Happy Holidays, eliyes! (1/2)
Title: The Time Funnel (1/2)
Author: el frontera ultimo
Written for: eliyes
Characters: Methos, Joe, Spock, McCoy, Kirk,and more from both crews.
Crossover: Highlander (series) and Star Trek TOS
Rating: G for Gen, with Quickening.
Wordcount: 15,000. ish.
Author's Notes: It’s Highlander. And Star Trek. Think Bar Trek. Warnings for massive abuses of temporal physics. Spock is appalled. Or was. Or will be.
Summary: Space. The final frontier. One tavern keeper boldly goes. Unsurprisingly, Methos gets there first.
**************
Joe was aggravated. And hurting. But most of all, he was bored. He was a Watcher with no one to watch. Now he perched on the customer side of the bar, surrounded by paperwork and check stubs. He yawned, gazing wistfully at the open back door, where fresh air and the watery March sun trickled in from the loading dock. Cavernous shadows still draped the stage, but the spruce top on his acoustic guitar caught the light.
A shadow darkened the door, and Joe took off his reading glasses to focus on his unexpected visitor. “What, did you raid your storage locker from 1994?”
"Are you open?" Methos breezed in without knocking, pocketing the keys he didn’t need. "Or, more pressingly, 'Why are you not open?’ ” He was wearing red pants from Armani’s Jurassic era.
“Not that I’m not glad to see you, but you’re running a bit late. Your last last call was…” Joe squinted at his watch, “...three months and nine hours ago. Give or take a shift beer or two.” Joe had learned the hard way not to pester Methos about his disappearances. Feigned disinterest got better results.
“You didn’t light a candle in the window? Leave the latch string out? Keep the home fires burning?”
“There’s these things called ‘liquor laws.’ ” He rubbed his eyes, and put his reading glasses on the register where he would find them later. “They also frown on open flame.”
“Taverns, these days,” Methos sighed, making himself at home behind the bar. “No sand, no gumption. In my time they opened with the sun and only closed with the first light of dawn so they could brew up a new batch for the breakfast rush.”
"Tough bartending shift, though I’d end up with almost the same amount of sleep," Joe calculated. "It's only eleven am now. If you want me to capitalize on the new craze for beer for breakfast, you're going to have to start the craze."
Methos appeared to seriously consider the thought. "The custom is easier to foster in an apocalyptic environment rife with famine, but I'm willing to experiment on the current culture…there are promising signs. Join me?" Methos hinted.
Joe shook his head. "Maybe next apocalypse.” He waved vaguely at the beer cooler behind the bar. "Help yourself."
Methos eyed the selection critically, before fetching out a stout. “Long night?”
“Same old, same old,” Joe denied automatically. “Quiet on the Watcher front, really. Mac is still on retreat. However, there’s this thing someone invented called ‘taxes.’” He signed off on the last document, pen stabbing the paper with murderous finality. “You wouldn’t have had anything to do with that custom, would you?”
Methos winced in mock sympathy, evincing no guilt. “Not in this century.”
“It’s only 2001. That’s not reassuring.”
“Sure I can’t pour you a pilsener?” Methos asked. “It’s already 6:00pm in Paris. You look like you could use some complex carbohydrates.”
With high hauteur, Joe declaimed, “I don’t drink and tithe.”
“Sometimes your life choices worry me deeply,” Methos sighed. “Puns before lunch could get you stoned in Babylon.”
“Good thing I’m living in Seacouver, then,” though Joe failed to muster a great deal of enthusiasm over the fact.
“This week,” Methos warned. “Times change.”
“They are a-changing,” Joe agreed, knocking on wood.
Methos followed suit without cracking a smile. “The portents are dire. I even dreamed a silver star with eyes skimmed the heavens last night. My spine has been itching ever since. Any odd customers, lately?”
“Present company excepted?” Joe scratched the back of his neck. Portents were catching. “Just the usual suspects, mostly. The club crowd left early for the bars uptown, except for some sort of retro-techno gang that hung on to the bitter end.”
“Hippie gangsters? Or gentrified software bandits?” Methos asked, looking doubtfully down at his red threads. “I could do that. I’ll have to update the wardrobe anyway.”
Joe laughed, feeling the fog of boredom lift. “You definitely would have been entertained -- fancy bright mock-turtle shirts, matching black bell-bottoms and all four with pointy sideburns. Shiny new little cellular phones, too, no antenna. They had these glowing things that looked like salt cellars with spinning marbles they kept sneaking out and pointing around. Probably some newfangled mike bootlegging the band.”
“I’ve heard rumors of something called an iPod coming out this fall. Supposed to revolutionize music. Maybe a prototype? I should get you one for Christmas.” Methos had bought Joe a Sony Discman the previous year. It was still in the box, Joe remembered with a tiny pang of guilt.
“I’ll stick with the old fashioned Walkman,” Joe countered. “Easier to hide. More versatile. Quickening resistant. I can record notes on all your immortal nonsense for work, and listen to Bill Broonzy to recover.”
“Fossil,” Methos said fondly. “Joe Dawson, meet the twenty first century. Time to prepare for the twenty second. The centuries sneak up on you, mark my words.”
“I’ll take your word for it. When I die, I’ll be surrounded by garlands of cassette tape and buried under a headstone made of vinyl.”
“I’ll remember that,” Methos threatened. “Now about your new clientele.”
“Multinational computer company party, maybe. Or a cult. Or marketers. Small difference. The neighborhood is going downhill.” Joe woke up his slumbering inner Watcher, considering the question. “Four guys, hung around asking questions all night. Blue shirt, top shelf bourbon, southern gentleman. Red Shirt, whisky neat, Glasgow. Blue shirt with bad hat and good diction, tap water, paid attention to the tunes. And the last guy ran a tab for them all like a boss, kept bugging me about the canal development when he wasn’t charming the ladies. But I was short-handed, and...no wonder the bank was off.” Joe rustled through some bar orders. “He skipped out on the bill.”
“Not like you to miss that. You look fried. And possibly toasted,” Methos said, adding enough attitude to keep Joe from being insulted. “Your back bothering you again?”
“Diplomatic, as always. It is what it is. I sat in on the last set last night, that helped some. Then I crashed in the office for a few hours. The sofa needs new cushions.”
“The sofa needs new everything,” Methos corrected.
“True.” Joe eased into a new position. The music always helped, some. But after a long night closing the bar, and a longer morning of doing the bank, paying purveyors and figuring out the monthlies, Joe was, indeed, fried. He was vastly tempted to kick back and catch a cat nap on the battered sofa that anti-decorated his office. So vastly tempted, that his eyes drooped and a yawn caught him up in a full body slam.
"Is that your liver I see? Or your lights?" Methos asked, peering across the bar and down Joe’s gullet with no sense of propriety. "Why don't you go home and take a proper siesta? I'll set up and watch the bar till the afternoon shift gets in."
“Tempting. Okay.” Joe gave in immediately, far too easily for Methos’ peace of mind.
"What's the catch?" Methos backpedaled.
"No catch. I’ve got a couple of errands to run before I clock out, and I could use the fresh air.” Joe sealed the last check in an envelope. “Go to the bank, pay off the State. Oh, and there’s a keg coming in from that new brewery down by the locks, Dumuzi Drafts. I need to check out their setup, see if it’s legit. Home-brew India pale ales in Seacouver? Sounds like a risky bet. I mean, where’s the market? I can barely move the hefeweizen before it gets skunky.”
“I like a good, burly IPA,” Methos protested. “It prevents scurvy.”
“Point taken,” Joe agreed. “That’s good for a couple of barrels a year for you for prophylactic purposes.”
“And breakfast,” Methos reminded
“And breakfast," Joe echoed, standing and stretching. “Thanks for covering. Oh, and the taps need cleaning.” Sailing out from behind the bar and grabbing his coat, he added in dire warning, “If you see anyone in black bell-bottoms, don’t let them run a tab.”
“Any techno-hippy-gangsters will pay dearly if they darken my bar.” Methos waved as Joe went out the door. He didn’t mind cleaning the taps. He liked a clear line to the barrel.
“My bar,” Joe reminded with a laugh, rubbing his neck. “At least until the bank comes calling. When I return, I’ll be ready for that beer. Tap that new keg from Dumuzi if it comes in.”
“Dumuzi? Excellent choice. Taste testing is mandatory to satisfy the god of beer,” Methos said with a touch of nostalgia. “ ‘Dumuzi dies with spring, store underground in hot summer.’ Clay pots work best.”
“What is that, an ancient beer prayer?” Joe probed.
“You could say that. Ancient recipe. Prayers went hand in hand with Sumerian fermentation practices, which is just as well, considering we used unfiltered cistern water and drank it out of the pot through a straw.”
“I can imagine,” Joe agreed, letting his imagination roam. “Bugs, critters, algae…”
“Added to the bouquet. And protein content.”
“Now I know why they call it banquet beer.”
“We would recite all the recipes on the anniversary of Inanna and Dumuzi’s wedding on the spring equinox. To Inanna!” Methos toasted, sprinkling a few drops of beer on the floor. “Patron of innkeepers. I’ll set up a shrine for you. She’ll keep a stern eye on any techno riff raff.”
“Just what I need, more tithes. Speaking of techno, next year you can show me how to record a song or two for that new iPod,” Joe waved at his guitar on the stage. “I hate the way CDs flatten the fidelity. Maybe the pod things will be better.”
“Oh ye of generous faith. Vinyl will come back, mark my words,” Methos said, with surprising certainty. “Off you go to do your civic duty. Don’t forget your insurance. The neighborhood isn’t what it used to be.”
“None of us are. Well, maybe you. But come to think of it, even you look a little grizzled around the edges,” Joe teased, even as he patted down the pockets of his spring jacket--wallet, tape recorder, bar and car keys, gun, carry permit. “Staying a few days?”
“I plan on staying a little longer this visit. No time like the new millennium to start a new life.”
“That is good news. Keep the taps clean, and there’s a barstool here for you and Inanna any time,” Joe grinned as he escaped into the sunny day. Methos made the grind of bartending infinitely more entertaining. It was good to have a shift to look forward to again.
++++
The beer deliveries came, and the afternoon shift arrived. The Friday night band started setting up. Methos moved Joe’s guitar into his office for safekeeping until Joe came back. While waiting he even constructed a bottle-sized shrine out of a recycled beer case, and covered it with Sumerian runes of power and taste. He summarily ejected the sloe gin from the back bar to center it as perfectly as possible, and whispered a recipe.
And still, Joe did not come back.
When the bar lights flickered and the frisson of a distant Quickening seared Methos’ nerves, he dropped the bar rag, grabbed his duster, and bounded out the back door, never to return.
++++
Kirk bolted out of the lift and swung into his Captain’s chair, eyes fixed on the main screen view of Earth from high orbit. “Report.”
Spock’s hands moved over the library computer. “Captain, the anomaly may be manifesting ahead of schedule. I am getting some peculiar warp signature leakage near the warehouse.”
Sulu made minute adjustments to the Enterprise’s orbit. “Mr. Scott has adjusted the power curve to ride out the waves of time displacement.”
Uhura smoothly added “I’ve jury-rigged our comms to monitor the entire spectrum of archaic frequencies, Captain. It’s very noisy down there, but it doesn’t concern us. We will be able to track your subcutaneous transponders if the opening rift generates interference.”
Kirk tapped the arm of his chair, annoyed, but not at his crew. “First Captain Christopher, then Gary Seven...we’ve traveled time to encounter astronauts, interstellar provocateurs, world leaders. The Asian Brush Wars are on the rise, and the Eugenics War is just around the corner. Yet Starfleet sends us hundreds of years back in time to spy on a bartender in a waterfront dive?”
“Owner, not bartender, I believe,” McCoy murmured. And a better dive than we deserve, considering we stiffed him.”
“Better that than dropping counterfeit bills,” Kirk protested. “Besides, we all neglected to replicate period wallets.”
“Not to mention pockets.” McCoy hesitated, then continued, “Joe Dawson seemed like a decent man, Jim.”
“A highly competent musician, as well,” Spock added, with carefully concealed regret. “A man who is destined to be erased from history by the formation of a quantum anomaly. Our records show no further contributions to our current timeline.”
Kirk frowned. “Dawson was at the center of the particle funnel that our scientists were investigating. He was in an ideal position to set it off. Something or somebody triggered that rift in the past.”
“We do not know if Mr. Dawson was the trigger of the event, or merely the victim. The body was not found. The very shoreline was altered.”
“What if we warn him off?” McCoy asked. “I’ve kept my latest ‘Do No Harm’ streak going for almost a week, now.”
“That’s not possible,” Kirk said abruptly. “We can’t interfere with local timelines. We just want to prevent more particle entanglement from the future lab accident from compounding the lab accident in the future.”
“Creatively put. But it seems rather chronocentric, to me,” McCoy pointed out. “If we contributed to the creation of the funnel in the past with our lab work, doesn’t that make us culpable?”
“We have our orders, Bones. Starfleet did the math, we do the mission. The past has already happened, but we may be able to save people in danger in our future.”
“We cannot rule out outside interference,” Spock commented. “If the Klingons or the Romulans are experimenting with temporal mines, the evidence may lie at the ignition source for the rift.”
“What about your math, Mr. Spock?” McCoy asked, noting the constant stream of figures on the library computer screen.
“Based on these readings, I cannot disprove their findings,” Spock said disapprovingly. “But I do suspect of some of their underlying assumptions about the source. Open time loops are still a fluid field of study.”
“Have I mentioned how much I hate time travel?” Kirk said, pained.
Spock did not bother to look up from his readings. “7.5 times, Captain, during our various missions together.”
“And what was the .5?” McCoy asked.
“On one occasion the unrepeatable bulk of the phrase was inaudible to human ears.”
Ignoring the exchange, Kirk toggled a switch on his chair. “Ship's Log, supplemental. Civilian scientists on Earth were studying an unexplained temporal rift or funnel near the Seacouver locks in the year 2001. Using untethered quantum particles time traveling on open curves, they planned to ‘read’ the quantum shift in the past, and discover its source. Without warning, the rift twisted and expanded, destroying their lab in Seacouver.” Kirk waved away Spock’s wince at the oversimplification.
“Theoretically, time-traveling particles are not supposed to interact with themselves in the past. Somehow, they did,” he said dryly. “The resulting energy fountain continues to grow, relooping into the past and ‘entangling’ with the disaster in 2001.” As Kirk updated the log, Spock channelled images on the main screen of damaged ruins of a canal that once linked the Seacouver port with a lake and inland rivers.
“Starfleet has ordered the Enterprise to travel back to 2001 to record conditions before and during the first explosive event. We have made preliminary contact with the one known witness to the disaster, though our survey party found no evidence of any direct connection to the temporal disruption. Our current mission is to determine the cause of both disasters, and to control and repair the growing particle fountain opening in the future. The quantum causality matrix for the entire planet may be at stake. Kirk out.”
“Spock’s a bad influence on you, Jim,” McCoy complained. “A simple ‘History might change’ would do. And we don’t even know if that’s true.”
Kirk flipped another toggle, rubbing his temple. “Scotty, are the depleted crystals ready?”
“Aye, two dilithium sponges, dead as a doornail, just aching for a particle charge. We just have to intercept the particle stream long enough for the feedback loop to fail, and the rift should snap closed on both ends.”
“Bring your sponges to the transporter room, and key on the coordinates Spock sent you. McCoy will help you set them up at source.”
“I’m a doctor, not an engineer.” McCoy raised the objection through pure habit. He was already waiting at the lift as the door whisked open, checking his medikit.
“How many times have you heard that, Spock?” Kirk asked, adding “Transporter deck,” as the lift dropped.
“The permutations are uncountable, Captain,” Spock said absently as he went through his tricorder checklist.
“I need to update my curriculum vitae,” McCoy noted, though his gaze remained on the Captain.
The Captain noticed. “Starfleet wants us to halt the temporal entanglement and disperse the particle fountain. So that’s what we do. Any final objections? Spock?”
Spock stared off over the Captain’s shoulder, still uncomfortable about the theoretical underpinnings. “My reservations are academic, not concrete. We need more data.”
“Keep working on the numbers, Spock. I trust you to pull the plug if Starfleet’s mathematicians dropped a digit. Worse case scenario, we pull out, recalculate, and slingshot again with a shorter time frame to fix the problem.”
“And while I help Scotty sponge the quantum kitchen, you and the Captain will be on the lookout for alien time travellers stepping out of a phantom tollbooth,” McCoy said with a touch of sting. “Jokers wild.”
“Jokers will be dealt with,” Kirk said, with grim anticipation. “I want strict enforcement of the noninterference directive for all locals. We can only observe,” Kirk ordered. “Bones, I need my best and most experienced team with me. Time itself may be in the balance.” The ghost of Edith Keeler haunted his tone.
“ ‘...Once more unto the temporal breach, my friends...” McCoy paraphrased Shakespeare in grim acknowledgement, as they entered the transporter room.
“ ‘...or close the wall up with our Starfleet dead…’” Kirk closed the mangled St. Crispin Day speech quote as he stepped onto the transporter pad. “Energize.”
++++
Dumuzi Drafts was closed. The brewery offices were deserted, which Joe found strange for a Friday, but a note on the door declaimed a wellness day off for the entire crew just to celebrate a sunny day. “A wasted trip,” Joe griped out loud, leaning his weight on the edge of a stone buttress which had been carved out and planted with tufted barley. Then he laughed at himself for indulging in envy. “I wonder if they’re hiring?”
He decided to indulge in a little wellness himself for a change, and he found a comfortable position on the warm stone, easing his stumps. He ran his hand over the soft barley seedheads. More planters decorated the courtyard, token plots of rye, oat, and wheat, and the rough brick wall of the office supported a carpeting of hops. He could hear the hum of bees, the chirp of a cricket.
Water lapped against a dock at the far end of the warehouse. Joe could imagine locally harvested grains barged in from farms and fields upriver, combined with clean water drawn from the Cascades. Dappled reflections danced on the canal, reminding him of good times and good music in Paris, and he lingered in the sun.
His fleeting moment of tranquillity was disturbed by the deadly sound of clanging swords inside the warehouse near the water. Or was it just equipment being moved in the brewery? Metal on metal. Dragged back into Watcher mode, Joe moved toward the clash, careful and slow. He cast his eye about for other Watchers. Nothing.
On the far end of the courtyard, Joe found the warehouse door was left ajar, the interior dark. Either the employees had stampeded on wellness day, leaving it swinging, or certain visitors were expected. And Joe did have an open invitation from Dumuzi’s promoter to visit. “Come into my parlor.”
Joe checked the tape in his Walkman and pressing the power and record buttons. Plenty of tape left for notes or famous last words, including his own. He entered and edged along the wall, letting his eyes adjust. The lights were off, but sunlight filtered in through windows high on the wall. Huge steel fermentation tanks and copper mash cookers lined the walls, and Joe had to mind a number of hoses. Forty foot vats towered on stilts above the concrete floor, providing nice shadowy corners to observe without being seen.
Joe’s ear and instincts were not mistaken. The clash of heavy swordplay echoed through the warehouse, though equipment hid the combatants. Who was fighting? MacLeod was out of the country, and Methos, theoretically, at the bar. There were no straight aisles--they wound around the fermenters and cookers, shortening sightlines. There was nothing for it, Joe would have to get closer.
++++
The landing party beamed down into the deserted courtyard. Tricorders and scanner humming, Spock and Scotty immediately plotted the most efficient placement of the crystals given current readings and Starfleet’s projections. “Here, if the parameters remain stable,” Spock pointed on his screen, then indicated the warehouse. “Approximately 33.3 meters from that door.”
McCoy reconnoitered, and found the notice hanging on the office door. “This explains why the casualty count wasn’t higher.” He pointed his tricorder at the warehouse. “Captain, I’m picking up three life signs within the building. Dawson accounts for one, his readings as a bilateral amputee are unique. He’s moving slowly, halfway along inside the main building, the others are at the far end, engaged in heavy exercise of some sort.”
Spock refocused his scanner. “They are quite close to the focal point of the rift, Captain,” he warned.
“I think we’ve found our jokers in the deck.” Kirk didn’t hesitate. “Spock, we’re going to create a diversion, and see if we can’t draw these people out toward the dock away from the focal point. Scotty, McCoy, while we’re busy there, go set the crystals. Stay out of sight and document as much as you can.”
“Quiet as church mice, Captain,” Scotty promised, and he and McCoy slipped into the warehouse, stepping softly into the shadows.
“With me, Spock.” Kirk ran to the far edge of the warehouse, edging around to scout the dock and large double doors. Boats bobbed on the canal, playful and picturesque. A smaller access door was inset next to the loading dock. It was locked and bolted.
“We could burn out the lock,” Kirk said, eyeing both the access and loading dock doors, drawing his phaser.
“Or we could knock,” Spock said. “You did say ‘diversion.’ Not ‘assault.’ “
“Be my guest,” Kirk gestured to Spock to proceed.
But knocking elicited no response. Nor did pounding. Or crashing a shoulder against the bolted door. Spock cocked his head. “I believe the occupants are fully involved with an activity of their own.”
Over the sounds of a boat motoring near the dock, even Kirk could hear metallic bashing sounds within. “My turn,” he said, drawing his phaser again, and blowing a hole in the doorbolt and frame.
“No, my turn,” said a calm voice behind them. “Canal Security. Please put down your weapon. Do not move or turn around.”
“I think you have the wrong idea,” Kirk said in his most harmless tone, as he began to turn around. There was a sharp report, and a hole appeared in the lintel over his head, showering both Kirk and Spock with wood shards.
“What part of ‘do not turn around’ do you not understand?” Canal Security asked. “Shall we try ‘drop the weapon,’ again?”
Kirk bent and gently placed the phaser next to his foot, glancing at Spock.
“There is a violent altercation inside this establishment. We were just trying to help,” Spock offered helpfully, readying for the Captain’s inevitable counterattack. He edged sideways, intending to draw their captor’s attention and aim.
“Breaking and entering is a serious crime, and I really should arrest you.” The voice was closer. Spock caught a glimpse of thin red denim trousers out of the corner of his eye. “But I don’t have time.”
There was a thunk, and Kirk sagged, coshed behind the ear with a sharp blow. Spock caught him before he hit the pavement. His hands were full when their assailant picked up Kirk’s phaser, twisted the selector, and fired, hitting him squarely in the back.
++++
Methos clicked the phaser from ‘stun’ to ‘off.’ He dragged the bodies to the small fishing boat he had coasted in close to the dock. After a moment’s thought, he patted the phaser back into place on Kirk’s belt. Wrestling them into the boat and out of direct shrapnel range of the warehouse took only a minute, and he took pains to lay them comfortably on the stern deck. He tucked the gun out of site in the wheelhouse.
“Can’t have you raiding the party early, boys. The fireworks are just starting.”
++++
One opponent was silver-haired, quite old for an Immortal, possibly even older than Joe, in physical years, but erect and trim, bringing real force to his strikes. Nevertheless, his stroke choice was mundane, and his speed and skill levels were badly mismatched against an opponent Joe knew all too well.
For it was Methos blocking, retreating, circling. He must have done an end around while Joe was at the bank. Honestly, Joe couldn’t fault him for taking time out to change into decent jeans, but that didn’t explain why he was here. Then again, all that talk of fermentation deities might have been a way to finagle Joe into being a backup for a challenge. Methos could be tricky that way.
“We don’t have to do this,” Methos offered, pulling back to allow his older opponent a breath. Joe frowned. Methos didn’t fight often, but when he did, he didn’t make a habit of giving ground back to his opponent. “We can talk this over. I don’t hold grudges. Particularly against strangers.”
“The time for talk is long past.” The voice was sonorous, musical. Methos’ opponent would make a hell of a backup singer.
“I know that voice.” Methos stepped back again, allowing a quick flashback to surface, but not taking his eyes from his opponent. “Flint. You were Flint. I found you in the Dolomites. You’re younger than me by a thousand years. But your face--it’s changed.”
“I have grown old. My quickening curls and gnaws inside me, no longer able to fully regenerate my body properly. It must be repaired. Or, if you are worthy, harvested, so you come into all I know. This is our last chance. One of us survives, or all of us die.”
Joe didn’t like the sounds of that at all.
Flint lunged. Mechanically, the fight was almost painfully routine, even if the duelling ground was not. They circled around a mash tun, and ducked under suspended fermentation vats, wary of the metal scaffolding supporting the lines. The challenger held a gladius of burnished bronze, and his Roman garb resonated more of Shakespearean costume than the honest dust of the Appian Way.
Flint’s heavy, slow strokes eroded Joe's natural caution, and he'd pushed himself a few steps closer, under the shadow of a secondary fermenter. The challenger was overreaching his swing. But Methos was slow in riposte, uncharacteristically tentative. Dangerously so. And it nearly cost him his head.
The silver-haired immortal turned his wrist and stabbed, just grazing Methos’ temple and missing his eye, and clocking Methos with the hilt on the follow through. His face was nearly unrecognizable, half-masked with blood. “That was uncalled for,” he said, wiping the blood from his brow.
“Do not toy with me,” the challenger warned in a deep, melodic voice. Standing over Methos with his bloodied blade raised, the challenger warned, “My patience is done. If you will not give my quickening safe harbor, then I must take yours.”
In the stillness before the stroke could fall, Joe drew his gun. The snick of the released safety startled the swordsman, and he turned. “You’re early,” Flint said distinctly, just before Methos took his head.
“In my books, Joe,” Methos said, breathing heavily, “You’re right on time. Now record…” a blue bolt slashed from Flint’s sword through the hilt of Methos’ grounded Ivanhoe, driving the air from his lungs and the words from his throat.
The Quickening spread, light and dark. A winding black fog began curling into a tight micro-tornado over the fallen body. Ball lightning danced on the wort chiller lines and the copper mash tank, valves blew, and vats erupted yeasty fumaroles. Steam clouds sparkled with incandescent fireflies of energy. A ruptured tank created a beer waterfall that inundated victor and victim before being drawn into the funnel that grew over the body and rose nearly to the ceiling. The smell was heady and sharp, and Joe shook his head at the waste of good beer.
"Methos, you will kick yourself in the ass for wrecking a perfectly good batch," Joe groused to himself as he carefully sidestepped a wave of lager. "Hell. This is going to wreck my shoes. Maybe I'll kick your ass instead," he muttered.
Joe tried to map a path toward Methos as the electrical spikes began to diminish. It was normally a bad idea, getting this close to any active Quickening, but there was something very peculiar about this one, and Joe was more than a bit worried about the way Methos was shaking.
Methos’ eyes focused for a terrifying instant, shedding tears of burning sparks. His blade flashed, defending against an invisible foe, holding the quickening at bay by sheer will. “Joe! Get out. Save yourself. 781.643. I’ll find you! Save yourself and you save us! 299! 781.643!”
The first part of the message was clear. Joe divined the most prudent course of action would be to decode the rest later, and he headed for the exit with as much speed as he and his cane could muster. A little Methosian voice inside his skull chastised him as a bright new cobalt flash charged the liquid at the immortal’s feet and rushed outward in chiaroscuric chaos. "Beer is a conductor..." Joe looked down at his wet shoes.
This was going to smart.
++++
“Somehow I don’t think Starfleet factored a medieval duel into their equations, Scotty,” McCoy said, raising his voice to be heard over the arcing electrical bursts. “And Flint was definitely not on anybody’s screens. He’s supposed to be dying of old age in the Omega system!”
“Flint must have been tapping a new power source. Releasing it upset our dilithium absorption rate something fierce,” Scotty said, steadily getting unhappier as he scanned his readings.
“Are the crystals supposed to be doing that?” McCoy asked. They were glowing and dimming in exactly the same double rhythm as a beating human heart. The glow was becoming brighter with each beat.
“The quantum cascade is out of control, Doctor. The crystals canna hold the expanding output. We’ve got to move.” Using a stiff pair of gloves, he packed the dilithium in the carryall. “If we don’t get them further out of range, the rift will pull everything all apart!”
“The warehouse or the whole brewery?”
“The warehouse, the brewery, the locks, the port. The whole city!”
“Did you warn the Captain?”
“The communicators blew in the first energy surge.”
“Of course they did,” McCoy said, disgusted. “Get them out of here. Find Spock. Maybe he can still calculate our way out of this ticking time bomb.”
“What about you?”
“Flint changed all the math. We’ve got to find out how, and why. Go, Scotty! Give me more time!”
++++
Methos hauled Joe up off the floor, dusted him off, and propped him against a conditioning tank. Even in a semi-conscious state, Joe’s hand curled around his cane. “I can always count on you to exceed the recommended mortal operating instructions,” Methos sighed, searching Joe’s coat.
Pulling out the Walkman, he turned off the recorder, popped the cassette and slipped it into his back pocket of his raveling red pants. Straightening Joe’s collar, he hauled Joe close and said calmly, quickly, “Observe. 299. Record. 781.643. You saved us. Now save yourself. Move it, Joe!”
++++
Dizzy and disconnected, Joe’s heart was pounding like a hard snare drum. He didn’t remember the quickening shock, but he had a peculiar impression that Methos had picked his pocket, then given him a goodbye hug. Like that would happen. Especially since he could see through the haze that Methos was currently pinned by a particularly painful bolt that came quite literally out of the blue.
Against all odds, he hadn’t lost his cane or fallen. Or, against higher odds, he had gotten up. Tipping forward, he aimed for the distant door, making decent time for the circumstances, intending to out walk the expanding lake of beer before another bolt gave him more hallucinations.
Joe had a fair amount of momentum going when he nearly ran over one of his patrons from the bar the night before. He was mightily unhappy with himself for being so thoroughly snuck up upon, but there were more pressing matters. “Excuse me, sir, but we are in real trouble here, and need to go. Now.” Using his bar voice to be heard over the quickening, Joe spoke politely but firmly to the man, who had to be certifiable for following him into this mess.
The southern gentleman (bourbon, top shelf) in blue, pointed a ...video recorder? Geiger counter? toward Flint’s disintegrating body, ignoring the lapping approach of the lake of beer.
“The name’s McCoy. I’m a doctor.” He drew out his fancy cell phone. “If you can read me, Enterprise, the focal point is Flint. He’s dead, Jim.” There was a squeal from the phone as the doctor twisted a knob.
“I think your battery died,” Joe pointed out helpfully. “I know where we can buy more,” he said, trying to hustle the man out. Methos was still jerking and shuddering under the most massive and ancient Quickening Joe had ever seen.
“That man needs help.” McCoy focused his whirlything on Methos, halfway across the warehouse. “How is he even standing? That level of energy should be lethal!”
“Don’t mind him,” Joe scrambled through his list of stock excuses. “It’s like a magic trick. He’s a performance artist. Like David Blaine?”
“Who’s David Blaine?” McCoy asked without looking up from his device.
The man was not acting like your average civilian caught in an indoor thunderstorm. Frustrated, Joe cut right to the chase. Uncovering his wrist, he held up his tattoo. “Are you Flint’s Watcher?”
“How on this Earth do you know Flint?” McCoy turned the whirling device on Joe himself, and frowned. “You’ve had a shock.”
Joe slapped it away like a snake. “Unless you want to end up as fried as Flint there, we need to get out of here, right now,” Joe warned, hauling the man back by the shoulder. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, but we need to talk.” Over McCoy’s shoulder, the air was rippling and shredding over Methos’ blood-streaked head. That couldn’t be good.
McCoy’s eyes widened at the sight, yet he calmly took out his little toy cellular phone again. “If you can read me, Enterprise, the rift is opening right now. It is far ahead of schedule. We need an emergency beam out, as many warm bodies as you can manage. Uhura, these coordinates, wide scan...we’re moving.” He snapped it shut just as a tentacle of the Quickening seemed to sense the device, and undulated eerily toward the Doctor. Joe grabbed the device and threw it hard into the growing maw of the quickening beast.
“Move it!” Joe hauled McCoy around and shoved him toward the entrance, catching his balance on a keg. “Run!” He was relieved to see McCoy’s three buddies appear at the entrance. Their fearless leader darted in among the falling sparks to drag McCoy out through the door, handing him off to the guy in the bad hat. The man now stood alone, waiting at the door. Waiting for what? Joe met his eyes, and just kept moving.
Joe didn’t know what happened to mortals caught by a full quickening fire. There tended to be little left behind. He didn’t want to find out. Unfortunately, the hole in the air over Methos intersected a fermentation vat, cracking it wide open. A tidal wave of Dumuzi Draft crushed Methos and cascaded across the floor, eldritch blue sparks riding the crest. “Run!” he’d told McCoy, and now he shouted it at the tourist hesitating in the doorway.
Joe, unfortunately, quite literally could not run to save his life.
"Methos, I screwed up." Joe halted as a foamy wave began to submerge his legs, both false and true. Strands of energy wove out of the wave, climbing his body in itching bursts. There was a whining sound ringing in his ears, rising in pitch. Instinctively he covered his ears against the noise. His eyes filmed over with azure light. A small part of his brain considered the irony of drowning in a river of beer. Maybe Dumuzi had a sense of humor.
And then all faded to black.
++++
Dawson flung an arm over his eyes and growled at the actinic light that was trying to blind him. "Turn it off or I'll hafta kill you." The movement kicked off ancillary pain from his chest to the tips of his phantom toes.
"That would be counterproductive," an acerbic voice said from his right. Doctor, Dawson diagnosed. Doctor McCoy, his back-brain kicked in.
"Depends on if killing you would stop the hammer in my head. I’m willing to test the theory," Dawson said. "You aren't my regular doctor. Are you sure you know what..."
Three things happened. The light gentled. There was a slight bit of pressure against his arm and the hiss of compressed gas. And the bottom dropped out of Dawson's pain.
"Better?"
"Better," Dawson breathed the word like a prayer. "Magic." His head cleared. His neck relaxed. The constant chorus of phantom pain even hushed to a pianoforte. "You some kind of miracle worker?"
"Hah. Easily impressed, are you?"
"Not in a couple of decades, at least." Dawson allowed. He looked around the room, a nondescript square with his oddly equipped bed, all blinking lights and thumping beeps. Not Seacouver General. There was a steady rhythm from the fancy overhead monitor. "That my heart?"
"So far," the voice answered dryly. "Let's keep it that way, shall we?"
"That's an issue?" Dawson asked carefully, edging up onto his elbows, running exploratory fingers over his chest, unconsciously strumming, as if testing an injured guitar.
The silent look Dawson received from his new doctor impressed him more than any cautionary tale. "They call me Joe," Dawson prompted.
"They call me Dr. McCoy. We’ve met." The good doctor seemed fully occupied with some hand held palm pilot. More beeps. Damned odd doctor. “Your nervous system received two serious overloads, and your heart stopped once, but we’ve got the tissue damage regenerating now.”
“What is that thing?” Joe asked, leery of the weird sound it emitted.
McCoy paused. “A new kind of stethoscope. Those look like early era bulletholes. I’ve seen them in textbooks,” he hurried on, hovering over Joe’s scarred shoulder. “I’m finding some steel fragments. Arthritis throughout.”
“Well, yeah, the mileage is adding up.”
“Ground up bone chips from your hips and back are compromising your blood chemistry, as are some era-typical environmental toxins. We can clean that up, fix some of the spinal cladding and joint damage. You’re in for some physical therapy to address alignment, I’m afraid. But otherwise, you are fairly healthy.” He sounded a bit surprised.
“I get around. Speaking of which, where are my legs?” Joe managed not to demand, but the beeping monitor betrayed his concern. He peeped under the sheet. “And my pants!” He figured he was allowed to be demanding about that particular detail.
“Scotty is repairing your prostheses. The discharge from the mash vat didn’t do your clothing any favors, but we’ll see what we can salvage. Nurse Chapel will bring you an off duty tunic later.”
Joe’s heart plummeted. Off duty meant some sort of military outfit, maybe even military intelligence or NSA. “Name, rank and serial number?” he offered, looking around at the unfamiliar medical attachments with a whole new horrified eye. Above his head, the heart monitor climbed, setting off an alarm.
Concerned, Dr. McCoy rose and prepared another shot. “Stay calm, Joe. You still have some healing to do before we tackle the paperwork. You were a Marine, right? You’ve got a lot of back pay coming, I expect. With your help we saved some lives in Seacouver. I know you saved mine.” The hypo hissed again, and Joe’s anxiety and growing chest pain deflated like a spent balloon.
A video screen lit up next to the bed, and a demanding voice piped through a speaker, cutting through the clinical calm. "Bones! I need that report."
“Demanding, isn’t he?” Joe spoke carefully, floating like a late night drunk without the impending hangover of doom. He peered at the screen, frowning. “Hey, that guy owes me money.”
“Meet Captain James T. Kirk. He also saved your life. All of us, really. Between energy eruptions he went in and hauled you out over his shoulder.”
“Bones, that’s confidential,” the man on the screen warned.
“My patient, my rules, Captain,” Dr. McCoy said calmly, rotating the screen away, turning off the speaker with a firm click.
Dawson raised an eyebrow. "Bones?" he inquired.
"And here I almost had someone properly using my age old title with respect," the Doctor groused.
“Figures he’s a Captain. The brass are a pain in the ass,” Joe mumbled as he drifted off.
“Amen to that,” McCoy agreed, tucking his patient in. “What are we going to do with you, Joe?”
++++
Joe bounced his fancy new hoverchair off the door, just for fun. There wasn’t much else he could do for entertainment besides sleeping and physical therapy. They issued him a sand-colored jumpsuit, nicely tailored, considering. Only the orange piping smacked of prison markings. The video screen wouldn’t work for him, and what Joe assumed to be one way window on one wall remained one way.
The nurse was professionally nice, and nicely professional, but no amount of charm would get Nurse Chapel to answer where he was being held. They didn’t drug him again, but he had no idea what he might have said when he was under the influence.
Filing under more bad news: Kirk wasn’t a captain of industry or the captain of a football team. Joe was in a sickbay on a fairly big ship, and Kirk was leader of the pack. Or was it a submarine? No, that would be a boat. This was definitely no mere boat.
On the positive side, his mere presence here on the ship was apparently driving them crazy.
++++
“Who killed Flint?” The one called Mr. Spock asked during one polite interrogation. The good cop. Inexplicably, he wore yet another bad hat.
“Just a guy.” Joe rubbed his jaw to keep from grinding his teeth. “I walked in in the middle of it.”
“Dr. McCoy says the killer called out to you. He also recited a string of numbers. What do they mean to you? Tell me about 299.” Kirk tag teamed Spock, happily playing the bad cop. It was like they didn’t know the tactic was over the hill before Miami Vice got the ax.
“Maybe he wanted me to call 911? Or he knew his girl friend’s area code and forgot the rest? I can help with that. Eight Six Seven Five Three Oh Nine...” Joe sang out.
Kirk’s muscles bunched under his tunic, and Joe toned it down. “You know more about Flint than I do. Who’s out to get him? What made him attack that guy? Why right in that particular spot?” he asked, preying on Spock’s penchant for hierarchical reasoning. Plus, Joe wanted to know the answers to those questions, himself.
“Then let’s move on to Flint, by all means. How do you know him?” the Captain asked, quite nicely, if you ignored the bared teeth disguised as a smile. Joe was getting the idea that the Captain did not like this Flint character, and Joe’s mere proximity was costing him social points.
“Never met him. Cross my heart.”
“How did you know his name?”
“Your Doctor McCoy mentioned it?” Joe saw Spock give a minute shake of his head. Somehow, they always knew when he fibbed, so he returned to the truth. Sort of. “Flint announced himself when he attacked that other guy. He just wouldn’t stop. It looked like self-defense, to me, if you’re prosecuting.” Just in case Methos was being held elsewhere, and needed the benefit of that particular doubt.
“You aren’t being completely honest with us, Mr. Dawson,” the Captain stated.
“Tell you what, you tell me everything you know about this character Flint, and I’ll tell you everything I know. Quid pro quo. That’s Latin for...:”
He saw the dyspeptic look on Spock’s face and relented with grace. “Bottom line, I really have nothing on him. I don’t know where he came from, why he was at the brewery, or what he thought he was going to accomplish by blowing it up. All I wanted from that brewery was a decent keg of beer.” There. The truth.
The truth shall make you crazy.
There was a protracted silence. “Hey, isn’t it about time I get a lawyer?” Joe finally asked. “These talks are fun, a lot better than solitary confinement, don’t get me wrong. But we’re getting nowhere fast. I’m pretty sure you’ve held on to me for over forty-eight hours, or whatever the going rate is for habeas corpus these days.”
“We’ve...yet to make a ruling,” the Captain said, vaguely. Joe suspected it was moving out of his hands, and that wasn’t improving his mood. Dr. McCoy and Mr. Spock only looked embarrassed.
Sometimes winning the argument felt like losing the war.
++++
Joe upped the ante. He experimented with fasting. It wasn’t as fun as it sounded. It turned out he missed the blue jello cubes.
He meditated. Badly.
He started singing a capella every single prison blues song he could dredge out of his repertoire.
When he ran out of verses, he started making up new ones about the Prison With No Name.
Nurse Chapel threatened to take away his blue jello cubes if he didn’t stop singing about the Night the Lights Went Out In the Prison With No Name. Score one for the Marines.
He tried marking the wall with a streak of blue jello cube for every meal and sleep cycle, but every morning the hash marks were gone. It turned out, as Dr. McCoy explained it, that the sickbay walls were designed to eat microbial matter. Joe reconsidered fasting.
++++
Later that night, Dr. McCoy sneaked past Nurse Chapel with some food that almost, but not quite, resembled southern fried chicken. His friend Scotty brought along an antique flask filled with absolutely genuine Macallan.
McCoy asked in passing what Scotty missed most from home, and they were regaled with stories of romance in the highland dales and the lowland pubs, and stories of shipwrights and steam engines, and sailing by the stars alone.
McCoy mentioned peaches picked off a real, live tree, and sand between his toes as the tide rolled out, and soft conversation with a lady faire, which made Scotty pass him the whisky out of turn. Before long the conversation wound naturally back to Joe.
“Romance, well, that fires the soul. But there’s romance in the things we take for granted every day. I miss work, that little sense of accomplishment in getting one thing done right. Music. Books. Paper and pen. I miss real showers--that sonic shower is damn ticklish. And hey, Mr. Scott, I miss my legs.”
“Soon, Joe,” Scott said, passing the flask. “The miracles do indeed take a little longer.”
“Friends? Family?” McCoy asked softly.
That was fighting dirty, and he told them so to their faces.
Later, he regretted getting angry, because the question had been as genuine as the Macallan. And like the Macallan, it burned going down.
“I must be going nuts to say I missed working the bar,” he said to the ceiling, which he was convinced was wired for sound, which made it almost therapy, as long as he didn’t mention Watchers or immortals or Methos beheading Flint. Those weren’t his secrets. He just held them for a trusted while. A fairly short while, by immortal standards.
Though he enjoyed talking to people, all kinds of people, even kidnappers in mock turtlenecks and high water pants, Joe was starting to think he was getting a little too old for this shit. It was time to move on from pulling taps when he got out of this jam. He didn’t have a lot of needs, after all. He could even survive here for the long haul without his chronicles and history books and piles of vinyl and mixtapes and Italian shoes.
But he really, really, missed his guitar.
On to Part Two
Author: el frontera ultimo
Written for: eliyes
Characters: Methos, Joe, Spock, McCoy, Kirk,and more from both crews.
Crossover: Highlander (series) and Star Trek TOS
Rating: G for Gen, with Quickening.
Wordcount: 15,000. ish.
Author's Notes: It’s Highlander. And Star Trek. Think Bar Trek. Warnings for massive abuses of temporal physics. Spock is appalled. Or was. Or will be.
Summary: Space. The final frontier. One tavern keeper boldly goes. Unsurprisingly, Methos gets there first.
**************
Joe was aggravated. And hurting. But most of all, he was bored. He was a Watcher with no one to watch. Now he perched on the customer side of the bar, surrounded by paperwork and check stubs. He yawned, gazing wistfully at the open back door, where fresh air and the watery March sun trickled in from the loading dock. Cavernous shadows still draped the stage, but the spruce top on his acoustic guitar caught the light.
A shadow darkened the door, and Joe took off his reading glasses to focus on his unexpected visitor. “What, did you raid your storage locker from 1994?”
"Are you open?" Methos breezed in without knocking, pocketing the keys he didn’t need. "Or, more pressingly, 'Why are you not open?’ ” He was wearing red pants from Armani’s Jurassic era.
“Not that I’m not glad to see you, but you’re running a bit late. Your last last call was…” Joe squinted at his watch, “...three months and nine hours ago. Give or take a shift beer or two.” Joe had learned the hard way not to pester Methos about his disappearances. Feigned disinterest got better results.
“You didn’t light a candle in the window? Leave the latch string out? Keep the home fires burning?”
“There’s these things called ‘liquor laws.’ ” He rubbed his eyes, and put his reading glasses on the register where he would find them later. “They also frown on open flame.”
“Taverns, these days,” Methos sighed, making himself at home behind the bar. “No sand, no gumption. In my time they opened with the sun and only closed with the first light of dawn so they could brew up a new batch for the breakfast rush.”
"Tough bartending shift, though I’d end up with almost the same amount of sleep," Joe calculated. "It's only eleven am now. If you want me to capitalize on the new craze for beer for breakfast, you're going to have to start the craze."
Methos appeared to seriously consider the thought. "The custom is easier to foster in an apocalyptic environment rife with famine, but I'm willing to experiment on the current culture…there are promising signs. Join me?" Methos hinted.
Joe shook his head. "Maybe next apocalypse.” He waved vaguely at the beer cooler behind the bar. "Help yourself."
Methos eyed the selection critically, before fetching out a stout. “Long night?”
“Same old, same old,” Joe denied automatically. “Quiet on the Watcher front, really. Mac is still on retreat. However, there’s this thing someone invented called ‘taxes.’” He signed off on the last document, pen stabbing the paper with murderous finality. “You wouldn’t have had anything to do with that custom, would you?”
Methos winced in mock sympathy, evincing no guilt. “Not in this century.”
“It’s only 2001. That’s not reassuring.”
“Sure I can’t pour you a pilsener?” Methos asked. “It’s already 6:00pm in Paris. You look like you could use some complex carbohydrates.”
With high hauteur, Joe declaimed, “I don’t drink and tithe.”
“Sometimes your life choices worry me deeply,” Methos sighed. “Puns before lunch could get you stoned in Babylon.”
“Good thing I’m living in Seacouver, then,” though Joe failed to muster a great deal of enthusiasm over the fact.
“This week,” Methos warned. “Times change.”
“They are a-changing,” Joe agreed, knocking on wood.
Methos followed suit without cracking a smile. “The portents are dire. I even dreamed a silver star with eyes skimmed the heavens last night. My spine has been itching ever since. Any odd customers, lately?”
“Present company excepted?” Joe scratched the back of his neck. Portents were catching. “Just the usual suspects, mostly. The club crowd left early for the bars uptown, except for some sort of retro-techno gang that hung on to the bitter end.”
“Hippie gangsters? Or gentrified software bandits?” Methos asked, looking doubtfully down at his red threads. “I could do that. I’ll have to update the wardrobe anyway.”
Joe laughed, feeling the fog of boredom lift. “You definitely would have been entertained -- fancy bright mock-turtle shirts, matching black bell-bottoms and all four with pointy sideburns. Shiny new little cellular phones, too, no antenna. They had these glowing things that looked like salt cellars with spinning marbles they kept sneaking out and pointing around. Probably some newfangled mike bootlegging the band.”
“I’ve heard rumors of something called an iPod coming out this fall. Supposed to revolutionize music. Maybe a prototype? I should get you one for Christmas.” Methos had bought Joe a Sony Discman the previous year. It was still in the box, Joe remembered with a tiny pang of guilt.
“I’ll stick with the old fashioned Walkman,” Joe countered. “Easier to hide. More versatile. Quickening resistant. I can record notes on all your immortal nonsense for work, and listen to Bill Broonzy to recover.”
“Fossil,” Methos said fondly. “Joe Dawson, meet the twenty first century. Time to prepare for the twenty second. The centuries sneak up on you, mark my words.”
“I’ll take your word for it. When I die, I’ll be surrounded by garlands of cassette tape and buried under a headstone made of vinyl.”
“I’ll remember that,” Methos threatened. “Now about your new clientele.”
“Multinational computer company party, maybe. Or a cult. Or marketers. Small difference. The neighborhood is going downhill.” Joe woke up his slumbering inner Watcher, considering the question. “Four guys, hung around asking questions all night. Blue shirt, top shelf bourbon, southern gentleman. Red Shirt, whisky neat, Glasgow. Blue shirt with bad hat and good diction, tap water, paid attention to the tunes. And the last guy ran a tab for them all like a boss, kept bugging me about the canal development when he wasn’t charming the ladies. But I was short-handed, and...no wonder the bank was off.” Joe rustled through some bar orders. “He skipped out on the bill.”
“Not like you to miss that. You look fried. And possibly toasted,” Methos said, adding enough attitude to keep Joe from being insulted. “Your back bothering you again?”
“Diplomatic, as always. It is what it is. I sat in on the last set last night, that helped some. Then I crashed in the office for a few hours. The sofa needs new cushions.”
“The sofa needs new everything,” Methos corrected.
“True.” Joe eased into a new position. The music always helped, some. But after a long night closing the bar, and a longer morning of doing the bank, paying purveyors and figuring out the monthlies, Joe was, indeed, fried. He was vastly tempted to kick back and catch a cat nap on the battered sofa that anti-decorated his office. So vastly tempted, that his eyes drooped and a yawn caught him up in a full body slam.
"Is that your liver I see? Or your lights?" Methos asked, peering across the bar and down Joe’s gullet with no sense of propriety. "Why don't you go home and take a proper siesta? I'll set up and watch the bar till the afternoon shift gets in."
“Tempting. Okay.” Joe gave in immediately, far too easily for Methos’ peace of mind.
"What's the catch?" Methos backpedaled.
"No catch. I’ve got a couple of errands to run before I clock out, and I could use the fresh air.” Joe sealed the last check in an envelope. “Go to the bank, pay off the State. Oh, and there’s a keg coming in from that new brewery down by the locks, Dumuzi Drafts. I need to check out their setup, see if it’s legit. Home-brew India pale ales in Seacouver? Sounds like a risky bet. I mean, where’s the market? I can barely move the hefeweizen before it gets skunky.”
“I like a good, burly IPA,” Methos protested. “It prevents scurvy.”
“Point taken,” Joe agreed. “That’s good for a couple of barrels a year for you for prophylactic purposes.”
“And breakfast,” Methos reminded
“And breakfast," Joe echoed, standing and stretching. “Thanks for covering. Oh, and the taps need cleaning.” Sailing out from behind the bar and grabbing his coat, he added in dire warning, “If you see anyone in black bell-bottoms, don’t let them run a tab.”
“Any techno-hippy-gangsters will pay dearly if they darken my bar.” Methos waved as Joe went out the door. He didn’t mind cleaning the taps. He liked a clear line to the barrel.
“My bar,” Joe reminded with a laugh, rubbing his neck. “At least until the bank comes calling. When I return, I’ll be ready for that beer. Tap that new keg from Dumuzi if it comes in.”
“Dumuzi? Excellent choice. Taste testing is mandatory to satisfy the god of beer,” Methos said with a touch of nostalgia. “ ‘Dumuzi dies with spring, store underground in hot summer.’ Clay pots work best.”
“What is that, an ancient beer prayer?” Joe probed.
“You could say that. Ancient recipe. Prayers went hand in hand with Sumerian fermentation practices, which is just as well, considering we used unfiltered cistern water and drank it out of the pot through a straw.”
“I can imagine,” Joe agreed, letting his imagination roam. “Bugs, critters, algae…”
“Added to the bouquet. And protein content.”
“Now I know why they call it banquet beer.”
“We would recite all the recipes on the anniversary of Inanna and Dumuzi’s wedding on the spring equinox. To Inanna!” Methos toasted, sprinkling a few drops of beer on the floor. “Patron of innkeepers. I’ll set up a shrine for you. She’ll keep a stern eye on any techno riff raff.”
“Just what I need, more tithes. Speaking of techno, next year you can show me how to record a song or two for that new iPod,” Joe waved at his guitar on the stage. “I hate the way CDs flatten the fidelity. Maybe the pod things will be better.”
“Oh ye of generous faith. Vinyl will come back, mark my words,” Methos said, with surprising certainty. “Off you go to do your civic duty. Don’t forget your insurance. The neighborhood isn’t what it used to be.”
“None of us are. Well, maybe you. But come to think of it, even you look a little grizzled around the edges,” Joe teased, even as he patted down the pockets of his spring jacket--wallet, tape recorder, bar and car keys, gun, carry permit. “Staying a few days?”
“I plan on staying a little longer this visit. No time like the new millennium to start a new life.”
“That is good news. Keep the taps clean, and there’s a barstool here for you and Inanna any time,” Joe grinned as he escaped into the sunny day. Methos made the grind of bartending infinitely more entertaining. It was good to have a shift to look forward to again.
++++
The beer deliveries came, and the afternoon shift arrived. The Friday night band started setting up. Methos moved Joe’s guitar into his office for safekeeping until Joe came back. While waiting he even constructed a bottle-sized shrine out of a recycled beer case, and covered it with Sumerian runes of power and taste. He summarily ejected the sloe gin from the back bar to center it as perfectly as possible, and whispered a recipe.
And still, Joe did not come back.
When the bar lights flickered and the frisson of a distant Quickening seared Methos’ nerves, he dropped the bar rag, grabbed his duster, and bounded out the back door, never to return.
++++
Kirk bolted out of the lift and swung into his Captain’s chair, eyes fixed on the main screen view of Earth from high orbit. “Report.”
Spock’s hands moved over the library computer. “Captain, the anomaly may be manifesting ahead of schedule. I am getting some peculiar warp signature leakage near the warehouse.”
Sulu made minute adjustments to the Enterprise’s orbit. “Mr. Scott has adjusted the power curve to ride out the waves of time displacement.”
Uhura smoothly added “I’ve jury-rigged our comms to monitor the entire spectrum of archaic frequencies, Captain. It’s very noisy down there, but it doesn’t concern us. We will be able to track your subcutaneous transponders if the opening rift generates interference.”
Kirk tapped the arm of his chair, annoyed, but not at his crew. “First Captain Christopher, then Gary Seven...we’ve traveled time to encounter astronauts, interstellar provocateurs, world leaders. The Asian Brush Wars are on the rise, and the Eugenics War is just around the corner. Yet Starfleet sends us hundreds of years back in time to spy on a bartender in a waterfront dive?”
“Owner, not bartender, I believe,” McCoy murmured. And a better dive than we deserve, considering we stiffed him.”
“Better that than dropping counterfeit bills,” Kirk protested. “Besides, we all neglected to replicate period wallets.”
“Not to mention pockets.” McCoy hesitated, then continued, “Joe Dawson seemed like a decent man, Jim.”
“A highly competent musician, as well,” Spock added, with carefully concealed regret. “A man who is destined to be erased from history by the formation of a quantum anomaly. Our records show no further contributions to our current timeline.”
Kirk frowned. “Dawson was at the center of the particle funnel that our scientists were investigating. He was in an ideal position to set it off. Something or somebody triggered that rift in the past.”
“We do not know if Mr. Dawson was the trigger of the event, or merely the victim. The body was not found. The very shoreline was altered.”
“What if we warn him off?” McCoy asked. “I’ve kept my latest ‘Do No Harm’ streak going for almost a week, now.”
“That’s not possible,” Kirk said abruptly. “We can’t interfere with local timelines. We just want to prevent more particle entanglement from the future lab accident from compounding the lab accident in the future.”
“Creatively put. But it seems rather chronocentric, to me,” McCoy pointed out. “If we contributed to the creation of the funnel in the past with our lab work, doesn’t that make us culpable?”
“We have our orders, Bones. Starfleet did the math, we do the mission. The past has already happened, but we may be able to save people in danger in our future.”
“We cannot rule out outside interference,” Spock commented. “If the Klingons or the Romulans are experimenting with temporal mines, the evidence may lie at the ignition source for the rift.”
“What about your math, Mr. Spock?” McCoy asked, noting the constant stream of figures on the library computer screen.
“Based on these readings, I cannot disprove their findings,” Spock said disapprovingly. “But I do suspect of some of their underlying assumptions about the source. Open time loops are still a fluid field of study.”
“Have I mentioned how much I hate time travel?” Kirk said, pained.
Spock did not bother to look up from his readings. “7.5 times, Captain, during our various missions together.”
“And what was the .5?” McCoy asked.
“On one occasion the unrepeatable bulk of the phrase was inaudible to human ears.”
Ignoring the exchange, Kirk toggled a switch on his chair. “Ship's Log, supplemental. Civilian scientists on Earth were studying an unexplained temporal rift or funnel near the Seacouver locks in the year 2001. Using untethered quantum particles time traveling on open curves, they planned to ‘read’ the quantum shift in the past, and discover its source. Without warning, the rift twisted and expanded, destroying their lab in Seacouver.” Kirk waved away Spock’s wince at the oversimplification.
“Theoretically, time-traveling particles are not supposed to interact with themselves in the past. Somehow, they did,” he said dryly. “The resulting energy fountain continues to grow, relooping into the past and ‘entangling’ with the disaster in 2001.” As Kirk updated the log, Spock channelled images on the main screen of damaged ruins of a canal that once linked the Seacouver port with a lake and inland rivers.
“Starfleet has ordered the Enterprise to travel back to 2001 to record conditions before and during the first explosive event. We have made preliminary contact with the one known witness to the disaster, though our survey party found no evidence of any direct connection to the temporal disruption. Our current mission is to determine the cause of both disasters, and to control and repair the growing particle fountain opening in the future. The quantum causality matrix for the entire planet may be at stake. Kirk out.”
“Spock’s a bad influence on you, Jim,” McCoy complained. “A simple ‘History might change’ would do. And we don’t even know if that’s true.”
Kirk flipped another toggle, rubbing his temple. “Scotty, are the depleted crystals ready?”
“Aye, two dilithium sponges, dead as a doornail, just aching for a particle charge. We just have to intercept the particle stream long enough for the feedback loop to fail, and the rift should snap closed on both ends.”
“Bring your sponges to the transporter room, and key on the coordinates Spock sent you. McCoy will help you set them up at source.”
“I’m a doctor, not an engineer.” McCoy raised the objection through pure habit. He was already waiting at the lift as the door whisked open, checking his medikit.
“How many times have you heard that, Spock?” Kirk asked, adding “Transporter deck,” as the lift dropped.
“The permutations are uncountable, Captain,” Spock said absently as he went through his tricorder checklist.
“I need to update my curriculum vitae,” McCoy noted, though his gaze remained on the Captain.
The Captain noticed. “Starfleet wants us to halt the temporal entanglement and disperse the particle fountain. So that’s what we do. Any final objections? Spock?”
Spock stared off over the Captain’s shoulder, still uncomfortable about the theoretical underpinnings. “My reservations are academic, not concrete. We need more data.”
“Keep working on the numbers, Spock. I trust you to pull the plug if Starfleet’s mathematicians dropped a digit. Worse case scenario, we pull out, recalculate, and slingshot again with a shorter time frame to fix the problem.”
“And while I help Scotty sponge the quantum kitchen, you and the Captain will be on the lookout for alien time travellers stepping out of a phantom tollbooth,” McCoy said with a touch of sting. “Jokers wild.”
“Jokers will be dealt with,” Kirk said, with grim anticipation. “I want strict enforcement of the noninterference directive for all locals. We can only observe,” Kirk ordered. “Bones, I need my best and most experienced team with me. Time itself may be in the balance.” The ghost of Edith Keeler haunted his tone.
“ ‘...Once more unto the temporal breach, my friends...” McCoy paraphrased Shakespeare in grim acknowledgement, as they entered the transporter room.
“ ‘...or close the wall up with our Starfleet dead…’” Kirk closed the mangled St. Crispin Day speech quote as he stepped onto the transporter pad. “Energize.”
++++
Dumuzi Drafts was closed. The brewery offices were deserted, which Joe found strange for a Friday, but a note on the door declaimed a wellness day off for the entire crew just to celebrate a sunny day. “A wasted trip,” Joe griped out loud, leaning his weight on the edge of a stone buttress which had been carved out and planted with tufted barley. Then he laughed at himself for indulging in envy. “I wonder if they’re hiring?”
He decided to indulge in a little wellness himself for a change, and he found a comfortable position on the warm stone, easing his stumps. He ran his hand over the soft barley seedheads. More planters decorated the courtyard, token plots of rye, oat, and wheat, and the rough brick wall of the office supported a carpeting of hops. He could hear the hum of bees, the chirp of a cricket.
Water lapped against a dock at the far end of the warehouse. Joe could imagine locally harvested grains barged in from farms and fields upriver, combined with clean water drawn from the Cascades. Dappled reflections danced on the canal, reminding him of good times and good music in Paris, and he lingered in the sun.
His fleeting moment of tranquillity was disturbed by the deadly sound of clanging swords inside the warehouse near the water. Or was it just equipment being moved in the brewery? Metal on metal. Dragged back into Watcher mode, Joe moved toward the clash, careful and slow. He cast his eye about for other Watchers. Nothing.
On the far end of the courtyard, Joe found the warehouse door was left ajar, the interior dark. Either the employees had stampeded on wellness day, leaving it swinging, or certain visitors were expected. And Joe did have an open invitation from Dumuzi’s promoter to visit. “Come into my parlor.”
Joe checked the tape in his Walkman and pressing the power and record buttons. Plenty of tape left for notes or famous last words, including his own. He entered and edged along the wall, letting his eyes adjust. The lights were off, but sunlight filtered in through windows high on the wall. Huge steel fermentation tanks and copper mash cookers lined the walls, and Joe had to mind a number of hoses. Forty foot vats towered on stilts above the concrete floor, providing nice shadowy corners to observe without being seen.
Joe’s ear and instincts were not mistaken. The clash of heavy swordplay echoed through the warehouse, though equipment hid the combatants. Who was fighting? MacLeod was out of the country, and Methos, theoretically, at the bar. There were no straight aisles--they wound around the fermenters and cookers, shortening sightlines. There was nothing for it, Joe would have to get closer.
++++
The landing party beamed down into the deserted courtyard. Tricorders and scanner humming, Spock and Scotty immediately plotted the most efficient placement of the crystals given current readings and Starfleet’s projections. “Here, if the parameters remain stable,” Spock pointed on his screen, then indicated the warehouse. “Approximately 33.3 meters from that door.”
McCoy reconnoitered, and found the notice hanging on the office door. “This explains why the casualty count wasn’t higher.” He pointed his tricorder at the warehouse. “Captain, I’m picking up three life signs within the building. Dawson accounts for one, his readings as a bilateral amputee are unique. He’s moving slowly, halfway along inside the main building, the others are at the far end, engaged in heavy exercise of some sort.”
Spock refocused his scanner. “They are quite close to the focal point of the rift, Captain,” he warned.
“I think we’ve found our jokers in the deck.” Kirk didn’t hesitate. “Spock, we’re going to create a diversion, and see if we can’t draw these people out toward the dock away from the focal point. Scotty, McCoy, while we’re busy there, go set the crystals. Stay out of sight and document as much as you can.”
“Quiet as church mice, Captain,” Scotty promised, and he and McCoy slipped into the warehouse, stepping softly into the shadows.
“With me, Spock.” Kirk ran to the far edge of the warehouse, edging around to scout the dock and large double doors. Boats bobbed on the canal, playful and picturesque. A smaller access door was inset next to the loading dock. It was locked and bolted.
“We could burn out the lock,” Kirk said, eyeing both the access and loading dock doors, drawing his phaser.
“Or we could knock,” Spock said. “You did say ‘diversion.’ Not ‘assault.’ “
“Be my guest,” Kirk gestured to Spock to proceed.
But knocking elicited no response. Nor did pounding. Or crashing a shoulder against the bolted door. Spock cocked his head. “I believe the occupants are fully involved with an activity of their own.”
Over the sounds of a boat motoring near the dock, even Kirk could hear metallic bashing sounds within. “My turn,” he said, drawing his phaser again, and blowing a hole in the doorbolt and frame.
“No, my turn,” said a calm voice behind them. “Canal Security. Please put down your weapon. Do not move or turn around.”
“I think you have the wrong idea,” Kirk said in his most harmless tone, as he began to turn around. There was a sharp report, and a hole appeared in the lintel over his head, showering both Kirk and Spock with wood shards.
“What part of ‘do not turn around’ do you not understand?” Canal Security asked. “Shall we try ‘drop the weapon,’ again?”
Kirk bent and gently placed the phaser next to his foot, glancing at Spock.
“There is a violent altercation inside this establishment. We were just trying to help,” Spock offered helpfully, readying for the Captain’s inevitable counterattack. He edged sideways, intending to draw their captor’s attention and aim.
“Breaking and entering is a serious crime, and I really should arrest you.” The voice was closer. Spock caught a glimpse of thin red denim trousers out of the corner of his eye. “But I don’t have time.”
There was a thunk, and Kirk sagged, coshed behind the ear with a sharp blow. Spock caught him before he hit the pavement. His hands were full when their assailant picked up Kirk’s phaser, twisted the selector, and fired, hitting him squarely in the back.
++++
Methos clicked the phaser from ‘stun’ to ‘off.’ He dragged the bodies to the small fishing boat he had coasted in close to the dock. After a moment’s thought, he patted the phaser back into place on Kirk’s belt. Wrestling them into the boat and out of direct shrapnel range of the warehouse took only a minute, and he took pains to lay them comfortably on the stern deck. He tucked the gun out of site in the wheelhouse.
“Can’t have you raiding the party early, boys. The fireworks are just starting.”
++++
One opponent was silver-haired, quite old for an Immortal, possibly even older than Joe, in physical years, but erect and trim, bringing real force to his strikes. Nevertheless, his stroke choice was mundane, and his speed and skill levels were badly mismatched against an opponent Joe knew all too well.
For it was Methos blocking, retreating, circling. He must have done an end around while Joe was at the bank. Honestly, Joe couldn’t fault him for taking time out to change into decent jeans, but that didn’t explain why he was here. Then again, all that talk of fermentation deities might have been a way to finagle Joe into being a backup for a challenge. Methos could be tricky that way.
“We don’t have to do this,” Methos offered, pulling back to allow his older opponent a breath. Joe frowned. Methos didn’t fight often, but when he did, he didn’t make a habit of giving ground back to his opponent. “We can talk this over. I don’t hold grudges. Particularly against strangers.”
“The time for talk is long past.” The voice was sonorous, musical. Methos’ opponent would make a hell of a backup singer.
“I know that voice.” Methos stepped back again, allowing a quick flashback to surface, but not taking his eyes from his opponent. “Flint. You were Flint. I found you in the Dolomites. You’re younger than me by a thousand years. But your face--it’s changed.”
“I have grown old. My quickening curls and gnaws inside me, no longer able to fully regenerate my body properly. It must be repaired. Or, if you are worthy, harvested, so you come into all I know. This is our last chance. One of us survives, or all of us die.”
Joe didn’t like the sounds of that at all.
Flint lunged. Mechanically, the fight was almost painfully routine, even if the duelling ground was not. They circled around a mash tun, and ducked under suspended fermentation vats, wary of the metal scaffolding supporting the lines. The challenger held a gladius of burnished bronze, and his Roman garb resonated more of Shakespearean costume than the honest dust of the Appian Way.
Flint’s heavy, slow strokes eroded Joe's natural caution, and he'd pushed himself a few steps closer, under the shadow of a secondary fermenter. The challenger was overreaching his swing. But Methos was slow in riposte, uncharacteristically tentative. Dangerously so. And it nearly cost him his head.
The silver-haired immortal turned his wrist and stabbed, just grazing Methos’ temple and missing his eye, and clocking Methos with the hilt on the follow through. His face was nearly unrecognizable, half-masked with blood. “That was uncalled for,” he said, wiping the blood from his brow.
“Do not toy with me,” the challenger warned in a deep, melodic voice. Standing over Methos with his bloodied blade raised, the challenger warned, “My patience is done. If you will not give my quickening safe harbor, then I must take yours.”
In the stillness before the stroke could fall, Joe drew his gun. The snick of the released safety startled the swordsman, and he turned. “You’re early,” Flint said distinctly, just before Methos took his head.
“In my books, Joe,” Methos said, breathing heavily, “You’re right on time. Now record…” a blue bolt slashed from Flint’s sword through the hilt of Methos’ grounded Ivanhoe, driving the air from his lungs and the words from his throat.
The Quickening spread, light and dark. A winding black fog began curling into a tight micro-tornado over the fallen body. Ball lightning danced on the wort chiller lines and the copper mash tank, valves blew, and vats erupted yeasty fumaroles. Steam clouds sparkled with incandescent fireflies of energy. A ruptured tank created a beer waterfall that inundated victor and victim before being drawn into the funnel that grew over the body and rose nearly to the ceiling. The smell was heady and sharp, and Joe shook his head at the waste of good beer.
"Methos, you will kick yourself in the ass for wrecking a perfectly good batch," Joe groused to himself as he carefully sidestepped a wave of lager. "Hell. This is going to wreck my shoes. Maybe I'll kick your ass instead," he muttered.
Joe tried to map a path toward Methos as the electrical spikes began to diminish. It was normally a bad idea, getting this close to any active Quickening, but there was something very peculiar about this one, and Joe was more than a bit worried about the way Methos was shaking.
Methos’ eyes focused for a terrifying instant, shedding tears of burning sparks. His blade flashed, defending against an invisible foe, holding the quickening at bay by sheer will. “Joe! Get out. Save yourself. 781.643. I’ll find you! Save yourself and you save us! 299! 781.643!”
The first part of the message was clear. Joe divined the most prudent course of action would be to decode the rest later, and he headed for the exit with as much speed as he and his cane could muster. A little Methosian voice inside his skull chastised him as a bright new cobalt flash charged the liquid at the immortal’s feet and rushed outward in chiaroscuric chaos. "Beer is a conductor..." Joe looked down at his wet shoes.
This was going to smart.
++++
“Somehow I don’t think Starfleet factored a medieval duel into their equations, Scotty,” McCoy said, raising his voice to be heard over the arcing electrical bursts. “And Flint was definitely not on anybody’s screens. He’s supposed to be dying of old age in the Omega system!”
“Flint must have been tapping a new power source. Releasing it upset our dilithium absorption rate something fierce,” Scotty said, steadily getting unhappier as he scanned his readings.
“Are the crystals supposed to be doing that?” McCoy asked. They were glowing and dimming in exactly the same double rhythm as a beating human heart. The glow was becoming brighter with each beat.
“The quantum cascade is out of control, Doctor. The crystals canna hold the expanding output. We’ve got to move.” Using a stiff pair of gloves, he packed the dilithium in the carryall. “If we don’t get them further out of range, the rift will pull everything all apart!”
“The warehouse or the whole brewery?”
“The warehouse, the brewery, the locks, the port. The whole city!”
“Did you warn the Captain?”
“The communicators blew in the first energy surge.”
“Of course they did,” McCoy said, disgusted. “Get them out of here. Find Spock. Maybe he can still calculate our way out of this ticking time bomb.”
“What about you?”
“Flint changed all the math. We’ve got to find out how, and why. Go, Scotty! Give me more time!”
++++
Methos hauled Joe up off the floor, dusted him off, and propped him against a conditioning tank. Even in a semi-conscious state, Joe’s hand curled around his cane. “I can always count on you to exceed the recommended mortal operating instructions,” Methos sighed, searching Joe’s coat.
Pulling out the Walkman, he turned off the recorder, popped the cassette and slipped it into his back pocket of his raveling red pants. Straightening Joe’s collar, he hauled Joe close and said calmly, quickly, “Observe. 299. Record. 781.643. You saved us. Now save yourself. Move it, Joe!”
++++
Dizzy and disconnected, Joe’s heart was pounding like a hard snare drum. He didn’t remember the quickening shock, but he had a peculiar impression that Methos had picked his pocket, then given him a goodbye hug. Like that would happen. Especially since he could see through the haze that Methos was currently pinned by a particularly painful bolt that came quite literally out of the blue.
Against all odds, he hadn’t lost his cane or fallen. Or, against higher odds, he had gotten up. Tipping forward, he aimed for the distant door, making decent time for the circumstances, intending to out walk the expanding lake of beer before another bolt gave him more hallucinations.
Joe had a fair amount of momentum going when he nearly ran over one of his patrons from the bar the night before. He was mightily unhappy with himself for being so thoroughly snuck up upon, but there were more pressing matters. “Excuse me, sir, but we are in real trouble here, and need to go. Now.” Using his bar voice to be heard over the quickening, Joe spoke politely but firmly to the man, who had to be certifiable for following him into this mess.
The southern gentleman (bourbon, top shelf) in blue, pointed a ...video recorder? Geiger counter? toward Flint’s disintegrating body, ignoring the lapping approach of the lake of beer.
“The name’s McCoy. I’m a doctor.” He drew out his fancy cell phone. “If you can read me, Enterprise, the focal point is Flint. He’s dead, Jim.” There was a squeal from the phone as the doctor twisted a knob.
“I think your battery died,” Joe pointed out helpfully. “I know where we can buy more,” he said, trying to hustle the man out. Methos was still jerking and shuddering under the most massive and ancient Quickening Joe had ever seen.
“That man needs help.” McCoy focused his whirlything on Methos, halfway across the warehouse. “How is he even standing? That level of energy should be lethal!”
“Don’t mind him,” Joe scrambled through his list of stock excuses. “It’s like a magic trick. He’s a performance artist. Like David Blaine?”
“Who’s David Blaine?” McCoy asked without looking up from his device.
The man was not acting like your average civilian caught in an indoor thunderstorm. Frustrated, Joe cut right to the chase. Uncovering his wrist, he held up his tattoo. “Are you Flint’s Watcher?”
“How on this Earth do you know Flint?” McCoy turned the whirling device on Joe himself, and frowned. “You’ve had a shock.”
Joe slapped it away like a snake. “Unless you want to end up as fried as Flint there, we need to get out of here, right now,” Joe warned, hauling the man back by the shoulder. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, but we need to talk.” Over McCoy’s shoulder, the air was rippling and shredding over Methos’ blood-streaked head. That couldn’t be good.
McCoy’s eyes widened at the sight, yet he calmly took out his little toy cellular phone again. “If you can read me, Enterprise, the rift is opening right now. It is far ahead of schedule. We need an emergency beam out, as many warm bodies as you can manage. Uhura, these coordinates, wide scan...we’re moving.” He snapped it shut just as a tentacle of the Quickening seemed to sense the device, and undulated eerily toward the Doctor. Joe grabbed the device and threw it hard into the growing maw of the quickening beast.
“Move it!” Joe hauled McCoy around and shoved him toward the entrance, catching his balance on a keg. “Run!” He was relieved to see McCoy’s three buddies appear at the entrance. Their fearless leader darted in among the falling sparks to drag McCoy out through the door, handing him off to the guy in the bad hat. The man now stood alone, waiting at the door. Waiting for what? Joe met his eyes, and just kept moving.
Joe didn’t know what happened to mortals caught by a full quickening fire. There tended to be little left behind. He didn’t want to find out. Unfortunately, the hole in the air over Methos intersected a fermentation vat, cracking it wide open. A tidal wave of Dumuzi Draft crushed Methos and cascaded across the floor, eldritch blue sparks riding the crest. “Run!” he’d told McCoy, and now he shouted it at the tourist hesitating in the doorway.
Joe, unfortunately, quite literally could not run to save his life.
"Methos, I screwed up." Joe halted as a foamy wave began to submerge his legs, both false and true. Strands of energy wove out of the wave, climbing his body in itching bursts. There was a whining sound ringing in his ears, rising in pitch. Instinctively he covered his ears against the noise. His eyes filmed over with azure light. A small part of his brain considered the irony of drowning in a river of beer. Maybe Dumuzi had a sense of humor.
And then all faded to black.
++++
Dawson flung an arm over his eyes and growled at the actinic light that was trying to blind him. "Turn it off or I'll hafta kill you." The movement kicked off ancillary pain from his chest to the tips of his phantom toes.
"That would be counterproductive," an acerbic voice said from his right. Doctor, Dawson diagnosed. Doctor McCoy, his back-brain kicked in.
"Depends on if killing you would stop the hammer in my head. I’m willing to test the theory," Dawson said. "You aren't my regular doctor. Are you sure you know what..."
Three things happened. The light gentled. There was a slight bit of pressure against his arm and the hiss of compressed gas. And the bottom dropped out of Dawson's pain.
"Better?"
"Better," Dawson breathed the word like a prayer. "Magic." His head cleared. His neck relaxed. The constant chorus of phantom pain even hushed to a pianoforte. "You some kind of miracle worker?"
"Hah. Easily impressed, are you?"
"Not in a couple of decades, at least." Dawson allowed. He looked around the room, a nondescript square with his oddly equipped bed, all blinking lights and thumping beeps. Not Seacouver General. There was a steady rhythm from the fancy overhead monitor. "That my heart?"
"So far," the voice answered dryly. "Let's keep it that way, shall we?"
"That's an issue?" Dawson asked carefully, edging up onto his elbows, running exploratory fingers over his chest, unconsciously strumming, as if testing an injured guitar.
The silent look Dawson received from his new doctor impressed him more than any cautionary tale. "They call me Joe," Dawson prompted.
"They call me Dr. McCoy. We’ve met." The good doctor seemed fully occupied with some hand held palm pilot. More beeps. Damned odd doctor. “Your nervous system received two serious overloads, and your heart stopped once, but we’ve got the tissue damage regenerating now.”
“What is that thing?” Joe asked, leery of the weird sound it emitted.
McCoy paused. “A new kind of stethoscope. Those look like early era bulletholes. I’ve seen them in textbooks,” he hurried on, hovering over Joe’s scarred shoulder. “I’m finding some steel fragments. Arthritis throughout.”
“Well, yeah, the mileage is adding up.”
“Ground up bone chips from your hips and back are compromising your blood chemistry, as are some era-typical environmental toxins. We can clean that up, fix some of the spinal cladding and joint damage. You’re in for some physical therapy to address alignment, I’m afraid. But otherwise, you are fairly healthy.” He sounded a bit surprised.
“I get around. Speaking of which, where are my legs?” Joe managed not to demand, but the beeping monitor betrayed his concern. He peeped under the sheet. “And my pants!” He figured he was allowed to be demanding about that particular detail.
“Scotty is repairing your prostheses. The discharge from the mash vat didn’t do your clothing any favors, but we’ll see what we can salvage. Nurse Chapel will bring you an off duty tunic later.”
Joe’s heart plummeted. Off duty meant some sort of military outfit, maybe even military intelligence or NSA. “Name, rank and serial number?” he offered, looking around at the unfamiliar medical attachments with a whole new horrified eye. Above his head, the heart monitor climbed, setting off an alarm.
Concerned, Dr. McCoy rose and prepared another shot. “Stay calm, Joe. You still have some healing to do before we tackle the paperwork. You were a Marine, right? You’ve got a lot of back pay coming, I expect. With your help we saved some lives in Seacouver. I know you saved mine.” The hypo hissed again, and Joe’s anxiety and growing chest pain deflated like a spent balloon.
A video screen lit up next to the bed, and a demanding voice piped through a speaker, cutting through the clinical calm. "Bones! I need that report."
“Demanding, isn’t he?” Joe spoke carefully, floating like a late night drunk without the impending hangover of doom. He peered at the screen, frowning. “Hey, that guy owes me money.”
“Meet Captain James T. Kirk. He also saved your life. All of us, really. Between energy eruptions he went in and hauled you out over his shoulder.”
“Bones, that’s confidential,” the man on the screen warned.
“My patient, my rules, Captain,” Dr. McCoy said calmly, rotating the screen away, turning off the speaker with a firm click.
Dawson raised an eyebrow. "Bones?" he inquired.
"And here I almost had someone properly using my age old title with respect," the Doctor groused.
“Figures he’s a Captain. The brass are a pain in the ass,” Joe mumbled as he drifted off.
“Amen to that,” McCoy agreed, tucking his patient in. “What are we going to do with you, Joe?”
++++
Joe bounced his fancy new hoverchair off the door, just for fun. There wasn’t much else he could do for entertainment besides sleeping and physical therapy. They issued him a sand-colored jumpsuit, nicely tailored, considering. Only the orange piping smacked of prison markings. The video screen wouldn’t work for him, and what Joe assumed to be one way window on one wall remained one way.
The nurse was professionally nice, and nicely professional, but no amount of charm would get Nurse Chapel to answer where he was being held. They didn’t drug him again, but he had no idea what he might have said when he was under the influence.
Filing under more bad news: Kirk wasn’t a captain of industry or the captain of a football team. Joe was in a sickbay on a fairly big ship, and Kirk was leader of the pack. Or was it a submarine? No, that would be a boat. This was definitely no mere boat.
On the positive side, his mere presence here on the ship was apparently driving them crazy.
++++
“Who killed Flint?” The one called Mr. Spock asked during one polite interrogation. The good cop. Inexplicably, he wore yet another bad hat.
“Just a guy.” Joe rubbed his jaw to keep from grinding his teeth. “I walked in in the middle of it.”
“Dr. McCoy says the killer called out to you. He also recited a string of numbers. What do they mean to you? Tell me about 299.” Kirk tag teamed Spock, happily playing the bad cop. It was like they didn’t know the tactic was over the hill before Miami Vice got the ax.
“Maybe he wanted me to call 911? Or he knew his girl friend’s area code and forgot the rest? I can help with that. Eight Six Seven Five Three Oh Nine...” Joe sang out.
Kirk’s muscles bunched under his tunic, and Joe toned it down. “You know more about Flint than I do. Who’s out to get him? What made him attack that guy? Why right in that particular spot?” he asked, preying on Spock’s penchant for hierarchical reasoning. Plus, Joe wanted to know the answers to those questions, himself.
“Then let’s move on to Flint, by all means. How do you know him?” the Captain asked, quite nicely, if you ignored the bared teeth disguised as a smile. Joe was getting the idea that the Captain did not like this Flint character, and Joe’s mere proximity was costing him social points.
“Never met him. Cross my heart.”
“How did you know his name?”
“Your Doctor McCoy mentioned it?” Joe saw Spock give a minute shake of his head. Somehow, they always knew when he fibbed, so he returned to the truth. Sort of. “Flint announced himself when he attacked that other guy. He just wouldn’t stop. It looked like self-defense, to me, if you’re prosecuting.” Just in case Methos was being held elsewhere, and needed the benefit of that particular doubt.
“You aren’t being completely honest with us, Mr. Dawson,” the Captain stated.
“Tell you what, you tell me everything you know about this character Flint, and I’ll tell you everything I know. Quid pro quo. That’s Latin for...:”
He saw the dyspeptic look on Spock’s face and relented with grace. “Bottom line, I really have nothing on him. I don’t know where he came from, why he was at the brewery, or what he thought he was going to accomplish by blowing it up. All I wanted from that brewery was a decent keg of beer.” There. The truth.
The truth shall make you crazy.
There was a protracted silence. “Hey, isn’t it about time I get a lawyer?” Joe finally asked. “These talks are fun, a lot better than solitary confinement, don’t get me wrong. But we’re getting nowhere fast. I’m pretty sure you’ve held on to me for over forty-eight hours, or whatever the going rate is for habeas corpus these days.”
“We’ve...yet to make a ruling,” the Captain said, vaguely. Joe suspected it was moving out of his hands, and that wasn’t improving his mood. Dr. McCoy and Mr. Spock only looked embarrassed.
Sometimes winning the argument felt like losing the war.
++++
Joe upped the ante. He experimented with fasting. It wasn’t as fun as it sounded. It turned out he missed the blue jello cubes.
He meditated. Badly.
He started singing a capella every single prison blues song he could dredge out of his repertoire.
When he ran out of verses, he started making up new ones about the Prison With No Name.
Nurse Chapel threatened to take away his blue jello cubes if he didn’t stop singing about the Night the Lights Went Out In the Prison With No Name. Score one for the Marines.
He tried marking the wall with a streak of blue jello cube for every meal and sleep cycle, but every morning the hash marks were gone. It turned out, as Dr. McCoy explained it, that the sickbay walls were designed to eat microbial matter. Joe reconsidered fasting.
++++
Later that night, Dr. McCoy sneaked past Nurse Chapel with some food that almost, but not quite, resembled southern fried chicken. His friend Scotty brought along an antique flask filled with absolutely genuine Macallan.
McCoy asked in passing what Scotty missed most from home, and they were regaled with stories of romance in the highland dales and the lowland pubs, and stories of shipwrights and steam engines, and sailing by the stars alone.
McCoy mentioned peaches picked off a real, live tree, and sand between his toes as the tide rolled out, and soft conversation with a lady faire, which made Scotty pass him the whisky out of turn. Before long the conversation wound naturally back to Joe.
“Romance, well, that fires the soul. But there’s romance in the things we take for granted every day. I miss work, that little sense of accomplishment in getting one thing done right. Music. Books. Paper and pen. I miss real showers--that sonic shower is damn ticklish. And hey, Mr. Scott, I miss my legs.”
“Soon, Joe,” Scott said, passing the flask. “The miracles do indeed take a little longer.”
“Friends? Family?” McCoy asked softly.
That was fighting dirty, and he told them so to their faces.
Later, he regretted getting angry, because the question had been as genuine as the Macallan. And like the Macallan, it burned going down.
“I must be going nuts to say I missed working the bar,” he said to the ceiling, which he was convinced was wired for sound, which made it almost therapy, as long as he didn’t mention Watchers or immortals or Methos beheading Flint. Those weren’t his secrets. He just held them for a trusted while. A fairly short while, by immortal standards.
Though he enjoyed talking to people, all kinds of people, even kidnappers in mock turtlenecks and high water pants, Joe was starting to think he was getting a little too old for this shit. It was time to move on from pulling taps when he got out of this jam. He didn’t have a lot of needs, after all. He could even survive here for the long haul without his chronicles and history books and piles of vinyl and mixtapes and Italian shoes.
But he really, really, missed his guitar.
On to Part Two