Date: Sat, 3 Sep 1994 11:29:06 EDT Reply-To: Highlander TV show stories Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: "N.L. Cleveland" Subject: Aloha Chapter 2 (p 115-120) I'm just lucky to be alive." The man glared at him. "Luck had nothing to do with it." He moved across the room, reaching for Duncan, reaching for answers that he could not, would not get. Duncan slipped sideways, and backed away, not wanting to fight this man, not wanting to throw away the only remaining lead he had to his past. The man closed on him, backed him into a corner. They stood, eye to eye, fists clenched, ice cold blue eyes flashing, brown eyes burning with an inner fire. The man leaned closer. Whispered to him. "I know you were in the Basement. I know what they do to people down there. You shouldn't even be walking around. No one has escaped from there. Ever." Duncan stared back, pushing away the memories of the white room that surged up in his mind, pushing them back deep inside himself, far down, far away. He felt a light sweat break out on his face, a trickle of moisure crawl down his armpits, felt himself flinch, in his heart, in his soul. His eyes flickered away from the blond's, for a moment. Flickered, then steadied and glared back. The man smiled. Duncan frowned. "Are you a plant? Are you here to reel me in? To uncover Raven's allies? To destroy all the opposition to the Agency? To clean out the dissent? Stop the leaks? Is that what you're here for?" The man leaned closer, mesmerizing in his intensity. Duncan shook his head, mute. The man reached for him, a flash of motion. Duncan moved, defending himself instinctively, blocking against a blow....a blow that never came. Instead, the man ripped Duncan's shirt open, ripped the fabric from his back, as Duncan punched at the man and missed, the blond ducking and stepping away, bundling Duncan's shirt in his hands, staring at him, a sudden eager hunger in his face. "It is true." The man looked incredulous. Amazed. "I saw the tapes . What they did. Broken ribs, fingers, kneecaps, burns, contusions....you shouldn't even be walking.....but you don't have a mark on you." Wild surmises tumbled through Duncan's head. His understanding deepened and widened. The man was speaking again, his voice rushed, his face glowing with a voracious, greedy desperation. "Are you some kind of prototype? Recombinant DNA? Military research?" He stared at Duncan, as if his eyes were trying to see through his clothes, through his skin, trying to understand, to analyse his blood, his genes, his basis for existing. "No one knows about this, but me. They only suspect...I can keep quiet, keep your secret. All you have to do is share it with me." The man's voice shook, the vision consuming him. "I'm sorry. There's nothing to share. Nothing I can do. Nothing I can tell you." Duncan wondered what it would take, to win belief. And if he did convince him, what victory would that be? It would only be another death sentence, a sentence to betrayal, to endless eternal pain in the sterile white room, until they tore him apart trying to find out why he lived. "Damn you. Don't toy with me. I need your elixir, your immunity. Tell me...." He broke off, distracted. Listening to someone in the hall, outside the door. Duncan wasn't sure. He'd sensed the presence, minutes ago, felt it drawing closer, become more defined, more powerful, but still wasn't sure *who* it was. Only that it was providing a needed distraction. Duncan exploited the man's momentary hesitation, kicked at him, lunging away from the wall as a knock sounded on the flimsy painted wood, thrust himself past the man as he grappled with Duncan, trying to hold him back, keep him away from the door. Duncan had no such reservations, facing the prospect of a return to the tender mercies of the Agency, he turned all his ferocity, all his strength and half remembered skill on the man, pummeling at his face, at his stomach. He knew he should be doing something different, knew instictively that once, he could have killed, or incapacitated, with a single blow. He mourned his lost skills, his lost knowledge, called out for it to come back, to help him now... He felt the man's hands move across his chest, his shoulder, his neck, then he was tumbling through the air, flat on his back, the wind knocked out of him, the man's knee resting lightly on his throat, his face inches away, a gun in his hand. "If you say a word, I will kill whoever is outside that door." The whispered voice was without inflection. Totally serious. Duncan nodded, silently, to show his understanding, his agreement. The man rose, opened the door cautiously, swung it wide, reached out and pulled in a breathless youth. Richie's eyes widened as he saw Duncan on the floor. He backpedaled rapidly, trying to get out the door, but the man grabbed him around the throat with one arm and held the gun to the boy's temple with his other hand. He pushed the door shut with his foot, the latch clicking loud in the silence of the room. Duncan was on his feet now, knees flexed, ready to fight, to throw himself at Richie's captor, as the situation demanded. Only the ragged breathing of the three men could be heard, each calculating their next move, each wondering what the future held. The next few seconds. "Who are you? Why are you here?" The man snapped out the commands, demanding answers with a shove of his automtic pistol against the boy's temple. Richie compressed his lips, stubborn anger and pride flashing across his face. "Who is he? Tell me, man, or I'll kill him right now." The man's finger tightened on the trigger of his gun, his eyes seeking out Duncan's with their deadly promise. Their threat. "I don't need two hostages." "He's just a boy. Just a messenger..." He moved forward, edging closer, into range, tensed..... Duncan saw Richie's eyes roll up in his head, the whites showing suddenly, pale againts his congealed, reddened face, as he sagged, limp, in the man's grasp. The man shifted his grip, startled for a moment, shifted his balance. Duncan moved simultaneously, exploded towards him, his fingers curled into claws, reaching at him to tear the boy from his grasp, to tear at his eyes, his face. Richie moved, too, his slack body suddenly tensing, turning, flexing, pulling the man furthur off balance, his hands moving in a fast, complex pattern, striking up, arcing around, behind him, unerringly targeting the man's ears, clapping together, hard, the noise quick and sharp in the room, the sound of a pistol shot coming simultaneously, as the man fired, twisted, threw the boy at Duncan and stepped back, staggering, dazed. Duncan caught the boy, caught a glimpse of his now pale face, a streak of red lurid across one cheek, where the bullet had grazed him, caught a glimpse of a wink, an ironic, knowing smile, caught a surge of anger and determination reflected from Richie's mind, and felt the boy's body tense, recoil, felt Richie using him as a springboard to dive back into the fray. Richie went low, rolling at the man's knees, Duncan braced his footing and went high, knowing instinctively how to move, where to strike, as if they had practiced this a thousand times before, their moves complementing one another, seamless, coordinated. The man fired again at Richie, then clubbed the gun at Duncan's face as Duncan leaned back, his foot connecting with the man's chin, snapping his head back, driving him into the wall. Duncan flowed after him, his body moving almost without his conscious will, twisting, bringing him closer, his other leg rocketing forwards in a side kick to the head, stunning the man. He watched him drop, senseless, to the floor. Saw Richie, huddled on the rug, next to him. Still. Silent. He knelt, his fingers urgent, at the boy's neck, feeling for the pulse, the slow, steady pulse that beat reassuring in his neck. Felt the pulse. Felt relief. Felt the memories come crashing in again. An attack, from the outside, from a host of others. Felt a tide, a current, a vast dark ocean rise up in himself to meet those images, those thoughts and chaotic emotions. Meet, embrace, mingle.....overwhelming his tiny grasp on his reconstructed personality, his tiny sliver of hard won self knowledge, the brief moment of time he remembered *existing,* burying it, burying *him* in a flood, an avalance of images, of experiences, of lives and deaths not his own, yet familiar... strange, yet a part of him. He knelt... blind... deaf...mute. Knelt over the body of his friend..his enemy...his peer...student...teacher....killer...Saw all the different possibilities, all the different nuances that colored their relationship, all the different multi-layered complexities of interaction between them, between the surface behaviors, the inner thoughts, the present man, the ones who had come before.... He felt tears on his cheeks, as he remembered....remembered all his lives, all his deaths, all his loves, his hates, his terrors and passions....all he had won. And lost. He felt his life stretch out behind him like the tail of a comet, reaching across space, across time, a blazing path of light, of understanding, illuminating the past, one made up of millions, of billions of tiny particles of information, incidents, moments of comprehension, secret epiphanies, hard won knowledge, made up of hundreds of Immortal minds, and their infinite memories, all a part of him, now. Again. Joy mingled with pain and terror, love warred with hate, benevolence with greed, exultation, with grief. He sobbed, a dry racking sound. Knelt, and found himself, found all his selves, found the knowledge and the will to become who he had been, to take up the burden of his own past, and of his constant vigilant struggle for control of the surging chaos of the Immortal minds he contained inside. < I am...Duncan MacLeod. Of the Clan....MacLeod.> Now he knew what it meant, why he said that, announced it so loudly, so proudly, to the world, why he clung so determinedly to the name, to his past. It was a statement of control, of self determination. Of identity. A reminder, a cry of victory, that he had triumphed, that he had overcome not just the body of another Immortal in battle, but ruled in the internal struggle as well, had subsumed, incorporated their mind and idenity, their power and knowledge and will into his own, into the collective consciousness that was Duncan MacLeod. He was himself, again. In all his myriad selves. He was.....an Immortal. A stirring. His hands still rested lightly on Richie's chest. Felt the boy...the man... shudder, come to himself, regain his own consciousness, his own internal control. Felt a shift in the texture, the taste and touch and feel of Richie's *quickening* as the two men stared into one another's eyes, meeting as equals for the first time. Duncan was no longer just the teacher, now. They both had things to teach one another. To learn. To share. He understood that, finally. Accepted it. Revelled in it. "You know, Mac, I just got tired of being rescued all the time." Richie sat up, rubbing his head where the blond's second shot had grazed him, looking at the sticky blood on his fingers in distaste. "I decided to learn how to take care of myself." He grinned, cocky. "Not bad for a novice, huh?" "No, not bad." Duncan grinned back, and stood, moving to the corner where the blond man was now stirring as well. He kicked the gun laying on the floor furthur out of reach, towards Richie, and went through the man's pockets quickly, looking for some clue to who he was, some connection to Raven, some lead into the future. Duncan had momentarily forgotten, in the rush of memories,in the giddy, overwhelming exultation of recovering his past, rediscovering his identity...that his future was in peril, in a way he had never been threatened yet, before. But individuals, Watchers, even Hunters, were different, a more containable, lesser hazard, than having an arm of the most powerful government in the world interested and involved in tracking him down and ferreting out his secrets. Even if it was an arm in imminent peril itself of being shut down...Kassmir's memories, grudgingly yielded, grudging and only tantilizing fragments, provided a clue....Raven was the key, they thought he had been selling them out, selling their secrets to the enemy, to the Congressional oversight committee....one and the same, to the paranoia clouded minds of those in charge, the hyper-patriots who wrapped the most heinous crimes in the flag and called it "in the national interest".... Duncan had seen their ilk before, in every generation. Some would hide behind religion, claiming god-given rights, divine favor for their cause, while others would hide their self interest behind words like "manifest destiny, " or "the white man's burden." He cursed his sympathy, his pity and curiosity that had driven him to help Raven, to let him survive to become an Immortal, cursed his own impulse to get involved, to help, that had put into peril the secret existence of all the Immortals, as a result. He could have let Kassmir simply kill the man. Could have stayed on the sidelines, uninvolved, then dealt with Kassmir alone, later. Could have let him flee Hawaii, alone, untaught, easy prey for the next Immortal he met. Ignorant of the rules, of the game. No. It would have violated Duncan's most basic beliefs, his basic tenets of fairness, of justice. Would have tipped the balance of his soul, inside, and left him sliding down the slippery slope of situational ethics, practical, pragmatic self interest... He thrust aside the philosphical quandry. Not for him to decide, today. He had done the right thing. He knew it. Could not regret it. Could only try to survive the avalanche that one act of deceny had triggered, had set in motion, try to survive and avert it, somehow... He looked at the papers in his hand. From the wallet of the man. Alexi, a name to go with the face. Alexi Andreyovitch A Russian. He wondered if the man still had any feelings for his former country, if he felt any conflict over his role, working with an American agency, or if he was just a mercenary, a hired killer, a thug with no higher purpose than securing his next contract, his next kill. The man's, Alexi's, eyes were open now, flickering around the room, assessing the situation, the gun held easily in the youth's hand, the relaxed, sure stance of Duncan's body, his dormant skills reinhabiting his muscles, informing his posture, his movements, his most basic attitudes and aura. Duncan met Alexi's eyes, saw the fear in their depths, saw it expand to include Richie, as well. "There are more of you, aren't there." The man's voice was quiet, his words careful, precise. His questions were not questions, they were statements, of fact, of belief.. He looked like his world had just been turned upside down. "How many....how long...." Duncan didn't know, didn't want to be forced to make this decision. He glanced again at the papers in his hands. A letter, flimsy paper, folded many times. From a physican's office. In Italian. He read it, the short terse words explaining many things, not making his decision any easier. Andreyovitch saw Duncan read the letter, flushed, looked away as Duncan's eyes sought his. "Get it over with. Protect yourself. Your secrets. It doesn't make much difference to me, now, does it." Alexi's voice was scornful, proud. =========================================================================