Sign In Sign-Up

Welcome!

Close

Would you like to make this site your homepage? It's fast and easy...

Yes, Please make this my home page!

No Thanks

  Don't show this to me again.

Close

    Rick was asleep, dreaming of tiki torches and dark island women, when the syringe entered his shoulder with a sharp beesting burn and his eyes snapped open to see the five men surrounding his bed.  There had been no warning.  They must be mortals! was his only thought as he tried to rise and reach for his sword, but they were ready for that and grabbed his arms and then his legs--not seeking to hold him but rather to knock him back into the bed.  He kicked out, felt his ankle come into contact with a neck, then had the leg grabbed and pushed away, and then again he tried to get up off the bed but again the men pushed him back down.  His head was foggy and he couldn't hear anything because of the ocean roaring in his ears, and the faces and bodies surrounding him rippled and moved in rhythmic patterns as his heart pounded the drug throughout his body.

    "What do you want?" he screamed at the intruders, but there was no sound as the drug did its work and their presence quickly faded into the background blankness that was unconsciousness.  His body stopped moving and his head lolled against his shoulder, a thin line of spittle tracing a pattern of surrender on the same pillow that Michelle had called her own just three nights ago.

    One of the intruders picked up the syringe and held it up to the others, showing them that the needle had broken-off half-way--leaving the other half in Ryback's shoulder.  "A problem, d'you think?" he whispered.

    "No," came the whispered reply.  "Remember, he's an immortal.  It'll work its way out in time."

    Somebody else whispered, "And if not ... well, in five weeks it's not gonna matter a single bit anyway, now is it?"

    They moved to pick the unconscious body up off the bed.  Rick was wearing a set of pajamas--a deep red kimono tied-off with a big white sash--but he was otherwise unclothed.

    "You want us to grab anything else?" said somebody.  "Like some shoes or a jacket or something?"

    "Or like his sword?" another sneered.  "Forget it!  Where he's going he's not going to catch cold--that's for damn sure."

    "What about Dawson and LeBrun?"

    "Forget them, too.  Don't you remember the briefing?  You know LeBrun flew back to Paris yesterday to meet with the Tribunal, and we've already taken care of Dawson for tonight.  Relax, guy--there's nobody around to give us any trouble ... even the bugs are taken care of."

    "Sheesh," somebody said with feeling, "I hate these rush jobs.  Most times we've got weeks to reconnoiter and plan and practice--but with five weeks to go, the timing's getting tighter and tighter.  It's not good, if you ask me.  We're gonna make a mistake if we're not careful."

    "Yep," came a voice, "but there's hardly any immortals left to go after.  Anyway, let's get Ryan up and out of here, and into the truck."  They lifted Rick's body and quickly carried it outside to the waiting truck.

    "Good-bye Richie Ryan, also known as Rick Ryback," one of the men intoned formally.  "You're gonna thank me for this one day, you know, when you're famous.  Next time we see each other, you're gonna be on TV ... we're gonna make you a star, my immortal friend.  We're gonna make history together, you and me and Cristos."

*****

    It was an abandoned Customs warehouse, one of those that had been closed down when aging Stocker Field, for so many years the area's main airport, had been replaced by the larger and more modern Seacouver International located across town.  A huge old structure built in the days when wood was cheap and plentiful--and when logging was not subject to eco-terrorist sabotage--its cavernous interior was punctuated with rusty chainlink fences that marked-off various holding areas where incoming freight had been held under Seal awaiting clearance.  Stacks of rotting wooden crates reached toward the ceiling, sad reminders that not all the freight had been able to clear Customs and had been left behind, forever waiting for the final checkmark on the final form that would have meant release from the dark warehouse.

    In the middle of the dirty wooden floor was a holding area, unremarkable except for the shiny new chainlink fence surrounding it, whose gate was held shut by a massive motorcycle lock.  In the holding area was a forklift pallet on which Rick's still form lay unconscious, his hands handcuffed together.  Two naked bulbs cast their harsh light on the tableau, leaving the rest of the warehouse in perpetual shadow.  A single guard sat on a folding chair just outside the fence, leaning back against a crate as he AVEX'd through headphones and a cheap set of VR goggles.

    It was Black Aura's Shadow performing their recent hit, "FBN Freedom," recorded in real-time at Microsoft's own Window to the World Pavilion.  Nothing like a good AVEX disc to while away the long hours, especially since the immortal--handcuffed and locked behind a fence--wasn't going anywhere until it was time for him to be shipped to the US holding facility in preparation for Cristos' Y2K show.  And the recording wasn't half-bad, even though Microsoft's proprietary CODEC algorithm wasn't nearly as good as the CODEC used by the Sony AVEXperience label--or, for that matter, the one used by Oracle AVEntertainment.  Well, the guard thought, there ain't no way Gates is gonna use his best coders just to comply with a Federal Court decree.  Still, the disc wasn't half-bad.  He lost himself in the performance, singing along with the band.
 
 

    Ohhhh ... my achin' head, Rick thought as he awoke.  What the hell happened to me?  And what in the hell is that noise?   Worming around, he managed to catch sight of the guard who, lost in the Audio-Visual EXperience, was oblivious to the fact that the captive immortal was finally awake and moving.  Rick looked around him, noting the clear plastic supermarket jug of water in one corner and what he assumed was a plastic chamberpot in the other.  Next to the fence was a loaf of Weber's bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a small plastic butter knife.  That was the sum total of what was revealed by the light bulbs--and outside of the small circle of light they provided, the rest of the place might as well not even exist.

    Rick sat up and winced.  Yikes!  What a headache!  Whatever drug they'd used had given him just about the worst hangover of his life.  Thank God he was an immortal. C'mon head--hurry up and heal.  And if his stomach didn't stop doing jumping-jacks, the chamberpot was going to be inaugurated a little sooner than his jailers had probably anticipated.  Rick decided to cool it for a while and listen to the guard mangle the same song he'd heard in Methos' hotel room a couple of days ago.  Not much to do anyway, he thought, except kill time by listening to this bozo do his rendition of Larry the Lounge Lizard.  If Mac were here, he'd be planning his escape.  Not that I really want to get out of here but--just for giggles--let's see what I can do with a couple pieces of plastic, some water, some peanut butter and--oh yeah, my hands handcuffed together.

    Plan One, he said to himself.  With my hands handcuffed together, use the butter knife to pick the lock, and then knock the guard unconscious with the chamberpot before he can shoot me.  Ummm, nope.  That's not gonna do it.  What kind of plan would Mac put together?  Let's see now ... okay, here's a MacLeod plan.  Plan Number Two:  With my hands handcuffed together, use the butter knife to launch a hardened piece of peanut butter at the guard, knocking him unconscious, then climb the fence before he awakens ... Nope, that's not it, either.

    Long hours crawled by, imitating days and weeks and lifetimes, as Rick sat on his grimy pallet, thinking-up and then rejecting one flawed escape plan after another.  Plan Number Forty-Nine:  Fill the empty peanut butter jar with water and then, with my hands handcuffed together, throw the jar at the guard, knocking him unconscious while I use the plastic butter knife to saw through the chainlink fence.  And while he sat there planning, the guard was attacking and destroying one song after another.

    After a few hours, though, he just couldn't take it anymore.  He couldn't think of a plan that had a prayer of working, and the guard's singing was driving him nuts.  He was certainly no music critic, but the guard was certainly no singer, either.  The guy wasn't off key, exactly--he was about an octave off; and his idea of keeping time was probably to use a sundial.  It was a kind of exquisite torture, the kind that attacked the brain directly and didn't leave any tell-tale marks of violence.  The damn singing was more painful than the broken elbow he'd suffered through at Cristos' meeting a week ago.  It was more painful than the time Mac decided to introduce him to the martial arts.  It was more painful than sensei teaching him the proper way to hold a cat-stance.  It was ...

    Plan One Hundred and Two:  With my hands handcuffed together, cram the entire jar of peanut butter into the friggin' guard's big fat hole of a mouth, following that with an entire loaf of bread--just to make sure--and then use the water in the jug to short-out the AVEX player and the plastic butter knife to slit his goddam throat--and then jam the chamberpot over his entire freakin' head!  After that's done, go back into the cell to await whatever happens in blessed silence.  Yeah, that's the one.  If Rick had to listen to another song get destroyed, he was pretty sure he was gonna lop-off his own head.

    "Hey, Larry!" he called out, trying to make himself heard through the fog of music in the guard's headphones.  "Hey, Larry, my friend!  What say you put the music away and get me some clothes, okay?  Larry--you listening to me, buddy?  Larry!"

    After a few minutes of being yelled at, the guard must have heard something, because he lifted up one of the headphones and cocked his head.

    "Hey, Larry," Rick yelled again, "my head's killing me and my stomach's shrivelin' up here, guy!  How 'bout some aspirin and some decent chow, that okay with you?  And maybe some blankets or some clothes, too.  Hey pal--if you don't take care of me, then there's gonna be nothing left to watch--you catch my meaning, man?"

    This time the guard heard him.  Reluctantly, the guy shut off the AVEX player, and removed the goggles and headphones.  Tipping the chair back onto the floor, he spat in Rick's general direction and cleared his throat.

    "What d'you want, Mister Im-mor-tal?" the guard asked.  "What d'we got to say to each other, anyway?  You ain't got nuttin' to worry 'bout, right?  You in there for the duration, 'til they come'n get you out.  Dere ain't nuttin' you can say or do that's gonna make me come over dere 'n unlock that gate.  So you might as well forget all them tricks you been thinkin' 'bout."  He looked at Rick, trying to see if there was any reaction.  "So why d'nt you jes' go back ta sleep, 'cause you ain't gonna get nuttin' 'til they decide you gonna get it--okay?"

    "Hey--what about the Geneva Convention?" Rick said.  "You know--enemy prisoner of war, and all that stuff?  Don't I at least get a Red Cross package, or something?  How 'bout a damn blanket, for God's sake!"

    "Don't know whatcher talkin' 'bout--and don't care neither.  Jes' keep quiet and go back t' sleep, hear?  We've got us some time t'kill together, an' your yellin' don't make it no easier to get through."

    "How long 'til somebody comes, anyway?" Rick asked.  "How long until I can get these damn handcuffs off?"

    "Don't know and don't care.  We're gonna wait together, you and me, jes like ol' friends waitin' on the train.  Could be tomorrow; could be a couple weeks.  It don't matter t'me long as I'm doing Cristos' will and securin' my place in Heaven come Judgment Day."  The guard looked at him and winked.  "Way I hear it, you best hope for a lonnng wait, boy--'cause when they come fer you, you and your head ain't gonna be spendin' too much time together after that, y'know what I mean?"

    Well, Rick thought, there goes Plans One Hundred and Eight through One Hundred and Fifteen.  He leaned back down on his wooden bed and closed his eyes, waiting for the headache to go away.  Satisfied, the guard put the AVEX set back on and went back to torturing Rick with his singing.  Maybe it wasn't the drug that gave me this headache, Rick thought, maybe it's this guy's goddam awful singing that's pounding in my head.

    No way to block the torment from the guard's singing.  No way out until they decided to move him to wherever the other immortals were being held.  And it was cold in here, with him clad only in a kimono.

    It was going to be a very long wait.

*****

    From across the warehouse a suddenly open door sent a bright ray of sunlight to where Rick lay huddled in his filthy cell.  Rick looked up as the guard hastily put away his ever-present AVEX set and stood up, straightening his tie and trying to look like he hadn't been loafing for the past few days--or had it been weeks?

    Rick didn't know, having lost track of time long ago.  His graytime in the jail cell had been like this, an eternity of seconds that slowly morphed into timeless periods where his mind shut itself off, seeking escape from the bright light and the dark warehouse surrounding it, desperately fending-off the boredom and the chill--and the guard's horrific singing.

    First there had been memories to recall, old friends to visit, and old battles to refight once again.  He'd had hours of conversation with Michelle, had told her his entire life story and answered her questions.  He and Duncan had discussed the role of the witches in "Macbeth," and he'd played several games of chess with Darius.  He'd even gotten into an argument with Methos over The Who's rightful place in rock-'n-roll history.  Later--much later, he supposed--his mind's eye had failed him.  Friends and memories had gradually faded away until there was left only a single frame of Michelle's face, green eyes wide with concern, to accompany his eons-long sojourn in this limbo of inactivity.

    Once in a while he came back to the present, brought there as the guard's voice hit a spectacularly bad note, or perhaps by an infrequent oasis of silence as the guard went to the bathroom or to change his clothes.  But those moments of here-and-now lucidity were the exception, not the rule.  For the most part, he and his mind preferred to live outside of the warehouse's shadowy spaces and stretched-out moments of time, in a special place were space and time had no meaning and weren't measured in terms of walls or lights or clocks.  And when the front door opened, it was a reminder that there was a place called outside, where the sun rose once a day and set every night, where clouds and wind and rain could touch a person's flesh, where events were in motion that could lead to his death--and the death of his friends.

    Two men quick-timed their way through the maze of containers and boxes, heading for Rick's holding area.  The guard tried to simulate standing at attention as the two others marched up to him.  Obviously, these new guys gave the orders.

    "Any trouble?" asked one.

    "No, sir," the guard answered.  "Not a speck o' trouble since he was brought in here."

    "Good," came the reply.  "Let's keep it that way."

    The newcomers turned to look at Richie.  He stared back, silent and shivering, eyes deep and dark--a thousand-yard stare from spending too much time in his head.  The twisted spacetime had affected him, yes--and so had the everpresent bonechilling cold, and the eternal parade of peanut butter sandwiches that kept him from starvation, and the handcuffs, which had bitten into his wrists so that they were now red and swollen, matching--in an ironic way--the former color of his kimono.  Had it been days or weeks--or centuries?--that he'd been inside his head, inside the warehouse, laying on the wooden pallet awaiting an action--any action--that would end the neverending stillness?  The time he'd spent inside his head had marked him in ways his immortal body might not be able to heal, even if given the chance.

    "My God, it stinks in here!" said one of the newcomers, "Didn't you ever empty out the damn chamberpot?"

    The guard shrugged.  "No, sir.  Weren't no way t' do that, if'n I was s'posed to stay outta the cell.  It's okay, though--you get used to it after a while."

    "Well, let's get Ryback out of here.  He's supposed to be in Tucson by the twenty-sixth--and then on to the big stage a few days later, for the Millennium Show."

    He turned to Rick, still silent on the filthy pallet that had been his bed for the past few days.  "Hey--Ryback!  You there, guy?"

    "Yeah, I'm here," Rick said hoarsely, his voice out of practice from lack of use.  "What d'you want?"

    "Time to go, pal.  We're gonna ship you to the next stop--and when you get there you'll have lots of friends and plenty of time to get reacquainted.  And there'll be decent food and maybe a shower, too.  How does that sound, my friend?"

    "Sounds good," Rick replied.  "You said Tucson?"

    "Yep.  Gonna be your home for a few days, from just after Christmas until New Year's.  We're shipping immortals from all over the world to a special warehouse just outside of town.  Actually, most of 'em are already there; you're gonna be one of the latecomers to the party."

    Rick looked back at the man, staring deep into his eyes.  "Good.  Always hate to miss a party.  Your name wouldn't be Matthew, by any chance, would it?"

    The man ignored him, and turned to the others.  "Well, that's it then.  Let's get Ryback and get on the road."

    The guard unlocked the lock and opened the gate.  What a simple description for such a profound act, one for which Rick had spent days scheming and planning!  That seemingly simple act was the first step in Rick's escape plans numbered Three Hundred and Seventy-Two through Six Hundred and Sixty.  Damn!  I bet Mac would be all over the guard by now!  Sure Mac could have escaped--assuming, unlike Rick, that he'd really wanted to--but now that the right moment had arrived, the situation didn't look promising.  The guard had his gun cocked, pointing right at Rick's chest, ready to stop any trouble the moment it might start.  Shooting your prisoner was no big deal when you knew the guy was going to wake up in a couple of hours, good as new.

    While the guard covered them, the other two entered the holding area and quickly lifted Rick up from the pallet, hustling him toward the front of the warehouse.  They each had to support him as they made their way through the canyons of cartons and crates, so affected had he become from the stilltime in the warehouse.

    "Bet you're glad to get away from here, huh Ryback?"

    "Yeah," Rick said from between them.  "How 'bout undoing the damn cuffs.  They're killin' me, y'know."

    "Very funny, Ryback," was the reply.  "They'll come off in Tucson--and when they do, you'll be good as new in a couple of days.  Nice and pretty for the big show."

    "Great," Rick said.  "I can hardly wait."  He looked around as they neared the warehouse entrance.  "Where in Tucson is this place, anyway?"

    "Don't worry.  We know how to find it."

    "Yeah, but I might want to send a postcard."

    By this time they were out of the warehouse, and the gray Seacouver skies had never seemed so inviting to Rick as they did right now.  But right in front of him was a white van, impatiently waiting for him with its motor running.  They threw him into the back so that he landed on the damn handcuffs, and then slammed the doors shut. Out of the light and back into the dark, he thought, rolling over to try to ease the pain in his arms.  Not again, damn it!  I don't think I can take much more of this.

    There was a slight pause, like the pause in a child's swing as it hits the top of its arc just before descending once again, like the pause in the sky between the startling lightning flash and the long crashing boom of thunder, like the pause between the first rain drop and the deluge that washes away the road--and then Rick felt the presence of an immortal.  It's about goddam time! he thought, relief spreading through his body,  carried by the pressure wave of sensory awareness that came from proximity to another immortal--numbing the pain in his arms and restoring some of the energy the warehouse had stolen from him.  It's been so long--I figured the tracker must have got broken or something.  He patted the very slight bump sewn into his kimono sash.  Good tracker; nice little tracker.

    He listened to the sounds of a scuffle outside the van--each blow, each groan, each thud against the van's side sweet music to replace the torment inflicted by the guard's voice.  He remembered once again that he wasn't alone, that he had friends who cared about him, friends who had been waiting for the right moment to follow the tracker to its source and pull him back from Cristos' abyss before he fell too far.  Friends who were now ready to help the prey become the hunter.

    It wasn't long until the van doors opened once again, and the bodies of his two former captors were thrown to land beside him.  Their heads clunked against the floor, bodies slack and unresponsive, arms and legs akimbo like GI Joes who had been through a twelve year-old boy's version of a Gestapo interrogation.  After a long second Rick realized that the Matthews weren't breathing--weren't going to be breathing ever again.

    Methos looked at him, smiled, and reached for the handcuffs to release him.

*****