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This was nice. Very nice. A relaxing day spent on Mac’s sofa with her rig and a big mug of coffee. Granted, Riley had to wrangle it from the monstrosity their resident genius had turned the coffee maker into, but it tasted great and nothing had exploded.
Riley was sipping from the mug, watching the code on her monitor and checking for flaws. She really couldn’t understand why Jack and Bozer had made such a big deal out of this. Well, Jack was a huge mother hen, so with him it might have been expected. But Boze?
She softly shook her head.
Mac had broken his collarbone and a few ribs on the last mission. He was on painkillers and full, stay-at-home-and-recuperate medical leave for at least another week and the team had set up a rotation to keep an eye on him. It was Riley’s first time on Mac-watch and so far it had been the easiest job she’d ever done. She actually found the peace and quiet quite relaxing. Jack and Bozer had both separately from the other left her with hand-written rules and instructions, but really! The boys were seriously paranoid.
Mac had slept in a drug-assisted haze for the first few hours and when he’d shuffled into the living room, all he’d done was get a snack and curl up on the other end of the sofa to read some advanced physics text. Sure, she’d had to pointedly remind him of his sling, but the blonde had conceded after minimal arguing. He’d fetched the sling and a pack of ping pong balls for some reason from the bedroom and with the textbook he’d been reading had made his way out to the deck.
Riley set down her mug on a coaster to free up her hands to adjust a few lines of codes. Of course, she hoped that everyone remained whole and healthy, but she had to admit this was a nice break from their regular fast paced, dangerous day-to-day. No bad guys hunting them. No shooting-
A loud bang shattered the tranquil afternoon. Reflexes honed in both training and the field caused her to immediately drop and take cover between sofa and coffee table.
“What the hell?!”
The sound had been loud and sudden, but unlike any gun or explosion she’d heard. And by now she sadly had experience with both. Whatever it had been, it wasn’t repeating and it had come from outside. Outside. Where Mac had gone.
“Oh shit!”
Scrambling from the floor, Riley sprinted for the deck, praying that Mac would be okay. That nothing had happened to her friend.
“Please be okay.”
Why had she let him out of her sight? Why had she disregarded the others’ warnings and paranoia? She’d never forgive herself if something had happened to Mac on her watch. And, god! Jack would never forgive her, either.
She wrenched the door open, almost careening into the door jamb and rushed through. Only to stop in her tracks when she took in the scene.
Mac was upright and moving as freely as he had since his release from medical. There was no visible blood, fire or scorch marks. So, that was good. What was worrying was the thin, about 6 foot long PVC pipe Mac had set up with a small compressor or something connected to it. The pack of ping pong balls was open on one of the deck chairs and Mac was fumbling with something that looked like saran wrap.
Okay. No major injuries or property damage. She could handle this.
“Mac?”
The blonde looked up at her call, blond hair dishevelled and blue eyes slightly glazed.
“Oh. Hey, Riles. Sorry for the noise.”
She refrained from saying that it was fine, unsure yet if it actually was. Instead she settled on a cautious “What are you doing?”
“Hm?” Mac frowned at her for a moment before looking down at his contraption. “Oh. I’m testing a theory.”
That wasn’t helpful at all. Carefully, Riley risked stepping closer.
“Okay. What theory?”
Mac plucked one of the small plastic balls off the chair and offered it to her.
“That it’s possible to accelerate ping pong balls to supersonic speed using a vacuum.”
Riley met his excited, slightly loopy smile with an uncertain one of her own. What was she supposed to say to that?
“There’s a, uh, debate in the”, Mac waved at the textbook on the table that had been joined by a couple magazines, “the community. Some claim they achieved well over 760 mph, so supersonic, but there’s a mathematical analysis that states that’s impossible. And since I’m on house arrest-”
“Medical leave”, Riley corrected automatically.
“And I have nothing better to do, I figured, why not test it myself?”
There were so many reasons. So many good, valid reasons this was a horrible idea. Mac had basically built a ping pong ball gun on his deck. The very idea was a bit terrifying.
On the other hand, though…
“How does this work exactly?”
It did sound like more fun than working on her code. Mac’s grin was infectious as he started explaining.
—-----------------------
Jack wasn’t worried. Justifiably concerned, maybe. But not worried. Worry implied there was something to be worried about. Which there wasn’t. There were many completely harmless possible explanations why Riley and Mac weren’t answering his texts or calls. So he wasn’t worried.
He was simply driving over to check on them. And ask what the hell they’d done with their phones. Mac he could understand, to a degree. Painkillers always made that genius brain foggy and his partner tended to leave his stuff all over the place. He very likely had simply misplaced his phone. But Riley? She would never leave hers lying about. Especially with Mac roaming around, destroyer of phones that he was.
Jack was sure they were fine. They had to be. Please, let them be okay.
His grip on the steering wheel tightened. So what, if he disregarded a few traffic laws?
After what felt like an eternity the house finally came into view. It was still standing. Which, yeah, of course it was. Mac’s neighbors were used to loud and concerning noises coming from the mad genius living next door, but if something big had happened, Jack was reasonably certain someone would call 911. Probably.
He parked his baby haphazardly in the driveway and quickly got out. Nothing obvious stood out to him, but that didn’t mean nothing bad had happened. Worst case scenarios spooked through his mind, but he forced himself to be calm. Just check the house. Everything was going to be okay.
Jack was a few steps from the front door when a loud bang echoed through the otherwise quiet neighborhood. He instinctively ducked, rapidly taking in his surroundings. That wasn’t any kind of gun he knew. And Jack knew a lot of guns. It also hadn’t been an explosion, something he was also very familiar with by now. So. Something home-built.
“Mac!”
He lunged the distance to the door, rushed in and quickly cleared the rooms before finding his targets on the deck, both leaning over a long pipe with some kind of compressor connected to it mounted on the wooden table usually used for eating outside. On a chair nearby sat a bag of ping pong balls.
“That better not be what I think it is!”
Both kids looked up at him in surprise and Jack made a mental note to up their vigilance training once the full team was back at work.
“Jack!” Mac seemed excited to see him, blue eyes bright under the lingering haze of prescription painkillers.
Riley on the other hand looked distinctly guilty, like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Jack held her gaze with a raised brow, communicating very clearly that this was not what he meant when he’d tasked her with watching over Mac.
“Jack, we did it! We got supersonic velocity!” Mac’s voice was giddy and while the lines around his eyes betrayed the pain he was still in, at least he was wearing his sling for once.
Then the words registered and Jack marched across the deck to his two troublemakers.
“Supersonic what?!” The small white balls on the chair caught his eye again. “Please, tell me you didn’t build a ping pong ball gun while high on pain meds.” He turned to Riley. “And you let him.”
His clever, level-headed, reasonable girl shrugged with a sheepish smile. “It’s just ping pong balls.”
“Supersonic ping pong balls, Ri. You could have gotten hurt.” Jack was getting too old for this.
“You’ve seen me build far worse, Jack.” Mac was swaying slightly where he stood and Jack narrowed his eyes at him.
To be fair, he’d not only seen Mac build worse, he’d actively helped him. And he could admit to himself that he was just a bit curious to see how this ping pong ball launcher worked. But only under adult supervision. And only after he had made sure that his kids were really okay.
“Right. You”, he gestured at his partner. “Sit down before you fall down.” Then he turned to Riley. “When’s he had his last dose of meds?”
The kids looked at each other, a silent communication happening in twitched brows and narrowing eyes before they apparently decided to listen to reason for now. Mac plonked himself down into a chair and Riley headed towards the house, presumably to fetch the painkillers.
“Grab us something to drink, honey, okay?”
She threw him a quick grin over her shoulder before disappearing into the house.
Jack pulled over another chair and sat down next to his partner, offering him a slow smile.
“Now. How does this thing work?”