STAND BY ME PART 2:

ARTIFICIAL IMMORTALITY

By JoLayne

EnyaJo@aol.com

SUMMARY: Joe's rescued from the nursing home, but there are a lot of loose ends to tie up.

Hope you like this. Stand By Me can be found on the GenFic archives, on 7^th Dimension, or at my site: http://www.oocities.org/enyajo/hlfanfic.html

After Joe was rescued from the Peaceful Rest Nursing Home in Seacouver, he was happy and relieved, but wanted some legs! His prosthetics were left behind when MacLeod and Methos liberated him. An old friend of Mac's had a friend, who had a friend who worked on the latest technology available for prosthetics. So, Methos and Amy brought Joe to Boston where he could be fitted for the best limbs available. After what he had been through, Methos thought he deserved the top of the line, and he was prepared to pay for them.

Joe sat on a chair in the hotel room with his friend and daughter, admiring his new legs. There was a computer chip embedded inside each leg that was it's 'brain'. He freely lifted his right leg, then bent and unbent his knee and shook his head with mild amusement. He was still not used to them. He no longer needed a cane and could even twist his ankles. Happily, Joe jumped up and grabbed Amy, who was sitting on the end of the bed and twirled her around in a dance.

"Careful there," Amy laughed gaily at her nimble footed father. She was still extremely careful around Joe and his legs, worried he'd do too much, too soon.

Delirious, Joe said, "I'm fine. I've never felt better." Then, sobering for a moment, Joe genuinely thanked Methos for the gift. They weren't cheap. "I owe you so much," he realized as he pulled his daughter into a hug and kissed her on the top of her head.

"Don't mention it," Methos said, patting him on the back.

Joe felt absolutely light on his feet, but he was still recovering from his heart attack. Amy insisted he sit back down. "I just got you back, I don't want you going into any hospitals or nursing homes again, so take it easy."

He placated her by taking a seat, verbalizing his thoughts, "That Gerald... I wonder what's going on in that place and how he's doing."

Methos said, "I'm sure he's fine. Mac called from the airport, he's on his way here."

"He's 81 years old, Adam," Joe spouted. "If they're still poking and prodding, testing him, God knows what condition he's in, or if he's even still alive."

Amy gave him a glass of orange juice and sat next to him, "Dad," she began.

Joe smiled, took her hand, and interrupted, "You know how many years I waited for you to call me that?"

Methos sat back and sipped on his beer. He felt a touch of heartwarming pleasure for both of them. Joe had been so depressed when Amy left suddenly after the Walker incident, but she'd come running without having to be asked twice when Joe was in trouble. He saw Joe twisting his ankles and bouncing his knee while he sat in the chair, just because he could. Methos zoned out their private conversation and focused on the song on the radio while they caught up and solidified their bond.

Suddenly, Joe's words had him focusing on the conversation, "The others," Joe shook his head. "I really didn't see anyone else in the home. We were all kept on separate schedules in different wards."

Amy told him, "There were children, Dad. Did you ever see children at the home?"

"Kids?" Joe was shocked, and rose out of his seat, unaided and began pacing in the room, "I didn't see any kids! What the hell was going on there?"

"That's what Mac's looking into," Methos said, getting off the bed, to act as support in case Joe, in his agitation, took a wrong turn. He wasn't quite used to the way his legs worked and he was pacing a hole in the carpet.

There was a knock on the door. Amy was relieved to see Duncan MacLeod walk in knowing he had information. <Great timing>, she thought ,this waiting was doing them all in.

His news wasn't good. "The Peaceful Rest Nursing Home has been cleared out. The entire building is empty. Nothing was left behind."

"It was completely wiped clean?" Joe asked, knowing the watchers were good and thorough, but it had happened so quickly.

"It's just an empty shell," Mac said, then he stood back gleefully staring at Joe, standing, pacing, without the use of a cane. "How do your legs feel?"

"Like they're mine, Mac," Joe rubbed his hand against his left leg, smiling at Methos again in thanks. "I can even feel temperature. There's a chip inside, and it will let me feel hot and cold. And I mean hot and cold, Mac."

"That's wonderful. They look great," Mac said, still looking him over, then he realized that they were looking at each other at eye level. Had Joe asked to be a little taller with his new legs?

Amy took some photographs out of MacLeod's hand and leafed through them. They were of the empty building, grounds and what rooms he'd been able to take a picture of through the windows of what had recently been masquerading as a full-fledged nursing home, a place where old Watchers could go to be cared for.

Amy's cell rang and she pulled it out of her bag to answer it. They could all tell from her end of the conversation, that the call was from Watcher Headquarters, and that she might be in a spot of trouble. Joe immediately recognized her uptight demeanor. She pleasantly, but abruptly, answered their questions with one syllable words. She hung up and told them that she had just been 'called in'. "I have to go to London for a meeting."

"What about?" Joe massaged her neck, she was wound up tight because she didn't want to let them see that she was a little more than worried. She should be able to trust them; Joe trusted her and them with his life. He told her, "Well, I'll go with you and try to help smooth things over."

"No, Dad," she immediately said, making Joe giggle with delight that she so freely used that term of endearment. "You've seen enough danger for one man, at least for a while. Just enjoy getting used to your new legs and I'll see you later. I'll call as soon as the meeting's over."

She picked up her coat and went to the door. Joe stopped her with a hand on her arm, "You have to go right now?"

"The meeting's at 1 tomorrow afternoon, London time. They already made my flight reservation." Before Joe could talk her into letting him go with her, she kissed him on the cheek, "I'll call you as soon as the meeting's over. It'll be fine."

As she opened the door, Joe said, "Take care of yourself."

"I will," Amy said, waving behind her as she made her way down the hall.

Joe forcefully shut the door, pissed. He knew there were factions of the Watcher organization that were trigger happy, and he couldn't help but think she was walking into something because she had publicly protected him, saving him from that place.

"What kind of trouble could she be in?" Mac asked as he moved a chair closer to Joe for him to sit on. Joe just stood and glared at him; he didn't need to be coddled. "Okay, fine," Mac said and he sat on the chair himself and crossed one leg over the other.

"Who knows," Joe muttered, examining the wallpaper, praying it would go well. "I wonder if they really know what went on in that place."

Methos finished his brew and tossed the bottle into the garbage can across the room. Raised his arms in victory, he made the perfect shot. "I was with the organization for ten years, Joe, and I never knew how gruesome the place was. They kept it well hidden. I'm thinking that the Omega Group isn't a part of the main governing body of the Watchers."

"I didn't know either," Joe fumed. "Or I never would have allowed them to bring me there." He looked at his arms where they'd put in IVs, and at his fingers where he was pricked twice a day the entire time he was there.

Mac shook his head, looking at the two former Watchers, "How could they not know? The place was a sanctioned nursing home for their own."

"Creative bookkeeping," Methos quickly responded, to which Joe agreed. "You'd be surprised at what the Watchers paid for while I was with them."

"I can imagine," Mac grumbled, then slapped the arms of the chair and stood, "Well, let's go."

"Where?"

"London," Mac said. "Amy doesn't have to know we're following her." He put his coat back on, then took his katana out of it so he could pack it for the flight.

Joe was relieved Mac was thinking along the same lines he was, then he guardedly looked over at Methos, gauging his reaction to going to the rescue of another person, so soon after the last episode. Methos, to both of their surprise, was also putting on his coat. "Good plan," he said. Needless to say, they were both amazed that he was willing to once again leap to the rescue. He caught their stares and asked, "What? Or, don't you need me?"

Joe said, an easy smile floating across his face, "You're going to waltz right into Watcher Headquarters?"

"No," Methos emphatically stated. "I'll find a side door. Just to...," he shrugged, "see how the meeting goes."

"God, Methos," Joe spouted. "I didn't expect this from you."

"Why?" Methos asked because he really wanted to know the answer to that. "I'm concerned about Immortals, and interfering Watchers."

"Well, okay," Mac said happy that he didn't have to talk Methos into going, which was what he'd been prepared to do before he so gallantly offered his services.

Methos muttered on the way to the car, "But, if I get executed, I want my ashes scattered over the White Cliffs of Dover."

The meeting took place in a cold, stark, steel reinforced room. A panel of Watchers, on a raised platform sat behind a large, imposing teak wood desk looking down on her as she sat in a solitary folding chair in the middle of the room. Amy had already been told that another Watcher had been assigned to Pangent and that she was on probation for her behavior; 'leaving an assignment without proper cover that is, not securing proper backup before leaving her post'. She lightly laughed from relief, "That's all?"

The panel members weren't thrilled with her reaction to their announcement. One asked, "What else would you suggest?"

She remained quiet and put on a sorrowful face. Her behavior at the nursing home was on her mind the whole time, thinking that was why the meeting had been called. The possibility of a reprimand for leaving a boring Immortal, who wasn't going to be challenging anyone in the near future, unwatched, had never crossed her mind. She was actually happy when the head Watcher on the panel, speaking into the blaring microphone for the record, stated in a monotone voice, "You will work in filing for three months, after which time, we will closely scrutinize your work. We'll expect your final entry in Arthur Pangent's chronicle by the end of the week."

"Thank you, sirs," she respectfully said and stood while they filed out of the room, leaving her alone with a guard. He handed her a paper describing her new assignment. She cringed thinking of even more boredom ahead of her when she saw that she wasn't even assigned to the busy, well stocked London Watcher Headquarter Records Room. Her base of operation was to be Charlotte, North Carolina. <Wonderful!>, she ironically thought. She collected her purse and briefcase and was escorted out of the building by the guard. On the way out, she developed an idea. Her new predicament wouldn't be so bad after all.

Outside the building, she bade the guard goodbye and waved for a taxi, but none stopped for her. She started down the sidewalk and just about flipped when a couple of blocks from the Watcher Headquarter building, displaying a placard that read 'Industrial Fabrication', she saw her father walking toward her. "What are you going here?"

"Watching for you," he smiled, and took her arm, to keep her walking. Amy still hadn't gotten use to the sight of her father walking without a cane. Joe obviously wasn't complacent about it either, because he did a little soft shoe dance for her. Then he said, "Security here is tight. We couldn't get inside. What did they do to you?"

"I'm working in filing for the next three months while I'm on probation."

"Nothing else?"

"No. Isn't that enough?"

"Great!," he immediately exclaimed. "We can look up info on Barrymore."

"That's just what I was thinking," she smiled. "But, who's we?"

"Me," Joe pointed, as the car driven by Methos stopped at the curb down the street. "And them."

"Tucker and Holloway?"

"Huh?"

"Never mind," she shook her head with a smile and took his arm as they walked to the sedan, the back door already opened for them by Duncan. "I don't know how much I'll be able to find out," she told Joe. "I'll be in Charlotte, North Carolina."

"God," Joe replied. "They really wanted you away from the action."

"I wonder why. Maybe they know more than they're letting on," Amy said as she settled herself in the back seat. As soon as they were in the car and all the doors were shut, Methos peeled away from the curb. Amy said, "They didn't even bring up the events at the Peaceful Rest Nursing Home."

Methos replied, "Why ask questions when they already know the answers."

"If they're so concerned about what I know," Amy said, sitting up and leaning over the front seat. "Then why would they send me to Timbuktu?"

"So they can keep an eye on you, while preventing you from being able to figure out anything on your own," Joe answered.

Amy turned to Methos and asked, "Hey, Adam. You think that back door is going to work in Charlotte?"

"If you haven't told anyone about it, it should."

Duncan asked, "What back door?"

"To get past the password screen, you push alt, control, F9, type in Alexa," she easily told him.

Methos stopped short at the intersection, and groaned, "Just tell everyone!"

"It's only them."

Duncan asked, "Alexa?"

"Yes. I needed a word that I wouldn't forget, at least four letters long," Methos said peeling out again after the light changed. "You got a problem with that?"

Joe and Mac exchanged knowing smiles, touched that she was still so important in his life while Amy asked, "Who's Alexa?"

CHARLOTTE WATCHER BUREAU

Amy worked in the filing room and, unsurprisingly, had a lot of time on her hands. The only thing that saved her sanity was whenever she was alone, she used the Alexa back door to find out anything she could about Clarissa Barrymore, The Omega Group, the Eureka Project, Gerald Nedemeier, Joe Dawson, James Tucker, Sinclair Holloway, or Peaceful Rest. It was a long process because almost everything she ran a search on was classified. If she did happen to find anything, it was 'For Eyes Only', which meant she couldn't print out or download any of it. All the information she gleaned was in pieces, nothing was organized like the rest of the information in the database was.

One afternoon, she got into her own personnel file and took a look. That's when she found out why she had been given less than exciting assignments. The Watchers were worried that she would be kidnaped by an Immortal again and divulge their secrets. Assigning her to watch Immortals who wouldn't be in a fight was the only way, they felt, she could get her confidence back and return to real field work. She stood and paced, pissed. They didn't need to protect her! She was the one who wrote out the end of Walker's chronicle! She shouldn't have written that she was compromised, why did she do that? At least Adam would be happy. In Walker's chronicle, she only wrote that he was taken by an unknown Immortal.

Thinking about that only brought up a lot of questions about her father's mysterious Immortal friend, Adam Pierson. Why was he so paranoid? And who is Alexa? How old was he? Where did he come from? Why, and how was he a Watcher for so long. None of them would explain anything to her. So many questions went through her head, but she knew she wasn't going to find any answers there. Besides, she needed to use her time alone with the database doing something productive.

Every little nugget of information gleaned that was a big deal when they were so few and far between. They had all agreed on 'radio silence' for the time being so anyone watching her or tapping her phone wouldn't know that she and her father were friends with Immortals, who were trying to find out what a splinter group of the Watchers was up to. That evening would be the first meeting with Joe, Duncan and Methos since they had parted ways in London.

Amy walked into the restaurant to see that she was the last to arrive. She immediately handed over the employee list for the now-defunct Peaceful Rest Nursing Home and Gerald Nedemeier's current address, updated just the week before, to Mac as she sat down at their table. It was the most solid information that she'd been able to lay her hands on in the past two weeks.

Joe and Duncan stood when she arrived, and she just shook her head at Methos, still sitting, munching on a bread stick. Mac sat and scanned the list. She told him, "Sorry I haven't been able to print out more. I have some notes in my briefcase, but most of what I've found out is in my head."

Mac held the printout saying, "No, this is fine," as he read through the names.

Methos leaned forward and caught a glimpse of it, "For now," he added. "We have to find that Barrymore woman, she's the key to the whole thing."

"Amy's doing the best she can, Adam," Joe spouted.

"You don't have to defend me, Dad." Amy glared at Methos, "I'm doing the best I can."

"Sorry," Methos said and sat back in his chair. He thought he was dealing with someone who could hack. Maybe he should go to this insignificant bureau and try his own hand at it. Two weeks and a list of employees was all she was able to figure out?

Amy explained, "That's the only thing I was able to print out. I found out more, it's just that it's 'For Eyes Only', so I can't hand over buckets of paper to you." She tilted her head towards Adam and told Duncan and Joe, "Maybe Bill Gates over there can figure out a way around that security."

Methos shrugged, maybe so. "So, tell us what you've found out."

"You know that our Ms. Barrymore was kicked out of the organization five years ago for being a wacko. She was a scientist who was brought into the Watcher organization when she discovered an Immortal," Amy brought them all up to speed. "She began experimenting on Immortals. When the Watchers found out, they kicked her out. Remember? The experiments were called The Eureka Project, funded by the Omega Group, a splinter organization of the Watchers, founded by Barrymore, operated by Tucker and Holloway," she said slowly, then whispered, "How to make mortals Immortal..."

"Yeah," they urged her on to tell them something they didn't know. They'd had two weeks to digest all that and just wanted her to get on with it new information.

"It's still going on," Amy solemnly said, and let them digest that. "The Peaceful Rest was shut down, but it was only the tip of the iceberg. There are eight more facilities across the globe doing the exact same thing." She paused, all three of them looked sick and pissed. "Do you know the death toll is so far, worldwide? 138,092 mortals have died from the tests in the last three years. They ah... must not think too highly of Immortals, because there isn't a statistic for them, if any did die."

The two Immortals and her father did a slow burn, it was a bigger problem than they had thought, and the Watchers had to know what was going on. The waitress came to take their order, they were all stumped in their chairs, no longer hungry. Methos said, "I'll just have another beer. Or three."

"Me, too," Joe said.

Mac agreed.

The waitress was dejected, "You're not going to order a meal?"

"No longer hungry," Duncan said. "We'll tip well, though. Just keep the drinks coming."

The waitress looked at Amy, "And you?"

"White wine."

She went off, jealously looking at the other tables filled with people ordering $25 meals. They better be good tippers!

Amy waited until she was out of hearing range and whispered to them, "Most of the nursing home casualties were children, their ages range from sixteen down to three! Three years old! Where are they getting these kids? Why kids?"

Methos answered, seemingly without emotion, "They need cells that are still in the developmental stage." He leaned over the table to tell her, "We need to get Pangent on our side."

"Arthur Pangent?" She said, surprised he would bring up her last assignment.

"Yeah."

"Tall, balding, geeky?"

"Yes. We need his help!"

"Why?"

Methos told them, "Because he's recently been a nuclear physicist, a chemist, and he has a brain that can scare grown men. He can figure out the scientific aspects of what they've been up to."

"A nuclear... what? You can't be serious," Amy said, then saw that he was. "That's who I was following? What?!" That outburst drew many stares, so they finished their drinks and got out of there, leaving an obscenely large tip for the poor waitress.

As soon as Gerald Nedemeier's door opened, Joe, Duncan and Methos were shocked. The frail old man, that insisted they get Joe out of Peaceful Rest, who had looked like he was on his death bed, opened the door himself. When they walked into his apartment, they didn't see an oxygen tank, medical machinery, or any of the trappings he'd been hooked up to that was keeping him alive. Gerald was as mobile as a little kid and bear hugged Joe with great enthusiasm, "I'm so glad you got out of that place!" He looked at Duncan and Methos, and slapped them on their backs, "Good job, fellas."

Joe confused, mechanically asked, "What's going on?"

"You tell me," Gerald slyly smiled. "You came here. Not that I'm not glad you see you, Joe. Sit down. Would you like some tea, or maybe whiskey? I know it's early in the day, but I don't have to worry about my blood pressure or medication anymore, so why not?"

Joe thought he looked about 20 years younger. While Gerald waltzed around the apartment, in a very chipper mood, and Joe and Duncan watched him with their eyes about to bug out, Methos did something that took them all by surprise. He whipped his sword out of his coat, grabbed Gerald's hand and sliced it open.

After the yelling died down, Gerald's hand healed. "My God!" Joe exclaimed.

"Your God had nothing to do with it," Methos said, more pissed than ever, as he cleaned the blood off his blade and resheathed his sword.

Joe looked at the spry, old, retired watcher and said, "Gerald, you're going to have to help us."

Amy took a day trip up to New York. She was sure Pangent hadn't changed his routine in the least since she last saw him, the day she got the call about Joe's heart attack. She even knew where to find him. It was 12:03 pm, so he had to be on his way from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the benches along 5^th Avenue where he would sit to eat the bologna sandwich she knew he packed that morning.

She got off the bus, and sure enough, Arthur was sitting on a bench, just unwrapping his sandwich. For the first time since she knew who Arthur Pangent was, she walked right up to him and sat down beside him. The meek immortal smiled pleasantly at her, and reached into his tote bag, from which she knew he'd produce a box of apple juice. Wow! Surprise! He switched to Minute Maid orange juice that day.

He took a sip after inserting the straw and noticed her stare. She'd seen him eat his lunch so many times, usually from across the street, or from the steps of the museum. He took another bite of his sandwich, ignoring her. Then, when he couldn't take it anymore, he turned repositioning his tight body to face her on the bench, "What do you want?"

"I need to talk to you, Mr. Pangent," she said, then extended her hand. "You don't know me, but I know you very well. My name is Amy Thomas. May we go somewhere to talk privately?"

"Why?"

"Something very important is happening, and we need your help."

"What?"

That was getting her no where. He was a loner, and she was sure this came as a complete surprise to him. She leaned closer and whispered, "I know you are an Immortal. We need your help."

He jerked back, "How do you know that?"

"That's what we'll talk about," she calmly said. "I promise I'll explain it all. I know you're not a challenger, and I promise that you're safe. But please, Mr. Pangent, come with me so we can talk privately."

It took some convincing, but he finally followed her down the sidewalk to the hotel that her father had checked into. When they entered the hotel, Pangent looked at Amy, wondering if she was a prostitute or something. You can see it all in New York, and he had to admit, it was an interesting way to proposition him. When they entered the elevator, and they were finally out of hearing range of others, she said, "Do you know what Watchers are?"

"What?"

"Watchers," she repeated. "Do you know what they are?"

"No," he quickly stuttered. "I didn't mean, what, as in I can't hear you. I meant what, as in, what are watchers."

Amy had never heard him say more than one word at a time, so she was surprised that he talked very fast, tripping over his syllables. She told him, "That's what I am. I was assigned to you. I know everything about you, kind of," she remembered the info Methos gave her. It had been a surprise. His chronicle stated that he was a museum lover since 1918, after being turned by an explosion that wasn't explained. "We're to watch and record all the Immortals on earth so a clear history can be kept of all of their existence. We're not here to hurt you or interfere, we just watch and record." She paused smiling, "That's the company line. What I'm doing is a violation of every oath I ever took with the organization. I am interfering, but I am not going to hurt you."

The doors opened and she pulled his arm to get him out of the elevator. It was all so new to him, he didn't know that he had been followed, and didn't want to know more. Amy assured him when he walked out into the hall, "You have to trust me, I'm not here to hurt you. We just need your grey matter to figure out some things."

Hearing that he stopped and tried to get back on the elevator, but the doors shut. He pushed at the button, but it was already on it's way down. Amy plead, "Please, Mr. Pangent. We need your help. My father and a friend are in a room down the hall and we'll explain everything to you, then you can decide if you'll help us or not."

She was finally able to direct Arthur to Joe's door. When he saw the two men, Joe and Adam, in the room, he was ready to run because he felt a buzz and didn't have a sword. He didn't even own a sword. Methos immediately went to the skittish man and shook his hand. "I'm Adam Pierson, Arthur. I'm not challenging, we just need your help. Please, come inside."

Methos' tranquil manner was convincing. Arthur walked in, sat down and listened, all the while finishing his lunch, seated on chair near the door, the others on the other side of the room. They explained all about the Watchers and how they knew him. Arthur couldn't get over it, he didn't know such a thing existed. Methos told him, "That's not important. What is, however, is that you're a chemist, and we need your expertise."

He looked at Methos, trying to picture him with longer hair. "Matthew?"

"You remember," Methos grinned. "It's Adam now. Adam Pierson."

"I never liked you," Arthur plainly told him.

Methos laughed, "I know. You're not easy to like, either. But can we work together?"

Joe asked, "How did you know each other before?"

Arthur said, "We were neighbors back in the 40's. He surprised me by waking me up in the middle of the night with a sword to my throat."

"You surprised me by moving into my building while I was away," Methos shrugged.

Amy asked, "Just how good of a chemist are you, Mr. Pangent?"

Arthur looked put out by the simple question. He hadn't practiced in a long time, but thought he should at least have been heard of.

"Amy," Methos said. "You're looking at Oppenheimer's right hand man."

Arthur was even more put out by that.

Amy gulped and looked at Arthur in a new light, "You helped develop the bomb?"

"Among other things," he said vaguely.

"Like what?"

"Everything," Methos said. "While I was with the Watchers, I did a little check on some old acquaintances."

Joe bopped him on the arm, "You said you didn't do that."

Methos shrugged, "I lied. You're looking at the chief chemist of a little company known as Coca-Cola."

Amy tossed out, "But, you were turned in 1918. Coke's been around for over a hundred years."

Putting aside the fact that she knew so much about him, when he didn't know he had a tail all those years, Arthur said, "I didn't develop the original formula. They came to me when they wanted to make a cheaper product. The ingredients were cutting into profits, and they wanted to switch from cane sugar to corn syrup. Only, it didn't taste the same. The composition and effervescence was identical, but if people noticed the difference, Pepsi would be the number one soft drink."

"They changed the taste of Coke? How?"

"Do you remember New Coke?"

Amy cringed, "Of course."

"That was my idea," he proudly said. Then quickly explained, talking so fast, it was hard to catch his words, "Devise a new product, take the old, beloved product off the market, make people vocal about wanting the old stuff back, wait a little while so people actually forget what the original, more expensive Coke tasted like, release the new cheaper 'original' Coke, sales go through the roof, you have your goodwill back with the consumers, Pepsi is still number two, and a cheaper product is on the market, making profits soar."

Joe spouted, "You're so pleased with yourself. I was one of those people rioting back in 1985 when they took Coke off the market."

Arthur simply asked him, "Are you still drinking Coke?"

"Yes."

"It worked. That's what I was hired for," Arthur beamed. Then he saddened. "You don't want me to devise some formula for you, do you?"

"No," Methos assured him. "We only--."

"Good," Arthur cut him off. "Because I'm through with the manufacture of chemicals or anecdotes or vaccines. I won't do it."

"Why?"

"HIV," he slowly admitted.

Amy was confused, "You have AIDS? That's impossible."

"I think I inadvertently spread it throughout Africa." Arthur fidgeted in his seat. To reveal his deepest, darkest secret to a bunch of strangers was painful.

"We can't be a carrier, either," Methos slowly stated.

"No, but I could...," Arthur started to weep softly. He stood and shook his head, it was too painful. "I can't talk about it. I can't help you. I'm going now."

Amy stood with him and urged, "Wait! We need you."

"No," Arthur glumly replied. "I can't."

Methos put himself in Arthur's pathway to the door. "You weren't experimenting on people with the AIDS virus, were you? Injecting them with it to see what would happen?"

"No!" Arthur was sick that he would even suggest such a thing. He tried to move him aside.

Methos remained planted in his spot, "Have you worked with Clarissa Barrymore?"

"I've never heard of her. Let me out," Arthur wailed. "You said I could make the choice whether or not to help you. I want out!"

Joe erupted,"You're not going anywhere until you tell us what you did. It seems like you are on the same level with Barrymore, and we can't have you walking around testing people!"

"I tried to help! I really did." Arthur collapsed in grief. "Science is a beautiful thing. It was my life. I devoted myself to it and it's advancement. I was hired to formulate an inexpensive vaccine against polio for the industrialized nations of Africa. My vaccine wiped out 40 million Africans, making the AIDS epidemic spread. This was before we knew where the virus came from. My sole purpose was to prevent polio... instead, I spread something far worse."

"How did you do that?"

"My vaccine worked. Polio doesn't exist in the areas where it was administered. But one of it's ingredients was monkey blood, which we later found out was a prime candidate for where the AIDS virus came from. All the people who were vaccinated against polio, were infected with HIV. I didn't know it's potency because, to be quite frank, we hadn't heard of the AIDS virus at that time. If we had... we didn't know... the only reason I'm still here is because I'm Immortal. All my colleagues that worked on the vaccination are dead. They died within 10 years of acquiring AIDS. I'm not developing anything more."

Amy was stunned, "Your chronicle is so wrong."

"My what?"

"Your chronicle, your history on the planet. Usually everything is recorded, but that's... news to me and I've been watching you for three years."

"I certainly don't want to be remembered as the man who spread AIDS."

"Is that why you're going to visit museums for the rest of your life?"

"Science is beauty," Arthur said. "But art fills the soul. Mine needs filling."

Methos urged him to help them, "Here's the perfect opportunity to save people and figure out what they've done to the ones still living. To Joe here."

"No, I can't possibly," Arthur quickly, adamantly shook his head no.

Methos continued, "To find out what their genetic makeup is. Scientists are developing a way to make mortals Immortal. They're killing many, including children, they've been testing for how long, Amy?"

Joe added, with a solemn tone, "This is the fourth year of the Eureka Project."

"They've been at it for four years and they've already killed 138,000 people so far," Methos forcefully told Arthur. "Granted, that's not the AIDS epidemic, but it's a start. Come to Washington state with us and help stop it."

Meanwhile, Mac went to see Penelope Rice. She was on duty at the Peaceful Rest Nursing Home the night they broke Joe out, and was listed on the sheet Amy printed out. When she answered the door, Penelope recognized Duncan right away and wondered why a big wheel from her former place of employment would be calling on her. She flinched, "Mr. Holloway, what... why...?"

"I was posing as James Tucker, Ms. Rice," Duncan said, extending his hand in greeting. "My real name is Duncan MacLeod. May I come in and talk to you?"

"Why?"

"I need information on the Peaceful Rest Nursing Home and you're the only one that I can get to even listen when I introduce myself." He held up the printout so she could see it, there were a myriad of crossed out names.

"I don't think so," Penelope said, slowly shutting the door, wondering why someone would be checking up on a bankrupt nursing home. She didn't have anything to do with bookkeeping.

"Please," Duncan laid his hand on the door to keep it ajar. "I just need a moment of your time. That's all. I promise."

She let him in and Duncan laid it all out for her over a cup of coffee at the dining room table with her kids playing in the living room. He only told her what she needed to know to get her to divulge information. She was shocked to discover that the home was used for testing and that the reason it was closed, was because it had been found out. "I heard they went through Chapter 11."

Duncan shook his head. "They did no such thing. I was just at the court house looking for paperwork. They just shut the doors and let you all go so nobody would be suspicious, because we were too close to the truth."

He had told her about an organization called the Watchers and let her believe that it was a Big Brother type deal, not that their job was to watch a species known as Immortals, one of which was actually sitting at her table. The baby started crying and she changed his diaper while she digested all that MacLeod had told her.

"Can you give me any information on the people you worked for, where they may be now, any co-workers that you've kept in touch with, who might have seen more sensitive records than you?"

When she was finished, she put the baby on his hands and knees and he crawled away . Penelope shook her head, "I didn't really make friends with a lot of them, and I haven't seen any of them since I left."

"When you were laid off, did you get any sort of severance package? Did you save any paycheck stubs?"

She smiled. "I did. A great severance package. That's why I'm only working part time now."

"How were you let go?"

"I went to work and there were a tons of semis and ambulances around. They wouldn't even let us into the building to get our personal effects. They were mailed to all of us. Everything was in the box, even the pictures of my kids and cat, so I didn't make a fuss."

She thought, "You know, my last actual paycheck was for my usual amount, even though I only put in one day and my severance check came from a different address than the others, not the headquarters."

"Do you remember the address?"

"No, and I deposited the check." Duncan hung his head that it was yet another dead end. She brightly said, "But, I do have one great friend, and she works at my bank. If I remember right, the check was from the same bank I belong to. She could look it up on microfiche and see if there are any records."

"That would be great," Duncan smiled, having grown tired of going down wrong roads or metaphorically hitting his head against the wall looking for information.

Penelope excused herself and called Noreen and asked her to look it up. Duncan smiled at her kids in the living room, bopping around and watching a video on TV. Children just like these were sacrificed for testing, and the testing hadn't gotten anywhere. At least, that's what he hoped. They had certainly done something to Gerald. When she got off the phone, she told him, "Noreen is going to look it up."

He asked her, "Do you still have the pay stub for the severance check?"

She lightly smiled and said, "My husband is a completely anal pack-rat, we have to have it somewhere, the only trouble is, I don't know his filing system."

"How big a filing system can he have?"

Her eyebrows hiked up and the smile grew bigger, "You'd be surprised, Mr. MacLeod."

"Where is he?"

"At work."

"Can you call and ask him if he knows where it might be if he did keep it?"

"He can't take calls at work, only in an emergency. Does this qualify as that? He'll be home about 6:30."

Duncan said, "Nah, I can come back then if you don't mind." He stood, then remembered what she said, "They mailed you your possessions? Do you still have that box?"

"I'm sure I do, down stairs." She told her oldest child, "Janie, watch your brothers. I'll be downstairs for a little while."

"Okay Mommy," they heard from the seven year old who kept her eyes glued on the TV.

On the way down the stairs, Penelope mentioned, "That's just awful. They were testing on those poor children? We were told they were recuperating from major surgery. The older patients would mention tests, but I thought they were just senile."

She went into their storage room and turned on the light. It was a massive room with shelves on all the walls, boxes lined up, clearly labeled with label maker tapes, and it seemed to Duncan, that the boxes were in alphabetical order. Penelope looked them all over and pulled a few out to see their sides, trying to remember what the cardboard box looked like. Duncan looked them over, but they all seemed to be food boxes from a grocery store.

Penelope pulled out a box and set it on the table in the middle of the room. "This is it," her finger tracing the cut marks on the top of the flaps. "We had to cut through all the tape, they really packed it well."

Privacy was imperative to anyone working for the Watchers, Duncan thought and noticed the side of it. "This serial number. It's not from the shipping company, is it?"

"No, the shipping label is here," she pointed to the top flap.

He smiled, it was the first real clue he'd uncovered. He took out his notebook and wrote the serial number down, ASP8730-283.

Noreen called back with three addresses for the account in question. Penelope wrote them down as they were read off. The first for the Peaceful Rest Nursing Home, the second was what Duncan recognized as Watcher Headquarters in Seacouver, the third was what caught Penelope's attention. "That's the one, Rockefeller Street. I didn't even know there was a Rockefeller Street in Seacouver. Does that help?"

"I'll check it out. Thank you very much for your time, Ms. Rice."

Duncan called Amy with the serial number to see if she could find anything on the database. Her search brought her to more links, eight password screens in all during the search that Alexa was able to conquer. Finally, she found something. A massive file opened and it scrolled down through an incomprehensible string of mathematical and scientific equations, she had no idea what she was looking at. It had to be the Mother Lode!

It took a long time for the entire file to finish downloading to RAM, and she couldn't print it out. She muttered a 'Damn' and paced, there was no way she would be able to type out all that information on the typewriter she had sitting alongside the computer for the purpose of transferring 'For Eyes Only' information to hard copy. Arthur wasn't there to translate it.

Amy took a deep breath, inserted a piece of paper in the typewriter, cracked her knuckles, and started typing. After painstakingly typing out three pages of information, she couldn't even see straight anymore. She decided that it was enough of a clue to what the data was, and clicked back a few screens and quickly scanned them again clicking on any links that she missed before.

She came across the personnel file for Clarissa Barrymore, but it was old and didn't give any new information, at first glance. Just before closing the screen, she saw a list of Barrymore's next of kin.

After repeated assurances to Arthur Pangent that he wasn't expected to devise any new formulas, only to figure out what chemistry, gene therapy and tests had been done already, he agreed to help them out. The idea that mortals had the audacity to test on Immortals and use mortals as guinea pigs made him as angry as MacLeod and Methos. Even more so. Science shouldn't be used to counteract nature, just to help it along. They had to protect their species, along with the innocent people sacrificed, including and most especially, the children.

Methos, Joe and Arthur arrive in Seacouver to follow up on Amy's lead for Clarissa Barrymore's next of kin, her ex-husband, Martin. Before knocking on his door, they quickly discussed how to handle the man, and what they would do if he wasn't willing to tell them anything. Arthur thought he could be persuasive when push came to shove, Joe figured his gun would talk louder than words. Methos thought good old fashioned Chinese water torture just might do the trick.

Preparations aside, as it turned out, Martin Barrymore hated his ex-wife and was only too willing to spill the beans. He had worked to put her through college and while she got her master's degree, then was a stay at home Dad to their ungrateful daughter, only to have Clarissa leave him and their daughter Clancy, when she was rich and settled in her profession. He called her a 'battle ax' during the conversation, and that was one of the nicer adjectives he used. The bitter man sat at the dining room table and told them, ad nauseam, all about their unfortunate marriage.

They prodded Martin to get to the present, to provide any information he could on her current whereabouts. "The only thing I can say is she always paid child support for Clancy," Martin said as he sipped his coffee. "Nothing for me, even though every dollar she made is because of me."

Methos was past the point of caring and wondering if they'd hit a dead end, and Martin's last remark ticked him off. He shouted, "Every dollar she's made in the past few years has been to the detriment of innocent people!" Joe, Arthur and Martin sat back at the abrupt statement, and the force with which Methos stated it. "Enough of old home week," Methos sneered, leaning threateningly close to Martin, "What's her address?"

"I don't know," Martin choked, suddenly very uncomfortable with the man who's eyes changed instantly. All of a sudden, he seemed to be capable of calling out the hounds of hell if he so desired.

"She paid child support," Methos continued. "You have to know where she lives."

"The last check came through almost ten years ago," Martin argued, "Clancy's 27 years old. She's through college and is married with a child."

Joe settled Methos down and asked, "Will you give us Clancy's address?"

"What for?" Martin protectively said, "Clancy has nothing to do with her mother."

"Then why won't you tell us?" Methos muttered.

"It won't help you and my daughter is entitled to her privacy."

Arthur calmly said, "Mr. Barrymore, we just want to ask the same questions of her that we have asked of you. If Clancy decides to slam the door in our face, we'll walk away. What Clarissa has been doing is highly classified, there are high fatalities, and it must be stopped."

"Call the cops," Martin shrugged. "Don't involve my daughter."

They'd hit a brick wall. They couldn't explain that they needed to be covert because they couldn't tell him about immortality and certainly couldn't have the police fishing around and finding it out. If Martin had mentioned Immortality, they would have expanded the conversation, but he hadn't.

Arthur looked at the fireplace mantel in the living room, visible from the dining area. He saw pictures of a girl at various stages of her life. He quickly picked up at framed photograph of Clancy as a toddler and held it up in front of Marvin, and innocently asked, "How old was your daughter in this picture?"

"About three," Martin smiled as he gazed at the photograph. Martin was holding her in his arms in front of Mount Rushmore. "It was the first trip she and I took," his smiled widened with the remembrance.

Arthur quietly said, "Three years old, Mr. Barrymore. Some of the fatalities that were the by- product of your ex-wife's work were three year olds, just like your daughter in this picture. Children were poked and prodded, had DNA samples from blood and skin and hair taken from them without permission, and foreign anti-bodies were injected back into them. Three years old, Mr. Barrymore. It's still going on. Give your daughter respect by allowing her to make up her own mind about whether she will help us or not."

"She'd tell you the same thing I did," Martin sadly said, looking only at his daughter in that photograph. "She didn't get along with her mother, either."

"But she may know something, and may want to give us information that could help us stop your ex-wife's research," Arthur kept encouraging him to divulge information. "How old is your grandchild?"

"Four," Martin softly said.

There was silence as Martin quietly teared up, he was embarrassed. They let him process the horror that Clarissa had been working on for so long. He finally spoke, "Chicago. Clancy lives in Chicago on Broad Street. I've got the address in my book. I'll go get it," Martin said as he placed the photograph back on the mantel.

Methos and Joe looked at Arthur and slowly, respectfully nodded to him acknowledging how well he handled the man. Methos was so angry about it all, he was a little wistful that Chinese Water Torture wasn't needed, but Arthur did good.

As soon as they had Clancy's address and left Martin's house, Methos called Duncan on the cell. "What did you find out," Duncan quickly asked.

"Not much with the ex-husband, but maybe the daughter would know more about Barrymore's whereabouts. She lives in Chicago."

"I guess someone has to go to Chicago to talk to her," Duncan said as he passed by the Rockefeller address he got from the check sent to Penelope. "I found out the current address of Peaceful Rest, but it's nothing but an old warehouse with security fencing. I don't see anything resembling a company, let alone a lab."

Methos said, "Security fencing? There must be something there."

Duncan got out of the T Bird and walked to the pristine steel wire fence with Keep Out, Warning, and High Voltage signs posted along the side. He didn't see any people or guards around the perimeter, so he picked up a stick and tossed it at the fence. It only dropped harmlessly to the ground. There were some red warning lights along the top of the fence that were on, so he took a deep breath and prepared himself for a hell of a shock if that fence was active. "Pray for me," Duncan muttered into the phone.

"Huh?"

Duncan clamped his hand on the fence and waited for the volts to flow through him, but nothing happened. He told Methos over the cell, "The fence is a ruse. There's something here but I can't see it. I'm going to check it out."

Methos got into the car, still talking on the phone, "Does the fence look new, or has it been there for a while?"

"It's not rusted from weather," Duncan said. "The warehouse looks like it's been here for decades. There's weeds overgrowing the concrete roads and parking lot. It could be nothing, but I'm going to climb over and check it out. Talk later."

Methos hung up and looked at Joe and Arthur, "Well, who's going to Chicago?"

Joe said without hesitation, "You are."

"Why me?" Methos was thinking more along the lines of driving over to Rockefeller Street to check it out with MacLeod. He had always been better at covertly breaking into buildings, had more years of practice than MacLeod, and since he was in the midst of procuring information to put a stop the bad guys, he wanted to get his hands dirty.

Arthur said, "I'm going to take some samples from Joe to see what they might have done to him already, so that leaves you." That said, he immediately turned his attention away from Methos. "Joe, I have an old friend who's a researcher over at the University of Washington School of Medicine, he'll let me use his facilities. Do you mind if I find out what they've done?"

Joe thought it over, he had vivid memories of all the blood tests and pricks he'd endured at the home. "How many samples do you have to take?"

"If I get enough blood, only one."

Methos said, "You can't tell the researcher what you're working on."

Arthur hitched up an eyebrow to let him know he wasn't born yesterday. "I think I can figure that out myself, Adam!" He turned his attention back to Joe, "We need to get Gerald too, so I can compare any anomalies."

Methos started the car, "I guess I'm going to Chicago."

Arthur said, "In fact, let me drive, and we'll drop you off at the airport on our way to pick up Gerald."

"I can drive to the airport," Methos said testily, not budging from the driver's seat.

Duncan walked across the field to the warehouse, and thought he felt an immortal buzz. Just for an instant, it was very faint. He looked around, there wasn't anyone within his sensing range. He was closer to the warehouse, so it could have come from there, or it could be nothing, it didn't last that long. He chalked it up to the fact that his adrenalin was pumping as he ran towards the double doors of the warehouse.

Inside, Duncan looked around and sneezed from the dust and cobwebs. After walking through the place with it's beams and pillars exposed, he didn't sense or see anything. Duncan wished he had a crowbar or lock picking devise with him when he reached the steel, vault-like door in the middle of the warehouse. There was a killer deadbolt, and no combination pad to tamper with. It was impenetrable with only his bare hands and katana.

Even though he had crept across the weeds to the building in the middle of the day, no one had accosted him. There didn't seemed to be anyone around. Other than the steel door, there wasn't anything to see in the old, dark, electricity free building. In fact, it seemed too sterile. It was old, he could see the sky poking through the holes in the walls, there was dust on the wooden floor a couple of inches thick, except for what looked like a beaten path from the sliding front doors to the locked steel door.

Duncan put his ear against it, and couldn't hear a thing. The only thing he sensed was a slight hum, that could have been from some sort of machinery running inside. He took out his cell phone to report his lack of findings and pressed speed dial for Methos' number, but there wasn't any answer. He dialed Joe's phone, and Joe told him about Methos' quick trip and that he was on his way to become a lab rat again. After it was explained that Joe's testing was voluntary, Duncan told him that he was going wait around the warehouse to see if anything happened.

Arthur reacquainted himself with his old friend, Dr. John Miller, then went right to work obtaining samples from Joe and Gerald while Miller gave them both a physical and stress test. While Joe was on the treadmill, he was so impressed with his new legs that he actually forgot they weren't his own and started running, then lost his balance. Miller rushed to him to help him up after he fell off, saying, "Easy there."

Joe, slightly embarrassed, got to his feet and pulled up his pant legs to see if his prosthetics had been ruined during the fall or from when he rolled off the running treadmill. Miller knelt down to give them the once over, and said, "I'm so impressed with these prosthetics. Fantastic," he mildly shook his head in amazement. "I don't see any damage."

"Good," Joe said, then he was ready to start again on the treadmill.

"I think I have enough information for the time being," Miller said as he pulled the sensors off Joe's chest and head. "Just sit and relax while I run it through the computer. Mr. Nedemeier, you can stop now."

Gerald kept on running, "Hell, I'm just warming up." Sweat dripped off his face and down his bare chest, hooked up with sensor pads. It took the combined effort of both Joe and Miller to get him off the treadmill before he passed out. He reluctantly stopped but assured them, "I could run a marathon, lads."

Duncan picked out a spot in the far corner inside the warehouse and waited for most of the day to see if anything would happen. He knew it could be a complete waste of time, but it was one of the few precious leads they had. He was certain there was machinery working behind that steel door and someone would have to at least check on it. The light beams through the holes in the walls slowly faded over the course of the day and then were gone, making the entire warehouse black as the ace of spades.

He'd kept in touch by cell with Joe and Amy, who still hadn't been able to find out anything about the serial number he'd given her, but she had typed out everything she had access to in the file. She wanted to give Arthur as much information as she could. What she was typing didn't make a lick of sense to her, but she knew Arthur could decipher it. She called Duncan to see where Arthur was, and to get a FAX number so she could send off the day's worth of completed typing, even though it was still only the tip of the iceberg.

After calling Joe's cell to get the FAX number at the University and calling Amy back with the information, just so that he'd have something to do, Duncan sat again in the niche in the wall that was probably an old closet that had lost it's door years before. Boredom was once again creeping in so he took out his cell and played one of it's loaded games, "Snake", to pass the time. Then the cell rang. "MacLeod," he quickly answered.

Methos said, "I'm back in town and have Clarissa's address!"

"You came back from Chicago with the address?"

"Yes," he proudly said.

Duncan was miffed, "Well, Adam! I've been sitting here with nothing to do almost all day, why didn't you tell me over the phone and I could have checked it out by now!"

Methos moaned, "I wanted to go along. I got the address and had to endure not one, but two flights. Do you know how hard it is to get a cab at O'Hare? Then I guess I'm not as persuasive as Pangent can be with next of kin because she clammed up, so I had to be on my best behavior, and you know how much I hate that. Then, I felt an Immortal at the airport and I left my 'friend' in the trunk at Seacouver Airport because I thought I'd be in and out of Chicago without anyone knowing--."

Duncan cut him off, "Where does she live?"

"Where are you? I'll come and pick you up," Methos said instead.

Duncan heard a large vehicle outside the warehouse drive up and park just in front of the sliding doors. "Talk later," he whispered into the cell and shut it off, in case Methos called back, he didn't want anyone to hear it and discover he was there.

There was a loud clank and the sliding of metal as the door opened and Duncan slid deeper into the closet so he wouldn't be revealed by the light in the yard or the flashlight beams that poured in through the open door. There was a passenger bus parked so it's door was lined up with the door of the warehouse. Duncan peeked around the edge of the closet to see if any patients were being unloaded. Instead, he heard beeps and clanks, then a loud whoosh as the locked steel door opened. A man stood at the door with a flashlight concentrated on the entrance, and people wearing white lab coats filed out through the steel door and got on the bus.

The last one out turned and pushed some buttons on the side panel of the steel door then, with the help of the guy Duncan figured was the bus driver, closed and locked it. They were talking on the way to the exit, but Duncan couldn't make out any details of their conversation. The sliding door was closed and the bus drove off.

Duncan walked back to the steel door, and it was again locked up tight. There was definitely something behind there, and they had to find out what it was. He got on the cell and called Methos, who was a little more than peeved at being hung up on. "Come to the warehouse on Rockefeller Street and bring your lock picking implements."

"We were going to pay a visit to Barrymore."

"She's not going to be moving in the next couple of hours, there's a mother of a lock to pick here."

"I'm going to swing by Barrymore's on the way."

"Just hurry," Duncan said. "And bring some food, I'm starving."

Arthur had to be persuasive to make sure Miller wouldn't hover around Joe and Gerald's samples as he ran tests on them. The scientist was inquisitive and knew some of Arthur's illustrious history, and so he just knew it was something important. Arthur had to mention the concept of protecting your work product, and instead of being offended, Miller agreed and only asked that he'd be let in on what he was working on before it went public.

Arthur, knowing that would never happen, instantly agreed, even told him he'd get partial credit for the use of the facilities. Holing themselves up in the small lab, Arthur told Joe and Gerald his findings. "I found strange cells in both of you" he said, holding up two magnified pictures he'd taken of the blue cells he had found in their blood. "They're larger in size in your blood, Mr. Nedemeier, but other than size, they're exactly the same as the cells in your blood, Mr. Dawson."

"Arthur," Joe said. "You can call me Joe."

Arthur smiled. "Okay. Both of your white cell counts are off the scale. So, your immune systems are a wonder. I don't think either of you will ever get a cold again. How long were you at the home, Mr... Gerald?" Arthur asked.

"A couple of years."

"And you, Joe?"

"A couple of months."

"That could explain the difference in the size of the cells, but I can't figure out if they are totally different." He turned to look at them both, "What I would like to do, is cut you both to see what happens."

"You guys already did that," Gerald said. "I healed."

"In a controlled environment," Arthur said.

"I'm game," Gerald said, pushing up his sleeve.

"Joe? Do you mind?" Arthur asked.

"You think I'm going to heal, too?"

"That's what we'll find out."

Joe nodded okay and smirked, "Just don't cut my jugular or anything."

Arthur took a scalpel, had them both lay their hands palms up on the table in front of them, and set up high lighting and a camcorder to capture the experiment. He made sure he had a first aid kit ready in case he needed to stop the flow of blood on either of them. The first time Gerald was cut and healed might have been a fluke. "Are you ready?" he asked them.

They both nodded their heads. Arthur took a hold of Gerald's hand and made a slit about an inch long. Then he immediately cut Joe's hand to see how they both reacted to being wounded. Before he had finished with Joe, Gerald's hand was already healed. Joe's hand just kept on bleeding. His eyes flickered between his own bleeding hand and Gerald's, as Arthur wiped off all traces of blood on the healed cut.

After a couple of minutes, Arthur worried that he'd need to put stitches in Joe's hand, but it finally stopped bleeding on it's own. The cut didn't heal, so Arthur bound it in gauze. Arthur stared at Gerald, he had never felt an immortal buzz from him, or even a pre-immortal hum. He asked him, "Do you feel me?"

"In what way?"

"Then you don't." Arthur was perplexed. "Gerald, you have the healing capabilities of an Immortal, but you haven't experienced your first death, or have you?"

"I've never died."

"You don't emit an immortal sensation, your cells aren't all that different from Joe's, but he doesn't exhibit the healing capabilities."

Joe offered an explanation, "We were at different stages of the testing?"

"Yes, but what stages? What testing? The results of the cell test will at least tell me what the cells are, but it will take a couple of days." Arthur sat back with his hand on his chin and mused, "Artificial Immortality..."

Gerald wondered, "Since I heal, if I die, will I revive?"

"We're not going to chance it by killing you to find out, Mr. Nedemeier."

"But think of what the benefits would be if I revived, or if I didn't," Gerald excitedly argued. "I'm 81 years old. I feel fantastic for the first time in years, but I've lived my life. And I might come back! Let's try it."

"NO!"

"Okay," Gerald muttered, dejected.

Miller came in with 20 pages of FAX paper. "This just came for you."

Arthur gasped. He'd known that the FAX was going to come through, and forgot to hover around the machine so no one else could read Amy's findings. Arthur asked, "You didn't read that, did you?"

"I scanned it, but it doesn't make any sense," Miller answered. "What in the world are you doing?"

Arthur snatched the FAX pages out of his hands and said, "I'll let you know before it goes public."

Methos parked his sedan behind the T Bird and climbed over the fence with a bag of McDonald's for the hungry Highlander and the myriad of lock-picking implements he'd acquired over the years. When he slid open the double doors, he turned on a flashlight to find Duncan still trying to pick the lock on the steel door with a little piece of wire he found in the dark warehouse. Methos told him, "Stand aside, the master is here."

Duncan stepped aside saying, "I think I almost have it, I heard a couple of clicks."

Methos took the spindly wire out of the lock and tossed it on the floor. He gave Duncan the flashlight, "Be useful," he said.

Duncan didn't like his tone and shined the light in Methos' eyes. "Okay, I deserved that," Methos shook off the stars in his eyes. He took a gunpick out of his bag and tested the size of the key on the lock. He replaced it with another, larger one and reinserted it into the lock. He cocked the pickgun and pulled the trigger. The lock was open and the gun jerked back out of it. Methos smiled and put the gun back in his bag, then they both swung open the door. It was only then that they saw the security code pad on the side of it and waited for the sirens. Duncan said, "It's probably a silent alarm. We're going to have company."

Methos sifted through his bag and pulled out a micro camera, then gave Duncan the bag and took the flashlight. "Keep watch. There's a gun in there if you need it. I'll be right back."

Methos was already gone down the darkened hall when Duncan sputtered, "Well, I wanted to... I sat here all day and you get to go in?"

He went to the sliding door and shut it so that the opening was only a few inches wide in case any cops came. It would also be easier to kept a lookout for anyone who might have been alerted by the alarm, if there was one on the security pad. His car was on the far side of the empty field, so no one would assume its being parked there had anything to do with the break in. Then Duncan unwrapped the Quarter Pounder with cheese and finished it in two bites.

Headlights appeared from the south and Duncan tensed, but he didn't hear sirens. He was going to call to Methos to hurry up when he jumped, someone touched his shoulder. "God!" he tried to catch his breath, then said, "That was fast. What did you find?"

"I'm not sure," Methos said. "I took pictures and a couple of vials for Arthur, and some papers that were sitting around. Let's go."

"But that was fast."

"I told you," Methos shrugged with a winning smile, "I'm good."

They had just climbed back over the fence and got to their cars, when two black minivans with blacked out windows, roared past them to the front gate and screeched to a stop. Duncan called Methos on the cell, "They aren't very quick, are they?"

"Makes it easier for the ones breaking in," Methos said.

Duncan ate his fries and said, "We'll go to Arthur with the vials and we'll have to find a dark room to get the film developed."

"My place."

"You have a dark room?"

"Of course, doesn't everyone," Methos said as he followed Duncan's T Bird.

Arthur poured over the FAX while Gerald and Joe waited on uncomfortable stools in the lab. Joe couldn't help thinking about how close he was to being immortal. He felt the wound that still hurt under the bandaging on his hand. Not that he wanted that, not at all! He would be a 'half breed'. He was supposed to be mortal, he didn't want to be converted into an immortal, he didn't think that was even possible. He was convinced that Barrymore's science was evil, resulting in the killing of innocent people, but wouldn't make progress.

Still, he couldn't help thinking, 'To be immortal...' He'd always thought that when you're done with life, you're done. He could tell Gerald was still a little giddy about his healing abilities. Gerald was cutting himself on the finger just to see himself heal, and suck off the blood.

Methos had given Duncan the vials to drop off with Arthur so he could get right home and develop the film. When Duncan made his appearance in the lab, Arthur was impressed by his findings, "They're replacing the body's carbon amounts with ammonium. I don't see how that wouldn't kill people outright. That must be the hybrid cells I found in both of your blood. A new organic chemical."

"Have you figured out what they've been going?" Duncan asked.

Arthur admitted, "It could take years to figure this data out. Or, maybe Amy mistyped. Some of these equations don't make any sense at all."

Miller came in again and Arthur immediately turned over the pages of the FAX, making him smile. "I'm not snooping around, Art," Miller said. "It's just that it's late and I'm locking up."

Duncan said, "I'll take you home, Gerald. And Joe, you and I have an address to check out."

"Who's?"

"Clarissa Barrymore's."

"Good work," Joe smiled.

Gerald said, "I want to go, too."

"No," Duncan told him.

"She poked and tested me, I should at least get to meet her face to face."

"I can take Gerald home," Arthur said. "In fact, I need a place to stay and hoped I could crash on your couch, Mr. Nedemeier, and I want to keep looking over this data," he folded the FAX pages and put them in his coat jacket.

Gerald hopefully asked Arthur, "Are you going to kill me?"

Miller and Duncan were shocked. "What?!"

Arthur only smiled, shook his head, "No, I'm not going to kill you, Gerald."

Arthur asked Miller for a refrigerated case for his samples and the vials that Methos had acquired. Miller told him that his things were safe, but Arthur didn't want any of it out of his sight. Miller produced a case for him. He was salivating to find out what all the hoopla was about, and what the two older guys and the large man with a pony tail had to do with it.

When they were in the car, Duncan's cell rang. Methos told him, "Get over to the warehouse."

"We were going to go visit with Barrymore."

"This is more important. Go to the warehouse and bring some artillery."

"What?"

"Now, I'm waiting!" Methos yelled.

"Have you been kidnaped?"

"I saw something in the pictures and we need to take another look. Meet me at the warehouse. I've only got a couple of handguns in case we have company, so have Joe and Gerald bring their sidearms."

Methos waited in the shadows by the sliding door for the others to join him. From his hiding place by some trash cans he was able to hold the pictures out in front of him to look them over, using the light from a street lamp. Earlier when he had quickly gone through what turned out to be an underground lab, he noticed some doors, but didn't give them another thought. He'd just wanted to get a few pictures and get out of there. They could always come back. What he hadn't noticed about the doors was that they had even more impressive locks than the steel door did. He situated his bag at his feet and hoped they'd get there soon, he was itching to find out what was behind those locked doors.

Even though the alarm had gone off earlier, Methos was surprised to see that there was no one hanging around. But then, if someone was to break in, it wasn't very likely that they'd be back so soon. Watchers, he shook his head. They have fire power, but they don't know how to manage it.

Duncan parked the T Bird on a side street where Joe and Gerald would be able to keep a visual on the front gate in case they had visitors. He put a Beretta in his jacket pocket and made sure the two men and Arthur were set. Arthur patted his jacket pocket. It contained a gun he got from Gerald, and they walked to the gate and climbed over.

Methos hurried them through the sliding door and slammed it shut behind them. "In case I can't interrupt the security pad, you're willing to shoot, aren't you?" he asked Arthur.

"I'll kill whoever tries to stop us, Adam."

"How good is your aim?" Methos asked while he gunpicked the steel door.

"I'm pretty good."

"Just so you don't hit me," Methos muttered as he took out a technical contraption from his bag and plugged it into the card slide under the key pad on the side of the door. He flipped the switch, and combinations of numbers glowed on the green readout as it zeroed in on the correct code.

"You're looking at a champion marksman, Adam. I got a hundred dollar prize," Arthur proudly stated.

"A hundred dollars? And when was this?"

"1940," he had to acknowledge.

"And have you fired a gun since then?" Duncan was worried.

"No," Arthur shrugged. "But it's like riding a bike, right? I can't be that bad."

Methos prompted the code breaker to hurry up and Duncan saw numbers freeze as others were still blinking through numbers. When all numbers were froze, the red light on the security pad turned green and Methos redeposited his toy in his bag. Duncan shook his head, "You must have more machinery in that bag than the CIA."

Methos turned on the flashlight and said, "Just come on."

Duncan grabbed the bag and they walked down the stairs to the lab Methos had taken photographs of. They all turned on flashlights, not wanting to turn on the overheads, even though it was underground. They could be on a timer, or if they were turned on, it could be noted somewhere. The beams from the flashlights shone on a variety of machines around the lab and Arthur looked them over. Duncan saw an imposing machine in the middle of the room surrounded by tables and work spaces ,"What's this?"

Arthur said, "It's an X ray machine, or at least that's what it was manufactured for. Looks like they've turned it into something else, but I don't know what." He shone his light on the surface where a patient would lay to slide into the machine, and bent down to take a look at the exposed wiring.

Methos was busy picking the lock on the door that caught his attention in the picture. The security on it was intense. He was ready for anything he might find that he would have to disarm. After the lock was open, he shone his light along the edge of the door and checked for any sort of trip wire or security pad. There wasn't any. He was somewhat disappointed by the lack of security, and wondered if there was anything to see after all. Shining the flashlight in the opening he discovered another set of stairs, metal stairs that reflected the beam onto the metal ceiling. Duncan motioned to Arthur to follow them down.

When they hit the bottom step, the hair on Methos' neck stood on end, there was a very strong Immortal buzz. Duncan told him, "I thought I felt an Immortal this afternoon. But, it was from ground level."

"What buzz?" Arthur said, he didn't feel one yet. It was only when they were half way down another hallway that he felt it. That was the first time he realized his sensation range wasn't as large as other Immortals and it gave him the willies. If he couldn't feel others until after they felt him, he could be in trouble. He'd never known that, but was also the first to admit that he hadn't taken a lot of heads. <Great!>, he muttered. There was something else to worry about.

There was a line of unlocked doors along both sides of the long metallic hallway. Duncan and Methos took out their swords then they each opened one of the doors. A soft light automatically turned on inside the cubicle as the door was opened. Each cubical was only big enough to hold a 6 foot by 2 foot glass, liquid-filled, cylinder containing a man in a spandex suit floating inside. The men had tubes in their noses and mouths, with sensor pads attached to each temple, both hands, chest and feet. A large metallic disc the circumference of the cylinder held the men up by the neck.

"They're still alive, they emit a buzz," Methos said. They all seethed, the men were immortal, and they were floating in cylinders like lab rats, which was exactly what they were. Arthur yanked open another door finding another man. All the doors were opened to reveal that each door led to another cubicle that contained an immortal, fourteen in all.

"The main life support must be housed around here somewhere," Arthur said. "We need to find that before we do anything."

"Are they alive on their own, or do they need the machines?"

"They're obviously getting air, food," Arthur said.

Duncan asked, "Air? They're completely submerged."

Methos said, "Mac, when mortals are in their mothers, they breath from the fluid. This must be the same idea."

Arthur said, "God knows how long they've been there. Their sensor pads might register brain and nerve activity. We need to find the main life support to see what their condition is."

Methos stared at one immortal, who's eyes were open, but weren't focused. "Let's get one out and see what happens."

"We're not going to treat them like animals," Duncan said. "Let's look for the main support first to see what's being done to them."

Arthur and Duncan went down the hall while Methos took pictures of the cylinder residences of the immortals. He wondered if the Watchers actually knew about this, if this was fully sanctioned, even encouraged. He hoped it was just a splinter group as Amy believed, and not the norm. A set up like this wasn't cheap, so the Watchers had to know about it.

Arthur found the main support and checked over the myriad of monitors and read outs. "Yes, just as I thought. They're being fed intravenously and they're monitoring their nervous system, probably to see how the body reacts to the taking of, or injecting with, tissues and genes." He focused the flashlight over the various switches and saw a large red one under a glass cover.

He took the gun out of his pocket and cracked the glass, making Duncan jump and ask, "What are you doing?"

"I'm setting them free," Arthur said as he pushed the red button.

Methos stepped back when a siren bellowed twice and a heavy vibration shook the floor. He watched as the metal discs holding the immortals up folded into themselves, and the men sank to the bottom of the tubes. The liquid in the cylinders slowly drained out, and the immortals were left hunched over on the bottom, gravity flattening them.

Methos shattered a cylinder with the hilt of his sword. Glass pebbles fell on the collapsed Immortal. He dragged him out and laid him on the hallway floor, pulled the tubes out of his mouth and nose and pulled off the sensors. Duncan did the same with another, Arthur took another. They only took enough time to push the fluid out of each man's lungs, then moved on to the next man. As each Immortal revived and coughed out the last remnants of fluid, they quickly caught the gist of what was going on and helped free others. Pretty soon, there were seventeen Immortals heading up the stairs to freedom.

As they were rushing through the lab and up the next flight of steps to the warehouse, they heard a gunfight going on outside. Methos, Duncan and Arthur pulled their guns and, from their position behind the shooters that Joe and Gerald were having trouble with, easily took them out. One of the freed Immortals saw keys in the ignition of one of the black minivans just outside the door, and yelled out, "We can take their vans!"

Men piled into both of them. Duncan told them to follow his car and he ran with Methos and Arthur to the T Bird. Joe and Gerald were good shots, and Gerald was more than excited to have taken out the bad guys, "Just like Clint Eastwood! Those bastards," he sputtered as they got into the car and sped away with the two vans sticking close to the car's back fender.

Joe was looking out the back window of Duncan's car at the vans and asked, "Who are all those people?"

"The merchandise," Methos seethed.

Duncan drove them out of the city and parked on the side of a country road. All the men in the vans had been discussing their confinement and how they were all kidnaped. One became the spokesman from the first van. "I'm Dimitri," he said with a thick French accent as he shook Duncan's hand. "Are we really in the new millennium?"

"Not quite, that's next year," Duncan smiled. "But it's the year 2000."

"I was taken three years ago in Los Angeles," he told them.

Another asked, "What in the hell were they doing to us?"

Arthur asked, "How are you all feeling?"

They all agreed that they were angry and a little hungry, but otherwise they felt fine. Methos suggested that Arthur stay with them to explain what they knew, answer any of their questions and get all of their names. Then he and Duncan had something to do.

Duncan asked, "What?"

Methos growled, "We have to pay a visit to the Watchers. We have plenty of evidence to confront them. Why do things in the dark any longer?"

"I second that," Joe said.

Duncan couldn't believe Methos was the one to suggest such a thing. "You're going to walk into Watcher headquarters?"

"You bet your arse I am," Methos solemnly swore. "And I even know who I am going to confront with this."

"Let's go."

Dimitri asked, "What about us?"

Duncan said, "Will you come with us, to appear in front of the Watchers as proof of what's going on?"

"What are Watchers?"

Another immortal spouted, "They're the ones who kidnaped us!"

Joe didn't like the idea that there were suddenly fourteen Immortals out for blood. All Watchers weren't villains, Joe knew that for sure but he was mighty worried about the bloodlust that was taking over the conversation.

Duncan stepped forward and calmed the Immortals, by saying, "Stay in town and it will all be explained to you in good time. It wasn't the Watchers as a whole that took you, but they are going to put a stop to what's going on. Please, don't fly off the handle. We have to stick together during this time."

Arthur stopped Duncan, "I'll explain it, you go. My findings and all the evidence are in the trunk, be sure to bring that with you. I'll take care of everything here."

Methos stepped forward providing money for them to get clothes, food and hotel rooms, and repeated the instruction to not leave town. They may be needed for proof. Duncan offered the use of the dojo as a meeting place for them.

They immediately flew to Paris. The rest of the immortals agreed to stay in Seacouver, but Dimitri demanded to go with them as physical proof of the testing. Even though he was immortal, he still had puncture marks on his arms, behind his knees and on the back of his head from the tissue extraction. It made them wonder if he had been given mortal cells in exchange for Immortal ones thereby lessening his healing abilities.

Duncan kept expecting Methos to change his mind and take off, but the old man was one determined Immortal. Joe had talked with Amy and told her everything that happened, insisting that she cover her butt for a little while and lay low. She told him that she would take a leave of absence and fly to Seacouver to help out Arthur with the Immortals. Her suggestion was turned down flat, with Joe telling her, "I don't want you anywhere near what we're going to do."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm not sure yet, but I don't want you involved."

At Orly airport, they rented a van to hold them, all the stolen vials, blood samples, the FAX and pictures and drove to Watcher Headquarters on the outskirts of Paris. They each carried a box and walked right in the front door.

In the main artery of the building, they stopped in the secretarial pool that was surrounded by the offices of all the big wigs of the organization and let the workers look at them, and wonder why they were there, interrupting their secret activity. Methos cleared his throat and declared loudly, "My name is Adam Pierson."

There were audible gasps, and Methos smiled, flattered actually, "I see that some of you remember me, and you should. I worked here for ten years as a researcher, and I would like to speak to Dr. Amy Zoll."

A secretary, using the database, did a quick search on Pierson, Adam, and the opening screen of the Methos Chronicles popped up, along with a picture of the newly outed Methos, who had posed as Adam Pierson. Startled, she bolted out of her chair and stared at the oldest immortal, standing four feet away from her. Methos saw the monitor and winced. The picture was the one he had taken for a security badge more than a decade before. He vividly remembered having to pose for it, not wanting a photographic record of his face in case he would be found out. "That's not a good picture of me," he told her.

The startled secretary mumbled, "He's really real," just before she fainted.

The others only stood around and stared at the Immortal intruder, wondering if the others were like him. One man knelt down to wave a file in the face of the woman passed out on the floor. There was silence as everyone digested what was happening. They couldn't for the life of them figure out why the mythical Methos had made an appearance, there, at Headquarters, and had verified that Adam Pierson was in fact Methos.

A man whispered to his companion, who ran down the hall. Methos knew his jig was up, he'd have to change his entire life as a result of coming out in the open, but there was a time and place for everything. Getting Barrymore and her work stopped was more important than a change of his current name and address.

Dr. Amy Zoll slowly walked down the hall with the messenger and faced the Immortal she had ousted, but had never met face to face. She had assigned a team of three field workers to his case to make sure the wily Immortal didn't escape the Watcher radar again. She knew he knew what she looked like which ruled her out as his chronicler; he couldn't know who was following him.

It was only after Zoll was comfortably in position before him that Methos again spoke, to her specifically, letting the others hear, "There are renegade Watchers on the loose." He motioned to Joe, Duncan and Dimitri. "We need to know that a scientist by the name of Clarissa Barrymore and her associates aren't being coddled by this organization. That is against the rules. This," he motioned to the boxes they'd brought in. "Is the evidence of her work. She's trying to perfect the process of making mortals Immortal."

He let that sink in and had to admit, they all acted surprised. A man who looked important ran a search on the database on Clarissa Barrymore. Methos continued, "I'm the oldest one there is. My friends and I can continue to covertly uncover more clues. But I think that now it's your job. It's for you to clean up. Part of you started this madness, you all will get rid of it."

Methos saw that the man searching on the database got the personnel screen for Dr. Barrymore. "You have a high clearance," he told him. "So I'll talk to you and Dr. Zoll. If you don't do anything about Barrymore, I'm going to gather my friends. After 5000 years, I've obtained many, and they're all not the patient or ethical sort like my very good friend, Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod, here. Some aren't as smart as Arthur Pangent, who is trying to make sense of the evidence back in the states. My friends like to fight. They live to fight."

Again, he let that sink in before continuing, "There's never been an all out war between Watchers and Immortals, and hopefully, there never will be. But hear me well, if you don't take care of this woman and the Omega Group and wipe out all evidence that they were ever in business, there will be war. If you've seen even a glimmer of my chronicle, you know that war is something I can wrap my head around."

Methos pointed to Dimitri and pulled him front and center. "Three years age, this man was doing a vile thing, sketching some birds on a pad in a park in Los Angeles. He was kidnaped, drugged, put into a vat, and has been the subject of testing ever since, on Watcher property." Methos turned Dimitri around to show the evidence on his head and neck, Dimitri pulled up his pants legs and sleeves to show the rest of their work. All Watchers stared at the wounds, some were sickened at the rainbow of colors of the scars.

"We'll be watching you. You have two weeks to deliver Clarissa Barrymore and all her research to us, to close all the 'nursing homes' around the world, and we do know where they are, and no more will be opened. It all stops now, or there will be war.

"These are the rules," Methos continued, "Joe Dawson and his daughter, Amy Thomas, will have unlimited access to the process of collecting the evidence that you have and overseeing you shut down all the facilities. James Tucker and Sinclair Holloway," he said, then specifically told the man on the computer, "H-O-L-L-O-W-A-Y," then to the rest, "are AWOL. You find them."

Duncan didn't want him to have all the fun, so he pulled out a handgun and pointed it at Dr. Zoll. "In the meantime, we'll make Dr. Zoll our comfortable guest for the duration."

"What? I'm not going anywhere," she insisted.

Dimitri laid a forcible hand on her arm. Methos continued, "You have two weeks, no longer. Dawson and Thomas will be monitoring your progress, they are to be treated with the utmost respect and will be unharmed. The nursing homes, Barrymore, Tucker, Holloway, and all their workers, all their science, are to be turned over to a location Dawson and Thomas decide. It will all be destroyed in front of us, all mortals and immortals still in captivity will be freed, their names provided to us. With all that done, we'll both go our own way and forget this ever happened. But, if anything goes wrong, Zoll is dead and you'll be seeing more of us Immortals, when you least expect it, just before you are wiped out. Don't think you're better at it than we are. You aren't. You may have big guns, and you may have an attitude, but we've been doing it longer than you have. A lot longer."

Joe Dawson told them, "The new guy... Preston Agnew. He just took over the Watchers. We need to see him now. We have contracts made up and we need his signature."

Zoll humphed, "And who heads the Immortals?"

Methos walked to her, stood nose to nose, "I do."

"You?" she laughed. "You're scared of your own shadow."

He looked into her eyes, and she saw the years of practice he'd had in far more darker endeavors than escaping Watchers. She bit her lip and stepped back, no longer comfortable. The man at the computer stood, and said, "On behalf of everyone here, and I'm sure Mr. Agnew will agree, we're more than surprised by this turn of events. If you'll just give us time to research to see what in the hell you're talking about..."

"He told you what we're talking about," Duncan said. "Clarissa Barrymore's work that was made possible by Watchers is against the rules, against your precious Oath you hold so dear!" When he saw Methos slight smile the one he would use when the Highlander would get riled up, he calmed his voice and said, "Give us Agnew for a discussion and then get on with cleaning it up. Now!" he thrust the gun into Zoll's side and for the first time, she was downright scared.

"There isn't such a thing going on," she protested. "We're not like that. We don't want to become you."

"There are others who disagree with you, lady," Dimitri said as he shoved his tested on arm in front of her face. "Did I do this to myself?"

A man who exuded authority, along with a group of men who could only have been his guards, walked down the hall to join them in the secretarial pool and quickly thrust out his hand to Methos, who was definitely in charge, "I'm Preston Agnew. I've heard everything that was said."

Methos looked up at the ceiling in the far right corner, remembering that there were security cameras all over the building. He said, "I guess I should have smiled for Allen Funt."

Preston saw the hard demeanor of Methos' face, but had to reason with them, "I have admit, I find it hard to believe. Let us go through what evidence you've procured, and we'll talk in my office."

Arthur's days had been full pouring over the research as new items and files were turned over piecemeal by the Watchers. What they had was amazing. Methos saw the glimmer in his eye and told him in no uncertain terms, "Don't get any bright ideas about continuing that research."

Arthur was insulted, "No way! I want it destroyed." Then, he shook his head, he had to admire her work, "It's amazing what progress she made in so little time."

Meanwhile, Amy and Joe had been informed of each 'nursing home' closing as it happened and they had gone to each one, to ensure that it was, indeed, destroyed. Initially, Amy was concerned at being front and center in the cleanup, she was worried that she'd have a price to pay for her part in the discovery, hacking into their computer system and working alongside Immortals. But the main man, the head honcho, Preston Agnew, had a meeting with her to say that he would turn the blind eye to her deeds. He was grateful that they were being given the opportunity to clean the poison out of the Watcher system.

Amy liked Agnew from their first meeting. He'd traveled a long road to be the head of the entire Watcher Organization, and he deserved to be at the top. Twenty years earlier, he'd been the editor of a county newspaper when there were reports of a sword fight on the outskirts of his back water Wisconsin town. Since it was such a small community, he was also the reporter and went to check it out, meeting up with a Watcher, who tried to convince him that the fight was a figment of their imagination. After a little investigating, he found out the truth about Immortality. Since he was a reporter at heart, he followed the Watcher, and got the whole scoop. He was brought into the Watcher Organization with the mind set that it was a great thing, that it served a higher purpose, that Immortals should be coveted, protected, along with being diligently recorded.

He began as a Field Watcher, moved up to supervisor for an area that started on his home ground, then included all of Wisconsin, then all of the upper Mid West. Later he became a ranking officer with the American Bureau, then for the North American continent. He had only recently been assigned the highest office, main overseer of the entire Watcher Network, working out of the Paris Bureau.

Preston had always known there were renegades, knew they probably still existed in some form or another, The hunters always haunted his thoughts. But he was floored to discover such an elaborate, heinous activity went on right under the Watchers' noses. The control methods used for such a wide spread organization as the Watchers had to be updated. Over the thousands of years that the Watchers had existed, there had never been a true, consistent method of doing things. The process of inputting information on Immortals and their Watchers on the database was piecemeal at best. The entire system had to be completely overhauled and he swore to the Immortals holding some of his people hostage that it would be. Loopholes that allowed illegal activity would be closed. The people responsible for allowing the scientific activity of Barrymore, Tucker and Holloway to exist would be executed along with the perpetrators.

When he read the paragraph requesting their termination in the contract the Immortals had him sign, he endorsed their executions fully. The Watchers had been given a bad rap, and the few Immortals who found out about them were scared. That's not at all what he had envisioned. He didn't want the Immortals to know of their existence, they couldn't, or Watchers would be vulnerable to immortal renegades, that Methos and Duncan had to admit were out there. "This will be taken care of swiftly, but quietly, it can't be shared with your friends, and the Immortals involved must be sworn to secrecy," he told them in his office.

Methos smiled, "Then you have an added incentive to do just that. If you don't, we can't be held accountable for what happens."

"But if it did get out," Preston warned, "and news of the Watchers is spread throughout the Immortal world, we'll have to retaliate against you."

"It's a vicious circle," Methos smirked.

A warrant for their capture was 'Red Alert' in the Watcher system, meaning anyone finding Barrymore, Tucker or Holloway had the authority to shoot them on sight, and deliver the corpse to Headquarters for validation of their deaths. All who worked with the renegade three would be brought in, broken by interrogation, and depending on their involvement in the mess, punished. Even though the top three had still not been found, Agnew swore to them that they would be, if it was the last thing he did in this life. "I hope to pull the trigger myself," he convincingly said. "It's deplorable."

Joe had only met with Agnew briefly, at a convention where he addressed them as new CEO of the Watchers, before his retirement for the world of the blues, but was glad to shake the man's hand. Joe believed him, and that was good enough for Duncan, Methos and Arthur.

In front of the Rockefeller Street Warehouse that had been turned into the clearing house for all the research, Agnew and MacLeod stood as surrogates for each side of the conflict. Agnew said, "We're turning over everything we found. We want this stopped as much as you do." He looked at each of the fourteen Immortals who had been their prisoner and promised, "This will never happen again. On behalf of the Watcher Organization, we are deeply sorry. The science is yours to do with as you wish. James Tucker and Sinclair Holloway have been found, and their corpses are in the Mexican Bureau for you to identify. Clarissa Barrymore is a renegade, who will be found and taken out. That, I assure you."

Amy got chills. When she joined the Watchers, she envisioned them to be historical chroniclers of Immortals on the planet, a quiet organization, the existence of which was known neither to mortals nor Immortals. She assumed that the organization would consist of men and women the caliber of Joe Dawson, Gerald Nedemeier and Preston Agnew. Maybe, hopefully, now it would be.

Agnew bowed his head and had to admit, "We have no knowledge of Clarissa Barrymore's location. She was thrown out of the Watchers five years ago, without a pension." He had to admit, "With our sloppy accounting system, which will be overhauled, we don't even have an updated address in her file. But, everything she has ever worked on during her time with the Watchers that we've found is here for your disposal. We don't want that research, that's why she was kicked out in the first place."

The Immortals looked to Arthur, who acknowledged that it looked to be complete. There was a lot of evidence turned over. He said, "I don't know if it's everything, and I still can't figure out her science, but I haven't found that the Watchers have held anything back. All of them have been completely open throughout this whole undertaking."

Then Mac told Agnew, "Remember this, if we ever have even a glimmer of an idea that Watchers are doing anything other than watching and recording any one of us, there will be a war that will not stop until one side is extinct."

With the final agreement that, if anything more was found by Watchers, Amy Thomas would be the first to know about it, and when Clarissa Barrymore was found, she would be held so Immortals could decide her punishment, the warehouse containing all the science and paperwork was ceremoniously burned.

Out of all the evidence provided by the Watchers, the only thing Arthur decided to keep was a listing of all the people, mortal and Immortal, who were ever tested and who were still alive. Arthur knew what his immediate future plans were, to look up each person to see what their condition was, and make sure the Watchers compensated them and their families in any way they could.

For the time being, there was no war. The Watchers once again faded into the woodwork, the Immortals went back to their lives. Amy and Arthur took it upon themselves to look up all the people tested everywhere in the world, at the Watchers expense. To their mortification, a lot of them were dead of disease or suicide. All the people under the age of 20 that were used for testing were dead.

The ones they found alive were given a blood test by Arthur, who found the same cells in their blood, in various stages of progression, as Gerald and Joe had. Some of them exhibited signs of an instant healing ability, some didn't, none had experienced anything like a death and revival. None of them emitted an Immortal buzz. All Amy and Arthur could do was hope that Clarissa hadn't figured out how to make Artificial Immortality a reality, but what a price to pay for failure.

Methos stuck around his old stomping grounds, using his old alias, just for a while, to see what would happen. He was always on alert to his surroundings and anyone that might be following him. Duncan hadn't had any luck in finding Barrymore. Her house had been sold, through the name of a non-existent corporation. Duncan met with Arthur and Amy and they rechecked the massive list of names they had been working on visiting. On one of the back pages that Arthur and Amy hadn't gotten to yet, one name stuck out like a sore thumb. Martina Barry, a corruption of Clarissa Barrymore's ex husband's name.

After rounding up Methos and Joe, Duncan, Amy and Arthur walked to the front door of an unimpressive house on the outskirts of the city, on what looked like a farm. The only thing outstanding about the property was it's privacy. The house was certainly not large enough to keep the experiments going in, and the only other building on the property, surrounded by trees, was a dilapidated chicken coop. The barn lay in shambles seemingly having collapsed under it's own weight. They had parked the van down the road and walked through the woods to the property, and hadn't come across security of any sort. Methos and Duncan thought the owner was just another victim, not the troublemaker that they were hoping to find.

Amy knocked on the door, and they were astounded to see Martin Barrymore himself open the door. Duncan pushed through before he man tried to close it on them when he saw who was there. The Highlander took great delight in shoving Barrymore against the wall with his forearm firmly under Martin's chin. His pleas for mercy were chocked off as the pressure Duncan applied became stronger with every passing minute.

"Well, well, well," Methos sneered at him, "look who we have here!"

"I didn't..." Martin tried to say.

"I believe I'll be able to use the infallible technique of water torture after all," Methos smiled, as Arthur and Amy began to walk through the house.

Joe finally urged Duncan to loosen his grip on the man before he killed him. Methos pulled an easy chair out from against the wall and Duncan tossed the man on it, then set his hands on each arm of the chair and hovered over Martin as he gasped for breath."Where is she?"

"W-Who?"

Duncan slapped him, hard, across the face, an action which gave Methos the chills. He knew that Duncan, like himself, had just been waiting for the opportunity to beat someone up, anyone who had a hand in the Eureka Project.

Martin held his hand to his cheek and defensively blocked Duncan's fist from making contact with him again. "Please! I don't know--."

Methos leaned over Duncan's shoulder to tell Barrymore, "Do you really think I was born yesterday? We were fools to let you go before, but no longer!"

"What is all the shouting about?" Amy asked as she and Arthur reappeared in the living room.

Arthur told them, "This is just a house, fellas. There isn't any medical equipment or supplies here. The only questionable thing is there are a lot of beds set up in the basement."

"What for?" Duncan asked Martin. "Guinea pigs, or her troops?"

"I didn't..." Martin cried out. "I didn't want any of this."

Methos was ready to go to the kitchen and fill a water glass and gleefully walked back into the living room. That's was when he, Duncan, then Arthur felt an approaching immortal buzz. The front door opened, and Clarissa Barrymore walked in, shocked to see they had company. Backing out, she yelled, "Quickly!"

Before they could react, three men burst in behind her as she made a fast exit. They fired automatics at the occupants as if they were facing a firing squad. With only a second to think, Methos saw that Joe was right next to him, and he turned to cover him. When bullets embedded in his back, they both fell to the floor. Arthur pushed Amy into the kitchen, and fell. Duncan collapsed atop Martin on the easy chair, the bullets going through them both.

In seconds, the guns were emptied, smoke filled the living room and drifted out of the broken front window. The men kicked each of the corpses to see if any were still alive, and pulled Duncan off Martin, letting him fall. Satisfied they had cleaned the property, they ran back outside and saw that Clarissa was already in the driver's seat with the engine running.

The men climbed in and she sped them away from the scene. One man told her, "I'm sorry, ma'am. Martin was one of them."

She turned onto the highway and shrugged, "Oh well. We'll have to find a new place."

Inside the house, Amy shrieked when she trudged back into the living room after all the noise had faded. The only sound was loose pieces of plaster falling from the ceiling. All her friends, along with her father, were lying in bloody heaps where they had fallen. She saw Joe's silver hair poking out from under Methos sleeve. She rushed to them and lifted Methos' arm to see Joe staring up at her, he gave a relieved sigh that it was her, and not one of the shooters.

Amy gently slid Methos's body off Joe and leaned down to kiss his cheek, grateful he had been spared, "Are you all right?"

"I don't think so," he croaked, blood seeping out of his mouth.

"Oh, my God!" Amy pushed Methos all the way off him to see he had been shot in the stomach. "Dad," she wailed.

He grabbed her hand and held it as tight as he could, whispering with his last breath, "You step back from this. Promise me. I don't want you hurt."

She brushed back his hair and shook her head, stepping away from punishing Barrymore wasn't a possibility at all. He lifted his head, which only caused him pain and yelled, "Amy, you have to live!" She laid him back down, held her hand to his gun shot wound, and kept shaking her head.

"Dad," she told him. "Just hang on. I have to call an..." She lifted her hand to see that the vast amount of blood on Joe wasn't coming only from him. A line of it dripped from her hand. She inspected herself and saw the bullet wound on herself but still didn't feel it from the rushing adrenaline.

Joe groaned an unearthly wail when he saw the red gathering on Amy's white shirt, just below her collarbone. "You're hit..." were his last words. Joe's head fell back his eyes, still filled with outrage, as he died.

"No, Dad!" She yelled, then started CPR on him, only she had no strength. She cried as she collapsed on top of him, knowing her father was dead and she was soon to join him. Her hand shoved against Methos' face as he revived.

It only took a second to check them over and see that there was still hope for saving Amy. He felt a pulse but she wasn't breathing. He started CPR on her. As Duncan revived. Methos yelled at him as he sat up, "Call an ambulance!"

Duncan stared at Joe's corpse, then at Methos pumping on Amy's chest. "Joe..."

"He's dead, MacLeod. Those bastards killed him! Call an ambulance!"

Arthur had revived by the kitchen door and saw the carnage, had heard the order and said, "I'll do it." He saw the phone on the end table by Martin's easy chair and pulled the cord. It flew into his lap, and he punched 9-1-1.

Duncan straightened Amy's head and laid a hand on Joe's still chest, "He's gone. He's gone. I don't believe it! With all he's been through, all he's overcome, he gets taken out by an ambush?"

"Help me here," Methos said, just before blowing air into Amy's mouth. Arthur gave the address to the operator, then hung up when she asked for his name. He crawled over to them and used his coat to sop up some of the blood on her wound as Methos once again started compressing her chest.

Duncan shut Joe's eyes and said a prayer for his soul. Arthur grabbed Amy's wrist to feel for her pulse. Methos again blew into her mouth, and felt her exhale. He checked her chest, she was once again breathing. "Her pulse is weak," Arthur said. "But she's back with us."

They turned her over to drain the blood that started collecting in her mouth. Duncan grabbed an afghan from the couch and laid it over Joe as they heard approaching sirens. Methos saw Joe's new right leg laying before him, his pant leg was hiked up. He pulled down the trouser leg as he said, "They're coming for her. We can't be here when they arrive."

"I'm not going anywhere", Duncan said, hovering over Amy.

Methos felt her neck, and her weak, but steady pulse. "She'll live until they arrive, they'll be here in minutes. They can't see blood and bullet holes on our clothes with no wounds when they get here. Come on!"

Duncan sat back on his heels and looked at Arthur. "Has the bleeding stopped?"

"No, but they're almost here, let's go," Arthur said. "She'll make it."

Methos saw Joe's hand poking out from under the afghan and took it, to have a second of silence for his dead friend. He wiped away stinging tears that dripped down his face and stood, still holding Joe's hand, not wanting to leave him, but had to. He knelt down to lay Joe's hand under the afghan, when they all heard a loud and deep inhalation of air. The afghan moved. Joe's hand lifted and hovered in the air. Methos yanked the afghan off his friend as Joe coughed with new air in his lungs.

The sirens were close. Without pausing to reflect on how it happened, Duncan rushed to pick up Joe's left shoulder, Methos took his right, and they carried him out the back door that Arthur held open. They went out the back and into the woods as the EMT workers entered through the front door and immediately provided medical care for Amy.

Duncan and Methos set Joe into the back seat of the T Bird and Methos sat next to him. Arthur got into the front with Duncan who sped them away. Joe was in a trance, staring at his hands. Methos put his hand on Joe's head, ruffled his hair. "Welcome back, Joe," he said with a huge smile, relieved that he was still in the land of the living.

Joe flipped his hand away, and looked down at the bullet wound right smack dab in the middle of his stomach. He lifted his shirt to see no entry wound, only dried blood on his skin. He was stunned, speechless.

Arthur turned around and sat with his knees on the seat and looked at Joe, alive. "So, she was able to accomplish it. But I don't understand..." he mumbled, almost to himself. "You didn't heal when I cut you."

As Duncan turned onto the freeway, Joe muttered, "I'm an abomination."

Duncan jerked his head around and snapped, "Don't ever say that! That's Hunter talk."

"I didn't want this," Joe moaned. "I didn't want to be one of you. I don't want all the pain and frustration for the rest of my life, guys. I've had it."

"There's joy, too," Methos offered.

"I've had that too. I see what you guys go through. I don't want it." He cried out as Methos put his arm around his shoulders. Joe pushed him away and looked out his side window, "What about Amy? Where is she?"

Methos told him, "She's on the way to the hospital."

"I gotta go to her! Why did you take me out of there?"

"They couldn't see you."

Arthur had a thought and lightly asked, "Mr. Dawson?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't feel an Immortal buzz from you, are you sure you revived from a first death?"

"Do you see a ghost?" Methos spouted. "He did, we all saw it!" He looked at Joe, and realized that he didn't feel anything emitting from Joe except friendship. "There isn't a buzz from you, there should be."

When Joe lightly laughed, Methos asked, "What's so funny?"

"I always wondered what buzzes felt like, but now..." His laugh turned dark, frustrated, "Now I still don't know."

"Artificial Immortality..." Duncan mused as he drove through the city, nicely under the speed limit so they wouldn't be stopped by cops needing to fill their allotment of speeding tickets. "We'll go to your place so you can change, Joe, then I'll bring you to the hospital to see Amy."

After everyone changed into Joe's clothes, not wanting to take the time to go to each of their places, the four of them walked right to the information desk to see where Amy was, praying she was still alive. Arthur had called four different hospitals before finding out that this was the hospital that she had been taken to. The desk clerk told them that she was in surgery and pointed out where the waiting room was.

As they sat alone in the family room waiting for word on Amy, drinking stale coffee from styrofoam cups and watching CNN Business News on the TV attached to the upper corner of the room, Methos couldn't help but giggle. Then it turned into a full fledged laugh. "What in the hell is so amusing," Joe snapped, his voice laden with anger.

"Look at us," Methos motioned to Duncan and himself. Joe's clothes were too small, too short for them. Neither man ever remembered wearing anything as poorly fitted. A female doctor wearing surgical scrubs and taking off her face mask walked in to ask, "Mr. Dawson?"

Joe bolted out of his chair and cringed at the blood on her shirt, "That's me. How is she?"

"I'm Dr. Madison, I performed the operation on Ms. Thomas."

"How is she?" As he shook her hand.

"She made it, Mr. Dawson," the doctor enjoyed telling him. "She experienced a lot of blood loss and the bullet punctured her left lung, and it collapsed. We had to reset her collarbone. The first night after an operation is the touchiest, we'll be able to tell more about her prognosis in the morning, but I'm confident that she's going to be just fine."

Joe collapsed against the doctor, hugging her, "Thank you!" When he pulled away from her, he was embarrassed, but she took it in stride. "When can I see her?"

"Just let her sleep off the anesthetic, stay here and we'll let you know when you can see her."

"Thank you, Dr. Madison. Thank you so much."

"My pleasure, Mr. Dawson," she smiled. "We'll let you know when she wakes up. Enjoy more of our fabulous coffee in the meantime."

After she left, there were relieved hugs all around, Joe sat back down and said a silent prayer of thanks. Then he realized what he was going to have to deal with in his own life. "I guess I'm going to need a teacher."

"You have one," Duncan quickly said.

"But how long could I possibly last?"

"A long time," Methos said.

"Well, how do you figure that, oh wise one," Joe said, rubbing his artificial legs.

"Since we can't feel your buzz, no one else will either. If you don't advertize the fact that you're immortal, no one will have a clue, until 100 years from now when you still look the same."

Joe shook his head, and looked at the floor. "But I didn't heal when you cut me, Arthur."

"You sure did when you were shot," he said. "I don't know the reason for it, Mr. Dawson. The research is gone. You're a new anomaly."

"Anomaly..." Joe didn't take that well, but who was he to argue? He looked at Methos, "How long are you going to stick around?"

"Until I know Amy is all right. Then I'm leaving."

Mac asked, "Why?"

"I have something I need to do."

"Cover your tracks? Head out of Dodge? Change your name again?"

"Something like that." Methos figured they didn't need to know what he had planned.

Methos hadn't been heard from by anyone. Zoll and her team of watchers were at a loss as to where he had gone or what his new identity was. Agnew didn't reprimand her for losing track of him, only made sure that she and her team were still looking. He told her, "Just work on fixing his chronicle. That's all we can do. He'll turn up one day."

Clarissa Barrymore turned off the hall light and brought her cup of tea into her bedroom on the second floor of her new, expansive house. Noticing the time on her watch, she was pleased about the full, productive day she had, getting her laboratory set up in the mountains surrounding the city. She had been able to salvage most of her notes, some of her scientist's equipment, or devised new, more efficient ones after the Watchers and those pesky Immortals had confiscated her important work. There was no one who could ever bring her down. She had a mission. The lucky few who could afford her injections for the fountain of youth would make her richer than Bill Gates, the Queen of England and the Sultan of Brunei put together. It would only be a matter of time before all the kinks were worked out.

As she reclined on her silk upholstered lounge chair with her tea flipping on CNN, she felt a tightening of her muscles, the tingling of her nerve endings, the dizziness in her head, that only signaled one thing, an Immortal was nearby. Her first thought was that one of her imprisoned Immortals had freed himself, she jumped up and ran to her closet to take out a sword she had fashioned for herself after the tests had made her fully Immortal.

Just as she turned from the closet with her rapier, she saw a tall, lanky, pissed off man holding a bronze Ivanhoe tightly in his grip saunter into her bedroom and sneer, "Clarissa Barrymore, I presume."

She swung her sword, hitting only air.

"Now, who taught you how to use that thing?" Methos mocked her with pure, unadulterated glee.

She swung again, "Stay away from me!" Methos planted his feet, and when he held his own sword high behind his head, she yelled, "This is holy ground! You can't fight here!"

"Nice try," he smiled.

She quickly spit out, "I bought an old church and renovated it. I live on holy ground, so you can't kill me here!"

Methos knew that she would do such a thing, but if the building had been turned into a residential home, it was no longer classified as anointed land, but he decided to have some fun anyway. He grabbed her arm and easily relieved her of the sword she held onto for dear life. "Tsk, tsk, tsk," he clicked at her, shaking his head, tossing her sword on the bed.

She pushed at him, only to cut her hand on his blade. She howled in pain, clutched her hand and looked at Methos with dread. He politely smiled at her, "That wasn't my fault. But this is."

"What is?"

"This." He lifted her up and threw her out the bedroom window. She tumbled off the gable, as he climbed out after her. She laid in the back yard with a broken leg. When he climbed down the trellis and walked toward her, his mind was filled with the image of the innocents her deeds had killed. Her manipulation of the natural order of things burned his blood.

He reached down and took a handful of her highly styled and sprayed hair and walked on, further into her fenced in back yard, dragging her along behind him as she howled in pain. He dropped her head but she didn't defend herself, she only rolled away from him.

He called to her, "Are you going to fight, or are you going to just lay there."

"I will not fight," she choked back the pain from her broken leg and the cuts all over her body from the shattered window, not healing yet.

"Fine," Methos waited, then got riled up when he saw the sparks of immortal healing take over her body. He raised his sword high and yelled, "Welcome to the club, lady!" It only took one swing for her head to separate from her body and roll across the grass. Her quickening was only a little mist and a few sparks, definitely nothing to write home about. But, she had devised a way for it to almost happen, and created the new Joe Dawson, Gerald Nedemeier and only her God knew who else.

He headed back to his rental car. The evening's events had not even caused a stir in her neighborhood. A dog lifted his head from the porch where he laid for the night, but didn't make a sound. Methos called Joe on his cell as he started the engine. "It's done," he told him.

Joe immediately recognized his friend's voice, and was pleased to hear it, but was confused. "What is? Do you know it's four in the morning?"

"Yes. And it's done. It's all over. I'll be setting fire to her new lab in about 45 minutes."

"Barrymore?" Joe asked as he leaned up on his elbow in bed.

"She's no longer an issue. I'll see you later. I have to disappear for a while."

"You've been gone for six months, Adam... is that still your name."

"It's not. And I have to be gone longer than six months. I'll see ya, buddy. I have confidence in saying that now. You take care."

"I will," Joe said, but not in time, Methos had hung up. He replaced the receiver in its cradle and laid back on the bed. It was all over. All traces of Barrymore and her work were through. The Watchers were under new, good management. He and Amy were looked upon with esteem high up in the Watcher organization. The Watchers would only watch and record, and be friendly only to those immortals who knew of their existence. The new Dawson-Thomas codicil to the Watcher Oath also pleased Joe immensely. It stated that if an immortal you were watching was on the wrong end of an unfair fight, Watchers were bound by duty to stop the fight by any means necessary to let their immortal get away.

Preston Agnew didn't have a problem with the idea that Duncan, Arthur and Methos were a Watcher's friends, just so they wouldn't let out the secret. Any and all members of the Organization who broke their Oath, or ever tried to walk the paths Barrymore, Horton or any other renegade walked, would meet with instant death. Even with those lapses in the old code, secrecy was still an unbreakable oath that must be kept.

Joe turned off the lamp, but found it hard to go back to sleep. Staring up at the ceiling, he realized he was living a good life. He had his daughter, his amazing legs, time to appreciate them, a job he no longer had to defend or explain, and very good friends who were still standing by him.

THE END