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    It was the kind of planning session that Joe had always wanted be a part of ever since he'd served in 'Nam.  Sitting around a table, Triple-A maps spread before them and computer printouts littering the floor, surrounded by friends he could count on.  Friends who burned with the same righteous flame of anger that lay burning in his heart, feeding a desperate need for explosive action to put a quick and final end to Cristos'  Doomsday plans to grab The Prize and rule over them all.  Together, Joe and his friends would stop Cristos.  Together, they would rescue Mac and the other immortals, in order to restore the natural balance that Cristos and his goonsquad of Matthews had upset with their greedy ambitions and pseudo-religious manipulations.  They would do it together.

    He felt a kind of closeness, a kind of inner glow of confidence--something that he had never felt in 'Nam or in the Watchers.  In 'Nam he had always been the outsider--"the boyscout" they'd called him--who'd been too full of stateside ideals to do what needed to be done as they fought Charlie on Charlie's own terms.  He'd been too noble and too pigheaded to lower himself to Charlie's level, to make war the way Charlie did, by shooting children, raping girls, sowing terror however necessary and as often as necessary--methods proven effective throughout history's grim recordbook of war.  "It's the only thing they understand," his buddies in the squad had told him, "The only language they really speak."  But he wouldn't do it, couldn't condone it--and, as a result, was dubbed "the boyscout" and ostracized from the rest of the platoon.

    At first he thought he'd found a way to put that behind him as he made a home for himself in the Watchers.  He thought he'd found a place to fit in and be welcomed for what he knew, for who he really was.  He'd finished Number Two in his Watcher Training Class, found he had a knack for getting inside the heads of his subjects, and before long he was on the fast track toward a seemingly inevitable Council Seat.  But then his brother-in-law, James, had tainted his reputation in the Organization with blood from the renegades' actions, and he'd had to reap the distrust and discord sown by James' evil stupidity--not the least of which was the beginning of his roller-coaster relationship with Duncan MacLeod, in defiance of all conventional Watcher wisdom.  And then, as his friendship with MacLeod grew and flourished, his Watcher brethren had condemned him--made him pariah--with charges of treason and interference.  Sure, he'd ultimately survived the Tribunal's guilty verdict, but now the promising future he'd once had lay shriveled in the arid dust of his "golden years"--as he spent his remaining field time in his bar, playing the blues, making token Chronicle entries, while he counted the days until the mortgage was paid-off and he could quit the Watchers for good.

    So no matter how noble or laudable his ideals ultimately were, no matter how much he managed to live up to the standards he'd set for himself, he had never been able to gain even so much as a grudging acceptance by a world he finally no longer even cared to try to understand.  Yet here, around this table, he felt like he had found a home for the first time in a very long time.  Here, around this table in the back of an RV parked in a dusty Arizona trailerpark, sat nearly all of the people that he cared enough to care about.  And they were all planning to rescue--and avenge--the very few others for whom he had any real feelings.

    Joe looked up as Methos, their general, displayed the same tactical planning skills that he had once used to terrorize entire continents for centuries uncounted.  But now, instead of planning an apocalyptic reign of destruction, they were planning a rescue.  And there next to Methos sat Rick, still recovering mentally from his ordeal in the warehouse, but showing improvement each day as he was nursed back to health by Michelle--who'd booked the Concorde for her return flight when she'd received Joe's call, and who now refused to let Rick out of her sight.

    Joe shook his head, grinning as he remembered the scene when Michelle had first spied Rick, huddled asleep in the back of the RV.  Rick's wrists had still been a pale red then--though the rawness had healed, of course--but the circles under the eyes hadn't yet disappeared, and his customary nature had yet to reassert itself.  Joe and Methos had waited in the airport coffee shop, playing slots and keno while they gave the two lovers a chance to get reacquainted.  And when they'd returned, Rick had been smiling for the first time since his rescue.

    Then it had been Michelle's turn to confront Methos--or Adam Pierson, as she knew him.  Joe grinned again as he thought about how they'd circled each other like a couple of dogs, each wondering how far the other could be trusted.  Finally, they'd found a common ground in discussions of Researchers that they'd both known, in discussions about Michelle's theory of immortal population movement, and in a concern for Rick's well-being.  They had so much in common, really, that they couldn't let the normal barrier between mortal and immortal stand in the way of getting to know one another.  Kind of like me and Mac, Joe thought.  Damn--I hope he's okay!  The thought of his missing friend brought him back to the present.

    "Right," Methos--or Adam, as they called him now--was saying.  "Rick and Michelle will take the Land Rover into Sectors One through Fourteen, and Joe and I will take the pick-up into Sectors 15 through 32.  Remember to use the exact same spiral search pattern in each Sector-- we need to get thorough coverage, since we don't have time for a second search."

    "Yes, we understand--" Michelle said, "--you've only reminded us six or seven times."

    Adam nodded.  "You're right.  But it's important to get this part right the first time.  And if Rick or I do sense the presence of Cristos--or any of the other immortals--then we get out of there fast and call the other team on the cell phone to help with the Sector search.  Once we have the location pinpointed within the Sector, then we execute Operation Endgame and checkmate Cristos once and for all.  Got it?"

    They all nodded, and gathered up their maps to head for the rental cars awaiting them outside.  Rick and Adam had figured that they were going to be able to sense the combined presence of somewhere in the neighborhood of four hundred immortals, all together in one place, from a long way away.  The remainder of the search was going to be spent in nailing down the exact building in which the immortals were being held, without getting grabbed themselves.  They were counting on the untested belief that even if Cristos were present at the site, he wasn't going to be able to sort out their presence from the overwhelming sensory presence of the nearly four hundred other immortals. It must be like a the world's biggest-ever convention of immortals, Rick thought, and each one with a pounding migraine from the presence of all the others.  They were counting on that sensory overload to mask their approach.

    "One more thing before we take off," Rick said.

    "What's that, buddy?" Joe asked.

    "Today's the twenty-fifth, you know.  We missed Mac's birthday, but I didn't want to let today passed unnoticed."  He looked at each one of his friends.  "I want to wish each of you a Merry Christmas ... and may we all have a very, very, happy New Year.  The kind of New Year where we get to remember old acquaintances--in person.  I, for one, intend to share a bottle of champagne with Mac before New Year's Eve is over."

    "Hear, hear!" said Adam--"And I think I'll buy a bottle of Cristal for Amanda and Michelle, as well."  He winked at Michelle and Joe.  "I mean, if Rick and MacLeod are going to be otherwise occupied, we might as well enjoy ourselves, right?"

    Adam put his arm around Michelle and said, "Did I ever tell you about the time Amanda kicked Joe and me out of MacLeod's barge, right in the middle of a wonderful bottle of champagne, just because she and MacLeod--"  Joe's hand stifled the rest of the sentence while Michelle and Rick burst out laughing at the look on Adam's face.

    After a minute, the laughter quieted down, and the four looked at each other, smiling in mutual respect, friendship--and maybe a kind of love.  The rest of the immortals, and indeed the rest of the world, were counting on them.  They knew they couldn't allow themselves to fail.

    They opened the door into the Arizona sunrise, and headed out to the waiting cars.

*****

    I should have known, Adam thought. Anybody with half a brain would have figured it out long ago.  Cristos and four hundred other immortals?  C'mon!  Where else was the holy con man going to hold them until it was time for the New Year's head-chopping party?  Gods!  Of course, it would have to be on holy ground.  Doesn't that make shambles of our little plan?  Sure, no plan survives contact with the enemy, but this is a little ridiculous!  Looks like Joe and Michelle will have to free the others by themselves while Rick and I deal with the shaman.

    It had taken them five long days of searching to find the place--much longer than anybody had expected.  They had first parceled-out the city into sectors one mile square and searched each one as thoroughly as time permitted.  They'd driven up Speedway Boulevard and down Alveron Way; they'd cruised Ajo Way and Broadway from end to end.  They'd checked every residential street and business park--but they'd sensed nothing.  Nothing.  Not even a glimmer of a scintilla of the presence of another immortal anywhere in the city limits.  After nearly four days of growing frustration, they'd given-up on the city and looked outside the urban sprawl toward the Arizona desert, with its desolate arroyos and rocky hills.

    Rick and Adam drove their separate cars down Highway 19, then up Highway 10 as far as Casa Grande, and even back west on Highway 8 toward the California Border.  They traversed Highways and streets, and even old dirt mining roads that would have stopped normal cars.  It was on the night of the thirtieth when Adam and Joe pointed their blue pick-up truck up Oracle Road north and then east out into the desert, way past Oro Valley, past Catalina, past Oracle Junction, and out toward the town of Oracle itself, planning on a late night dinner once they arrived.  Just one more long drive toward nowhere on a journey that only had one more day to go.

    "Did I ever tell you about my experiences with the Oracle at Delphi, Joe?" Adam asked his friend.  "What a racket they had going there!  Those prophecies were so nebulous that no matter what happened--hey!"

    They each saw the old sign at the same time, hanging by a single chain at Mile Post 96.5.  Could this finally be it?  Adam jammed on the brakes and threw the wheel hard to the right, taking the turn-off and heading up the six mile-long road--desperately hoping and yet fearing another disappointment.  They didn't have much time left.

    By this time, they were about twenty-five miles northeast of the city.  It was a perfect location for what Cristos had in mind, they thought.  Close enough to civilization, yet far enough removed to discourage the casual visitor.  But the closer they got to the end of the road, the more it just looked like one more dead end.

    They were almost to the gate; Adam was about to bang his fist on the wheel before swinging the truck into a U-turn--and then he felt it.  The hair on his arms stood on end, and his eyesight rippled with dizziness.  His stomach turned inside-out and his ears gummed-up like he'd suddenly gained about a mile in altitude.  A buzz filled his head and his body--and he knew then that he'd found the immortals.  The truck was at the entrance to what had once been the Biosphere 2 Project.

    Joe's first thought was:  Don't you dare tell me that Pauly Shore was an immortal!

    Not surprisingly, the Center was now off-limits to outsiders.  The sign was large and well-lit:  No Trespassing Please, Survivors Will Be Prosecuted to the Full Extent of the Law.  Joe called up an infodump on his Iridium-linked laptop.  Apparently, the project had lost its government funding in the budget showdown of '98, and an unknown somebody  had been able to buy it for next to nothing.  The large sign still said Biosphere 2--but just below it was a smaller sign reading New Millennium Church.  It was now holy ground.  It was also the prison for hundreds of immortals who were scheduled to lose their heads in two nights' time.

    Immortals were forbidden from fighting on holy ground.  It was one of The Rules.  And although--strictly speaking--The Rules only applied to violence done to immortals by immortals, nobody had ever heard of a mortal actually being attacked once on holy ground.  The injunction was just too ingrained into each and every immortal's thought-patterns.  So anybody on holy ground was safe--period.  That's why churches made such effective prisons for immortals:  It's difficult to knock-out your jailer when you're forbidden from doing violence to him.

    They had found what they'd been looking for.  Adam got on the cell phone and called Rick and Michelle, telling them to first stop at the RV to pick up the gear before heading out toward Oracle.  They'd meet-up at Mile Post 96.5 in four hours, and there they'd make their final plans.  Tonight they'd finish the game, rescue the others, and shut-down Cristos' Year Two Kay party a day before it was scheduled to start.

    It was going to be a glorious New Year.

*****

    The two Matthews met each other to share a cigarette and some conversation, hoping to try to warm-up as they patrolled the perimeter of the site.  Security was tight with Cristos expected to land in Tucson in less than four hours.  There'd been way too many close-calls in the past few weeks--that business with the kid in Seacouver had just been the first of several near-successful assassination attempts carried out by religious extremists convinced that Cristos was the Antichrist.  And there'd been that riot in Salt Lake City and the other one in Birmingham to worry about, as well.  Sure Cristos had survived--he was immortal, right?--but nobody liked close-calls.  Especially Cristos.

    So far eleven of the Matthews had died protecting Cristos.  Add to that the more than one hundred lost during the kidnappings of the other immortals, and you were talking some serious attrition numbers.  And sure, they were replacing the ranks a hell of a lot faster than the losses, but the new Matthews were young kids, untrained--probably not ready for what was coming down tonight and over the next few weeks.

    The closer the world came to the New Millennium, the more the feelings about Cristos polarized into three camps.  There were those that followed him and showed their support by sending money--or by their deeds, such as those who joined the Matthews.  There were those that hated him and were determined to stop him, led by the Mormons and the Catholics.  And there were those--by far the biggest group--who were too busy partying to care about him either way.  The Matthews had to be trained and ready to help the supporters, to stop the haters from doing any damage, and to sober-up the partiers and enlist them into Cristos' program.  The closer everybody got to Judgment Day and the cleansing that was to follow, the higher the tension level got.

    And the immortals were getting restless, too.  All four hundred and nine of them.  Not one hundred percent of the listed actives, no--but pretty damn close.  So close that after Cristos was done with the Quickenings, he was going to be so almighty powerful that none of the remaining immortals was going to be able to face him in a fight.  And after Cristos came into his rightful place in the New Millennium, the remaining handful of immortals was going to be hunted down post-haste by the newly converted masses, as assisted by the thousands of Matthews who were going to be Cristos' main battle force.

    The immortals had been trucked-in from all over the world over the past seven months, to face Cristos on New Year's Eve--tonight!  They'd been kept in reinforced steel cages, been minimally fed and watered, and any troublemakers had been ruthlessly dealt with.  But there hadn't been very many troublemakers.  Close proximity to four hundred other immortals had prevented sleep, caused nausea and pounding headaches--and had actually taken a couple of the younger ones right up to the ragged edge of sanity.  So after weeks of a bread and water diet coupled with constant sickness and sleep deprivation, some of the immortals were almost looking forward to losing their heads just so they could get some peace and quiet.  The rest, however--those who had been scheming and planning for escape--were getting desperate with so little time left to go.  If a mass escape was going to happen, it was going to happen in less than a day.  It would have to.

    Less than twenty-four hours to go.  The TV cameras rolled at 2200 sharp, and the Matthews were planning for a Quickening every three minutes.  That was twenty an hour.  Even at that rate--and, privately, the most knowing admitted that it was way too ambitious--it was going to take twenty hours for Cristos to get through four hundred Quickenings.

    But it was going to be quite a show!  They figured Cristos' New Year's Eve show was going to blow through the Nielson Rating recordbooks and just keep going and going.  By the time it was over, the Matthews figured that just about every single person in the world who had a TV, or cable access, a satellite dish or a netlink--or even a movie projector--was going to have seen a least some of the day-long show.  Sorry, Dick Clark, but the final show of your decades-long career is going to bomb big-time.  Too bad for you, guy.

    So, yes--things were tightening up all over.  But not so tight that old two friends couldn't swap a couple of quick stories, here in the deep frozen clarity of the early morning desert sky, in the pre-dawn darkness of the last day in the millennium.

    "Hey, Bob," one said to the other, as he lit his cigarette.  "Did'ja hear about President Gore's offer to Gates last month?"

    "No, dammit.  I've been stuck here nursemaiding the friggin' immies while you get to fly around the globe doing your kidnapping gig.  What'd he say?"

    "Gore offered him a complete pardon plus fifty billion for the Year Two Kay fix."

    "No way!  Fifty bil?  What'd Gates do?"

    "Told Gore to fly a kite is what.  Can you believe it?  Then Gore threatened to nationalize Microsoft unless Gates accepted.  Said he was gonna take over the whole shootin' match--lock, stock, and barrel.  So Gates told him, 'Go ahead, loser.  We'll see you in court.  It'll take years to sort out the case, and your whole Fed show's only got about a month left to run anyway.  When the IRS can't figure out how much tax folks are s'posed to pay and the vets don't get their bennies, then you're gonna be President of the United States of Nothing.  And I'll still be running Microsoft.'  So Gore backs down, of course."

    "The President of the USA backs down?  You're kidding--right?  No way!  Then what happened?"

    "So Cristos steps in, right?  Mister Mediator--gonna save the world from the Millennium Bug just so's he can save their souls, or somethin' like that--you know?  Gets the two of 'em together in Denver, tells 'em that they have a responsibility to the people--all that crap.  So they do a deal, right there, just the three of 'em.  Gates promises a fix for SecTreas and all the IRS systems, so that the money 'll keep rollin' in.  He promises to fix the FAA and ATC systems, so that the planes'll keep flyin'.  He promises to make sure the welfare checks go out on time, and that the banks'll honor them.  And he promises to keep the VA and the Social Security systems runnin', too.  He promises to keep the whole Fed bureaucracy afloat, and it'll only take three weeks to do the fix, using net-linked patchbots."

    "No way!  He just saved Gore's ass--right there!  What'd he get in return?  Maybe a hundred B-2's or something, fully loaded with nukes?"

    "Well, he got the pardon and the fifty bil.  Plus, Gore 'privatized' the entire Air Traffic Control system--and Microsoft gets to run it!  Now Gates controls the passenger and air cargo transportation systems across the US!  Talk about control!  Nothing's gonna fly unless--"

    His story was interrupted by a soft thwick! and a sting as the darts hit home from about 20 feet away from where Joe lay in the brush.  The treefrog poison-laced darts did their work quickly, and both Matthews hit the ground within seconds of each other, paralyzed and silent.  Two down, Joe thought, and lots more to go.

    Michelle quickly moved past him while he awkwardly got to his feet.  She stopped and pointed her crossbow at a shadow. Thwunk!  The shadow fell with a groan.  She reloaded as they moved on.  Three down.

    Joe dropped his blowgun, swung the silenced AR-15 into the ready position, and flipped the safety.  Exotic weaponry was fun, but he preferred the stuff he'd used in 'Nam.  It was going to be tough going--very tough going.  They'd figured on a guard force of fifty, at a minimum.  Maybe as many as one hundred.  Sure, the Matthews wouldn't be expecting trouble coming in from the outside, but sooner or later they were going to get over their surprise--and then he and Michelle were going to be in some deep kimchee.  Oh well, he thought.  Not a bad way to go--trying to save the world.  And we don't have to take 'em all out.  We just need to buy time for Rick and Methos.  He was startled when Michelle's crossbow thwunked! again.  Four down.  C'mon boyscout--Gotta focus.  Lots and lots more to go.

*****

    Cristos didn't like limousines.  It was true that the extra room facilitated on-the-go meetings, allowing him to accomplish many more hours of extra work each day, but he thought they created the wrong impression in the minds of others.  There were many in the media, as well as those in political powercircles and in traditional religion, who pounced on any evidence--no matter how unjust--that his New Millennium Movement was only about raising money.  Limousines spoke of wealth and luxury.  Limousines were for rich and powerful media darlings, not for simple religious philosophers.  They gave the wrong impression and they set the wrong example for the rest of his followers.  So he avoided them despite their clear benefits, choosing instead to travel in a simple American-made towncar.  That's why he was so surprised to find a black limousine waiting for him at the airport.

    He deplaned from his leased Gulfstream as the sun rose over the mountains and cast cold dark shadows across the runway tarmac. Brrr!  It was cold.  The desert was always cold at dawn.  One of the Matthews noticed his shiver and draped an old leather duster--his favorite coat--over his shoulders as he made his way down to the waiting limousine.  The Matthews were generally a pain, but they could sometimes be useful.

    "What's this about?" he asked the waiting driver--also one of the Matthews, he noted.  "Why the limousine?"

    "It's about coming into your own, sir," the Matthew replied.  "Now that you're less than a day away from the New Millennium, we feel that you're beyond caring what the other people think.  Why not enjoy a few final luxuries before Judgment Day comes and sweeps it all away?"

    Some people are so literal, Cristos thought. Haven't they ever heard of a metaphor?  Still, there's no time to stand here in the cold and argue about luxuries versus necessities.  Let's get to the television studio and start rehearsing tonight's broadcast.  He smiled as a thought occurred to him.  And maybe after tonight's show, I will be a media darling after all.  He ducked down and got into the limo, along with his three guards.

    "So which studio are we using?

    "We have a special one up in North Tucson, leased for today and tonight.  It'll take about an hour to get there."

    "Well, let's get going then," he said.  The driver didn't bother to reply.  But the limo pulled away from the Gulfstream with gratifying alacrity.

    Cristos took out a notebook bound in beautiful Spanish leather, to jot some thoughts down for tonight's broadcast.  He'd picked the notebook up in the seventies, just after Franco's death.  He'd just found his path then, after a few years with the Buddhist monks, years spent cleansing his spirit from nearly nearly thirteen hundred years of inhuman, despicable acts.  He reflected back on the--what was it now, twelve hundred and ninety-eight years?--since his birth.  Yes, he was going to be thirteen hundred years old in the year 2001.  He'd been born to evil, no doubt about it--and twenty-five years of teaching peace and ministering to the poor didn't even begin to significantly reduce the karmic debt he'd piled-up during the first twelve hundred and seventy-five years of his life.

    He frowned at some of the memories his reverie conjured forth.  They haunted his sleep, sometimes--the faces of the women he'd raped, the children he'd helped to kill, the men he'd so ruthlessly murdered.  Hundreds of innocents brutalized in the name of survival.  He'd been born a peasant in Metz, and it had been a hard life under the brutal authority of the local aristocracy.  That was when he'd learned to covet worldly goods.  That was when he'd learned that money was power--and when you had power, then nobody could touch you.

    The face of the kid in Seacouver--Richie Ryan--came into his head for a moment.  Ryan had no idea how incredibly lucky he was.  He'd been born into the wealthiest and safest country in the history of the world, had never had to knuckle-down to the aristocracy--those thugs whose only claim to their position had been that they'd inherited it.  Ryan had never had to steal or rob or murder just to survive a single day.  Just to stay alive.  And the Ryan kid had died young, with his looks and his strength still intact.  Not like he had.

    He'd died the first time at the ripe old age of forty-eight.  Middle-age by today's standards, maybe--but in those days that age had been one foot away from the grave.  And since he didn't have the youthful endurance to survive in the one-on-one tourneys favored by The Rules, he'd had to connive and plot and betray his way through the centuries--just to survive.  He'd told MacLeod that it had been about the money, but he knew that the money had been just the means to an end, which had been power.  And power meant survival.  He didn't have Ryan's youth or strength, or MacLeod's darkly handsome looks--but he'd had his own gift.  After he awoke from his horrible death and met his first teacher, Clovis, he'd quickly learned that his gift could be enough to see him through to The Prize.  His gift?  A complete and utter lack of conscience.

    He'd been what today would be called a sociopath.  Other people had meant nothing to him, just objects to be manipulated to get what he craved.  And if those objects had felt pain or terror, if those things had to die to get what he needed, then that had been just fine by him.  He'd felt nothing.  He hadn't really believed that there was anything to feel.  He'd been so dead inside.

    A conscience was a luxury.  A conscience was something that nobles had--something that grew inside you when you didn't have to worry about starvation or paying taxes or showing the proper respect.  A conscience was what you got when you didn't have to live each day with injustice, or torture, or the real possibility of dying a terrible death at somebody else's whim.  After he awoke from his first death, he'd realized that his conscience had been burned away along with much of his face.  He'd left his mortal conscience behind him like a snake sheds its skin, as part of the process of becoming immortal.

    Tied to a pole and burned to death for the rape and murder of a noble's haughty wife.  What a sad and terrible fate!  It had been the one of the many injustices that he'd avenged in the later years.  He hadn't raped her.  She'd wanted it, needed it, had to have the peasant's dirty calloused sex inside her.  Something to boast about to her properly horrified ladyfriends, no doubt.  And he'd been in no position to say no to her.  Spurning a noble woman's advances was about the same thing as committing suicide.

    So he had accomodated the noble lady's desires.  But then her husband had found out somehow, and had killed his wife for her adultery.  It was a lawful act, and that should have been the end of it.  But the nobleman had wanted revenge against the dirty ignorant peasant who'd dared to touch his wife, and his conscience didn't prevent him from accusing an innocent man of rape and murder.  And in Metz, the word of a nobleman was all the evidence necessary to convict a peasant.  And so the peasant--him--had been burned on the stake, only to awake an immortal--one who was scarred,  not only in the face, but deep inside the soul as well.

    Well, plastic surgery and make-up had pretty well fixed the outer scars, and twenty-five years of selfless service to others had made a start--albeit a very small one--in undoing the scars in his soul.  As the limousine left the Tucson city limits behind, he dared to hope that tonight would be a much bigger step in atoning for his myriad sins.  If he could really make a difference tonight, really get a million or two--or perhaps even ten million individuals--to dedicate their lives to peace and understanding, instead of lies and pursuit of material wealth at the expense of their fellow men, then he supposed he had weighted the scales of final justice a good bit more in his favor.  And he knew he needed all the weight on his side that he could get.  He had twelve hundred and seventy-five years of evil to make up for.

    Could any action, no matter how significant, undo what he had done?  He fervently hoped so.  When he faced the Creator at last, he needed to have his conscience as clear as possible, so that the scales would weigh in his favor.  His conscience.  What an amazing feeling it gave him, just rolling the sound of that word around in his head!  He actually had a conscience--may have had the blessed thing inside of him for centuries!

    MacLeod had doubted its existence, but he no longer did.  The people around him had become too, too solid flesh--and he had finally learned to feel their fears and pain inside his soul.  Money meant nothing now.  Power meant nothing now.  The only thing that mattered to him was helping his fellow humans to know their neighbors' feelings in their hearts and souls--the same way that he now did.

    His reverie was interrupted as the car slowed to make a right-turn off the main boulevard.  Biosphere 2 Project?  That doesn't sound like a television studio, he thought.

    "Hey, Matthew--" he said.  He never got to ask the question.

    There was an explosion of some sort--maybe a landmine?--and the limo flipped over.  There were flames and smoke, and somebody whimpered.  All was chaos and confusion.  Cristos' world went black.

*****