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    Wish I had a bazooka, Joe thought, as he and Michelle huddled against a boulder.  Bullets whistled inches overhead and spranged! off the front of the boulder.  They'd been running and hiding for hours, ever since they'd blown the power generators in the Biosphere "Lung"--alerting the guardforce of Matthews that there was trouble coming in from the outside.  He'd long ago lost track of the number of guards they'd killed--somehow in the smoke and dust and adrenaline, numbers didn't mean as much to him as they once had.  Progress was no longer measured in dead bodies left behind, but in minutes passing and inches gained.

    Right now they were pinned-down, just outside the landscaped grass, by two or three Matthews ensconced in the Human Habitat dome, which was about six stories above them.  A bazooka would have been a nice goodie to have right now.  Either that, or an RPG launcher.  Or a tank.  Joe wasn't about to get picky.

    Michelle lay next to him.  She'd discarded her crossbow sometime during the early morning hours, just as the thick plexiglass walls of the Biosphere caught the first rays of the sun and reflected them back into her eyes.  Now she brandished a rifle that was twin to Joe's and, although she didn't use it with the same practiced ease that he demonstrated, she had managed to do her share of the fighting.  This one's for Rick! she thought, as she squeezed-off a shot at the top of the Habitat dome.  It wasn't enough.  They couldn't move with those goons in the tower sniping at them, and it was only a matter of time until they were captured.  Unless--

    The plans had shown a ladder attached to the outside of the Habitat tower.  Joe couldn't make the climb, but if he provided covering fire while she sprinted for the Habitat, then maybe--just maybe--she could climb the ladder and take care of the Matthews who were pinning them down.  It was a long shot, but she didn't think they had much choice.

    Come one, Rick, my darling!  We need your help!  But it had to be at least seven o'clock now, and there'd been no sign of her lover, or of Adam Pierson.  She turned to Joe, grim determination in her green eyes.  So much for Research, she thought--now I'm definitely in Field Ops--more than I ever wanted to be.  If this was the end, then so be it.  She would go down fighting.  She would show them how wrong they'd been to judge her as weak, just because she was a Researcher--and just because she was a woman.

    It was time to go.

*****

    "Team Four to Team Eight.  Come in, Team Eight."

    "Team Eight here.  Go ahead, Ernie."

    "The generators in the Lung are history, Mark.  I mean they're freakin' gone, pal.  It'd take us days to rebuild 'em.  And I found Bill and Pat here.  They're dead."

    "Shit.  Phil and Marcus're dead, too.  And Leroy's got a bullet in his leg.  He needs a doctor--bad.  What the hell are we gonna do, Ernie?"

    "I dunno 'bout you, pal--but I am outta here.  Whoever these guys are, they've got guns 'n' they know how to use 'em.  I say we grab whatever cash is 'round here and skedaddle until whatever's happenin' is over 'n' done with."

    "But what about Cristos?  What about everything we've worked for over the past year?"

    "Cristos is a no-show, pal.  They prob'ly grabbed him the same time they blew the Lung.  I'm not stayin' around to wait for him--you got that?"

    "Yeah, I understand.  See you in the next war, pal.  Team Eight signing-off."

    "That's affirm.  Better luck next time, then.  Team Four signing-off."

*****

    Rick was ready as their home-made landmine blew, and before the gas tank went up he was at the door, wrenching it open and dragging Cristos' limp body out into the morning sunlight.  Blood ran down Cristos' face, and his neck canted at a weird angle.  He was dead.  But as an immortal, he would revive in a few minutes--and within an hour he'd be fully healed.  If they gave him that long.

    "What do I do about the Matthews?" he asked Methos.  "The driver looks gone, but these other three look like a good doctor might be able to save 'em.  You want I should grab 'em, too?"

    "Leave them," Methos answered.  His voice was flat.  "We have neither the time to give them first-aid nor the field supplies to bind their wounds.  And even if they pulled through on their own--you and I aren't going to be able to watch them.  We've got to deal with Cristos and get up to the dome to help out Dawson and Michelle."

    Rick sighed.  Methos was right, but that didn't make it any easier.  They had to get back up to the dome, where other folks were undoubtedly dying at this very moment.  The three Matthews were insignificant pawns, easy to sacrifice in this game of life and death.  War really is hell, he thought.  Wonder if Mac ever had to make decisions like this one?  Somehow, Rick was pretty sure that Mac had made decisions just like this one--and the consequences had marked the Highlander for the rest of his life.  He wondered if he was going to end up like Mac, whose four hundred years' of decision-making had made him both wiser and sadder.

    Pushing those thoughts aside, he dragged Cristos body up to a nearby boulder, letting the head rest in the rock's shadow.  The fire in the limousine continued to burn, while he and Methos hunched down to await Cristos' revival.  They didn't have very long to wait.

    In a way, it was fascinating to watch the immortal's body heal itself.  The basic process took less than ten minutes.  First the blood stopped flowing from the head wound, and the neck seemed to straighten-up of its own accord.  There was a small pause, and then Cristos' chest moved, taking deep into itself the breath of life.  The breath of life sounded more like a gasp.  Cristos was alive.

    Rick and Methos both felt it at the same moment.  The feeling of presence inside and around them, as Cristos rejoined the land of the living.  Cristos moaned.  He'd felt it, too.

    Rick noticed that Methos had his sword out.  It was a bronze Ivanhoe with a beautiful jeweled hilt, and it looked every bit as deadly as did his own, a Charles III rapier that Methos had loaned him after he'd lost his El Cid to Cristos in Seacouver.  Had it only been six weeks ago that he'd confronted this con man?  Those days seemed to belong to a different lifetime.  Well, it was all coming to an end, now--wasn't it?

    Cristos' eyes opened, and he moaned again.  The pain is good for you pal!  Rick thought.  It means you're among the living.  He noticed that Cristos' eyes weren't the brilliant turquoise blue that he'd seen in Seacouver.  Now they were hazel.  Must have been contacts.  Wonder what other surprises Mr. Cristos has to tell us about.

    "Ommph--what happened?" Cristos said.  "Are the others okay?"  He sat up, using the boulder as a backrest.  He wiped some of the now-drying blood away from his eyes, and looked around.  He couldn't have liked what he saw.  The limo was burning, sending up a cloud of black smoke.  His guards were not in sight.  Two other immortals, swords drawn, looked back at him with unfriendly faces and doom-filled eyes.

    Cristos smiled.  "Well, one of you is Ryan--or should I say, Ryback?  The other I don't know.  I don't suppose you'd give me some water, would you--before you take my head?  I presume that's what this is about, right?"

    Methos looked down at the man.  Was there really anything to say?  Good versus evil.  Mortal versus immortal.  Life versus death.  Whatever.  Those were just words people used to describe concepts they didn't really understand.  Forget the rationalizations.  Forget the speeches.  Talking was only going to prolong this little drama and slow them down from completing the other half of their task--rescuing MacLeod and the others.  He should just push Ryan out of the way and take Cristos' head.  This false shaman had made his bid for The Prize, and he had been stopped.  That's it.  The end.  Finis.  Do it now.

    Rick reached down to hand Cristos a canteen.  Cristos swallowed a few gulps, sighing in relief.  He took a bit of the water in his hand and used it to clean the dried blood off his face.

    "Now there's a good samaritan," he said with a smile.  "And in return, Mr. Ryback, let me offer you a gift.  You'll find your beautiful El Cid in the trunk of the limousine."

    "Thanks," Rick said.  He looked closely at Cristos' face.  Without the make-up and the obscuring blood, the burns were more apparent.  That face--did he know it?

    He did.

    It all came back to him in a dizzying rush.

    Seacouver, 1995.  Mac had been seeing Dr. Anne at the time, before he died in front of her.  The preacher who'd risen from the dead in Dr. Anne's Emergency Room, the one with the murderous assistant, Matthew--who'd shot that newspaper writer in Mac's dojo office.  The evil immortal who'd convinced Mac that he'd turned-over a new leaf.  The immortal that Mac had spared, despite Mac's knowledge of his past crimes.

    Cristos face was the face of John Kirin.

    John Kirin, whom Mac had once known as Kage.

*****

    Michelle wiped the sweat away from her eyes, and concentrated on pulling herself up just one more rung.  Lift.  Just one more.  No pain; no exhaustion.  Just one more rung on the ladder in front of her.  And one rung after that, and another after that.  Rung after rung into eternity.

    She had been climbing forever, it seemed, after a desperate sprint across the lawn while Joe gave her what covering fire he could.  But that was the distant past and now her world had shrunk into ladder rungs and nothing else.  She slowly raised her right hand up to the next rung, shifting her weight onto her right foot as she lifted her left.  Lift.  One rung.  Lift.  And another.  Lift.  Be careful not to slip on the blood.

    Blood?  Sometime during the endless morning she'd taken a bullet in the upper part of her left arm.  Not life threatening, no--unless you figured that if she slipped and fell, it was at least three stories until she hit the clear rooftop of the IAB biome.  If the fall didn't kill her, she was going to be the world's most obvious target for the Matthews to plink at.  So yeah--maybe the wound was life-threatening after all.

    Hand on another rung.  Lift.  Ignore the pain; ignore the bone-aching tiredness that weighted her body with a hundred extra pounds.  Lift.  Ignore the muscle burn and the awkward shifting mass of the rifle across her shoulders.  Lift.  Another rung to go.  And then another after that.  Lift.

    It was several long seconds before she realized that there were no more rungs, that her head was over the lip of the doorway, and she was looking at the backs of two Matthews.  She'd made it.

    But now what?  She couldn't reach the rifle because she couldn't let go of the ladder.  She didn't have the strength to lift herself into the dome.  And if she waited any longer, the two guards were going to turn around and put a bullet between her green eyes.

    She slowly let go with her left hand and reached down for the pistol at her side.  It's a .32, Joe had told her.  A girl's gun.  Not much good for stopping a man, but it'll for damn sure get his attention.  And who knows?  You might even get lucky and do some damage.  She wasn't left-handed--and anyway, that was the wounded arm.  But if she used the right hand she knew she was going to fall.  So her left hand would have to do.

    She had the gun now and was raising it over the lip of the doorway.  She knew there was a cartridge in the chamber because Joe had told her so.  You're locked and loaded, sister, he'd said.  Locked?  Oh, yes--safety off.  Good.  Why did it take so long to bring the gun into position?  Everything was moving in slow-motion, like the air was as thick as amber.

    She aimed at one of the Matthews, who was pointing at something in the distance.  Was it smoke?  She pulled hard on the trigger.

    The gun went off with a huge BLAM! and she slipped down a couple of rungs, narrowly catching herself and managing to hold onto the gun.  She just held there for a second, catching her breath and waiting for the ringing in her ears to stop.  Finally, she looked up, only to see one of the Matthews looking back down at her.  Was that a gun in his hand?

    WHAM!  Another huge explosion next to her head.  The Matthew looked startled before he pitched over and fell past her where she hung on the ladder.  She didn't look down to see where he'd fallen.  There was another one up there, and she still had to deal with him.  Ever so slowly, she raised her hand.  Lift.  But the gun was in the way and she couldn't grab the rung.  What to do?  The gun fell from her nerveless hand.

    Lift.  One rung.  Lift.  And another.  She was back at the doorway, looking inside to see the remaining Matthew sitting with his back to the window, staring at her while he sat in a pool of his own blood.  Blood was dripping down his neck, fed by a bubbling stream that originated in his lungs and trickled out through his mouth.  He didn't move, didn't say anything, didn't blink as the trickle of blood slowed into single drops and then stopped altogether and she knew her first shot had been the lucky one, and now the last Matthew in the Human Habitat dome was dead.

    Matthew.  What a funny label for a young man who couldn't have been more than twenty years old.  Not a faceless goon, not this one.  This one sitting dead in his own blood could have been her younger brother, could have been a college kid--maybe a member of a fraternity.  He could have been a poet or a track star.  But now he would be none of those things, because she had killed him.  Taken his life so that others might live.  Others like Rick and Adam--and Joe, waiting down on the grass for her signal, to let him know that it was safe to move on.

    But first she had to pull herself into the dome.

*****

    "You're John Kirin!"  Rick finally made his mouth say the words out loud.  "You're the one Mac called Kage, the one who let those little kids die in 'Nam just so you could load more heroin onto your helicopter.  You're the one that Mac said had changed, had become a man of peace."  Rick laughed a bitter laugh.  "What a joke that turned out to be!"

    Cristos looked back at Rick calmly, a small smile on his face.  "Yes, on all counts.  I'm Kirin, and Kage--and several more names as well.  Just as I'm Cristos.  But I assure you that my current plans are no joke, Mr. Ryback.  I'm serious about using tonight to bring a message of peace and understanding to the world--as serious as I've ever been about anything in my long life.  Tonight is the eve of the New Millennium, and it's the best opportunity to change the course of the world that I've seen in thirteen hundred years."

    His eyes looked right back into Rick's.  "If you take my head, then that opportunity will be lost forever.  Think about it.  I'm begging you, Ryback.  It's not about my life; it's about changing the world.  I'm not afraid to die--but only after I've done the work I set out to do.  If you want my head, then it's yours ... but after the broadcast tonight.  Please."

    Methos stepped forward, sword inches away from Cristos' neck.  Thirteen hundred years was a good start, but it didn't begin to compare to his own five thousand years of life experience.  And Methos had seen the entries about Kage in the Watcher Chronicles.  Flowery speeches, no matter how sincerely acted, had never impressed him.  Some of the greatest butchers he'd ever seen had been so heart-wrenchingly sincere in their speech as they rationalized the brutal murders of thousands.  Take Caesar Augustus, for example.  But Kage was no Caesar, no matter how close he'd come to ruling the world.  Time to end this charade.

    "Pretty words, Kage--but empty of meaning.  You say you want an opportunity.  Fine, if that's what it was really all about.  But if all you want is peace, love, and understanding--then why did your Matthews kidnap so many immortals?  And why are those immortals being held here, awaiting tonight's show?  Last time I checked, peace and love didn't have anything to do with beheading four hundred immortals and taking The Prize."

    Cristos shook his head at Methos' words.  "No!  You're crazy!  I don't understand what you're saying.  My Matthews are just a small security force, just enought to keep fanatics from assassinating me in public and ending my mission before it's complete.  They haven't kidnapped anybody, least of all any immortals."

    Now Rick shook his head.  "Good try, pal.  But the innocent immortal act isn't working.  Your goonsquad had me for a month before I got rescued.  And we already know about the rest of the immortals up at the Biosphere.  So try your act on somebody else.  We're not buying it."

    "Listen to me.  I'm telling you that I don't know anything about what you're talking about!  I don't know anything about any kidnappings.  I don't know anything about immortals being held against their will.  And I don't know anything about what the Matthews did."

    Cristos was obviously upset at their accusations.  "If they did anything wrong, then it was done without my knowledge--and without my approval.  Let me go to them now, and I'll do my best to set this right.  The Matthews will listen to me.  If anybody's being held, then I will personally free them.  Then, after tonight's show, my head is yours for the taking.  Just let me finish the work I started--please."

    Rick considered the proposition.  After all, Mac had believed that Kage had actually changed.  Mac had spared Kage's life when he could have easily taken it.  And it was possible that the Matthews had acted without the guy's knowledge:  fanatical extremists existed at the fringes of any movement.  And what could it hurt to let the guy do his final broadcast--assuming the immortals were long gone and there were no Quickenings?

    Rick hated to be judge, jury, and executioner--especially if the guy really was innocent, and was only trying to bring a message of peace to the world.  He remembered the old immortal who had been calling himself Methos, and how that guy's message of peace had seemed so right at the time.  The fake Methos had paid for that message with his life--and Rick didn't want to make this messenger pay the same price for the same message.  Why not let the guy do his final swan song?  Maybe it could do some good in the long run.

    Then the answer came to him.  As Methos watched, Rick's face changed somehow.  It didn't get any new wrinkles or frown lines; his hair didn't get any grayer.  But nonetheless, he aged a few years in that moment.  His eyes lost a bit of their boyish sparkle, taking on more of MacLeod's dark brooding look.  Methos recognized the change.  The process didn't really have a name, but there was a name for how it ended.  The process ended in something that was called maturity, and Rick had just gotten a big jolt of it.

    Rick's voice was filled with finality as he said to Cristos, "When you were in Seacouver the first time, the real Matthew killed a newspaper reporter.  Shot him dead without your knowledge or approval.  But you were responsible.  You weren't there; didn't pull the trigger--no  But you were responsible.  We are always responsible for the actions of the men we lead.  Just as you are responsible today for the actions of the Matthews."

    Rick continued pronouncing judgment.  "You may have directed their actions.  That's what Adam here believes--that you were behind the kidnappings.  I'm not so sure.  You may not really be the evil mastermind we had you pegged as being.  You may have merely known about the kidnappings--and silently condoned them.  I guess it would be hard to turn down a chance at The Prize.  Or maybe you really are the ignorant figurehead that you claim to be:  the innocent Imperial puppet raised up by a secret conspiracy of the Matthews.  And perhaps they're like the Praetorian Guard, who're about to crown you Emperor without your knowledge, just like those guys did to Claudius in that PBS series.  And maybe the Matthews are planning to be the power behind the throne, the guys who'll end-up pulling all your strings.  I don't really know what the real story is.  But it doesn't really matter."

    Rick said, "It doesn't really matter what the story is--because without you then there is nothing.  Without you, it doesn't matter what the Matthews do, because there is nobody to put on the throne.  Without you, there is no threat to the immortals.  There is nothing to plot and scheme and lie--and kill for.  Without you, then it all stops right now.  You are the leader; you are responsible, and so you must die."

    Cristos--or Kirin, or Kage--bowed his head.  He sighed, accepting the truth of Rick's words.

    "So be it," he said calmly.  "The scales of justice will be what they already are.  Would you like to hear my last words?  Well, they're not mine--but I'm claiming them this morning."

    Rick nodded.  Let the guy make whatever peace he could.

    Cristos closed his eyes and recited,

    Cristos finished reciting, and bowed his head in submission.  "You're a brave man, Ryan," he said.  "But remember--you are not my Judge, and this is not about Justice.  Those things are not of this life.  You're only the tool that sends me to my final Judgment.  Now do it cleanly."

    Rick turned away from the immortal, then brought his sword down in a powerful back-handed swing that took Cristos' head and bit into the boulder.  Eyes closed, the head fell to the desert sand.

    Methos watched as the Quickening began, and whatever good or evil that made-up Cristos soul flowed like a misty fog into Rick's tense body.  The air grew thick.  Black clouds formed overhead.  Lightning began to strike the ground with explosive force; and then the rain fell on them both in sheets, a deluge that doused the still-burning limousine and cleansed the blood off Cristos' headless body.

    While Rick lay on the sand, recovering, Methos muttered these words:

    It was over.

    Now they had to get back to Joe and Michelle

*****

    Joe hobbled up the stairs and into the IAB section of the Center.  Intensive Agriculture Biome, huh? he thought as he forced the automatic doors open.  It's a damn jail now.  He ducked down in case any Matthews were lurking nearby.  But he hadn't heard or seen anything since those goons in the Habitat tower had quit using his boulder for target practice, and he wasn't too worried.  Hope Michelle is okay.  She'd saved his butt all right.  Hope she's still hangin' in there.

    He wiped the dirt and sweat off his face with a sleeve that wasn't any cleaner than the rest of him.  He checked his backpack, counting the remaining ammo.  Two clips left.  It would have to do.

    From a crouch behind some old irrigation machinery he looked around to see what he could see.  There was a lot of ground to cover.  The place was huge.  What had the infodump said?  The IAB section had a volume of thirty-eight thousand cubic meters.  And that was just one section out of seven that comprised the Center.  The whole site covered an area of just over three acres, plenty of room to hide four hundred immortals.

    But instead of the rows of crops he'd been expecting, there were rows of steel cages, one after another, as far as he could see.  Hundreds of the damn things, each one about six and a half feet high and about six by six wide.  And they were all occupied.

    By immortals.

    Joe was familiar with many of the immortals, but he recognized only a few of the prisoners in front of him out of the many whose faces looked back at him with hatred, or fear--or complete indifference.  Was he a Matthew, come to take their heads?  They didn't know who he was, and some didn't seem to care.  But he could pick out several faces from the crowd.  Over there was Benny Carbassa, huddled in a corner, sucking his thumb.  And there was the little bastard, Kenny, who looked at Joe with unseeing madness-filled eyes.  And there, a couple of cages away, sat Felicia Martins, eyes blazing hatred at the world, daring anyone to try to take her head.  Joe's eyes continued to travel down the line of cages, stopping on some of the faces he recognized.  He saw Michelle Webster and Claudia Jardine, Terrence Coventry and Derek the gospel singer.  He saw Robert and Gina Valincourt in adjoining cages.  Those were just a few of the faces he saw.  There were plenty more faces he didn't know.

    Where was Mac being held in this place?  How was he going to find MacLeod in the middle of hundreds of immortals?  I've got to handle this just right, he thought.  If I free 'em all, then somebody's gonna pick up a sword and start taking heads the moment they're off holy ground.  And if I don't do something quick, then some Matthew's gonna put a bullet into my head.

    Where were Rick and Methos?

*****
 

    Where is Michelle? Rick thought as they pulled the pick-up truck into the Center's parking area.  The place was silent, deserted, a futuristic ghost town in the middle of the desert.  The presence of the other immortals made itself felt in his gut, like somebody had dropped an anvil in his stomach.  His head was killing him as well.  Without saying a word, Methos handed him a bunch of aspirin.  They were going to need the pills if they were going to enter the Biomes.

    "Keep your head down," Methos advised.  "No telling what's been going on here."

    "Right.  Where to?"

    "Let's secure the high ground, then we can look for the others.  You see the Human Habitat dome?  That's our destination.  You climb up and I'll cover you."

    "Let's go."

*****

    Where is Rick? Michelle thought, as she tightened the tourniquet.  What was the rule?  Twenty minutes on, then ten off--or something like that?  She'd never been much good at first-aid.  It tended to make her queasy.

    She gazed out of the shattered window, looking out over the desert to where a burned-out car lay on its side.  Rick and Adam had stopped Cristos, of that she felt certain.  She should go to them.  They needed her, she thought distantly, like they were the memory of a dream she'd once had.  She should find Joe and release the captive immortals.  Wasn't that what they'd came for?  She should run to Rick with arms outstretched and hug him tightly, never ever letting him go.  She should ...

    The thought never got completed.

*****

    Rick found Michelle's unconscious body, laying next to the dead Matthew high up in the dome.  He did what he could:  He released the tourniquet, cleaned the wound, and bandaged the arm.  But until power was restored, there was no way to lower her to the ground.  What to do?  Leave his lover and go find Mac--or stay with his lover and let his friends and teacher face the remaining Matthews without him?

    What would Mac do?  Rick thought he knew the answer.

    She was just going to have to wait it out the best she could.  This game wasn't over until the others had been found and all of the immortals had been released.

    He left her a canteen, and climbed back down to let Methos know that Michelle was alive and safe.  Well, as safe as anyone could be in these circumstances.

    Now they had to find Joe.

*****

    "Stop--or I'll put a bullet in you right where you stand!"

    Shit, Joe thought--so close and yet so far.  He raised his hands and turned to face the guard.  It was a young Matthew, looking both scared and determined.

    "Easy son, " Joe said.  "Easy does it.  I'm just an old man with no legs--all right?"

    "You're one of them.  One of satan's spawn--the immortals who've threatened Cristos."

    "No, son.  I'm just as mortal as you are.  Nobody's threatening Cristos right now, okay?  Just take it easy.  Tomorrow's Judgment Day--remember?  You wouldn't want my blood on your soul when the Apocalypse comes.  So just take it easy."

    The boy looked like he was going to cry.  "But you killed them--"

    Thunk!  The boy crumpled to the ground, unconscious.  Methos put his sword back into its sheath, and stepped over the Matthew.  He looked down at the unconcious boy.  How young he is! he thought.  Reminds me of the last days of the Third Reich, when Hitler put the children and old men into the streets to try to slow down the Allies.  War is no place for children.  Well, it's no place for anybody else, either.

    Methos looked across the biome at his mortal friend.  Joe had survived the morning!  They might just be able to pull this off, after all.

    "Hello, Joe," he said.  "Long time no see."

    Joe reached out to take Methos' hand.  "Not to be ungrateful, but I thought immortals couldn't fight on holy ground.  What's with the bonking the kid on the head?"

    "Just because most immortals won't harm mortals on holy ground, doesn't mean that I can't.  The Rules only prohibit violence done to immortals, as far as I know."

    Joe shook his head.  "But you didn't know that.  Wasn't that taking quite a chance?"

    Methos shrugged.  "Maybe.  But it had to be done.  Sometimes you have to take risks if you want to survive."

    Joe smiled.  "Well--thanks, buddy.  I'm sure not going to complain about your risk management.  And what about Cristos?"

    Methos drew his finger across his throat.

    Joe got it.  Cristos was dead.

    Rick ran up.  "If you guys can figure out how to get the power back, then we can get Michelle down from the dome.  She needs a doctor, pronto."

    "Well, if the three of you are done congratulating each other, how about letting us out?" said a familiar voice.  "We ought to be able to provide a little help, including getting the power back on and doctoring your friend back to health."

    Another voice said dryly, "If you'd been able to get over your squeamishness about harming mortals, then maybe we'd have been able to do something ourselves, a little bit earlier.  Say about a month earlier."

    Rick, Joe, and Methos looked out over the empty pit that used to be the Ocean biome.  There, suspended in the air on a series of catwalks, stood several of the steel cages that had been used to imprison the immortals.  Some of the cages were full; others were empty.  They looked over at the cages, searching for the source of the voices.

    They found it.

    It was Duncan MacLeod.  And next to him was Connor.

    They also saw other familar faces.

    Methos noted the presence of Amanda and Ceirdwyn.  Joe saw Everett Bellian and Greg Powers, and even Ursa.  Rick recognized Anne Devlin--and Carl Robinson, and Cassandra.  And there was Stephen Keane.

    They had found their friends.  It was time to get them down and get them out of here.  It was time to return them to their hidden places in mortal society.  Time to get back to The Game.

    Time to reactivate the Watchers, get rid of the ones who'd sold out the immortals, and start making new Chronicle entries.  Joe figured this little escapade was going to deserve its own special Chronicle.  He wondered if Michelle would help him write it.

    It was time to celebrate New Year's Eve.  Time to toast friends--both old and new ones.  Time to get a little drunk and to remember that life was a precious gift, no matter how many years you were given.

    Methos wondered if any of these Matthews had been champagne drinkers.  Wonder if I can find a bottle of Cristal in this place? he thought.  Cassandra might just be feeling grateful, for once.  Maybe tonight would be a good time to set the record straight about the old days.  The gods knew they had a lot to discuss, and she had a lot to forgive him for--if she would.  Good champagne might help.

    Michelle awoke in the top of the dome, and noticed that her arm had been lovingly bandaged.  Nobody was around, but she wasn't worried.  She knew Rick would be back as soon as he could.  She knew that Rick would always come back for her, for as long as she had to live.  Tomorrow was the start of a new decade, a new century, a new millennium.  It was a time to make a new beginning.  They'd make a future for themselves in Seacouver, she knew.  Rick would have his store, and she'd find work at the University.  It would work out.  She knew it would.

    Tomorrow was the dawn of the Third Millennium.  A new start, a new beginning.  Rick wondered how many years of the next thousand he'd be alive to see.  He thought about the hard decisions he'd had to make over the past weeks, about the day in jail and the month in the warehouse.  He'd grown-up a bit, he figured.  I wonder if life is really all about growing, that when you quit growing and changing, then that's when it's time to die?  He wondered if Michelle would like to share the next few decades with him, so they could grow together.  He'd ask her, just as soon as they could get her down from the dome.

    Duncan MacLeod looked down at his one-time student as Richie and Methos broke open the lock that had kept him caged for the past seven months.  It had been an incredibly tough time.  Thank God the guards had put all the troublemakers together in one place, away from the others.  He'd had Connor and Keane and the others to argue with.  It might have been the only thing that had kept him sane.

    It's been almost three years and I still can't believe that Richie is alive--that I didn't kill him, he thought, despite everything that Joe told me.  And Rich looks like he's changed a lot since the debacle in Paris.  He's less like a little puppy, now--more deliberate and more sure of himself.  A bit older and wiser, maybe.  He's a bit more like... well, like me, I guess.  He wondered what Richie had experienced in the past few years that had caused him to grow up.  He decided to ask him about that over a drink or two in the near future.

    They were all going to have a lot of time together.  It was going to be a very happy New Year, indeed.

    Connor looked sourly at the others as they hugged and kissed.  Bah! he thought.  I used to think Duncan got all the beautiful women.  Now it looks like that kid, Ryan, is following in his footsteps.

    Nobody was arguing with him.

*****

Thank you for joining us for this fantastic story!  Cheer's to ZargSnick!  We hope he will write more for us to place in our volumes.