGyver’s life signs remained healthy and strong as indicated by the heart monitor and other machines attached to him, and the operation appeared to be a success with few complications.

“The chip should be in now,” Dr. Warren said, sighing as he gently removed the needle and bandaged the spot on MacGyver’s head where it had entered. “I will of course run a few MRI and CAT scan tests to detect its presence, but so far I believe it was a success, gentlemen.”

“That’s excellent news, Doctor,” the leader said, grinning savagely beneath his mask. Soon, MacGyver would be at his mercy, his to control, escape impossible, the chip embedded deeply and permanently in his brain.

To be continued…

Another wonderful read.

Uh-oh. A brain chip in MacGyver's brain can mean a lot of bad things for him and Pete. The persian kittens and I are hidding under the bed! But we still love this story, MacsChick. Thank you!