This just may be one of my favourites - so far - and please note I did say one of them. Your take on the Foundation's history fitted so perfectly I had to go back and watch a few episodes to make sure it wasn't part of the original concept! Good stuff. Your opening gambit was surreally vivid and beautifully handled. I particularly liked your pacing, tighter, plenty of movement with your dialogue lively, demonstrating your knack for wit. I think you could say I liked it - alot. :-)

What a great read! A thoroughly engaging and entertaining story, dripping with sensory detail and the gems of great research. Your characters are beautifully rounded and interesting, dialogue lively and 'realistic'. Great, great effort. Thanks for the good times. Cheers

OH WOW!
Have just read this story all in one go and all I can say is 'What an amazing discovery'! I haven't found many decent MacGyver stories on here but having found this gem my faith in treasure hunting is restored. Absolutely loved it! the OC's were believable, the cannon characters were in and the storyline well thought out and inventive enough without gettng complicated and falling over itself to explain.
Thank you so much for sharing and I hope to read more of your work.

Hey Bethy

I haven't heard from you for a while -- I guess this is what you've been up to :) Nice addition to a great story. You've got the history of that wild shirt and his career as a 'troubleshooter' woven in. Plus that whole hot tub thing, but I won't go there right now...

Nice work! Keep it up!

hm. i did enjoy this story. just fulfilling ny responsibilities here!
db

"Jocelyn looked desperately at Pete and Ruth. 'Please, make him stop.'" lots and lots of fanfics; that's where it leads.

"You know, Ruth, I never thought of you as a collector." some collect stamps, others people . . . .

"We'll just call it, 'troubleshooting'." why not? he's going to be doing it anyway.

gratefully (yet again),
db

very last-scene-of-Hamlet there. does that make Ruth, Fortinbras?

and the next chapter will have *explanations*, yes? please?

thank you for such a luxuriantly long (the more Mac the better!), intricately plotted story.

gratefully,
db

"If he had a little more ambition, he might grow up to be a con artist." linguists must get a special class in effective insults!

"You smell like a chemical incinerator, but that's got to be an improvement over all this." um, that cat is going to go to a good home when all this is over, isn't it? after all, Mac owes him/her!

rohypnol, black magic, and now the KGB. Mama said there'd be days like this.

and the trouble is, Bryce is (presumeably) an American. so the KGB agent isn't even wrong!

very suspenseful ending!
db

. . . or getting help from outside works too.

nice to see Arvil's contempt for capitalist lackeys come back and bite him. he never expected Samarin to make a distinction between "getting lots of money for research" and "getting lots of money for letting someone die".

"This place is evil -- it has to die." uh, okay. playing with a full deck, for sure.

i love seeing Mac's technical expertise at work. it's rather like watching Sherlock Holmes; you know you're not going to catch the right clues, so you just sit back and wait for the master's solution.

gratefully,
db

a-a-and . . . Arvil *fails* at Evil Overlordship!

your stories always tie in so well with real life and real politics. i'm thinking particularly of the gas attack . . . .

wait, the old man plays with computers and his son doesn't? doesn't that violate some kind of universal law? (says the pre-computer-age relict.)

"You are used to solving your problems with your fists, yes?" it's not the things you don't know that will get you; it's the things you do know that aren't so.

"this is not a properly controlled experiment, and i will not be taking detailed notes." aww, take my last comfort away from me.

thank you for a great chapter!
db

". . . wicked developers to terrorize" very good establishment of the era. and Mac's gypsy expertise is great. also Baba's backstory, so simply told, for so much history.

"Mac, what's wrong?" "Nothing, i've got a cat attacking my hand is all." it's all fun and games until somebody gets scratched!

Mac does a great job facing down Peterson too. marvelous character.

best wishes,
db

hot tub, naked, with women. aggressive women. poor Mac!

my favorite exchange in here was the critique of Mac's tofu casserole (which he never got any of!) -- too long to quote, but i appreciated motorcycle grease as a condiment, and rudimentary mythology as a food taboo.

at least he got to play again. and *not* turn the instruments into Rube Goldberg contraptions.

"What did you do, punch someone out?" 'Well, yes, but he deserved it.' so nice that Mac knows when not to speak up.

"Don't tell me you've never done anything crazy in your life." Um, since yesterday?

wonderful chapter. i love seeing Mac as the Minnesotan-out-of-water (or is that -winter?).

gratefully,
db

i've been grinning for several minutes about, "looking like the Brawny papertowel guy". [and Jason calls the oven dish a casserole, not Mac; he's still free to call it hotpot if he likes!] i lived in the Bay Area around that time, so can affirm that the cultural notes ["War Is Not Healthy For Children and Other Living Things" -- why didn't i notice when those stopped being ubiquitous?) are very accurate. i also love the way Mac stops feeling like an outsider the minute he's given a problem to solve . . . .

still a great story, and i'm glad i didn't review the first time as i have an excuse to read it twice,
db

"Pete, am i that predictable?" why, yes.

the respective situations of both Mac and Pete make it very obvious who's going to win Pete's bet with Ruth. i love MacGyver's musing on the distances from his balcony.

wonderful story!
db

very many favorite lines in this chapter. one is: "The last time we found you head-down in the mainfraime, you came out swearing that the entire thing would be obsolete in ten year's time. Do *please* tell me you're feeling less apocalyptical today." also, "even tho' my French was bad and my shoes were ugly." you also fit in the Phoenix backstory very nicely in Mac's voiceover . . . and Ruth's in his dialogue.

wishing you all the best,
db