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“Ya ever miss the beach?”
“Honestly can’t remember the last time I was at the beach.”
“All this that’s goin on is makin me never wanna set foot on one again. Not to mention sharks.”
“I hardly think being trapped in a sandstorm constitutes for hatred to a beach or sharks.”
It had been a first for both of them. It had come upon them abruptly, and Mac had attributed the suddenness to a flash flood. The storm had started off as a mere cloud in the distance, and had been slowly moving towards them until they became trapped in the Humvee with sand swishing and swirling outside.
Currently, Mac and Jack were sitting in the Humvee in the middle of the desert, in the middle of a sandstorm that didn’t seem like it would be letting up anytime soon.
“I think it’s perfectly rational. Haven’t ya ever heard of Sharknado? It’s a tornado, but with sharks. What we got right now is basically a giant sand tornado. Can you imagine what would happen if sharks were added to it?”
“They’d die because they don’t breathe oxygen like we do. But if you want to skip that, they’d be shredded alive because of the air speed velocity of the sand, then die of exposure.”
“Why you gotta ruin the imaginary scenario that’ll never happen? Just let the fantasy be, man.” Jack huffed.
Mac shrugged. “Sorry, I just tend to believe more in science than fantasy.”
That made Jack snort. “Yeah, that’s rich comin from the guy that believes Santa’s real.”
“I’ve told you the science behind it before; taking in to account the rotation of the earth, traveling against that rotation, measuring in all the different time zones—”
“Yeah I’m gonna stop ya right there because ya got like— selective believin or somethin. I mean come on, you believe in flyin reindeer but not a shark tornado? And no, I don’t want yer weird sciency explanation of it.”
They’d been sitting for maybe half an hour. Jack had tried to check in with the base but the sand had kept interfering with the signal, making any hope for a response null and void.
Theoretically they could’ve kept driving, all of their things still worked fine, but the reason they and several other off roster teams were sent out was because there’d been reports of several insurgent trucks spotted, assumed to be laying IEDs wherever they pleased. And no one would put it passed them to follow any army vehicle and place IEDs on their return path. Mac had assured Jack that it was more than likely any insurgent knew of the oncoming storm and were going to take advantage of it.
Any IED placed would be buried after a few seconds, and thanks to the storm it would look natural and would be extremely difficult to tell, even more so if they couldn’t even see past the front of the Humvee. All in all, they were stuck for the unforeseeable future.
“Ya ever see Transformers? The Michael Bay ones, not the cartoon.”
Mac snorted, picking at an MRE. “Yeah, only the first one though. I got in trouble with the dean at MIT for trying to recreate the all-spark; ended up causing a citywide blackout.”
Jack snorted. “Course ya did. Ya remember when those NEST guys were walkin through the desert and they get attacked by that scorpion thing? Ya think that could happen to us out here?”
“Sorry to burst your bubble Jack, but I don’t think any robot alien life forms have—”
A crack cut Mac off. Him and Jack immediately tried to get out of the way of the windows and into the footwells, waiting for any other pops or sounds to indicate what happened.
“You hit?”
“I don’t think so. You?”
“All good man.”
Another crack sounded but that time, glass rained down on Mac’s seat. His window had been broken.
“Ya think someone’s takin shots at us? How the hell would they even be able to see?”
Mac’s eyes settled on a rock on his seat amongst the broken glass and let out a relieved sigh. “I think Mother Nature is out to get us.”
“That a rock?” Jack picked it up. “How fast the wind gotta be to pick that guy up and toss him through the window?”
“You really want me to to figure out the airspeed velocity of that rock?”
“Good point.”
Mac brushed the glass best he could off the seat before getting back on it, then reached behind for his pack, pulling out a thing of tape for a temporary fix of the window. Jack had also gotten back in his seat and tried to radio the base again, but there was still nothing but heavy static.
They ended up sitting for half an hour longer before it started to let up, and then another ten minutes before they were able to see through the windows enough to begin a trek back.
“Ya think the radio tower got knocked down since we still can’t get a hold of anyone?” Jack had been driving slow, dust and sand still plenty thick.
“It’s possible.” Mac had been staring out the front, eyes in a squint, trying to decipher any abnormal dirt mounds. “It was coming from the east, so it could’ve either started further down before the base, or been in the middle of us and it and scrambled the lines. Either way I don’t think we’d be able to get any answer until it’s fully dissipated.”
“Any way to tell when that’ll be?”
“Most sandstorms don’t last more than an hour and we were already sitting for that long. So maybe another half hour until everything settles?”
They’d been moving slowly, Jack barely even pressing the gas. The worst thing about it was even when all the sand and dust had settled and they could see clearly, they’d still have to maintain basically the same speed. Mac had been trying the radio every few minutes, hearing slight chatter over the static but still not enough for a strong signal. The only somewhat good news was there hadn’t seemed to be any IEDs on their way back.
“Hey ya think Martinez will be mad bout the window?”
It was as though Mac lost his voice in trying to answer. He wanted to joke with Jack, but he saw something. It wasn’t exactly on the ground or covered by anything. It was like a tumbleweed. No matter the visibility, Mac knew bright colored wires when he saw them. He only wished his brain would’ve transmitted the words he needed to tell Jack to stop.
Instead, the mess of wires had gone under the Humvee, and a second later the whole thing was on its right side.
Mac definitely blacked out. For how long, he didn’t know. As he awoke, the world was tilted. Glass and dirt and whatever supplies that were in the vehicle were littered over him. He blinked away any dust that was in his eyes, hissing slightly as he attempted to move from where he had been laying. His arm didn’t feel broken, at least, and he could feel his legs and move his toes, so no spinal injury.
And then he looked to Jack.
He was out, hanging limply from where his seatbelt kept him. He didn’t answer when Mac called, nor made any sort of movement to indicate he was heard at all.
Not good. Definitely not good.
Mac unbuckled his seatbelt, finally free to fully lay on the door and catch his breath for a moment before maneuvering his legs and attempting to kick out the front windshield. It took a few hefty ones but it had shattered enough for Mac to crawl out and get his bearings before attempting to free Jack.
Once he made sure nothing was broken, he crawled back in to assess how to get Jack down. The only thing holding him in place was the seatbelt. Getting that off would cause him to fall and that’s where it was a bit tricky. He didn’t know how injured Jack was. The explosion was from his front wheel.
There wasn’t really anything to use as a padding he could just fall on, so Mac used the next best thing; himself.
He situated himself best he could so he would take the bulk of Jack’s weight on his shoulders, then undid the seatbelt. Mac buckled slightly but was able to press against the seat and more or less have Jack slide to the ground. He then carefully pulled him out and propped him against the top, somewhat grateful that it could shield them from what was left of the dying wind.
Mac couldn’t see any visible dangerous injuries, only a few superficial scratches on his face. It was extremely worrying that he hadn’t woken up yet. Normally Mac would be able to go through a mental list about what happened, but he was just sitting next to Jack in a quiet panic. His breathing and heart rate seemed normal, but he wouldn’t give any signs of waking whenever Mac tried to rouse him. He had to convince himself Jack was alright for the moment and figure out how to get the back to base.
He got up and rounded the vehicle, searching for what caused the whole thing. He didn’t exactly know what he was looking at when he found it; bits and pieces of wire attached to what was once a detonator, unbelievably still somewhat tangled in part of a tumbleweed— except it wasn’t. Singed and bent metal, whatever it was was man made, and Mac and Jack were just the unlucky two to run into it.
He went back and into the overturned vehicle to try the radio, which had miraculously survived, but it was still static at best. Maybe the tower had been knocked over, and if it hadn’t, they were way past when they normally checked in. Hopefully someone would notice.
So Mac sat back down next to Jack, hissing slightly as he put pressure on his arm. It was probably a fracture at least. His mind had been wandering. They weren’t that far from base; somewhere between ten and twenty klicks. He could probably make it there and bring help back, but the thought of Jack suddenly waking while he was gone didn’t bring any green flags. Then it went to Jack being more injured than Mac thought, Jack having internal injuries, Jack having internal bleeding, Jack having a spinal injury—
“I don’t think you’d believe it, but I wasn’t all that popular at MIT.” Mac never really liked silence. It was something he’d grown up with and left his mind free to wander. “You call me Mr. Smartguy, but there— I was just another guy. MIT is a smart person place, so pretty much every guy was Mr. Smartguy. It was pretty much how it was here; I was the outcast because I got in at sixteen and had weird procedures and ways of doing things.”
Maybe that was how Jack felt, and why he was always telling Mac stories about his childhood.
“I had my own dorm room because of how young I was and it was usually just as messy as my room in my grandpa’s house. I had a lab partner named Frankie. She teased me about being young but didn’t seem to care about how I did things because it was a new perspective and gave her ideas on how to further work on projects.”
Visibility had cleared a significant amount, so Mac tried the radio once more. He gave approximate coordinates and their current situation, but still only received static back.
“Through her I met Sandra and Ben, and from then we usually hung out and did projects together. It was during a study break that we pirated Transformers and that I got the idea to recreate the allspark. It wasn’t even for any specific reason, I just wanted to see if I could do it. Thinking back, trying to recreate an alien artifact from a movie out of kitchen appliances parts and a GameCube wasn’t exactly a Smartguy move. I got into the electrical room, plugged in, everything kinda sparked, and then the power went out. I’d apparently overloaded the thing because of how many power supplies I had hooked onto the GameCube, which didn’t make sense because the thing was already powering so much, I figured my little thing wouldn’t be anything in comparison.
“I had the nearly the whole board in my dorm after to discuss what I did because they were convinced I was trying to sabotage the school because no one as smart as I was would try something so stupid. Later I was called to the dean’s office because I hadn’t only blacked out the school, but the whole city. No one really knew how that actually happened though. My machine wasn’t that powerful. It wasn’t ever announced that it was me that did it but people knew. Not too long after that, I dropped out and joined the army and now I’m here.”
Stuck in the desert in an inoperable vehicle, an unconscious partner, and a useless radio.
“I don’t think I’d change it though, everything that played a part up to this moment. Yeah, there were some amazing times before I joined, and shitty times after, but I can’t picture doing anything else. If I stayed then I’d have graduated and gone back to LA and done— I don’t know, probably work in some lab. That just doesn’t seem like something I’d want to do. Being out here, physically helping people, it just seems like a better use of my time.”
Jack hadn’t moved. His breathing and pulse were still the same, so Mac took it in good faith that he didn’t have any internal bleeding.
“So I’m going to try my best to get you out of this mess like you’ve done countless times for me.”
Mac went for the radio once more, but stopped as he heard something, a distant whirl and chop of helicopter blades. A weight had been lifted from his shoulders. The only thing that would be better is if Jack made any sign of waking.
He stood, looking towards the sky to see a Pave Hawk coming in their direction, and huffed out a laugh. Maybe it was their dumb luck that got them saved. Mac couldn’t think of any other way that base would know they needed help.
Mac had stood at the front of the Humvee when they had touched down. He gave them a brief overview of what happened and how long Jack had been out.
Everything after seeing Jack get carried into the helicopter was a blur. He had gotten loaded in and everything seemed to meld into a ball of bright lights and loud sounds. He hadn’t even realized they were in the air. He could hear people talking, maybe some of it was aimed at him, but he couldn’t bother trying to stay awake after everything, and proceeded to pass out.
***
There was a cold on his head. It was the first thing he noticed as consciousness returned to him. Next that he was laying down on a cot, when he should’ve been sitting in a Humvee, waiting for a sandstorm to pass. Bits and pieces of what happened after that.
And then the distinct lack of a skinny blond kid who had been in the vehicle with him.
Jack took the cold pack from his head and tried to put himself so he was sitting up, and was cruelly rewarded with a stinging sensation from his shoulder and all out ache on his chest.
“Nice to see you awake Sergeant.” Jack turned to see Lead Doctor Roe looking at him. “Been out for hours since they brought you in.”
“What happened?”
“Got yourself a concussion and some bruised ribs when your car took a turn over an IED.”
Jack scrunched his eyes before blinking. “What about Mac?”
“All the guys said that’d be something you’d ask.” Roe snorted. “Your tech got it worse than you but he’s alright. Bruised to high hell like you but he also sustained a fractured humerus. He woke up about two hours ago.”
“Why ain’t he here if his arm’s broke?”
“I don’t think I need to explain to you of all people how stubborn he is. He got his arm taken care of then insisted he talk to Martinez about what happened, even said he’d come back when he was done.”
“But it’s been two hours and reports don’t take that long.” Jack hummed, pushing himself up and setting his feet on the ground.
“I figure you’re just as stubborn as he is so I won’t bother wasting my breath in another speech of staying here.” Roe got a bottle of pills and handed them to Jack. “Two for him, one for you every eight hours unless the pain gets too bad, then you can take two. If anything gets worse for either of you, come back so I can adjust.”
“Yer a lifesaver Doc.”
“I’ll excuse your bad pun since you have a concussion.”
***
Jack had walked out of the med tent, keen on finding Mac and asking him what happened. He didn’t head to the COs simply because he wasn’t in the right mindset for a debrief, and he knew Mac wouldn’t be there.
A few other guys had talked to him, saying it was good to see him up and about, to which Jack thanked them and said it was good to be up then kept on his search for Mac. He nearly ran into someone while rounding a corner, to which the man said He’s in your barracks Dalton, and kept on his way.
It was kind of funny, how everyone pretty much knew how close Jack and Mac had gotten in the time they’d been paired. They were made fun of the first few weeks after Jack’s last sixty-four days, because their literal first meeting started with a fight. Now if either of them got injured, the other went seemed to go ballistic with worry.
Charlie told him once, while they were working together, he hadn’t seen Mac that relaxed in the whole time he’d known him, and that both of them had a special sort of look if either were injured.
“Mac not doing too well?”
“How’d you hear he’s bad sick? He ain’t even tell me. I had to find him pretty much half dead in the bunks because he refuses to ask for help.”
“I haven’t heard anything. You got a face, one that usually says something wrong with Mac. He’s got one for you too. Pretty funny if you think about it.”
Apparently everyone in their unit knew, except for the both of them. It didn’t bother Jack; people knowing meant they’d stay out of his way.
A thing Jack had noticed was people clearing out an area during certain situations. He had half a mind to laugh when the two other guys in their quarters pretty much vanished as soon as he got there.
Mac had honestly looked pathetic. He was laying on Jack’s bottom bunk with his right arm in a sling and his left draped over his eyes. He didn’t even look like he’d changed.
“Ya know, it ain’t nice to lie to the doc bout goin back to see him after the report.”
Mac took a heavy breath in, almost as if he had been startled awake. He took his arm from his eyes and squinted at Jack. “Hey. How’re you feeling?”
“A lot better than you look, that’s for sure. Ya shoulda just stayed in med if ya felt that bad. Hell with the report. Martinez could wait til either of us were coherent.”
“I wanted to get it done so we wouldn’t have to worry about it… and I was planning to go back, but I guess I kinda lost track. I came in here to change and sat down but just got real tired. I only planned to sit for a few minutes, I promise.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “I guess you passin out here is better than face plantin out there. What’d ya tell big man bout what happened?”
Mac slightly shrugged his working arm. “I missed an IED and let you drive over it.”
“I may not be trained like you, but I can a hundred percent tell ya that ain’t what happened.”
“What did happen then? Because I’m pretty sure that I saw it but didn’t tell you in time and almost got you killed because of it.”
“We were in a sandstorm. Ain’t no way you could’ve caught every little thing ya thought was an IED.”
“I didn’t think it was, I saw the wires rolling around with everything else.”
Jack raised a brow. “So, lemme get this straight, you saw an IED rollin around in a goddamn sandstorm—”
“I’m sorry, okay? I know I really screwed up so if you want to transfer—”
“Whoa whoa whoa, back up. None of that was yer fault. We got trapped by Mother Nature and just happened across a new thing no one had any idea about. I ain’t mad about anythin that happened. Hell, I might not be alive if you weren’t there, so how could I be mad at ya for savin my life? Seems real stupid from my standpoint. And don’t ya even think about arguin with me because I know damn well that even though ya seem it, ya ain’t all knowin. Yer allowed to make mistakes. Now lemme hear ya say it.”
Mac raised a brow. “Say what?”
“It wasn’t yer fault.”
“Jack—”
“Nuh uh. You always do the same to me when our places are swapped. Now say it.”
Mac stared at him for a moment before sighing. “It wasn’t my fault.”
“One more time, with feelin.” Jack smirked, making Mac roll his eyes. “I know doc said yer good, but ya musta got a concussion too, seein as ya forgot my condition of reenlistin was bein yer watch.”
“Yeah well…”
“How’d we get back anyways? You use yer nerd powers to build us a new radio?”
“No, apparently our receiver was damaged. We couldn’t hear any responses but base could hear us fine. I just kept radioing and they sent a chopper out after the winds died down. Oh, one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Martinez definitely didn’t care about the window.”