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    "Reports, please," Joe spoke to the group sitting around the washed-pine conference table.  He looked around at the faces of his fellow Watchers.  The atmosphere was tense with worry, but not yet out of control.  It reminded him of a group of Sergeants who had just been briefed by the Captain that the counter-offensive was not going very well.  The big problem, Joe reflected, was that they just didn't know enough to do anything.  The inability to take effective action against this mystery was the biggest stumbling block they faced.  He forced his attention back to the speaker, whose expression told him he'd missed some more bad news.

    "--and from Japan, Hideoshi-san reports two more immortals gone in the past twenty-four hours.  That leaves the entire Asian Bureau with only eight actively Watched immortals left in the entire continent."  She looked down at her papers, then blurted, "This is a disaster!  Isn't there anything we can do?"

    "I hear you, Yun-lin," Joe said, "but let's listen to the others before we discuss our remaining options."  He nodded for the next speaker to begin.

    "Africa reports three immortals still left on the active list, while Australia reports--"  The speaker, a ruddy-faced South African, paused as the door opened.  Rick held the door and motioned Michelle into the suddenly silent room.

    "Sorry we're late folks," he said nonchalantly, "but some kids needed a set of Union soldiers for their reenactment of The Battle of the Wilderness.  Hope we're not interrupting anything."

    Rick looked around as he and Michelle found some empty seats and sat themselves down at the conference table.  Nobody said anything aloud, but the nudges and frowns and whispers were deafening.  "Isn't that Richie Ryan?"  "Yeah.  What's he doing here?" "I thought he was dead!"  "Who's that with him?"  "Don't know but--"

    Achhchemmm.  Joe cleared his throat to still the fidgeting.  "People, listen up for a sec, okay?"  The room gradually quieted.  "For those of you who didn't recognize him--or for those of you who didn't hear the introductions from your neighbor--this here is Rich--uh, Rick Ryback.  Yeah, he's Ryan ... an immortal--and the only known immortal in Seacouver at the moment, I might add.  And with him is Michelle LeBrun, who's one of us.  If you haven't heard, she was the Researcher who first noticed the disappearances, and the only one so far who's got any kind of theory as to what's been happening."

    "Bullshit!" somebody said sotto voce.

    "Yeah," Joe responded, "there's a bunch of folks who think her theory's as loopy as saying the sun orbits the earth.  But at least she's out there, hangin' it all on the line, while everybody else in HQ's just wringing their hands like little old ladies surrounded by ants at a church picnic.  So we're gonna use her--that all right with you, buddy?"

    The voice was silent.  But somebody else asked, "What's Ryan, er, Ryback doing here, Dawson?  Since when do immortals listen in to a field planning session, anyway?"

    "Since he's about the only immortal left in this part of the world, I figured it'd be a damn sight better for us to hang on to him here in our Ops Room, instead of having him disappear from under our noses like the others have.  And maybe he can shed some light on our little problem while he's here."

    "But he's an immortal--"

    "Yes, Bryson.  I understand that Mr. Ryback is where he shouldn't be.  And where he normally wouldn't be, except that these aren't exactly normal times--or hadn't you noticed that?"

    Joe looked around, daring other voices to speak up.  Nobody else had anything to say, though from the faces around the table, Rick guessed that Joe was going to be in hot water with the Watchers bureaucracy--again--when this was all over.  Assuming that there is a Watcher bureaucracy when this is all over, he thought.

    "Right," Joe said.  "Let's skip the reported numbers and what we don't know, and try to get to what we do know."  He looked over at a heavy-set man who was staring into a laptop.  "Michaelson.  Michaelson.  Give us your report, please, if you don't mind."

    "Right ... right," Michaelson said vaguely.  "Just a second, please.  Oh, there it is ... okay, right.  Yep.  Okay.  Ummm--"

    "Michaelson," Joe said dangerously.

    "Sure, Dawson, got the data right here.  All right.  So far we've lost three hundred fifty-nine immortals.  That includes all immortals reported as missing with no known causes from the period June 1, 1999, through midnight last night, November 11, 1999.  Of that figure, two hundred sixty-two were last seen going to sleep in their own beds.  That's just about seventy-three percent.  Of that figure, two hundred and ... thirty-seven slept alone, as far as we can tell.  Hmmm ... that number seems high.  I wonder if ..."  His pudgy fingers punched the keys rapidly and a graphic came up on the screen.  Michaelson's eyebrows rose for a second, then he called up another file and stared into the screen.  "Hmmmm .... that's odd...."

    The others around the table started to fidget once again.  Joe said loudly, "Earth to Michaelson.  Come in Michaelson."

    "What?  Oh, sorry," he said.  "Okay.  All right, now.  Yes, the figure was unusually high.  But it does correlate, all right.  The coefficient's right up there, just as it would need to be ..."

    "What in the hell are you talking about?"

    "Oh.  Yes ... quite.  Sorry.  We're looking at ninety-two percent missing, of which just about three quarters went missing during the night whilst ostensibly asleep.  Of that figure, nearly ninety percent went to sleep alone that night.  Now that's unusual.  Most immortals don't usually sleep alone, you know."

    "Is that a factor, do you think?"

    "I have no earthly idea," he replied.  "But if you're looking for unusual patterns, that would be one right there."

    Did sleeping with Michelle last night save my life? Rick wondered.

    "Okay.  Good.  That's something, anyway.  Do you have anything else?" Joe asked.  "What about the other twenty-five percent who disappeared under different circumstances?"

    "Yes.  Well, let's see here," Michaelson said.  "Of the ninety-seven immortals who didn't vanish during the night, thirty-two were at the cinema, twenty were in a steam room or similar, uh, venue ... and, let's see ...  twenty-one went into fitting rooms or somesuch at local stores, and then never came out.  The rest, uh, twenty-four I make it, I would list under miscellaneous and sundry."

    "So you're saying that in virtually every instance the disappearances took place out of sight?  Nobody just vanished in thin air; they all went somewhere and never came out."

    "Why, yes," Michaelson said with an air of quiet surprise.  "That's true.  Rather like Jonah and the whale, isn't it?"

    "What does that tell us?" Joe looked around.  "Anybody?"

    A black woman looked up.  "Is this a Millennium thing?" she asked.

    "Come again?" Joe said.

    "You know, the Millennium?  Judgment Day?  The Apocalypse?  The Rapture?"

    Joe looked pained.  "Give me a break!  We're talking immortals vanishing here, not a bunch of faithful believers being taken-up into Heaven on chariots of fire, okay?"  He looked around the table and didn't like what he saw.  He picked-up his cane and rapped on the table.  "Hello!  Reality check here, folks!  Facts and figures please, people.  Religious prophecies we do not need at all."

    Another voice spoke up.  "I heard Cristos was going to be in Seacouver this weekend.  Something about preparing the faithful, I think.  I've got a flyer somewhere in here.  Hold on a sec while I try to find it."

    Somebody else said, "I saw on Capital Gang that Cristos is the most successful con man in the history of the world.  He's got like ten thousand confirmed followers and thousands more who donate to his movement.  They said that he's taken in more than two billion dollars in the past year alone.  Doesn't he charge like a hundred bucks or something a head just to attend one of his 'lectures' on the New Millennium?"

    The man Joe had called Bryson made a face.  "Yeah, right," he said.  "But what they didn't tell you is that the guy turned around and donated a bunch of that money to charity.  If he's a con man, then he's a strange one."

    The black woman shook her head and said, "Well, I heard on CSPAN that a lot of good Christians think that he's the Antichrist.  You know, the one prophesized in Revelations?  The one who shows up around the Day of Final Judgment?"

    "You mean, like The Omen or something?"

    "Yeah, like that.  At least, some folks think he could be."

    Michaelson looked up from his laptop.  "Did you ever read King's The Stand?" he asked the room.  Several people around the table nodded yes.  "I'd like to see Cristos.  I wonder if his hair is all white?  Can I take a look at that flyer for a moment?  Where does it say that he's going to be this weekend?"

    The South African said, "There's a lecture on Sunday at the Convention Center.  Well, it's not a lecture exactly; they call it the Apocalypse Preparation Support Meeting or something like that.  Supposed to start at nine o'clock ack momma, but with the crowd that they're expecting, I'd advise getting there by no later than seven.  Would you like to go with me?"

    "Yes, that sounds good," Michaelson said, then abruptly returned his attention to the laptop.  The black woman said, "Guess I'd like to go too.  Can I tag along?  How much did you say it cost?"

    Bryson and several other Watchers spoke up.  It looked like there was going to be a caravan of Watchers going to see Cristos on Sunday.  Rick traded glances with Michelle and Joe.  Michelle rolled her eyes, but Joe looked worried.  Things were starting to get out of control.  They didn't have much time left to figure out what was happening, and these Watchers were talking about the Apocalypse and Cristos and The End of the Millennium like God was responsible for snatching the immortals off the face of the earth.  No Higher Power was going to help them find the missing immortals, Joe thought, it was up to them--and not up to God--to find out what was happening.

    Joe finally spoke through the now-excited din.  "People.  This is not getting us any closer to locating the missing immortals.  You all can take Sunday morning off as far as I'm concerned--so long as you don't expect the Watchers to reimburse you for the tickets--but right now we need to focus on our problem and not on Biblical prophecy.  Unless somebody has something worthwhile to contribute, I'm going to call a smoking break here and caucus with Ryback and LeBrun ... try to figure out a plan of action, I guess.  Anybody have anything relevant to add before we break?"

    Silence answered his question.  It looked like there was nothing for anybody to do except wait for the inevitable report that the very last immortal had finally disappeared, leaving the Watchers with nobody left to Watch, no Chronicle entries to make, and no idea as to what had happened.  To the Watchers sitting around the table, it seemed like The End was indeed at hand.

******