========================================================================= Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 18:26:00 PST Reply-To: Mike Goldman Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Mike Goldman Subject: "Scavenger Hunt" (9/11)--HL Story Praise, comments, flames to Lori at: mgoldman@cts.com They sat for a moment before starting the car. "Time?" Rory asked wearily, leaning back and closing her eyes. "45 minutes," Mac answered, before following her lead. "Where are we gonna find a full Scotch bottle?" she asked, eyes still closed. Although he knew she couldn't see him, Mac shrugged in response, forgetting that any movement brought new fumes that made his nose sting and his eyes water. "S'pose we could try our luck at a liquor store and hope one got thrown out by mistake." she offered. "OK." Duncan opened his eyes and leaned forward to start the car with great effort and pointed them towards the small convenience store towards the outskirts of town. "My turn," Duncan said and started to unbuckle his seatbelt. "Um, Mac?" He turned and looked at her. "Why don't you hang out here? It's been a long night...and you reek." she grinned. He smiled back at her, "You're no rose yourself." The looked at each other and then both of the started to laugh as they looked at the dirt, trash and leaves smeared on the other person. "Oh boy," Rory said finally, wiping her eyes, "we look pretty bad." Mac nodded, still chuckling. "Let's go in together." They unbuckled themselves, got out of the car, and wandered up the short inclined driveway that led to the store, its windows blocked by the usual displays of soft drinks and various alcoholic beverages. "Good thing it's so late," Duncan commented, "less people to notice--or smell--the two of us." As they came closer to the store, they both happened to glance in through the door at the same time and saw two masked gunmen robbing the clerk. Hitting the ground at the same moment, they crawled up and leaned their backs against a window that was blocked by a display. "You were saying?" Rory asked. She leaned her head back against the window. "Figures this would happen to *us*. What do you want to do now?" Mac sneaked a look through a small space in between cases of soft drinks. "Follow my lead." As they slowly got up, Rory asked, "You wouldn't mind being a little more informative, would you?" "If I knew what we were going to do, you'd be the second to know." "Great." The electronic sensor chimed as they entered and the two gunmen and the terrified clerk--a balding, rather myopic man to judge from the thickness and size of his glasses--looked over to see two dirty, rather aromatic individuals in trenchcoats walk in. "What's going on?" Duncan asked genially as he moved slightly closer to the robbers, motioning for Rory to do the same. One of the gunmen turned and pointed a gun at them while the other kept his gun trained on the clerk. "Get down on the ground!" "We just came in to get some beer," Rory offered, pointing down the aisle. "We won't be but a moment." Still following Mac's lead, she edged cautiously closer to the gunman closest to her. "Down on the ground!" the gunman repeated. "Did you hear an echo?" Duncan asked her. One of the masked men began sniffing the air. "What is that *smell*?" "I told you!" Rory exclaimed, shoving Duncan closer to the gunmen as she pretended to shove him away from her. Turning to the gunmen, she explained, "I *told* him that cologne was a bad idea." By now they had edged almost completely up to the robbers. Rory looked at Duncan and he nodded. As one, the reached out and grabbed a gun muzzle. Spinning his quarry around, Duncan catapuled him into an Alpo display while Rory swung hers directly into the breakfast cereals, watching as yellow hearts, green clovers and blue diamonds began spraying everywhere. "Not the Captain Crunch, too!" she wailed. Both the gunmen staggered up groggily as she and Mac slid the guns over to the startled clerk. "Come on boys," Duncan egged, "it's been a *long* night!" "Yeah," Rory agreed, "We're tired and he smells bad." Duncan stole a quick look at her and she raised an eyebrow as if to say one couldn't deny the truth. He raised an eyebrow at her as well, but smiled back. Then, the brief moment of camaraderie was interrupted by the gunmen coming at them and they grabbed the first thing that was handy in order to defend themselves. Duncan looked down to find a six-pack of Coke in his hand and flung it directly into his assailant's face while Rory came up swinging with a giant salami. Both men again fell to the ground, but stayed there this time, groaning. It was at this point the clerk screamed, "I've called the cops! I've called the cops!" Duncan and Rory looked at each other. This would not be good. Looking back down at the gunmen, they judiciously clocked each of them on the head with the salami and then tossed it aside. The clerk stared at them, dumbfounded, as Rory picked up the gun that had landed near the counter and placed it in the clerk's trembling hand. "You might want to keep this pointed at them until the cops arrive." she advised. Turning to Macleod, she said, "We'd better get out of here." He nodded and they began gently stepping over cans and ground-up cereal. "Wait! Where are you going?" the still-panicked clerk stammered as he wheeled towards them...unfortunately pointing the gun directly at them. The two Immortals gently stepped out of the gun's way. "We need to go." Rory said. "Yeah, we...don't want our cover blown." Mac finished, ignoring Rory's look. "Don't tell anyone." "Your cover?" the clerk repeated. "We're, ah, secret agents." said Rory, getting into the spirit of things. "It's better if the cops don't know we were here." "Oh!" the clerk breathed, nodding sagely. "Is there anything I can do for you to thank you?" "Actually, there is," said Duncan, "you can trash the security camera video." "And how about a bottle of Scotch?" Rory put in. "Sure." The clerk, trying to coordinate gun and body, made his way over to one of the liquor displays. Grabbing one of the nearby hand baskets, he loaded about six bottles of Scotch into it. "Is this enough?" Mac opened his mouth but Rory elbowed him. "Perfect." she smiled. The sirens could be heard in the distance. "Well, gotta go." She hefted the basket in her hand and she and Mac prepared to make their exit again. "Wait!" Sighing deeply, they plastered identical smiles on their faces and turned around once more. "Yes?" "How will you contact me if you need me?" "We'll, um, use our code names," said Rory, jerking a thumb at Macleod. "He's Skunkboy." "And she's Boa Girl." "MACLEOD!" The clerk nodded again and they fairly skipped out to the car, threw the Scotch in and left just as the police pulled up. Looking back at the corner, they could just see the clerk enthusiastically stomping on the videotape.