Date: Sun, 30 Apr 1995 04:46:37 -0400 Reply-To: Monique6ft@AOL.COM Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: "Monique T." Subject: Highleaper 1/2 (parts 1 & 2) I found this story on a BBS somewhere; it was apparently posted to the newsgroup sometime last Summer. The author gave me permission to post it here, and I thought it would make a nice addition to our archives. Unfortunately it was never finished because the writer ran into a creative wall so to speak. (Hey, maybe you writer types could help him out...) TITLE: "Highleaper" AUTHOR: "Lawrence E. Nagy" SYNOPSIS: Sam leaps into an immortal during the 'Gathering' # OF CHAPTERS: still being written TYPE OF STORY: crossover__X__ with __ Highlander television series __ HIGHLEAPER Part1 First Sam felt the tingling of a leap, his world turned into the usual blue light then something went wrong, terribly wrong. Pain shot through his body. It felt like an electrical shock strong enough to lift him off the ground. Blackness around him lit up with flashes of a blue-white lightning and sparks fell from above. The pain subsided for an instant then returned with a vengeance, it felt like he had been impaled on a bolt of lightning. It was too much to bear, Sam screamed in agony and the ground came up to meet his knees. He landed hard and heard what ever it was he had been holding clang to the ground. When the energy subsided, Sam continued his fall but was able to catch himself at the last minute, barely avoiding eating pavement. He knelt there for a few moments trying to catch his breath, finally he opened his eyes, hoping that where ever he was there was some light. The place was dark but Sam could see, he leaned back on his heals and looked up. A few dim lights hung high overhead, there were also many that still sparked from an apparent overload. It must have been caused by what ever he had just endured. Sam could make out a few windows showing a night sky high overhead. 'What is this?' he thought 'Where am I?.' He smelled something odd yet very familiar. "Blood" he whispered to himself "I smell blood." Sam immediately started looking around. Laying in the shadows a couple of yards away was the outline of a body. Though every muscle in his body ached, Sam forced himself to his feet and headed to whom ever this was. This person obviously needed help. As his angle of sight changed, Sam stopped dead in his tracks. He found why he smelled blood, the body was headless and lay in a large pool of blood. "Oh, boy." he whispered to himself. It was the corpse of a large man, well over six feet. He was well muscled and in very good shape. The body had several cuts on its arms and torso. Beside missing it's head, it had a another very fatal stab wound in the center of the chest just below breast bone. When Sam realized blood was still oozing from the body he felt a surge of panic and took a few steps away. Who ever did this could still be around. Something clanged under foot. He had just stepped on a large two-handed straight sword. One like he remembered seeing them carry in movies about King Arthur and Camelot. "What is this?" he said "What the hell is going on here?" Sam then remembered dropping something when he leaped in. He limped back over to where he was originally and looked around. He found a white handled sword. It was a Japanese katana, he remembered learning to use one in some of his martial arts classes. This one looked like an antique, he was so intrigue by it, he didn't realize, at first, that the blade was covered with blood. Seeing the blood he almost threw the sword down, but didn't. "Mac!" a voice echoed through the warehouse. Sam turned toward the voice, instinctively swinging the sword to a classic on-guard position. A figure silhouetted in the shadows limped toward him. As the person approached Sam could make out the form of young man holding a sword. He held the sword low, almost dragging it, he looked like it took all of his effort to maintain his grip. "Mac," the young man said again "Are you all right?" 'My name must be Mac' Sam thought relaxing his stance then stumbled his reply "Yea, I guess I'm okay." This person seemed about Sam's height, had short blond hair and a boyish face. He must have only been in his late teens or early twenties. Sam also realized that he had several cuts and very nasty looking blood stained gash across the front of the black sweater he was wearing. "Are YOU okay?" Sam asked sincerely. "I'm fine." he replied "But old Lance here would have had my head if it weren't for you. That's another one I owe you." "I didn't know you were keeping track." Sam said as if he knew what was going on. It seemed as if this wasn't the first time he had saved the boy's neck. The boy leaned down and picked up a nearby rag to wipe the small amout of blood off of his own sword. Sam, running on instinct, did the same. They headed out of the warehouse to a deserted pier. There were two vehicles parked near the door. An old single seat Harley-Davidson and a early 80's black Trans-Am. Sam's companion looked longingly at the bike. "What I ride." he said as they passed it. "It's too bad someone like Lance would own such a fine piece of machinery." He then looked toward the edge of the pier "How long do you suppose my wheels will last in that water?" Sam frowned at the boy's trivial worries. He had apparently just killed this Lance person, beheading him, and this kid was worrying about motorcycles. "I don't think very long." "I'll come back later and pull it out, it'll give me something to do." They headed toward the Trans-Am and Sam went straight for the passanger side. "You want me to drive?" the boy said surprised. "Lance must have wore you out pretty good." As Sam opened the passenger side door he heard the boy clear his throat. "The keys" he said "I am going to need the keys." "Of course." Sam said weakly and started feeling his pockests till he found a set to hand over. Sam fell into the passenger seat then looked at his clothes by the car's dome light. He was wearing blue jeans and a cut and blood stained white t-shirt. "Hey Mac, what's up?" his companion said as he slid into the seat next to him "Your acting really weird." "I just killed a man." Sam said trying to find an excuse for his disorientation. The kid looked at him strangely "You should be used to it by now. Are you sure your okay, something really weird is going on." "What are you talking about?" Sam asked not having act like he didn't know what he was talking about. "I don't feel you." he said very seriously. "What?" "The quickening. I don't feel it in you." The boy said "It's as if you weren't one of us anymore." "Your tired," Sam said "lets go". The boy put the car into gear and slowly drove down the pier with lights off. Neither said another word, they just sat back and let the Trans-Am carry them into the night. Part 2 Al watched his friend's body laying very still on the low bunk. Every time Sam leaped, Al would come here to watch and wait. Al knew that one of these days Sam would sit up and be himself again, not some stranger out of the past. Sam appeared to be illuminated by a very faint blue light. "Here it come's." Al said to his comrades in the control booth. Suddenly Sam started writhe in pain, he clutched his side and rolled from the bunk landing on his knees. Sitting on his heals and leaning back against the edge of the bunk he continued to clutch his side, throwing his head back he screamed in agony. Al turned toward the observation window "Quick get in here he's bleeding." Blood poured out from between the fingers of the hand he clutched to his side. Other parts of Sam's body where also bleeding. Cuts had appeared under Sam's clothes on his arms, torso and legs. Several small scrapes had opened up on his face. The staff pushed Al aside and tackled Sam to the ground. They immediately starting cutting away the white jump suit to get to the wounds. "This is really deep." a female voice said "He's lost a lot of blood." "He's unconscious." another voice said shortly "Get the KIT in here. Let's go we're losing him." During the commotion Al just stood back and watched in disbelief. Was it all going to end this quick, what the hell had he been doing? All of a sudden it dawned on him "Sam, what's happening to Sam?" Al ran toward the imaging chamber grabbing his hand-link off its shelf. "Gushie, center me on Sam NOW." He yelled at the control room. "I'm trying." Gushie's voice came back over the speaker. "But there's a lot of interference, almost as if there's a short circuit somewhere." "I don't care what you have to do," Al yelled "get me there, now!" The imaging chamber door opened revealing Tina in her white project jump suit. She had blood on both hands and down the front of her smock. There were even smudges across her forehead where she had pushed hair out of her eyes. Tears ran down her cheeks, one hand reached up gripping her throat with the other hand supporting it. "The wound was too deep." she whispered "He'd lost too much blood." She hesitated as she sniffled back a sob and tried to wipe the tears from her cheeks, smudging more blood across them. "There really wasn't anything we could have done." Everything started to swirl around Al as Tina turned away closing the chamber door. The room went black, Al stumbled backward in a daze, tripping over his own feet, he sat down hard and in the middle of the floor. Suddenly Al was in the back seat of a car. They were driving down a deserted road at night. Al could see the faint glow of city lights in the distance. Where was Sam? he couldn't see over the high back of the bucket seat in front of him and was about to adjust his position when the driver spoke. "Did I tell you about Michelle?" "No" came a voice from the passenger seat. The hand-link said that Sam was the passenger. Al knew better then to make himself known to Sam right away. Sam's reaction could make his companion nervous to say the least. "She's really great." the young driver said "You know what she calls me? " He never let Sam respond, he just kept talking, "She calls me Richard." he said proudly "She says Richie is a boy's name." "That's good to know, Richard." Sam said. Richie drove on for a few moments, as if contemplating something then said with a grin "You know, Mac, I think we'd better stick with Richie." "What ever you say, it's your name." Al started punching what little information he had into the hand-lank causing it to beep. Sam immediately sat up from his slouched position and looked back at Al. Sam's host had long black hair tied back in a tail. He looked tall with sharp features and dark eyes. He wore jeans and a white t-shirt. The shirt had several blood stained cuts on it. Sam immediately gave Al his patented 'What took you so long look' and said to his companion "Pull over, I need some air." The Trans-Am immediately pulled over and parked in the grass by the side of the road. As soon as the car was stopped, Sam turned to Richie and said "Stay here." He got out of the car and walked into a field away from the car. Al was suddenly beside him. "What took you so long." Sam said trying not to talk directly to his friend. Al was ashen and visibly shaken. "We had trouble in the waiting room." He said. "Sam I've got to tell you something." "What?" Sam was suddenly very concerned. Al very rarely informed him of what was going on in the lab. "What's happened, was someone hurt?" "The man you leaped into," Al said slowly "died soon after he arrived." "Al," Sam said in disbelief "what happened, was it the leap, something really weird happened when I leaped in." "No," Al said and kind of pointed to the rips in Sam's clothes "I think he came that way." "So when I leap out, a dead man leaps back in my place?" Sam said in disbelief. He looked back at the young man leaning against the hood of the car. "He thinks his friend survived that fight." Sam said. "Yea, what happened before I got to you?" Al asked. "It doesn't matter right now." Sam said sternly "Just tell me who I am and what I'm suppose to do." Al shuffled around a bit then said "We don't know." "What?" "Well he couldn't very well tell us." Al said "and they don't come in with ID." Al then beat his hand link several times. "Ziggy is having a hard time tracing this one she thinks she blew some circuits bringing that leap in." Al then smiled with inspiration "Do you have a wallet?" Just look at your driver's license." The suggestion was so simple it was stupid. "Did my multi-million dollar high-bred computer come up with that brilliant suggestion?" Sam asked as he took his wallet out. The wallet was almost empty, some cash, a few slips of paper and a driver's license. Sam looked at the picture, it was the same long-haired man he'd seen in the passenger's side makeup mirror. "Ian McShane." Al said, reading through Sam's shoulder. "Now you have a name. Go run your checks and tell me what I have to do to get out of here." Sam was getting very nervous about standing by the side of street in a torn and bloody t-shirt talking to himself. A sure way to end up in the nut house. Al was just about to open the chamber door when Sam added "Oh, and run the plates on the car, they might give us a little more information." "Ziggy's already got them." Al assured his friend. Sam walked by Richie who just watched him pass. "Let's go." Sam said as he got back in the car. Richie continued to lean on the car with his arms folded in front of him. He seemed to come to a decision and got back behind the wheel. They were soon moving again, where to, Sam had no idea. End of part 2 =========================================================================