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Contrary to popular belief, there’s nothing scary about being in a helicopter when it crashes. Even Mac, a known acrophobic and general disliker of his transport blowing up, can agree with that. Because yeah, you can get horribly, horribly injured or (more likely) die on impact. But the truth of the matter is that once you hit the ground, it’s really not your problem. You don’t need to worry about how to stop your helicopter from crashing because it already has. You’re dead, unconscious, or too stunned to worry about minor details like blood loss and head injuries.
No, the real terror is the falling. The sudden jerk as the helicopter starts to lose altitude. The black smoke that builds up in the cabin. The screaming and the adrenaline and the how do I fix this, what do I do that runs on loop in your mind. The way your organs are just a hair slower than your body, stomach flipping and heart stuttering as they rush to catch up.
It’s miserable.
Fortunately for Mac and Jack, the collision with the dirt rattles their brains so violently that neither of them will ever remember this particular loss to gravity. Unfortunately for Mac and Jack, their memories aren’t the only things affected.
“Mac, c’mon, man!”
Jack had been seeing double before the plane crash, courtesy of Mr. Victor Henley, jerkbag war criminal and expert headbutter. But now? Well, now he’s puked his guts out, can’t count how many fingers are on his hand, and is struggling to haul his dead-weight partner’s ungrateful ass out of a flaming helicopter that (if Die Hard is accurate, which is a hill Jack is proud to die on) is twenty seconds from exploding.
“Mac, wake up, dude!”
But the stubborn-ass geek is well and truly out, and Jack’s brain is so fried that he’s even more inclined to take the physically taxing, straightforward path than usual. He gives up on trying to wake Mac and lets whatever adrenaline he has carry him through this part. He manages to drag him fifteen feet from the helicopter when he hears a scream.
“Sorry, Mac,” Jack says, setting his partner down as gently as time will allow (which unfortunately is not gently at all) and sprinting back to the crash.
“Shit!” the voice screams again.
“Cynthia?” The door to the cockpit is shut, and the pilot behind it looks very close to losing it, struggling to get out. “Hold on!”
“The door is stuck!” Cynthia yells, throwing her shoulder into the window. But helicopter windows aren’t the kind of windows you can break through. Especially not on a military-grade recon bird.
“Okay, okay, let me just…” Jack tries to get a better look at the damage to the crushed door, but the fuzzy vision is making things shadowy and nondescript. Once again, the physically taxing path wins him over, and he grabs the door handle, using his full weight to yank back.
It doesn't budge an inch.
“Mac, you awake? I could really use some help here!” Jack looks back, and by some stroke of luck or miracle or maybe just a stupid, dumb coincidence, Mac is rolling onto his back, looking… out of it. Definitely not good.
“Mac, come help me, man! I can’t get her out!”
The kid must bounce back like a goddamn spring, because he’s behind Jack in a second. “We’re gonna need some leverage,” he says, grabbing a piece of the rotor blade and shoving it between the door and the metal folded in on the jam. Together, they get enough force behind it to pry the frame away from the door, and Cynthia kicks it open.
“You hurt?” Jack asks, helping her out of the cockpit.
Cynthia pulls off her helmet and shakes her head. “No. I’m okay.”
Jack wipes the blood from his face. (Has it gotten worse since Victor broke his nose?) “Whoever shot us down’s gonna be coming back to confirm the kill. This fire’s just drawing them a road map.”
“Okay. Let's put out the fire.”
Fine with Jack. He might as well be a firefighter at this point, because all he seems to do these days is put out fires. (The newest one being Matty the Hun, but that’s not a problem Jack can solve right now.) They grab metal debris and go to town, smothering the shit out of the fires. Then he tosses the scrap metal and wipes more blood from his eyes. His head hurts like a bitch. “Anyone know where we are?”
“About 50 clicks from Taraz, just north of the Kazakhstani border,” Cynthia replies, glancing up at the skyline. “That’s probably the closest sign of civilization.”
“They’ll find us; don’t worry,” Jack assures her. There are people searching for them, and no one but Jack seems appropriately concerned about this fact. They need to get out of here now.
“Don’t expect a quick evac,” Cynthia warns. “We were flying way under radar altitude when we were diverted from our flight plan, and our transponder's… well…” She nods at a smoking mess of wires and metal.
“Our transponder’s-”
“It’s done,” she explains. “It’s trashed.”
“So our guys have no way of knowing where we are?”
“No.” Cynthia just looks annoyed now, like Jack’s questions are ignorant and naggy. He asks because these things matter. A lot.
“That’s… fantastic,” he says sarcastically.
“Yeah, well, that’s not our only problem,” Mac calls in that foreboding way that he always does right before he drops a truth bomb. He holds up a pair of unlocked handcuffs. “Victor’s gone.”
Yep. Total truth bomb. Makes Jack feel sick every single time. Or… maybe that’s just the concussion. Either way, he pukes again.
---
“I don’t imagine you can whip up a cell tower out of a broken plane, can ya?”
Mac shoots Jack a flat look. “You have to ask?”
“Sometimes, yeah! You come up with the weirdest shit, Mac.”
“Well, don’t get excited.” Mac rubs at the headache pounding behind his eyes. “We’re not going to get any reception out here.”
Jack wipes a new trail of blood off his nose. That better stop bleeding soon, or Mac is gonna have to figure out a way to cauterize it. He gets the sense that Jack wouldn’t appreciate him shoving a hot knife blade up his nose. “So the helicopter’s comms are burnt to a crisp, the transponder’s dust, and our phones are useless?”
“Yeah. Pretty much.”
Jack sighs heavily. “God, for once could you just lie to me, Mac?”
“Oh, wait!” Cynthia recalls. “I had a satphone in a red backpack.”
“Oh. I know where that is,” Jack replies, but he sounds pretty… blasé about it. He makes his way to a small stream and picks up a bright red bag. Water drips from it like a fountain. “This one?”
Cynthia winces and looks away. “Yeah, that’s the one.”
Jack pulls the drenched phone from the backpack and shakes it a little for emphasis. “I, uh, don’t suppose anybody’s got a bag of rice handy?” But he knows Mac, and he’s quick to toss the phone to him.
Mac checks it over. It’s well and truly soaked. “Guess we’re going DIY. Or, y’know, get chased down by Victor’s friends and die.”
“DIY or die!” Jack says enthusiastically. “That’s got a good ring to it! Mac, write that one down. That’s our movie title.”
Mac wrinkles his nose, pulling a water bottle from the backpack and dropping the phone inside. “I don’t know about a movie. Maybe an episode of a TV show. Like, a reboot of a thirty-year-old classic, maybe.”
Jack shrugs. “Yeah. I guess. It’d be sick though. Chuck Norris would play me, I bet.”
“Chuck Norris is thirty years older than you,” Mac snarks, grabbing a couple pieces of dry wood, tossing them in the water bottle, and then sealing the lid tightly.
“Hey, you can’t put an age cap on badassery. Chuck Norris would kick your scrawny little butt all the way back to LA.”
Mac rolls his eyes and hands Jack the bottle. “Baked wood acts as a desiccant. Should dry up the phone in a few hours.”
“That’s good news,” Jack decides. “Ah, on the topic of news… good or… otherwise… I can’t find my gun.”
Mac closes his eyes and controls his breathing. “You’re joking.”
“I don’t joke about this stuff, man. I think it was in my holster, but now it’s gone.”
“You think?” Mac questions, shooting Jack a side-eye.
“Yeah,” Jack replies. “I think. We just survived a plane crash. My head’s killing me, dude. My retention level is… not detail-oriented right now.”
“Well, this certain detail is somewhat important because it's the difference between your gun being somewhere out here or in the hands of someone who knows how to use it to kill people really well.” Just thinking about this is making Mac’s headache worse. The leaves around them are starting to look blurry.
“Well, when you put it that way, it doesn’t sound real good.”
“So the war criminal that just bombed a hospital,” Cynthia remarks, “is loose in the forest, possibly armed?” She asks it like it’s a completely impossible situation. Like no one could ever have this much bad luck. And she’s tragically incorrect. Clearly, she’s never worked a job with Mac and Jack.
“That’d be my bet, yeah,” Jack reasons.
Cynthia’s indignation quickly dissipates to resignation. “Okay. That’s fine, I guess.”
They’re quiet for a moment. And it’s… nice. The cool breeze, the birds, the damp air, the smell of pines… If Mac closed his eyes, he could pretend he was camping.
“Hey, is there, like, a ringing sound or something?”
Mac frowns, listening hard. “Yeah. That’s weird.”
“There definitely isn’t,” Cynthia replies, brushing the leaf litter from her flight suit.
“Oh,” Jack says, voice small. He rubs his temples, squinting and tipping his head. “Concussion,” he finally decides. “You?”
“Yeah,” Mac agrees. “Unless the world’s resolution dropped to 40p.”
“Don’t do that.” Jack doesn’t even sound mad. He just sounds tired. Disappointed. “We’ve been over this. You know how much I hate it when you go all geekspeak on me.”
“And you know how much I hate it when you say ‘geekspeak,’ so call us even.”
Cynthia coughs loudly. “Can we please just get out of here? If I have to listen to you two bicker much longer, I’m going to run after the war criminal with a gun and beg him to kill me.”
“Yeah,” Mac says. “Just give me a second to think.” He picks his way around the crash site, looking for something - anything - to defend themselves with or to find help faster or-
“Guys, blood trail!” Mac calls out, returning to the group “It’s fresh. Victor’s close by.”
“We need to get him,” Jack decides. “Let’s go.”
“Wait. Wait, wait, wait.” Cynthia’s voice draws them back to her side. “We have no way of contacting our people. There are men waiting with missiles to finish the job. Our known murderer prisoner is out there, possibly with a gun. And you think we should just… what? Run out there unarmed and hope for the best?”
Mac… has to give her credit. It does sound ridiculous when she phrases it like that. “We can’t let him get away.”
“He’ll either get away now or get away later after he shoots us,” she reasons. And the points she’s bringing up… Mac is a little mad at himself for not considering them. Why hadn’t he considered them?
“Then what do you propose we do?” Jack asks. “Wait? That sucker headbutted me four times! I’m not letting him get away with that!”
“And I’m not suggesting it,” Cynthia replies, a smile creeping onto her face. “I think if we’re being chased by bad guys with guns and we have to go after Victor, we should have something to fight back with.”
Jack smiles. “Ohh, I like you. Mac, whaddya think? Able to make a bazooka out of seat cushions?”
Mac squints. It’s… getting hard to concentrate. Something is definitely wrong with his head. He’s just… not sure what.
Ignoring all the warning signs and check engine lights going off in his head, Mac sweeps his gaze over the crash site. A few things stick out to him. Nothing particularly impressive but… they’ll do. “Maybe not a bazooka,” Mac reasons, “but good enough.”
---
Cynthia has been on some strange missions in the past. She’s worked with oddballs and people that even the oddballs would call strange. And she’ll admit, she’s heard rumors about these two. But Angus MacGyver and Jack Dalton are truly more than even the Phoenix’s resident gossip hounds claim.
“You want me to do what?” Dalton shrieks.
“Find some of that space blanket I cut up.”
“Mac, that chaff has to be scattered for miles! What about my phone? Can you use that instead?”
“As much as I love you offering your phone to me, that's not getting us out of this.”
Dalton looks like he’s about to argue, thinks better of it, and then waves a dismissive hand at MacGyver, storming away to look for fifty needles in a 30-square mile haystack.
If Dalton’s reaction bothers MacGyver, he doesn’t say, digging around in the survival kit, finding a flashlight, and proceeding to tear it apart. He slides the batteries out and considers them quietly.
Cynthia feels the need to be helpful. That’s just who she is as a person. She hates leaving others to do the work. And she especially hates it when the others doing the work are two men she’s never met before, leaving her to be the damsel in distress.
Cynthia is not a damsel. And if she’s in distress, she’ll figure it out. She won’t accept handouts.
In fact, she’s five seconds from asking how she can help when MacGyver looks over at her, makes eye contact for a bit too long, and finally nods at her hands. “Those acrylics?”
Cynthia blinks. She’d hoped for the best. She’d given them the benefit of the doubt. But it turns out Dalton and MacGyver are just like an upsetting percentage of men in this field, stereotyping women, believing that she only wants to talk about fashion and rom-coms. Or, in this case, manicures.
“I’m focused on the mission, thanks,” Cynthia counters.
“Yeah,” MacGyver says, like she’s dumb. “Mission-relevant. Are those acrylic nails?”
Cynthia folds her arms and narrows her eyes. “I don’t see the correlation.”
MacGyver sets the flashlight down and holds out his pocket knife. “I need your nail polish. Are those fake nails you can break off, or do you need something to scrape it off with?”
“I-” Cynthia tips her head, making no move to grab the knife. “Why?”
“It’s easier not to ask,” Dalton calls from somewhere in the brush.
“Jack,” MacGyver says without looking away from Cynthia. “Do you have the shock blanket?”
Dalton grumbles but doesn’t reply.
MacGyver waves the pocket knife a little, like Cynthia can’t see that he’s trying to give it to her. “Nails,” he says. He sets the lens of the flashlight down in front of her. “You can put them on this.”
“You’re being weird. Tell me why first.”
MacGyver sighs, but it’s more for dramatic effect than anything else. He doesn’t look particularly upset. “I’m making smoke bombs. Something to cover out tracks if Victor starts shooting. Nail polish is made of moderately nitrated cellulose. Almost as flammable as gunpowder.”
The pieces aren’t really clicking - honestly, nothing about this interaction has clicked in the slightest - but it seems like MacGyver has some sort of plan, and who is Cynthia to stop this rumored field wizard? She gets to work on her nails, breaking through the glue on her acrylics. For his part, MacGyver collects a variety of pipes and begins sorting through them, trying to slide the batteries through them and then trying to slide the pipes into the flashlight’s now-empty tube.
Finally, MacGyver calls out into the woods. “Jack, you still here?”
As it turns out, he is. In fact, it takes Dalton thirty seconds to return to them. Either he didn’t think the shock blanket blew far (which he clearly knew it did), or he hadn’t been trying particularly hard to find it. “Got a couple pieces,” he reports, handing MacGyver two sad, silver scraps.
“That’s alright,” MacGyver replies, pulling a second shock blanket from the first aid kit.
“You’re joking,” Dalton deadpans. “Dear god, tell me you’re joking. You wanted me to go search the forest all willy-nilly for a couple of pieces of cellophane with a murderer on the loose, and you had a blanket here the whole time? And you knew about it??”
“You were distracting me,” MacGyver explains, slicing through the second blanket with his knife. “I’m… having trouble thinking.”
Almost instantly, Dalton’s indignation turns to cold dread. His face goes white, eyes wide. “Oh, shit,” he mutters. “You really are concussed.” Like he thought MacGyver was kidding or something. Does he really not know what a concussion is?
“That’s how head injuries work,” MacGyver replies simply, taking cut squares from the blanket, placing a couple nails in each, and twisting them shut.
“You know what I mean, Mac,” Dalton persists. “You’re our brain, dude. If you’re all screwy, we’re all screwed.”
MacGyver laughs dryly. “Cute.”
“No, Mac. Not cute. So not cute.”
“Shock blanket’s made of polyethylene terephthalate and coated in polyvinylidine chloride. Mostly impermeable to oxygen.” Mac holds up one of his makeshift smokebombs. “Get it hot enough, the nail polish inside will combust but not be able to catch fire without oxygen. Cue smoke.”
“I’ve got my eye on you, man,” Dalton warns. “One toe outta line, and-”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” MacGyver mutters.
The two seem to have come to some begrudging understanding, even if Cynthia doesn’t understand it at all.
“So what’s with the flashlight?” Dalton asks, pointing at the pipe-flashlight-battery combo in MacGyver’s hands.
“Pipe gun,” MacGyver explains. “Load a battery into the pipe, then ram it into the flashlight. I’ve only got two, though, so make them count.”
Dalton takes the makeshift weapon from him, inspecting it carefully. “Not bad, man. It’ll do.”
“Let’s get moving,” Cynthia suggests. “They’ll find the crash site soon. Best we’re not there when they do.”
The pair agrees, and they start following Victor’s blood trail. MacGyver and Dalton switch back and forth between bickering and easy silence. Cynthia almost feels like she’s intruding. The guys, for all their arguments, seem to work well together. She hates being the odd man out.
“You must’ve earned every merit badge as a kid,” Cynthia says during a quiet period.
“Actually, I was kicked out of the Scouts,” MacGyver replies with a smile.
“I don’t believe that,” Dalton argues, but it’s clear this is a theory of his that he’ll go to his grave believing, even if there’s no evidence.
“I’ve heard rumors about your… unique field skills. Never thought my life would depend on them.”
MacGyver shrugs. “So, no pressure.”
“How long have you been at the Phoenix, anyway?” Dalton asks. “And how many rumors have you heard about me?”
“I’m technically on loan from the CIA,” Cynthia corrects. “But I’ve been working jobs with DXS for ten, eleven years. Flew with the air force for nine years before that. But the Phoenix Rumor Mill is pretty hard to avoid.” She shoves her hands in her pockets. “And I’ve heard plenty about you, Dalton.”
“What does that mean? Is that why they didn’t offer me Director of Operations?”
Cynthia shrugs. “Guess that depends on what really happened in Cairo.”
“No!” Dalton says immediately. “No, we don’t talk about Cairo. That’s one of our rules.” He takes a moment to breathe, frowning. “But, ah… What did you hear about Cairo?”
“I heard you went crazy. Shot fourteen unarmed captives, held the Mogamma hostage, and then ordered the Arab League to surrender or you’d order your snipers to take out the Prime Minister of Lebanon.”
Dalton looks at her blankly. Then absolute devastation tears across his face. “What??? Everyone thinks we’re terrorists???”
“Well… you anyway. They think MacGyver is an escapee from Area 51. Came into the picture after the fact but was put on the mission reports for cover.”
“Yeah, at least you’re human, Jack,” MacGyver says, patting Jack on the shoulder.
“Shut up! People don’t think you’re some freaky evil second-coming of Gröfaz!” He flicks MacGyver’s shoulder. “And anyway, you’re concussed. You don’t know anything.”
“You’re concussed too!”
“Okay, both of you! Shut up! I swear, it’s like the Phoenix is punishing me.” Cynthia is starting to feel like an exhausted mother of six trying to buy cold medicine for the baby before the pharmacy closes. It’s a nice vivid reminder of why she just flies the plane and lets the other details (i.e., people) sort themselves out.
The guys go quiet. She feels a little bad now, harshing their dynamic or whatever the hell they have going, but it’s also nice to hear herself think.
And stranded in the middle of nowhere, Kazakhstan with no way to signal for help and on the run from both a group of armed militants and an angry, three-hundred-pound linebacker of a terrorist, she needs to appreciate every quiet moment she can get.
---
Mac has had better days. He’s had worse days - definitely, definitely worse days - but that doesn’t make today any better. He could complain about a lot of things at the moment, but he’d have to say his biggest concern is the guy shooting at him.
“Let's go,” Mac says, flicking a lighter under a couple smoke bombs, tossing them at Victor, and hiding behind a tree. Jack fires one battery via pipe gun, blowing a hole in Victor’s shoulder. Then the smoke clouds everyone's visions, and Mac darts towards the last spot he saw Victor, easily avoiding blindly fired bullets.
There's a crack, a grunt, and the gunshots stop. “Victor?” Mac asks, as if Victor would identify himself. (Stupid, Mac. You just gave away your position. Your brain is scrambled.)
“He's-” There's another crack, another grunt. “He's out,” Cynthia informs them. “Someone got a zip tie?”
“You know the answer to that,” Jack sighs. “Don't pretend you don't know the answer to that.”
The smoke clears some, revealing Cynthia kneeling on Victor’s back, his hands pinned under her knee. His bruised face is lax, and his shoulder bleeds sluggishly.
“Nice work,” Mac says. “Jack, you still have the seatbelts?”
“Yeah.” Jack slips the seatbelts torn from the helicopter off his shoulder and starts securing them around Victor’s hands and torso.
The world is starting to spin a little. Mac squeezes his eyes shut, trying to remember what it was he was doing. He has a horrible feeling that he’s way too messed up to complete this mission, but he’s not one to quit. Even with the odds against him. (Especially with the odds against him.)
“Mac?”
Mac opens his eyes. Jack has one hand on his shoulder, brows furrowed in concern. Blood trickles down the cut on his forehead. “Dude, you good?”
“I…”
They’re on the ground now. Mac doesn’t remember laying down.
“I knew you were playing tough,” Jack grouses. “How bad is it, really?”
“I don’t…” Mac kneads the skin at his temples. “I think I zoned for a second, s’all.”
“Yeah. Right.” Jack crosses his arms. “You usually pass out when you ‘zone?’”
“Let’s just get out of here,” Mac groans, sitting up. “Pass me the water bottle.”
Jack isn’t convinced. He glares at Mac for a moment before handing the water bottle over. Mac twists it open and checks the phone inside.
“Circuitry might be dry,” Mac hums. He presses the power button and watches the screen do absolutely nothing.
“Dead battery?” Jack suggests.
“Could be.” Mac pulls the battery out and lets it fall to the ground. “Still got that second battery from the flashlight?”
Jack hands it off. Then Mac looks at Cynthia. “Can you cut the zippers off your flight suit?”
Cynthia frowns, but she’s seen enough to trust him this time. She takes the offered pocket knife and starts cutting away.
Once she’s done, Mac connects the ends of the battery to the phone using the zippers. For a long moment, the phone does nothing. Mac almost flops on his back and screams, because he is so sick of this stupid forest and this dumb phone and his damn headache and-
“It’s working!” Jack shouts way too loudly. “Mac, it’s on!”
Spurred on by hope and hope alone, Mac starts typing on the satphone’s tiny keypad like wild. He just needs to send a signal out, give them a location.
“Did you do it?” Jack asks. “Did it work?”
“Better hope so,” Mac replies.
“Boys, we’ve got company!” Cynthia stays in position, Jack’s reclaimed gun still aimed at Victor’s head, but her eyes keep darting out at the clearing. The truck with Victor’s friends has found them, and a guy with a bazooka is staring at them from the hatch in the roof.
“We gotta get out of here,” Jack says, pulling Mac up so quickly that Mac nearly loses his balance, grabbing Jack’s shirt at the last second. “C’mon, man,” Jack says, slinging Mac’s arm over his shoulder.
“No,” Mac insists. “We sent our location here. They’ll come looking for us here.”
“Great load of help that’ll be if we’re dead,” Jack hisses. “Forget about it. We can signal them again-”
“Guys!” Cynthia is pointing up at a flight of six helicopters in the sky, one dropping an explosive beside the truck, flipping it.
“Oh, thank god,” Jack sighs.
“So,” Mac asks, doing his best to stay standing with the roaring of helicopter blades making his brain feel like mush. “Bet you really wish the Phoenix offered you that cushy job now.”
“Nah,” Jack decides. “We’re in this together, man. You know that. I mean, who else is gonna haul your ass to the med bay?”
Mac feels the blood drain from his face. “It’s not that bad. We don’t have to-”
“Yeah. We have to. Now don’t complain or I’ll sic Matty the Hun on you.”
“Jack, there’s no way she’s that bad.”
“Matty the Hun,” Jack insists. “Not Matty Sunshine, okay?”
Mac sighs and lets Jack help him to the rescue copter. “Sure, Jack. Whatever you say.”