Wunderkind

1.12-Screwdriver

ONE OF THE MOST DANGEROUS PLACES IN THE WORLD

AKA JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE OFFICE

Mac crouches in the dark hallway of the military compound Jack's been captured inside for a over six hours. He'll be okay. He has to be. Riley's on her way to the center of the compound, to get the intel they came here for, and Mac's job is to get Jack out.

It was supposed to be break into the cell, snatch Jack and run. But by the time Mac got here, he could hear another voice inside the cell. This isn't going to be as easy as he was hoping. He has a plan but it's pretty flimsy and relies on something from the grocery store, and the random stuff he got his hands on in the tiny office area he snuck into...

He's afraid of messing up. This is his first time back in the field for real since Bishop, and Riley leaving him alone to do this is tying his stomach in knots. What if I screw up and get Jack killed? He's not even a real agent, he's just a technical consultant. Thornton changed his status to make her cover-up for what he did to save Bozer believable, but really nothing's different. He doesn't have Jack or even Riley's level of training and skill. He's just a kid running around playing with matches. He's going to get someone killed.

"So tell me, Agent Dalton, what did you come here for?"

"You." Jack's words are slurred, he's either concussed or drugged, possibly both. And he's in there with the boss. Mac takes a deep breath, tries to settle his racing heartbeat. You can do this. Jack is counting on you.

"Well, it looks like all you've managed to do is let me catch you. " There's a creak, like a chair shifting. "Who do you work for?"

"The Phoenix Foundation. Little covert operation, under the cover of a think tank, right in Los Angeles in the great US of A." Jack suddenly begins humming and then launches into a horrible rendition of "We're an American Band".

There's a sharp smack. "Focus. Tell me who you work with."

"I gotta great team. They're family," Jack slurs. "There's my partner Riley, an' she's smart an' badass. She's a real firecracker. Wipe your existence off the face of the earth in three keystrokes. An' I'd die for her, man. She's my daughter. Like not real daughter, but closest I'm prolly gonna ever get." He chuckles. "An' my boss, Patricia, but I call her Patty an' she says she hates it but I think she's gettin' used to it. She's got no chill, though, man, seriously. She didn't laugh when I called her Peppermint Patty. You oughta be sorry what you did pissed her off. And there's the goofy hamburger kid too." Even drugged out of his mind he jokes about my name. Wonderful. "He's fun. Likes thing that go "K-bshhh"," and Mac can only visualize Jack with a frown and pursed lips and hands wiggling to mime an explosion. "But man, I love the little guy. He's my kid too." Mac tries to ignore the sudden warmth in his chest and focus on the mission.

He hears a punch thrown. "Stop rambling, tell me where they are!"

Jack's probably actually going to. So he has to get this plan moving.

"Somewhere in here, man..." He needs to move fast, get this guy before he raises an alarm and sends anyone searching for Riley. Mac steps up beside the door and jiggles the handle, then jumps out of the way as three bullets tear through the wood. He makes a fake gasp of pain and then dumps the canister of liquid from his backpack onto the ground, letting the mixture of red pen ink and chocolate syrup that he and Bozer used to use for fake blood in his movies run under the door.

The door opens, and almost before he sees who's in it Mac's swinging a punch. The guy goes down, and Mac quickly grabs him and ties his hands behind his back with zipties. He has to admit these things are effective, he's totally adding them to the list of things he consistently keeps in his pockets.