Disclaimer: from this chapter onwards, it is my continuation of the series, I do not own the characters, or the idea of this fic. I also do not own some of the dialogue of this chapter as it comes verbatim from the pilot episode of MacGyver which is owned by MacGyver's owners and the writers of the episode

Chapter Six

MacGyver followed Spencer and heard Gant asking how she was holding up. He answered, "She likes my name, what more can I ask for?"

As they walked through they came to a pile of chocolate bars that must have come from an exploded vending machine, Mac knelt down and started to pick some up. Jack asked 'Why are you doing that - you're not hungry?" Knowing that they weren't, Spencer asked the same thing and mentioned the odds. Mac answered, "I know what the odds are, I just thought we could store up on a little energy before we moved on." In an aside to Jack, he murmured, "You never know when you might need something."

Barbara was surprised, as the doors were meant to close in an emergency. Unfortunately, the doors started to close. Jack's military training took over and with a sorry to Mac, he took control. He pulled Spencer with him and then pushing her, just managed to get through the doors all the way to the end rather than being trapped between the doors in the airlock. Having just gotten them both through, Jack allowed Mac to regain control, knowing that with Spencer looking out the windows, she would not notice anything strange.

Hearing her gasp, Mac walked towards the window to see what it was that Spencer had seen. It was not a pretty picture; a dangerous gas had obviously been released as there were clouds of almost mist and bodies that had obviously fallen down where they had been. With no chance to even try to escape, it had obviously happened before anyone could realise it was happening. What a waste of life, and a tragic one at that.

Mac and Spencer heard that Colson and the others were trying to fix the airlock circuits, but they blew and they had no idea what gas had escaped in the lab. Mac realised that there had to be vacuum pumps for the lab and if he could get them working than they could both get through. Unfortunately, as Gant had mentioned, trying to get to the pumps would mean going through the gas, as they were on the other side of the lab to where they were. But as Mac said, "The gas would start seeping in here pretty soon."

Mac told Barbara to go through the lab without stopping. He took off their outer shirts and ripped it in two, so that they could put it over their mouths to stop as much gas from getting through as possible. It probably wouldn't kill him and Jack, he would just have to do a lot of work to save them. Bu it would definitely kill Spencer.

Jack was being quiet. He knew that they would need a lot of luck to get both them and Spencer through this, but to keep Barbara alive she would have to trust them. If they kept switching, that might make that harder for her and as she was risking her life for Carl Steubens that would be a horrible thing. Like Mac, he didn't like lives to be wasted. He just thought that sometimes you didn't have a choice .

Jack respected and honoured loyalty more than anything, and Spencer had proved she had tons of it. Spencer wanted to thank Mac just in case it didn't work and kissed him on the cheek. Mac replied with a "You bet" and in an aside to Jack said "You're going to have to take over now. It's quite a way down to the lab and we'll have to help her get down as quickly as possible". Jack knew that this was the case and was glad that with all the experience that the two had they could do this seamlessly. With Spencer concentrating hopefully she would not notice any difference with the man she was talking to a minute ago as the switch over would only be for a short time.

Making sure that Spencer had tied the covering over her face tightly and splitting his so he could wrap part of it round his fist, he shattered the window, cleared it of the glass as quickly as he could and got out to the next bar. He got near a ladder down to the floor and turned round to help Spencer who unfortunately was wearing heels. Jack got them down to the floor as quickly and safely as possible.

Once down there, Spencer took off out of the lab. Jack and Mac switched. Mac went to the switches to get the pumps working and switched them on. They appeared to be working.

Mac headed to the exit where he managed to open it. The exit was more like a hole cover than a door so that he and Spencer could get out of there as Barbara was waiting there due to not being able to open the exit herself. Unfortunately, while doing this, the two way mike fell off Jack's belt. Neither Jack nor Mac realised it until they were on the other side of the lab exit and it had closed over. Mac knew they didn't have time to attempt to open the door again as it looked harder to open from outside the lab. They were running out of time to get to Doctors Marlowe and Steubens as it was.

Mac realised that they also had to find the acid leak, as they couldn't let it keep leaking. They would have to cauterise the area with the missile anyway, which would cause damage to the environment as well as the animals and people who used the water, (it came from the same water table that the acid was leaking into). Both Mac and Jack agreed that the acid leak had to be stopped first. Marlowe and Steubens has survived so far and if they had to get the emergency services down to the men, it would be easier and safer if the leak was stopped. Not to mention, it would be likely that they would only let someone else down.

After the leak was stopped, Mac said to Jack, "After we've stopped the leak and got to Marlowe and Steubens, then we can figure out how to contact the control room". Jack agreed just as Spencer said, "They don't know where we are now". Both Mac and Jack thought THAT was obvious given the situation but maybe she was just worried about both them and the other two men that were stuck down here.

Spencer showed Mac the way to the tanks. Mac warning her to be careful where she stepped due to the acid. Spencer found the leak, but when Mac came to look, he saw that the explosion had cracked the foundation as well, which was how the acid was running into the ground. Spencer did not know how to fix it, or if they could. Mac however answered with a, "We might be able to whip up a Band-Aid". Jack did not know what Mac was going on about and asked him, "What are you going to do?" Mac ignored him temporarily as he knew that he would have to explain it to Spencer and Jack would hear the explanation as well, which would mean he wouldn't have to say it twice. Mac asked Spencer if she could balance on top of his shoulders to get close and stop the sulphuric acid leak. Spencer did not know how he meant to stop it, and so Mac held up the chocolate bars and said "With these".

Jack interrupted him in his mind with, "So that's why you wanted to stop and pick up the chocolate bars!" Mac silently admitted that truth and continued to explain it to both Spencer and Jack. "To you they are milk chocolate. To Sulphuric acid, it's lactose and sucrose, C12H22O11 and disaccharides. The acid will react with the sugars to form an elemental carbon and a thick gummy residue. It should be enough to clog up that rupture, temporarily at least".

All through this explanation Spencer was looking confused but then a light seemed to switch on as she understood the remedy Mac was proposing. Jack however had a question: "Temporarily? You mean it's not going to be properly fixed?".

Mac answered, "We don't have the tools or the time to fix it completely. This band-aid fix will give us enough time and safety to get to Marlowe and Steubens , get them out and enable the staff in the control room to sort out a permanent fix". Jack agreed that getting everyone out of there took priority as he always thought, but now he knew that Mac was also thinking long term about the permanent fixing of the situation.

After the explanation Spencer and Mac went to work fixing the leak Spencer making sure the bar melted on the acid not her hand, and both of them making sure they didn't touch the acid themselves.

After fixing it , Spencer and Mac took off quickly to get to Steubens' lab for the two scientists. However when they got to the entranceway, they all realised that whatever had caused the explosion had also caused the material to cave in to a point and block the way in to the lab. Mac said that they would just have to create a doorway and Spencer went to the lab intercom in order to communicate with the scientists. Mac and Jack decided to switch places as Jack had experience with making explosions, and he wanted to help with the situation as he couldn't help with the acid. Mac was understanding and agreeable about it.

Jack went to explore at the damage to the area where he needed to open an entrance way. He saw something, knelt down and took a closer look at It. Smelling it, he confirmed both his and Mac's suspicions. Jack said "Plastique. A bomb" aloud and in his head, he said in an aside to Mac. "So we were right - it was deliberate".

Mac answered, "Yes. I know we would have both preferred to be wrong. They had to have wanted Marlowe and Steubens to have been basically at the epicentre of the explosion. No one but the people at Sendrex knew Marlowe was coming, and he was coming at the request of Steubens as they were both the only experts in the fields. It had to be an inside job, and the only one that it could have been is Steubens. For some reason, he wanted both of them to die. Surprisingly, seeing as how they are old friends."

Jack answered, "If you're right about your theory, which you probably are, then it's the only one which makes a certain amount of sense. If Steubens wanted to die, we can't let Spencer go in. She knows Steubens too well and he's technically already got one hostage, we don't need to give him any more."

Mac agreed. They got through to both of them and told them to make some shelter as he was going to blow an opening. Jack and Mac got a plan together and with Spencer's help, got sodium metal and a cold capsule to put it into as well as a glass container with a stopper in to contain the blast. Jack was grateful that his years with MacGyver had helped him learn how to do this. He did it with only minimal input from Mac using his own experience as well as Mac's knowledge , including enabling him to explain it to Spencer. Jack got Spencer to agree to stay there where she was, saying it was a favour.

After the explosion Mac and Jack switched back, thinking that Mac might be the better person to try and deal with the situation. When he got into the room and Mac sent Marlowe to the intercom to try and get ahold of someone, Steubens pulled out a gun and told Marlowe to not go to the intercom.

Unfortunately, Spencer chose then to come in. Mac explained what had happened, or his own theory to it, which Steubens admitted to.

He said in explanation, "They wanted it to become a weapon. I've spent my whole life to stop suffering." Spencer realising what he meant by weapon and said, "Chain reactions in the ozone". MacGyver finished the explanation with "Without the ozone layer, the sun's ultraviolet rays would kill everything on earth. I think Carl here discovered the key to make the ozone layer self-destruct, didn't you Carl?"

Steubens agreed, replying with, "The ultimate Doomsday weapon… I couldn't give them that. I still can't. Sidney, we're the only ones who can stop this."

Steubens was about to fire at Marlowe. Mac shoved him out of the way, but Spencer reacted yelling, "No! " She rushed at Steubens and got shot.

Mac disarmed Steubens and ran to help Spencer, who was in pain. Mac tried to help, saying they'd get her out of there. Spencer didn't believe they had the time. She said, "You're a lousy liar, MacGyver. We're out of time and they don't even know we're down here, do they? " Mac said: "There has to be some way to contact the surface".

Spencer replied, "You did everything in your power Mac". This gave Mac the idea to use the power switches he had seen earlier while stopping the acid leak. He decided to use the lights to send a Morse code message to the surface and took off to do that. This luckily stopped the missile launch just in time.

When it was over and they were all safely at the surface, Jack said to Mac after they said goodbye to Spencer, "So he wanted to do the right thing, but went the wrong way about it".

Mac answered "If he had just talked to Marlowe, maybe they would have been able to do something about it without the needless loss of life, injury and damage. Well, now he'll just have to think about what he did in prison, as I don't think Sendrex will let this go".

That afternoon, back at their home, Jack and Reggie were playing a basketball championship in the living room, much to Mac's amusement. Reggie won. Both of them finished the day thinking that while it was a bad situation at least they had been able to be around in order to help and managed to make it so that the death toll wasn't as high as it could have ben. As Jack mused before falling asleep, at least some good had come of Jack and Mac having to fake his own death.