Mac's New Partner
"Please state the nature of your medical emergency." The doctor appeared a few feet behind Steve Holmes and spooked him.
Steve spun around and ran a hand through his red hair. "Geez, you spooked me. Could you not do that?"
"I'm an EMH. I do not spook. Unless I talked in a spooky voice. Wooh, wooh, please, state the nature of your medical emergency, wooh." The doctor tried on a ghostly voice.
Steve raised an eye-brow.
"You're right. It doesn't work." The doctor spoke in his own voice again. "Please, state the nature of your medical emergency."
"Well, it's uh ..."
"And could you get on with it. I haven't got all day."
The sudden outburst of the usually mild-mannered doctor spooked Steve again, and he quickly stated his business. "It's my partner. Ever since we went into this fic ... it was horrific. MacGyver went into a convenience store and bought some champagne. She just snapped. All she does now is sit in a corner, her hands around her knees rocking back and forth, mumbling anti-alcohol slogans."
"And what do you think caused this state of shock?"
"MacGyver and alcohol?" Steve asked as if it was self-evident.
To the Doctor it apparently wasn't. He had to ask. "So?"
"MacGyver doesn't drink alcohol. Ever. Shouldn't you know this? You're a computer program. Don't you carry all knowledge of all canon in your memory banks."
The Doctor looked hurt. "I don't, but since you were kind enough to point out my deficiency I will see to it that it gets sorted out immediately. EMH out."
"Woah, woah, wait up. What about my partner?"
"She's in shock. There's not much I can do about that. She has to snap out of it on her own. You can leave her here and I will regularly check her vital signs. If you'll excuse me now; I have to update my memory banks."
The Doctor disappeared leaving Steve alone in the medical bay. Well, not entirely alone: his partner, Tessa, sat on the floor near one of the exam beds rocking slowly back and forth muttering "don't drink and drive. Don't drink and drive."
Steve sighed. "Bye Tessa. I'll miss you." He turned around and walked away, back to his response center.
-oOo-
Steve put the large cardboard box in the middle of the room and started packing up the things that belonged to his partner. His former partner. There was a 65% risk that a PPC agent snapped on the job, and the ones that did never recovered. He should put in an application for a new partner, although he didn't seriously want to risk the life of another human being going Sue hunting in MacGyver. He thought back what it had done to Tessa, and she was a seasoned agent. He shuddered.
There was a knock on the door. Steve looked around. A young woman, dirty blond, medium height, stood in the door and give him a challenging look.
"You Steve Holmes?"
"Yeah?"
"Agent Allison. I specialize in 80s TV-series, apparently. I'm your new partner."
"Already? I just dropped my old one off at the medical bay."
"I guess Upstairs is getting more efficient."
"I'd say."
"No, you don't. They were just looking for a place to off-load me. Your partner going bonkers was a godsend to them." Allison came in. "Why is your office baby-blue?"
"That's the color Tessa painted it. She thought it would be more pleasant than the usual gray scheme."
"Smart thinking." Allison flopped down on the sofa. "Good sofa."
"Uh, thanks. Uh, if you're gonna be my new partner, aren't traveling kind of light?" Steve had noted that Allison had not been carrying any luggage. "Or is all your stuff coming in later?"
"I don't intend to stay."
"Then why are you here?"
"A little misunderstanding over some intimacies with canon." Allison waved it away. She folded her hands together behind her head and leaned back.
Steve nodded knowingly. Intimacies with canon were rarely a misunderstanding. It usually meant the PPC-agent had stopped lusting after a canon character from afar. The usually course of action was to remove the agent from the fandom -- often by force -- and putting them on a brain washer course, also known as the No Drool Videos. He considered Allison lucky that she could remember why she was removed from her fandom. He said as much to Allison.
She frowned at him. "With personnel shortages the way they are? Don't believe everything you hear in the cafeteria. The food sometimes makes people hallucinate." She sat up and scooted over. "No, they just send you to a different fandom where they think you can't do any damage." Allison chuckled. "Guess they don't know me very well." She stretched out on the sofa and got comfortable.
The console saw this as its cue to let out a loud beep. Allison immediately flew to her feet and stood to attention. Steve raised an eye-brow.
"Well, they do make you repeat Basic Training until you cry." Allison tried to shake off the military rigidness and get a more loose stance. "What have we got?"
Steve walked over to the console and tapped a few keys. "A new partner for Mac."
"What a coincidence: you get a new partner and so does he."
Steve grinned and opened up a portal to the Phoenix Foundation building where Pete Thornton had his office.
-oOo-
The two Protectors of the Plot Continuum agents sat down on the desk of Pete's secretary. The secretary herself was missing, but instead on her chair stood a loudspeaker. Steve frowned at it at first, but figured it would explain the disembodied secretary's voice halfway down the first page. He turned around and joined Allison in sitting with crossed arms and a scowl. MacGyver walked passed them without taking notice.
He had a mullet of blond hair and a smile that would make a woman’s heart melt.
Steve glanced to his right at his partner who stoically stared past him at the door to Pete's office. She didn't ignore him for long.
"Don't look at me like that." She tried to shrug off his stare. "I'm not going to jump MacGyver. Not unless I had a pair of scissors to cut off that mullet."
"Okay, keep partner away from scissors." Steve made a mental note. Despite her overt hostility he decided to try and get to know his partner a little better. It would still be a while before the Sue showed up. "So, that accent of yours, is it real?"
"Why would I talk with a fake accent?"
"We're in MacGyver and you sound like Murdoc. I was just wondering."
"You were wondering about whether there was actually more than one British person in the World?" Allison squinted an eye and gave her partner a good look. "Well, I've got news for you: I've got Murdoc's accent, and I also have got his temper."
"Not really something I wanted to know about my new partner."
Allison just smiled wickedly and turned her attention to the Words.
Pete was just informing MacGyver on his new partner when the woman in question appeared from thin air before the door of Pete's office and knocked. Both agents dove behind the desk and peered over it cautiously hoping she hadn't spotted them. She appeared not to have noticed. Pete invited her to come in.
The door opened and in stepped a short brunette, standing about 5'8".
"Five eight is not short!" Allison exclaimed the moment the door closed behind the woman.
"Little sensitive about your own lack of height?" Steve asked.
Allison glared at him. "I'm not short."
"Uh-huh."
"At least I'm an inch and a half taller than the average North-American woman. You are only an inch taller than the average North-American man. Relatively speaking I am taller than you are."
Steve opened and closed his mouth. The indisputable logic of statistics always left him dumb founded.
“It’s Pete. Leslie Kendall, I presume?”
“Yes, sir. I’m here for the interview over the troubleshooter position.”
"Oh, this's gotta be good," Steve said. "In job interviews they always ask after the strong points and the points that need improvement. I wonder what a Sue thinks are her points of improvement."
“Yes,” said Pete. “Judging from your resume and qualifications, you seem fit for the job. Can you work well under pressure and think fast?”
"Troubleshooters need the same qualifications as PPC agents," Allison noted.
"Well, we're troubleshooters too," Steve replied with a wicked grin. "Literally."
“You pass the field certification tests next week, you get the job. On behalf of the Phoenix Foundation, I unofficially welcome you aboard.” He smiled as he and Leslie shook hands.
"That's it? He asks her one question and she gets hired?"
"She still has to pass the field test."
Allison glared at her partner.
"Which she will pass," he hasted to add. "But you're right. My job interview for the PPC was longer."
"You had a job interview? I always thought that they had lifted me off my bed in the middle of the night and thrown me into Basic Training."
Steve chuckled at that image and returned his attention to the Words. The Words to the story they had entered a few minutes earlier lit up paragraph by paragraph in the distance, only visible to non-story entities, such as PPC agents. The Sue spoke:
"Oh, would it be alright for me to use your phone? I need to call myself a cab.”
“Be my guest,” said Pete as he handed her the receiver. “By the way, where do you live if you don’t mind me asking?”
"Is it customary in the US to apply for jobs and not to put a home address on your letter? Where would they send the rejection letter?"
"I can think of a whole bunch of reasons she wouldn't put her home address: she has a post office box; she applied by phone; she ... Okay, I can only think of two reasons."
Allison patted her partner on his shoulder. "You got two. I think that's a very good start. I'm very proud of you. Three more missions and you will be annoying the socks off of your partner with constantly rationalizing fics." She chuckled when Steve glared at her, and got up.
It turned out the Sue lived near the marina and Mac offered her a ride.
MacGyver reached into his pocket, pulled out his keys, tossed them in the air, and caught them. “Alright then, let’s go.”
"Hold tight!" Steve threw himself across the desk.
"What?" Allison turned around to ask him. The next moment she got knocked in the back of the head by a tree. "Oh that." It quickly dawned on her that she had arrived at MacGyver Land via a short cut, a so called time rift, and that, once again, she would have the bruises to show for it. "Don't you have an FLF?" she shouted at Steve the moment he stepped through the portal.
"A what?"
"A Fic Location Follower. It has a setting that you don't get hit in the head by a tree when an author forgets to use a scene break."
"Never heard of it." Steve shrugged and shook his head.
"I'm in MacGyver and I don't have any nifty gadgets. What's wrong with that?"
"I have a gum wrapper, a paper clip and some lint in my pocket, you could probably make your own FLF. After all, this is MacGyver."
Allison jumped for her partner's throat and knocked him over. They rolled over the under turf, both struggling to get on top. After four minutes Steve finally managed to pin Allison down.
"Look at the Words," he panted out of breath from the struggle. He tried to wipe the sweat of his forehead on his sleeve without letting go of Allison.
The Sue and Mac were evaluating her field tests.
“Actually,” said MacGyver after swallowing a mouthful of spaghetti, “you’ve done better than most of the men who’ve endured this place. Even me.”
The agents looked at each other.
"Sue." They said in unison.
Steve scrambled up and extended a hand to Allison. She got to her feet, but Steve immediately pinned her to a tree.
"What?" She tried to push him away. She stopped when she noticed the world starting to spin around her: another time rift.
"Throw in some duct tape and a light bulb and I'll give make-shifting my own FLF a try," she said pushing Steve away once the world had come to a stop. "And don't think I didn't notice you trying to cop a feel."
"Sorry, it was stronger than me." Steve brushed some leaves from his hair from their earlier struggle and readjusted the leather case he carried as a backpack.
"Where abouts in the story are we?" It was dark and Allison had trouble finding the characters.
"It's night," Steve said.
Allison closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. She never would have thought she would end up in a partnership where she would be the smart one.
"The Sue's asleep and Mac is having improper thoughts about her." Steve turned Allison's head towards the Words.
MacGyver kept staring at her from his bed. Not only was she beautiful, she had the will to do anything she wanted. But was he really developing feelings for her? Even if he was, should he open up to her? No. He couldn’t. He had lost so many girlfriends over the years that he wasn’t sure he could bear to lose another. No, instead, he’d love her from afar. Where she wouldn’t get hurt. It hurt MacGyver to do this, but he had to, he thought.
"Forgoing for a moment that he is having rather strong feelings about a woman he has known all but five hours what makes him think he can protect her by loving her from afar?"
"Who knows what goes through a man's mind once a Sue starts messing with it," Steve replied. "Shouldn't you know this? I thought you were an experienced agent. Or do you only have experience in Basic Training?"
"Careful what you say there. Any method that can take out a Sue can take out a partner."
Steve gulped and quickly changed the subject. "So, MacGyver afraid of commitment, do you believe it?"
"I have no thoughts on the matter."
"I don't. Well, I don't believe he's afraid of commitment because so many people died on him. I think he doesn't want to commit because he gets all these beautiful women thrown his way. I wouldn't want to commit to any one woman if I had Mac's fine selection, would you?"
"If beautiful women were thrown my way I'd duck. And now that I mention ducking, shouldn't we be moving on?"
"Oh, yeah, right." Steve retrieved the remote activator and opened up a portal.
-oOo-
MacGyver and the Sue were called into Pete's office. Allison and Steve sat down on the desk again, and followed the conversation in the office via the Words.
“There’s been an incident in Paris. Several shipments of chemical products have been reported missing for the last five days alone. Since then, seventeen deaths have been reported.”
“Seventeen deaths in five days?” asked Leslie. “But why? And with what?”
"I would be asking the same if in a town like Paris only seventeen people had died in five days. What had kept the rest of them alive?" Steve asked.
"Perhaps he means Paris, Texas. In which case seventeen deaths in a week is a very high death toll."
"Of course he means Paris, France. A Sue wouldn't pass up an opportunity to go to romantic Paris, France, with MacGyver."
"What makes you think Paris, Texas isn't romantic?"
"I've lived there."
Thus ending their discussion the agents returned to reading the Words. Pete explained why the Phoenix Foundation was called in for assistance:
"The police believe that perhaps the stolen chemicals may have been used to kill those seventeen people. All of them are either police officers or members of their families."
"Seventeen dead police officers in five days would have disrupted public life in the whole of France," Allison said. "I think this Sue has no sense of perspective."
"Does a Sue ever?"
"That's a rhetorical question, isn't it?"
Steve frowned lightly at his partner. "I think we should move on already if we don't want to get caught in another time rift."
"That's another rhetorical question, isn't it?" Allison got up and followed Steve through the portal.
-oOo-
"Where are we?" Allison shivered and rubbed her arms. There was a cold wind and she was just wearing a T-shirt.
"Airport."
"This is not what an airport looks like." Allison said. "Airports have roofs, and walls, and baggage claims and other passengers." As she spoke a roof appeared over their heads, walls were erected around them, a baggage claim carousel started its run a few yards away and people gathered around it to reclaim their luggage. Steve looked around in amazement. "They are not a slab of concrete in a muddy field." Gone were all the props.
"What did you just do? First you create an airport and then you take it away. What kind of sadist are you?"
"It's not that I'm actually enjoying this, you know."
"How did you do it any way?"
"If an author neglects to mention something we have to make it up ourselves. And this one didn't bother to look up at which airport one would arrive at if one flew from the US to Paris. It's probably Charles de Gaulle. So, we can have at least a roof over our heads." The roof, glass walls and tiled floors returned. "For as long as it lasts."
Steve frowned at that comment, then he quickly followed Allison following Mac and the Sue.
Mac and the Sue soon met up with two French police officers. Allison and Steve watched them from a safe distance. Canon characters are not able to see PPC agents, original characters, however, are. PPC agents are well advised to stay out of OCs' ways until they have gathered up enough charges, or things could turn nasty.
“I’m Officer Bon,” said the older cop in a French accent. “This is my partner Officer Leer. You must be ze two agents from ze Phoenix Foundation.”
"Oh, please." Allison rolled her eyes. "What's wrong with that bit of dialogue?"
"Uh? The French accent is not consistent? It should have been: Zis is my partner?" Steve tried.
"What's wrong is that French people don't speak English, ever. They don't speak English to Brits and they most certainly don't speak English to Americans. I think they're still a little sore we had to come in and save their collective bums in '44."
"So, they'd rather be speaking German?"
"If the Nazis had ever tried to pass that as a law the occupation of France had ended three days later. French people speak French."
"Actually, so does MacGyver."
"Yes, we could have been spared this mangling of the English language to make a point."
"Any idea what types of chemicals were taken.”
Bon answered, “Ze chemicals taken are used in making cosmetics. But other than that, we have absolutely no leads on ze killers.”
"Of course they have any idea." Allison balled her fists. "The French are bloody bureaucrats. The criminals probably had to submit their plans to steal the chemicals in three fold."
"What I don't get is why these criminals would first go through the trouble of stealing chemicals, and then devising some way to kill people with that. Wouldn't a drive-by shooting just be easier?"
"Of course it would be. But you don't call in MacGyver to sort out a drive-by shooting."
"True." Steve nodded. "This Sue has at least some idea of what kind of thing gets Mac's attention."
Allison gave her partner an odd look and then started cleaning out her ears. She thought she might have heard wrong.
"Unless we can find ze killers and fast, we may have to postpone ze policeman’s ball Friday night.”
"Yet, she shows no grasp of how the French would respond to such a situation." Allison used Steve's shirt sleeve to clean her fingers on. He stepped away from her and gave her a disgusted look. "Let's consider for a moment that the seventeen deaths had not caused the French to declare a state of alert of some sort. Then the policemen's ball would have been canceled out of consideration for the victims and their families."
"Mac's in shock it's still going on too." Steve nodded at the face Mac was making. "Though it seems he's worried about even more victims."
“Policeman’s ball?” asked MacGyver. “You mean, all the city’s cops and families would be there, under one roof?” Bon and Leer nodded.
“Just their wives or dates, actually,” said Leer.
Allison blinked. "Apparently the French Police does not employ female officers who are married. My knowledge of French Police particularities is not large enough to know whether to slap a citation for sexism on the Sue or on the French."
"Just slap it on the Sue to be on the safe side," Steve suggested. "Unless the police does employ married women, but none of them bought any tickets because they want to spend the night with their kids, or they all had duty that night, or all the married women are married to women."
"The French are not that liberal."
“We know that Thornton arranged to reserve a hotel for you. This is ze address. Unpack your things and meet us at ze station in two hours.”
"I do know one thing about the French, though, aside from everything I had mentioned already: if they are courteous enough to meet you at the airport, they are courteous enough to take you to your hotel. They already had to get out of the way to come to the airport."
"We charge the Sue with not portraying the French very well. Do you suppose she had an ulterior motive?"
"An ulterior motive? The Sue didn't do research. What could be ulterior about that?"
"Maybe the Sue just wanted to portray the French as inconsiderate dumb-asses?"
Allison snorted. "That doesn't require a lot of fabricating. While these two go find their luggage, I charge the Sue with allowing two cops past customs, could you open the portal to their hotel?"
"Sure."
-oOo-
The hotel was as non-descript as the airport had been. It didn't take the agents long to find Mac and the Sue as all the walls were transparent.
The two Phoenix employees shared a room together.
"Why?" Allison wailed. "Is budget so tight that Phoenix couldn't even spring for two rooms any more? Surely, if the French ask for their help they can send the French the bill?"
"At least there are two beds."
"Okay,
let's get one thing straight about rationalizing fics." Allison grabbed
Steve by the collar of his shirt and forced him to stoop down till
their noses were nearly touching. "I've been
falsely accused and removed from my favorite fandom. I had to spend
two months in Basic Training, and was forced to watch the No Drool
Videos. I have a very short fuse. Do not put a lighter near it." She
let go off him.
He straightened out his collar and rubbed his neck. "Are you sure you are fit for this job?" Steve asked a little worried. He had already lost one partner, having to deliver a second one at sick bay a few days later was not a nice future outlook.
"I can string two coherent sentences together. That means I'm fit for the job."
Steve nodded. He made a mental note to write a memo to personnel about more rigid testing of field agents. For everyone's safety.
While the Sue did some chemical tests on cosmetics she had bought, and Allison banged her head against a wall mumbling about French bureaucrats who write up what chemicals go missing and people with PhDs in chemistry who should know how to read those documents, Steve watched Mac make a phone call to Pete and asked him to cross reference all the French police officers with imprisoned mob bosses. Undoubtedly Pete's contacts in the DXS had kept better tabs on the French police than the French police themselves. Steve also wanted to start banging his head against one of the transparent walls. Instead he decided to pull his partner away from the wall before she got herself seriously hurt.
Once MacGyver hung up the phone, Leslie looked over her shoulder with a smirk. “I take it he’s cranky when woken up like that?”
“Yeah.” MacGyver returned the smirk. “Look, I’m gonna go get something to eat. Does pizza sound alright?”
"And this is why the French hate Americans," Allison said with a smirk. She delicately rubbed the sore spot on her forehead. "I'm a little peckish myself. When do we eat?"
Steve scanned the Words. "There may be some food at that policemen's ball."
"I can't wait for that."
"You could try to imagine this hotel has a kitchen."
"Good idea."
"I was only joking."
"Too late."
A little bell announced that the elevator had arrived. A waiter came out pushing a trolley. He stopped before the two agents and lifted the lid revealing a plate of food.
"Steak au poivre."
Allison started to mouth water. She grinned widely.
"I don't think so," Steve said.
The waiter and the food disappeared. Allison gave Steve an evil glare.
"We have work to do," he said matter-of-factly.
"I work better on a full stomach."
"You should have thought of that before we left." Steve said. He threw Allison a cautious look and fumbled for the remote activator. He opened up a portal before Allison could jump for his throat again.
-oOo-
In his haste to get a portal open Steve had forward too far into the story, as Allison pointed out with pleasure, they had missed out on the part where Mac and the Sue left their hotel room via the balcony because poison gas was coming into their room through the ventilation system. Steve replied they could go back and investigate whether it was actually possible to only pump gas into one room through a central ventilation system.
"Never mind. I see an opportunity to put this one to bed early."
As MacGyver was being questioned by some officers, Leslie stood a short distance away and waited.
Allison walked up to her. "Excusez, Mademoiselle Kendall? Voulez vous suivre notre." Allison tried to address the Sue in her best secondary school French.
"Excuse me?" the Sue replied in a strong Southern twang.
"Ah, follow us, please. We'd like to ask you some questions." Allison tried on a French accent.
Allison lead the Sue to a side room and pointed her to a chair she could sit. She held the door open so Steve could get in too.
"It's eerie how much you sound like Murdoc," he whispered in her ear in passing.
"Right." Allison closed the door. The Sue gave her a surprised look due to the sudden change in accent. "Leslie Kendall, we are gathered here today to charge you."
"Charge me?"
"Steve, read her her charges."
"Me? I thought you were writing her up."
"Have you seen me hold a pencil?"
"Have you seen me hold a pencil?" Steve echoed.
"Could anyone tell me what's going on here?"
Allison turned around. She gave the Sue her best, yet most disconcerting smile. "We're Protectors of the Plot Continuum. We go into stories and sort out the bad elements. And you," she pointed at the Sue, "are a bad element."
"A bad element? What do you mean?" The Sue's eyes darted from one agent to the other. She looked frightened. Just the way the agents liked it.
"A bad element because you have a one question job interview with Pete; a bad element because you live near the marina so MacGyver can give you a ride home; a bad element because MacGyver quickly develops deep feelings for you which he is afraid to explore."
"MacGyver isn't afraid of commitment," Steve added. "And even if he was, you are not going to be the one to cure him of it."
"Don't get ahead of yourself, Steve, there are still some charges to list. Let's see." Allison ran down her mental check list. "Further we charge you with MacGyver admitting that you did better in MacGyver Land than he did. Do you even know why it is called MacGyver Land? We charge you with bad guys that make no sense. We charge you with not knowing anything about the French or how things are done in France. We charge you with suggesting that the French police is not an equal opportunities employer. We charge you with sleeping in the same room as MacGyver; as if the Phoenix Foundation couldn't spring for two rooms. We charge you with going for take-out pizza when staying at a hotel. In short, we charge you with being a Mary Sue. Any last words?"
"Last words?" The Sue looked anxiously at Steve who was preparing a crossbow.
"Last words, anything you want us to remember you by. Though, I should remind you that we don't want to remember you."
"I -- I don't understand. I ... ow."
The Sue didn't finish what she was saying. Steve had shot a poisoned arrow in her shoulder. The poison quickly took effect and the Sue sagged in her seat. Steve walked over and pulled the arrow from her shoulder. He cleaned it and returned it to the quiver in the side pocket of his cargo pants. He handed Allison the remote activator before he picked up the Sue and slung her over his shoulder.
"Those were words I'd like to remember." He grinned at Allison. "Time for the incinerator."
Allison opened a portal.