Happy Holidays, eliyes! (2/2)
Title: The Time Funnel (2/2)
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.
Part One
“Report, Spock. Scotty’s crystals worked, but for how long? Do we have any reason to believe the rift will reopen?”
“The readings have remained stable. Emissions have stopped. We have no data to support a recurrence.”
“And Flint’s killer? The man McCoy saw at the focal point?”
“We’ve run continuous scans as the warehouse has been excavated by rescue personnel. Apparently there are no bodies to find.”
“Vaporized?”
“Possibly, given the energies involved. However, I noted one interesting fact when I tapped into orbital scans. The boat where we awakened on the dock -- it has flown.”
“Maybe we can trace it through the local boat registries, get a lead on who phasered us,” Kirk leaned forward, hot on a new scent.
“I use the word advisedly, Captain. It has flown. I suspect it was a long range shuttle equipped with warp drive and shields, disguised as a fishing boat. The warp signature was hidden by the rift radiation. The saboteur, if he was that, is long gone.”
“It smelled like seaweed and rotting crab, Spock. It took a day to get it out of my hair.”
Spock’s nose flared. “It was very well disguised.”
Frustrated, Kirk swung the command chair around. “Sulu, plot a search grid, scan for a shuttle. If we can’t pick it up from here, maybe we can get a clean signature and backtrack it to the source.”
“The source is almost certainly in the future, Captain. What of Mr. Dawson? The isolation plan has been successful. He does believe he is still on Earth, held incommunicado on a Navy vessel.”
“Even McCoy thinks he is still hiding something. We know too little about why Flint came here, and I’m afraid Dawson knows too much. It’s time to break the stalemate.”
++++
Christmas came early, the next day. Or what passed for day in his solitary sickbay cell. Joe woke up with a plan to disassemble the video screen to see if he could send an SOS to Bora Bora. Or call out for pizza. Or get ESPN. Something. But even if he could cobble together a screwdriver, the screen didn’t have any screws.
Nurse Chapel brought not-quite-eggs. And real toast. She let him dog it on PT. He accused her of going soft. Unexpectedly, she turned away, wiping a speck from her eye, and left without a word. Joe felt like a heel, and had no clue why.
McCoy brought a box of books. “Donated by the crew,” he explained. “Even the Captain.”
“Let me guess,” Joe said, surveying the authors. “C. S. Forester. He strikes me as the Hornblower type.”
“Got it in one.”
Joe was feeling expansive, and tapped his inner book dealer. “Tell him to try Alexander Kent. Or H.M.S Ulysses by MacLean.”
McCoy looked at him thoughtfully. “I will.”
Then, before Joe could even finish a chapter, Scotty and McCoy brought back his prostheses, and they spent an aggravating, embarrassing and exhilarating morning refitting and balancing and falling and in the end, bouncing like a kid, because Joe could walk again. Even better, when he added up McCoy’s magic shots and Nurse Chapel’s physical therapy and Scotty’s design wizardry, walking didn’t hardly hurt at all.
Joe finally collapsed in the hoverchair and held up his hand. “Okay, what’s the catch?”
McCoy leaned on the diagnostic bed, and met Joe’s eyes. “We’re going home. You’re coming with us.”
“Where’s home? Washington? New York? Brussels? Kansas?” Joe ticked down through the NSA, United Nations, Eurozone and Dorothy’s home state, just for the hell of it. The Watchers were going to be very, very unhappy with him, but they had moles that would eventually spring him in most of the governmental agencies. ‘Eventually’ covered a lot of ground.
The sickbay door slid open, and the Captain and Mr. Spock walked in. For the first time, Spock wasn’t wearing a hat.
Joe observed, and mentally recorded. “I gather we’re definitely not going to Kansas.”
++++
Isolation ended. Joe had partial run of the ship, his own cabin, and a working library computer to begin studying the history of the future. Kirk had also assigned him with shadows to keep him out of trouble. Ostensibly a historian, his first minder wore a red shirt with a spiral patch like Scotty’s. Joe had spent long enough in the Marines to recognize a military police vibe.
Joe had to summon him when he left his cabin alone. His minder followed him everywhere, to the mess hall, the observation deck, and even back to sickbay for more checkups and shots and physical therapy. Joe managed to ignore him for a full day, until the new minder showed up. Scotty introduced him as one of his assistant engineers. “Lieutenant Adams has made a hobby of studying the 20th century,” Scotty warned, misinterpreting the dismay in Joe’s face.
Finally, they found themselves alone in a quiet corner of the observation deck. Joe leaned forward and hissed, “Are you recording everything I say, Lieutenant? Documenting everything I do? Watching everything?”
“Turnabout’s fair play, don’t you think, Watcher Dawson?” Methos said with a faint smile. “Relax, Joe, and thank you for not blowing my cover. The ship’s automated security does record critical stations, but there is a surprising premium on privacy. We can talk here, and I’ve checked the privacy filters in your cabin, but be careful in sickbay, and definitely don’t gossip on the bridge.”
“Lieutenant Adams? Seriously? How did you wangle a commission?”
“Amanda helped. A common, yet comforting name, don’t you think?” Methos asked, once Joe settled on pounding him on the shoulder rather than punching him in the jaw.
“You’ve been here all the time?”
“Not every time. This is the first time, really. But it seemed like a good precaution. There was a lot going on in the warehouse, and I wasn’t sure you got my message. And honestly, we weren’t sure you would make it this time.” Methos paused. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you made it.”
A bit embarrassed, Joe covered with nitpicking. “Some message. It lacked in specifics. 299 spans a hell of a lot of territory.”
“Oh, come now, context is everything. And 781.643? That’s right in your wheelhouse. Keep working on it.”
“They don’t have a proper library here. You could just tell me.”
“Where’s the fun in that? Besides, I might be removed from the equations at any moment, and you may need to follow the breadcrumbs without me.”
“Equations?” Joe didn’t like the sound of that at all. And the questions kept mounting. “Why didn’t McCoy didn’t recognize you? He saw you in the warehouse.”
“Blood makes an effective mask. Even the professional eye tends to shy away from it. Luckily, he was too far away to scan for DNA. ”
“So you’re in the clear. You found me, I found you, we’re home free. You must know a way off this UFO. Maybe there’s a lifeboat we can steal?”
“Ah. Well. Not quite. Think of us as two ships passing in the night, Joe. We both have a couple of errands to run a few hundred years from now.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Hey, the future’s not so bad. Look at you. Doctor McCoy has you up and bouncing around like a rock star. From the dark roots you’re growing out, I’d say he slipped in an anti-aging telomere treatment, too. You might live twice as long in the twenty fourth century, Joe. Think about the possibilities.”
“I’m too old for Tom Swift stories.”
“No you’re not. I know you. You read them all. Heinlein. Asimov. Simak. I can see you now, on your bike, racing home to read Lucky Starr. Or to catch the latest episode of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet.”
“No fair, dragging Tom Corbett into this.” Joe couldn’t muster up a sulk.
“If I got you off the ship, where would you go? What is waiting on Earth for you in either time? Cranky Watchers? Wet bar towels? You’ve got the stars before you,” Methos waved at the crisp panorama of constellations and clusters and galaxies cycling beyond.
When they returned to Joe’s cabin, Methos followed him in and carefully bypassed the security filters on the library computer station and showed Joe how to use it. “Behold the brave new world. The Watchers would have killed for this database. Mind that anything you search might also be eventually back-traced. Be gentle with it. They know not what you can do.”
“Schmuck,” Joe said fondly. “If you’re not here for me, then why are you here?”
“To steal the secret of time travel, of course.”
“How did you know you needed to study time travel before you travelled in time?”
“Ah, sweet paradoxes we all hope to resolve. Keep working on it, Joe.”
“Wouldn’t burglary normally be Amanda’s job?”
“It was. In fact, she had the Captain quite bedazzled by her charms. Unfortunately, there was this temporarily fatal accident during a landing party...suffice to say, Joe, if they ever offer you a red shirt, decline.”
++++
“Systems secure, Captain,” Sulu said calmly, powering down the warp drive. “We’ve returned to our home timeframe.” A few bruised crewmen picked themselves up around the bridge, but they were smiling. Home meant something, in space or time. Kirk settled gingerly back into his chair, relieved, but already planning ship wide upgrades. Time travel was hell on the inertial dampeners. It was amazing they didn’t all end up a thin line of organic matter coating the bulkheads.
“Communications traffic is normal, Captain,” Uhura said with a smile. “Starfleet is hailing us now. They say the particle fountain has been completely shut down. The mission was a success.”
Each department checked in, with only minor damage and no injuries, with one exception. “Captain, we have a man down in engineering,” Scotty called up to the bridge. “Lieutenant Adams has been badly injured. Somehow, he fetched up against a cracked control rod, and impaled himself. Doctor McCoy recommends beaming him to earthside facilities for a new spleen.”
++++
“Somebody in Starfleet talked to a lawyer,” Kirk fumed as he picked over his salad in the recreation room, while Spock recreated with a 3D chess problem. “We have to cut Dawson loose.”
“We can prove no criminal activity on Mr. Dawson’s part, Captain,” Spock temporized. “And he did attempt to save Dr. McCoy’s life.”
“He did succeed in saving Dr. McCoy’s life,” McCoy called out from the replicator.
“The archivists on Memory Beta want to enshrine him as living history, the Intelligence Service wants to vacuum his brain, and Starfleet Command wants to either recruit him or bury him under a very large rock.” Captain Kirk toyed with a chess piece, annoying Spock as he studied the three dimensional board. “Honestly, if it weren’t for Flint being mixed up with this mess, I’d take Joe back to Seacouver 2001 and drop him off an hour after we left.”
“Gets my vote,” McCoy said, sliding into the discussion with a cup of coffee. “We can’t keep him as a damn mascot. Uhura’s ready to adopt him. Scotty keeps tinkering with those antiquated legs of his. Which reminds me, do you know what the paperwork is like for a limb cloning request for non-Federation citizens?”
Kirk waved in placation. “I thought you liked him, Bones.”
“I do. His perspective is fascinating, as Spock might say. And he’s adapted to the shock of losing his business, friends, and life behind with remarkable resilience, if an overreliance on sarcasm. But he’s a fish out of very deep waters. No matter what our records say, I can imagine his disappearance left a hole in a number of lives, and that has to count for something.”
“There are intangible factors,” Spock said. “The only people in this universe that he has ever met are living and working on this ship. It is possible that his genuine distress over the loss of Lieutenant Adams may mark a growing loyalty to the crew.”
“He’s a little old to become a cadet, Spock,” Kirk said.
“I was older than Mr. Dawson when I entered Starfleet Academy,” Spock replied, with a little starch. “I am in some agreement with Dr. McCoy’s analysis, but the rift area is still too fragile to strain with another journey. Moreover, every day in our time deepens his knowledge of the future, and his potential to change it.”
“We all know too much to mess with time in the first place,” McCoy said. “Yet we do.”
Neither Kirk nor Spock had an answer to that.
++++
“Let me get this straight,” Joe leaned forward around Kirk’s conference table. “According to these lawyers that I’ve never laid eyes on, I’ve been declared a displaced refugee. Suddenly, your people want to adopt me as an ‘asset.’ But I get a choice. You’re going to draft me into your Star Navy where I am guaranteed to protective services, or you’re going to cut me loose on Earth, here, and now, with a tracking bug.”
“It is called Starfleet,” Kirk said, bumping Joe’s bait. “Not the Star Navy.”
“Fleet status is quite an honor,” Spock volunteered in Kirk’s support.
“I’ll grant that it is a step up from abductee,” Joe granted with an evil gleam in his eye.
Kirk sighed in real pain. “Starfleet believes you show some affinity for history and, amazingly, diplomacy.”
Joe grinned like a teenager who aced the pop quiz in his worst class. Kirk frowned like the teacher.
“Coupled with your early Marine training, avenues may open in offworld contact missions, if we bend the rules.”
“Think of a pretzel,” McCoy said helpfully.
“Does that mean I salute you?” Joe needled.
“If it is diplomatic at the time,” Kirk said with a touch of warning.
“And if I say hell no, I won’t go?” Joe asked.
“You’ll be provided with travel and education credits, enough to start over anywhere in the Federation,” McCoy said, carefully watching Joe. “And full medical benefits will be applied to the civilian option as well.”
Joe slowly relaxed, reeling in his attitude. Just a bit. “I suppose I could get a job in a museum in Seacouver as a talking exhibit,” Joe speculated. “What are you going to do to keep track of me, put a chip in my head?”
Even Kirk looked a touch mortified. “Involuntary bioimplants are illegal under Federation law. However, for your safety, we think precautions are in order.”
McCoy reddened, and confessed, “There’s a transponder in the distal phalanx of your left little toe.”
“Decent of you to mention it,” Joe said, losing his sardonic edge. “One other question -- if I stay in the navy, what color shirt do I have to wear?”
Kirk silenced McCoy with a glare, and took back the reins of the discussion. “You’d begin in operations.”
That raised flags in Joe’s mind. Red flags. “I’d like a day to think on it,” Joe requested.
They gave him back his coat and other possessions, or most of them. Kirk wouldn’t let him keep the loaded 20th century gun. McCoy wouldn’t let Kirk keep the ammo. Spock preferred beaming both into space in a wide dispersal pattern, but settled for securing it in the arsenal.
Listening to them bicker, Joe was surprised by a surge of homesickness triggered by their competitive camaraderie. He excused himself to consider his decision. He was halfway down the hallway before he realized that he no longer had a minder.
Joe spent the rest of the shift on the observation deck, looking at the beckoning stars above, and the deeply familiar contours of the Earth below.
Joe returned to his cabin and surveyed the sum total of his belongings: an old shirt and faded Levi jeans, and a practically new antique wallet filled with useless plastic. Also, one Walkman Pro, missing it’s cassette. Joe picked it up and pressed the play button. It whirred to life. “Batteries are still good. No idea where I’ll find replacements.” He thought back to the foggy bits in the brewery and afterward in sick bay. “Spock must still be analyzing the tape.”
Last item on his tiny inventory -- his cane. Always his cane.
The Watchers were still a secret, if they survived at all. He had avoided searching the keywords. If Google remembered keywords, then the Federation library computer would remember what Joe had under his bed when he was fourteen. But if the Watchers were dead, then what was the use of keeping their secret?
His immortals could be scattered all over the galaxy, and a ship like the Enterprise provided one hell of a platform, if he wanted to find his friends. MacLeod and Amanda. They had to live. Finding out he outlived them all would be too much to bear.
There was still Methos to trace down, but that would also mean Starfleet, and no guarantee they would be assigned within parsecs of each other. Light years. Whatever. “Have starship, will travel.” That was an old Watcher for you, talking to himself. Just like old times on stakeout.
“Save us. Save yourself,” Methos had said. “299. 781.643.” Joe swore at himself for dithering, and opened up the library computer, tapping into long forgotten search algorithms and overlaying modern coordinates on historic street maps. 299, the Dewey Decimal code for “Religions not provided elsewhere.” And 781.643 -- “Traditional rhythm and blues.” Artists, styles, venues. Dewey hadn’t been in vogue for over two hundred years. “Correlate, baby, correlate,” he said, remembering Methos’ search tips.
“Searching.” Joe found it a little creepy that the computer talked back. “Search complete.”
One paid advertisement sorted right to the top. The banner said it all: ‘Blues, Brews and Dumuzi, All under one roof!’ Inanna’s Place. The Holy Ground of Blues. ‘Open sunrise to sunrise! The only licensed establishment in Seacouver proudly offering beer for breakfast!’
Swearing just confused the library computer. After he got it out of his system, Joe tried to muddy his tracks by extending the search outward, mixing in other deities, music forms, astrology, all peppered with scat phrases guaranteed to curl the software. As planetary dawn crept over Seacouver, he finally sang, “Eight Six Seven Five Three Oh Nine! Erase all search history.” Hopefully the Enterprise would be in another galaxy, far, far away, by the time someone dug into that particular pile of computer trash.
Joe took off the Enterprise’s off duty tunic, and buttoned up the soft cotton shirt. He pulled on his spring coat, which now hung a little looser around the hips and a little tighter around the shoulders. Wallet, Walkman, keys to a car that no longer existed, and keys to a bar that existed only in his mind.
Or so he thought.
++++
The Seacouver skyline was a fantastic playground of swooping transparent architecture that captured the rays of the watery sun, exploding them into rainbows. Buildings absorbed the droplets of a rainshower. Lighted pavers guided pedestrians, faux trolleys, and multi-colored taxis in a delicate dance.
Joe tried not to stare at the pedestrians, particularly the one with blue skin and two antennae. He gave a passing Vulcan some extra personal space, watching the crowd to gauge how much was not enough, and how much was just plain rude avoidance. He’d read up on why Spock wasn’t really a touchy feely kind of guy.
McCoy had given Joe a credit chit at their last meeting, along with a satchel containing a new tricorder, communicator and the Extraterrestrial Guide to Manners on Earth, as a joke. At least, Joe thought it was a joke. Experimentally, Joe waved the credit chit at a passing yellow vehicle, and got schooled.
“Hey bud, can’t you see I’m methane? Oxybipeds get green, blue or purple, if you’re into that sort of thing,” the voder on the door hooted, and the taxi scurried off. There was no driver. Apparently taxi rudeness had been inherited by the firmware.
A green taxi skidded to a halt on the next try. He slid the credit chit in the slot. “I’m feeling like a little sight-seeing,” he announced. “What do you recommend in sea cruises?”
“Leaving the port today are vessels destined for Prince Rupert, Juneau, Floating Fiji, and Sydney Sound. The circumpolar cruise leaves for Vladivostok and ports west this evening.”
“Vladivostok sounds lovely this time of year,” Joe elected. The stateroom, he found, was really quite nice. Joe took the time out for a real water shower. He gave himself a careful manicure. He groomed his hair and trimmed his beard. Methos was right. It was turning darker.
Leaving behind his bag, tricorder, credit chit, and other baggage piled neatly on the desk, carrying only his spring coat, wallet and Walkman, Joe left the boat and ambled into the twilight, navigating by the stars.
Inanna's Place was a lot bigger than he had envisioned. An outdoor concert pavilion on the waterfront melded into a green park, where couples strolled beneath budding trees and families tumbled in play. There was a bustling open air bistro, protected from the elements by a near transparent energy screen. Beyond the bistro was a smaller stage and longer bar, and a dance floor in between. Joe saw Starfleet personnel mixing with students and all manner of off worlders mixing at the bar. A couple of young musicians tested the sound on the stage. Joe didn’t recognize the instruments. He moved on.
One antiquated stone building stood neglected and leaf strewn, surrounded by tall oaks, gloomy in the shadow of Inanna’s lightshow. It lacked environmental screens or fairy lighting, but Joe’s eye was drawn to a lumen-challenged sign next to the darkened door.
Beyond the bar was a narrow path lined by dim green wayfinders. The path beeped at him when he stepped on a paver. “Authorized keyholders only,” it said firmly. Joe took another step. The paver repeated itself, slightly louder, and with subtitles.
Bemused, Joe took out his set of keys and jingled them.
“Authorized.” The metallic tone softened, managing to sound slightly sheepish. “Proceed.”
Up close to the sign, Joe could see the neon tubes had been repaired many times, and the ‘J’ in Joe’s had been replaced with different tube. The font was slightly off. He doubted anyone but him would know the difference.
The key slid smoothly in the lock, and the door opened into darkness, but a definite rustling sound made Joe think of wharf rats. Did the Federation allow wharf rats in its Prime Directive? Joe wondered about that, and much more, as he clicked on the lights.
“Joe! You made it! Surprise!”
The wave of sound almost short circuited Joe’s new heart job. The bar floor had been cleared, and decorated with one round table surrounded by thirteen chairs. With varying degrees of enthusiasm, nearly all the occupants of the table shouted greetings. Joe recognized at least half as immortals. Cory Raines seemed to be paying off a side bet to Carl Robinson.
Onlookers lined the edges of the room, some waving, baring their arms. Watchers, behaving like fans, baring their tattoos. That wasn’t very circumspect of them, Joe thought, and frowned at the unguarded display.
Then half the contingent sitting at the round table stampeded, and Joe was buried in a pile of immortals. MacLeod pounded his back in Highland fervor. Constantine gravely shook his hand. Liam, disconcertingly, blessed him. Ceirdwyn solemnly congratulated him with a warrior’s clasp. Methos, sporting artfully graying pointed sideburns, resplendent in a red Lieutenant’s tunic and wrinkled red pants, handed him a beer.
“What is all this?” Joe demanded.
“It’s your welcome home party! Congratulations! You made it. Cory owes me money.”
“But how did anyone know I was going to be here?” Joe asked, bewildered. “I didn’t know I was going to be here.”
“But we did,” Methos grinned. “We sent out the invitations in 2002, with keys to the original door. We party on the anniversary every year, and take turns on the upkeep.”
“For two hundred and fifty years?” Joe asked, stunned.
“Not quite a religion, more than a fad,” Methos winked, and whirled away to pour more rounds. “Oh, and remember, I left you your copy of the invitation in the shrine on the bar. Don’t lose it.”
Another immortal rose from the table with an air of indomitable dignity, walking in fragile, aging beauty. The august company parted before her. MacLeod’s eyes shone with grief as he took her hand, and she accepted his kiss remotely, as properly due, but her eyes were fixed on Joe.
He caught his breath. Amanda. Decades weighed her dancer’s step. Fine silver hair curled around her ear. Gravity stole her grace. She was old. She was beautiful.
Joe warmed at the spark in her eye and the curve of her smile as he took her in his arms. She rewarded him with a long, welcoming kiss that was in no way proper at all. “I knew you’d come,” she whispered, smiling with pride, piercing Joe’s heart. “I bet my double eagle on you.” Amanda waved off the wolf whistles and returned to her seat, her aura of remote aristocracy effortlessly restored.
Joe was left with his blushes. So much for being the model of circumspection for the next generation of Watchers. A weight did lift from his soul that four thousand years of Watcher history hadn’t been reduced to one man with a cane. More miraculously, they were welcomed here, with their charges. Tipping his glass to Methos, Joe drank to that.
“I take it that Cory was betting against me,” Joe said in an undertone to Methos.
“Nothing keeps the attention of a rabble of immortals like a good gamble.”
Joe drank to many other toasts as the crowd swept him into the room. Touching glasses with MacLeod, Joe noticed that the immortal circle was painfully small, and at close range all revealed subtle ravages from the passage of years. Constantine limped. Ceirdwyn tipped her head to hear. MacLeod’s sword hand was gnarled with scars, and did not fully close.
Methos drifted close again, refilling glasses. “Yes, we are all older, Joe. We all travelled outward from Earth at various speeds, different decades,, surfing the diaspora. In breaking the bonds of Earth, we broke the spell of our immortality. The farther we travelled from its source, the more we aged. There are only a handful, now. The critical matrix may be a result of biochemistry, particle physics, even ley lines. It is found only on Gaian Earth. Even when we return home, we have found no way yet to recapture the magic.”
“Yet?” Joe hung on that one word.
“Prevention is our best option,” Methos said with a sad smile. “We’ve run out of time for a cure. Our best scientist is in failing health and abandoning his research, presumably to do good works for the galaxy. He’s full of himself,” he added in tone meant for Joe’s ears only.
Joe and the assembled company drank to friends (lost and found), stories (true and false) and their interwoven lives, very short and very, very, long. It was enough to bring tears to his eyes.
The crowd slowly quieted, and Joe noticed uneasy watchers and annoyed immortals were sending veiled glances toward the center of the room. The crowd parted. He saw that someone still sat at the far end of table, aloof from the celebration, refusing toasts. His shoulders were stout and squared, and his face bore centuries of pain and grief, and no little suspicion. “You’re late,” Flint declared.
“I thought he died in 2001,” Joe pointed out to Methos.
“Not yet.” Methos gave him a warning glance.
“This charade proves nothing, Methos,” Flint said, his cold, ringing voice bringing the conversation to a dead stop. “You waste my time. I will die at the hour and place of my own choosing, not yours.”
“I brought you the proof last year, Flint,” Methos said, the model of restrained reason. “Then you demanded a witness. Here’s the man who observed, and recorded. Here he is. Ask your questions.”
“You could train any mortal mummer to mouth your words.”
“Hey, insults are not called for,” Joe said, prickling. Flint shot him a look of pure disdain.
“Put the recording on the table, Flint,” Methos ordered. “Or we forego civility and I draw what I need from your quickening right here.” Perhaps not the model of restraint, after all, Joe judged. Watchers inhaled in alarm around the room. Immortals backed away.
“On holy ground?” Flint challenged, clearly unafraid. “Then you all die with me. And perhaps that is the way the last of our kind should end, in one vast inferno.”
“You can make yourself the hero, Flint, and save immortal kind. Or, the Watchers here and for generations to come will forever revile you as the villain who condemned his own race to slow death, just because he could not attain the prize. Are you sure you want to take that chance?”
“It is all the same to me,” Flint shrugged, pretending indifference. After preening in his own importance, he slowly drew out an archaic spindle-driven tape cassette and placed it in the center of the table.
Joe walked forward to get a better view. “Sony. I used that brand.” He picked the cassette up, held it to the light to check for twisted tape, and tightened the spindle. Taking out his Walkman, he slipped the tape home into the slot and pressed “play.”
The immortals all gathered around.
Joe faded back out of the crowd and scooted up on the stage where he could watch the reactions and attitudes of the crowd. Watchers drifted over to pay their respects. Being treated to the awe of dozens of total strangers made Joe uneasy. They scattered like pigeons when Methos materialized. “This is their territory, their chronicles, not mine,” Joe said. “I’m just a guy passing through.”
“Are you kidding? You’re a rock star to them, Joe. This is the Woodstock of Watcherdom, and you’re on stage. Everyone here came to see if you could pull this off.”
Joe patted the age-blackened boards, and looked around. The wooden stage felt almost good. The bar felt nearly right. One little corner of his own time, preserved in amber. Methos flipped a spotlight on, quieting the nattering crowd around Flint. The light centered on a lone guitar on a stand behind him, just within reach. His guitar. His bar. His stage.
Everything snapped into place.
“Play something for us, Joe,” Methos asked softly.
++++
“I can’t believe you got Flint to agree to losing his head to you.” Joe accepted another draft. The Dumuzi went down easily.
“He’s not convinced he can lose,” Methos said. “It’s that narcissistic bend in his makeup. He always convinces himself he might win. Theoretically the rift ramps up if either of us lose our heads. Practically, I’d rather keep mine.”
“So you’re going back home to 2001, to get Kirk to bring me here, so you can bring me back home to 2001.” Joe was on the edge of drunk, and trying to trace the timelines. He suspected beer wasn’t increasing his IQ. Maybe whisky would help.
“That is the current plan, yes. We’ll trick out a shuttle, using the schematics I stole from the Enterprise. I pack into the shuttle with you and Flint, we trigger the rift, and go back to 2001. I’ll take Flint back to the brewery to challenge my younger me. That will anchor the open particle funnel in the past. Then we hide under the canal and play yahtzee for a few hours. Kirk’s crew gets paid for playing hero. You get to hitchhike on a starship. Everybody wins!”
“So you triggered the rift. You’re the one Kirk was after, after all. But why nearly nuke Seacouver?”
“Bad things happen when you meet yourself. Take my word for it. The rift didn’t surge just because of the quickening. It surged because I got too close to myself.”
“But why trigger the funnel at all?”
“We needed to open the rift so Kirk and his crew would find you and bring you and the Walkman forward.”
“Why is Flint agreeing to this?” Joe asked, mystified.
“The worst personality disorder in the world. A Hero Complex.”
“Why doesn’t he just give his research results to himself in the past, and have him finish the cure?” Apparently Joe wasn’t quite drunk enough.
“Shhhhhh! Don’t let him hear you. That did not go well the first time,” Methos warned. “Your part is easy, from here on out. You just have to go home and convince my younger self to stick close to Earth until a cure is found.”
“Like that will be a walk in the park,” Joe snickered. He looked around the bar. “Do we have to go right back?” MacLeod waved from across the room. Amanda winked. “The party’s just starting.”
“We’ve got months to work on refinements,” Methos pointed out. “And Flint has years left, if he just stops whining and eats his vegetables. Also, we still have to build the shuttlecraft and give it a good cloaking device that hasn’t been invented yet.”
“You’ve got a lot of plates spinning, Methos.” Joe’s head spun with the possibilities.
“I think the bases are mostly covered, this time,” Methos said, going over a mental checklist. “I’ve always been able to rely on you.”
“This time? How many times have you tried this before?” Joe straightened, almost falling over.
“You know the secret of survival, Joe?” Methos steadied him by the elbow and handed him another beer. “Practice, practice, practice…”
++++
The Enterprise didn’t resume her mission immediately. The landing party remained tied up with extended debriefings with Starfleet Command and the Science Council. After two weeks of meetings, Kirk was more than ready to barrel out of orbit, leaving a trail of bureaucrats in his wake. Then Spock met him in the transporter room as he beamed aboard. That was not a good sign. “What is it now, Spock?”
“I have found an error in the historical record, Captain.”
“Only one, Spock?” Kirk asked, already feeling a new headache coming on.
“The library computer now has two diverging historical accounts of the incident in the brewery. One matches our original account, with Mr. Dawson going missing, and eventually declared dead. Another version is overlaying the first.”
“And in that version, Mr. Spock?”
“The reports of Joe Dawson’s death in 2001 are greatly exaggerated.”
“Have you scanned for his transponder?”
“I have located Mr. Dawson’s transponder in a suite on a cruise ship circumnavigating Earth’s oceans. Or, more precisely, I have located Mr. Dawson’s prosthetic left distal phalanx.”
++++
The elder Methos eased the shuttle out from under the waters of the Seacouver canal. Water cascaded from the disguised superstructure, and the gunnels smelled like seaweed and salmon guts.
Emergency lights dappled the lock area, which had imploded into a larger lake. “Behold, your new waterfront footage,” Methos commented. “You should build some outdoor tables to take advantage of the view.”
“Waterfront bistro by day, blues dive by night?” Joe speculated. “We’ll see what the city fathers say about that. Any idea how I’m going to afford all this?”
“That would be telling,” Methos declared. He guided the falsified fishing craft up to a deserted dock. “Are you sure you’ll make it back to the bar from here? I’d be disappointed to hear you were taken out by a mugger after we got you there and back again through 500 years of particle storms.”
“There’s not that much irony in the universe, Methos,” Joe reassured. “I’ll be fine. I need the walk to clear my mind.”
Methos helped Joe over the side, and then handed him up his gun, unloaded, half a clip, safety on. Kirk had had it last. Joe didn’t ask how Methos had acquired it, or when, or why. He really didn’t want to know.
“Hold for a moment. I have one last gift,” Methos said, ducking in the wheelhouse and returning with a fine, leather bound book.
“It’s beautiful.” The pages were covered with precise and elegant handwriting, and finely detailed illuminations. The book felt stiff, new, unread.
“Flint’s final theories and notes on the breakdown of immortal biology during space travel, and wellness recommendations for the prudent,” Methos explained. “There are also experimental results, which I don’t recommend reading on a full stomach. He believed his science was quite groundbreaking, and he was close to a cure. He might have been half right.”
“He believed the sun shone out of his ass, from what I saw. Why don’t you keep this for yourself? For insurance? Show it to someone like McCoy in the future. Find the cure yourself.”
“Ah, but you are my insurance, Joe. That’s the beauty of it. In giving it to you, I’ve already restarted the clock. My other me has a couple of centuries to work on it. The future awaits,” the elder Methos said, taking Joe’s hand and measure one last time. “Take care, my friend. You live in interesting times.”
Joe noted the crinkles around Methos eyes, and faint lines harrowing his visage. “Take care of yourself. Growing old bites.” Joe gripped his hand hard. “Will I ever see you again?”
“Who knows?” Methos eased back into the boat, pushed his hands into the pockets of his raveling red pants, and shrugged. “Will my timeline fade if you manage to save the immortals? Will it snap like a twig?” The fog rolled in, softening the air between them, concealing the years. He didn’t look a day over 5000. “I don’t believe I will fade, Joe. You’re too concrete. Too real. You make me real as well.”
“So, a paradox.”
“Or a parallel. Maybe one universe can’t grow without the other, like vines intertwining. Or perhaps there are many threads winding through the cosmos. The weaving gods know. Someday I’ll rebuild a shrine.”
“Farewell, Methos,” Joe called over the water.
“Fare thee well too, Joe. Fare grandly!” Methos’ shuttlecraft drifted into the mist, leaving only the faint smell of fish hanging on the dock.
Joe did make it safely to Joe’s Bar. He paused to stare at his neon sign, watching the light flicker, hearing the noble gases hiss. Then he dug out his key and unlocked the door. The bar was dark and deserted, except for a cocktail candle burning on the back bar. He found a trail of beer bottles leading to his office. The light was on. His guitar was stashed safely on the stand in the corner next to his reading chair.
Methos sprawled on the office sofa like a dead man. There was still a faint crust of blood in his eyebrow, but most of the rest had dried and flaked away, or been washed away in the flood. His cotton pullover was singed where it wasn’t soaked. Joe sniffed. He also reeked of a medium pale ale.
“Where have you been?” Methos cracked open an eye, clearly miffed.
“You look fried. And toasted.” But Joe silently thanked the stars he was there at all.
“I came back to life in your alley in the middle of the night. You weren’t there. You weren’t open. Why were you not open?” Methos complained.
“There was a quickening,” Joe reminded.
“There was a very big, no good, very bad quickening,” Methos agreed. “Flint is a very demanding fellow. He keeps trying to tell me something important. It keeps leaking out of my brain. Did you record the fight? Maybe I can figure it out from your tapes.”
“Save yourself,” Joe whispered. He felt the weight of his Walkman in his pocket like a stone.
Methos sat up halfway, then groaned, holding his head. “Save me. This hangover is the worst. Flint collected personality disorders like credit cards. Narcissism. Paranoia. I’m still trying to find his sense of humor! Can you believe he totalled my new brewery? I was going to surprise you today!” Methos tried to rise again.
“Surprise,” Joe laughed, easily pushing Methos back into the cushions. He most definitely needed to replace the couch. “We’ll salvage what we can from Dumuzi and move it here. There’s a lot of work to do.”
“Easy for you to say. Why are you so chipper? Last I saw, there was a ton of mash avalanching your way. You should be dead.” Methos thought about that, before adding, “I am, by the way, glad you aren’t dead.”
“I’m glad you aren’t dead, either,” Joe soothed, as he shook out a blanket and threw it over Methos, as much to cover the smell as to keep him warm.
“Did you know today is Dumuzi’s Day?” Methos rambled in a waking dream. “He get’s hitched to Inanna. The tavern keepers used to make out like bandits. It was going to be my grand opening. Inanna is going to be pissed.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll invite everyone we know to the party, and have beer for breakfast.” Joe stretched out in his reading chair, then realized his reading glasses were still on the register in the bar. He slid Flint’s book into the bookshelf, to scare himself later. He ran his hand softly over the neck of his guitar, and turned off the light. “Sleep, Methos, while we have the time. Tomorrow, we’ll have a long, long talk.”
END
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.
Part One
“Report, Spock. Scotty’s crystals worked, but for how long? Do we have any reason to believe the rift will reopen?”
“The readings have remained stable. Emissions have stopped. We have no data to support a recurrence.”
“And Flint’s killer? The man McCoy saw at the focal point?”
“We’ve run continuous scans as the warehouse has been excavated by rescue personnel. Apparently there are no bodies to find.”
“Vaporized?”
“Possibly, given the energies involved. However, I noted one interesting fact when I tapped into orbital scans. The boat where we awakened on the dock -- it has flown.”
“Maybe we can trace it through the local boat registries, get a lead on who phasered us,” Kirk leaned forward, hot on a new scent.
“I use the word advisedly, Captain. It has flown. I suspect it was a long range shuttle equipped with warp drive and shields, disguised as a fishing boat. The warp signature was hidden by the rift radiation. The saboteur, if he was that, is long gone.”
“It smelled like seaweed and rotting crab, Spock. It took a day to get it out of my hair.”
Spock’s nose flared. “It was very well disguised.”
Frustrated, Kirk swung the command chair around. “Sulu, plot a search grid, scan for a shuttle. If we can’t pick it up from here, maybe we can get a clean signature and backtrack it to the source.”
“The source is almost certainly in the future, Captain. What of Mr. Dawson? The isolation plan has been successful. He does believe he is still on Earth, held incommunicado on a Navy vessel.”
“Even McCoy thinks he is still hiding something. We know too little about why Flint came here, and I’m afraid Dawson knows too much. It’s time to break the stalemate.”
++++
Christmas came early, the next day. Or what passed for day in his solitary sickbay cell. Joe woke up with a plan to disassemble the video screen to see if he could send an SOS to Bora Bora. Or call out for pizza. Or get ESPN. Something. But even if he could cobble together a screwdriver, the screen didn’t have any screws.
Nurse Chapel brought not-quite-eggs. And real toast. She let him dog it on PT. He accused her of going soft. Unexpectedly, she turned away, wiping a speck from her eye, and left without a word. Joe felt like a heel, and had no clue why.
McCoy brought a box of books. “Donated by the crew,” he explained. “Even the Captain.”
“Let me guess,” Joe said, surveying the authors. “C. S. Forester. He strikes me as the Hornblower type.”
“Got it in one.”
Joe was feeling expansive, and tapped his inner book dealer. “Tell him to try Alexander Kent. Or H.M.S Ulysses by MacLean.”
McCoy looked at him thoughtfully. “I will.”
Then, before Joe could even finish a chapter, Scotty and McCoy brought back his prostheses, and they spent an aggravating, embarrassing and exhilarating morning refitting and balancing and falling and in the end, bouncing like a kid, because Joe could walk again. Even better, when he added up McCoy’s magic shots and Nurse Chapel’s physical therapy and Scotty’s design wizardry, walking didn’t hardly hurt at all.
Joe finally collapsed in the hoverchair and held up his hand. “Okay, what’s the catch?”
McCoy leaned on the diagnostic bed, and met Joe’s eyes. “We’re going home. You’re coming with us.”
“Where’s home? Washington? New York? Brussels? Kansas?” Joe ticked down through the NSA, United Nations, Eurozone and Dorothy’s home state, just for the hell of it. The Watchers were going to be very, very unhappy with him, but they had moles that would eventually spring him in most of the governmental agencies. ‘Eventually’ covered a lot of ground.
The sickbay door slid open, and the Captain and Mr. Spock walked in. For the first time, Spock wasn’t wearing a hat.
Joe observed, and mentally recorded. “I gather we’re definitely not going to Kansas.”
++++
Isolation ended. Joe had partial run of the ship, his own cabin, and a working library computer to begin studying the history of the future. Kirk had also assigned him with shadows to keep him out of trouble. Ostensibly a historian, his first minder wore a red shirt with a spiral patch like Scotty’s. Joe had spent long enough in the Marines to recognize a military police vibe.
Joe had to summon him when he left his cabin alone. His minder followed him everywhere, to the mess hall, the observation deck, and even back to sickbay for more checkups and shots and physical therapy. Joe managed to ignore him for a full day, until the new minder showed up. Scotty introduced him as one of his assistant engineers. “Lieutenant Adams has made a hobby of studying the 20th century,” Scotty warned, misinterpreting the dismay in Joe’s face.
Finally, they found themselves alone in a quiet corner of the observation deck. Joe leaned forward and hissed, “Are you recording everything I say, Lieutenant? Documenting everything I do? Watching everything?”
“Turnabout’s fair play, don’t you think, Watcher Dawson?” Methos said with a faint smile. “Relax, Joe, and thank you for not blowing my cover. The ship’s automated security does record critical stations, but there is a surprising premium on privacy. We can talk here, and I’ve checked the privacy filters in your cabin, but be careful in sickbay, and definitely don’t gossip on the bridge.”
“Lieutenant Adams? Seriously? How did you wangle a commission?”
“Amanda helped. A common, yet comforting name, don’t you think?” Methos asked, once Joe settled on pounding him on the shoulder rather than punching him in the jaw.
“You’ve been here all the time?”
“Not every time. This is the first time, really. But it seemed like a good precaution. There was a lot going on in the warehouse, and I wasn’t sure you got my message. And honestly, we weren’t sure you would make it this time.” Methos paused. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you made it.”
A bit embarrassed, Joe covered with nitpicking. “Some message. It lacked in specifics. 299 spans a hell of a lot of territory.”
“Oh, come now, context is everything. And 781.643? That’s right in your wheelhouse. Keep working on it.”
“They don’t have a proper library here. You could just tell me.”
“Where’s the fun in that? Besides, I might be removed from the equations at any moment, and you may need to follow the breadcrumbs without me.”
“Equations?” Joe didn’t like the sound of that at all. And the questions kept mounting. “Why didn’t McCoy didn’t recognize you? He saw you in the warehouse.”
“Blood makes an effective mask. Even the professional eye tends to shy away from it. Luckily, he was too far away to scan for DNA. ”
“So you’re in the clear. You found me, I found you, we’re home free. You must know a way off this UFO. Maybe there’s a lifeboat we can steal?”
“Ah. Well. Not quite. Think of us as two ships passing in the night, Joe. We both have a couple of errands to run a few hundred years from now.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Hey, the future’s not so bad. Look at you. Doctor McCoy has you up and bouncing around like a rock star. From the dark roots you’re growing out, I’d say he slipped in an anti-aging telomere treatment, too. You might live twice as long in the twenty fourth century, Joe. Think about the possibilities.”
“I’m too old for Tom Swift stories.”
“No you’re not. I know you. You read them all. Heinlein. Asimov. Simak. I can see you now, on your bike, racing home to read Lucky Starr. Or to catch the latest episode of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet.”
“No fair, dragging Tom Corbett into this.” Joe couldn’t muster up a sulk.
“If I got you off the ship, where would you go? What is waiting on Earth for you in either time? Cranky Watchers? Wet bar towels? You’ve got the stars before you,” Methos waved at the crisp panorama of constellations and clusters and galaxies cycling beyond.
When they returned to Joe’s cabin, Methos followed him in and carefully bypassed the security filters on the library computer station and showed Joe how to use it. “Behold the brave new world. The Watchers would have killed for this database. Mind that anything you search might also be eventually back-traced. Be gentle with it. They know not what you can do.”
“Schmuck,” Joe said fondly. “If you’re not here for me, then why are you here?”
“To steal the secret of time travel, of course.”
“How did you know you needed to study time travel before you travelled in time?”
“Ah, sweet paradoxes we all hope to resolve. Keep working on it, Joe.”
“Wouldn’t burglary normally be Amanda’s job?”
“It was. In fact, she had the Captain quite bedazzled by her charms. Unfortunately, there was this temporarily fatal accident during a landing party...suffice to say, Joe, if they ever offer you a red shirt, decline.”
++++
“Systems secure, Captain,” Sulu said calmly, powering down the warp drive. “We’ve returned to our home timeframe.” A few bruised crewmen picked themselves up around the bridge, but they were smiling. Home meant something, in space or time. Kirk settled gingerly back into his chair, relieved, but already planning ship wide upgrades. Time travel was hell on the inertial dampeners. It was amazing they didn’t all end up a thin line of organic matter coating the bulkheads.
“Communications traffic is normal, Captain,” Uhura said with a smile. “Starfleet is hailing us now. They say the particle fountain has been completely shut down. The mission was a success.”
Each department checked in, with only minor damage and no injuries, with one exception. “Captain, we have a man down in engineering,” Scotty called up to the bridge. “Lieutenant Adams has been badly injured. Somehow, he fetched up against a cracked control rod, and impaled himself. Doctor McCoy recommends beaming him to earthside facilities for a new spleen.”
++++
“Somebody in Starfleet talked to a lawyer,” Kirk fumed as he picked over his salad in the recreation room, while Spock recreated with a 3D chess problem. “We have to cut Dawson loose.”
“We can prove no criminal activity on Mr. Dawson’s part, Captain,” Spock temporized. “And he did attempt to save Dr. McCoy’s life.”
“He did succeed in saving Dr. McCoy’s life,” McCoy called out from the replicator.
“The archivists on Memory Beta want to enshrine him as living history, the Intelligence Service wants to vacuum his brain, and Starfleet Command wants to either recruit him or bury him under a very large rock.” Captain Kirk toyed with a chess piece, annoying Spock as he studied the three dimensional board. “Honestly, if it weren’t for Flint being mixed up with this mess, I’d take Joe back to Seacouver 2001 and drop him off an hour after we left.”
“Gets my vote,” McCoy said, sliding into the discussion with a cup of coffee. “We can’t keep him as a damn mascot. Uhura’s ready to adopt him. Scotty keeps tinkering with those antiquated legs of his. Which reminds me, do you know what the paperwork is like for a limb cloning request for non-Federation citizens?”
Kirk waved in placation. “I thought you liked him, Bones.”
“I do. His perspective is fascinating, as Spock might say. And he’s adapted to the shock of losing his business, friends, and life behind with remarkable resilience, if an overreliance on sarcasm. But he’s a fish out of very deep waters. No matter what our records say, I can imagine his disappearance left a hole in a number of lives, and that has to count for something.”
“There are intangible factors,” Spock said. “The only people in this universe that he has ever met are living and working on this ship. It is possible that his genuine distress over the loss of Lieutenant Adams may mark a growing loyalty to the crew.”
“He’s a little old to become a cadet, Spock,” Kirk said.
“I was older than Mr. Dawson when I entered Starfleet Academy,” Spock replied, with a little starch. “I am in some agreement with Dr. McCoy’s analysis, but the rift area is still too fragile to strain with another journey. Moreover, every day in our time deepens his knowledge of the future, and his potential to change it.”
“We all know too much to mess with time in the first place,” McCoy said. “Yet we do.”
Neither Kirk nor Spock had an answer to that.
++++
“Let me get this straight,” Joe leaned forward around Kirk’s conference table. “According to these lawyers that I’ve never laid eyes on, I’ve been declared a displaced refugee. Suddenly, your people want to adopt me as an ‘asset.’ But I get a choice. You’re going to draft me into your Star Navy where I am guaranteed to protective services, or you’re going to cut me loose on Earth, here, and now, with a tracking bug.”
“It is called Starfleet,” Kirk said, bumping Joe’s bait. “Not the Star Navy.”
“Fleet status is quite an honor,” Spock volunteered in Kirk’s support.
“I’ll grant that it is a step up from abductee,” Joe granted with an evil gleam in his eye.
Kirk sighed in real pain. “Starfleet believes you show some affinity for history and, amazingly, diplomacy.”
Joe grinned like a teenager who aced the pop quiz in his worst class. Kirk frowned like the teacher.
“Coupled with your early Marine training, avenues may open in offworld contact missions, if we bend the rules.”
“Think of a pretzel,” McCoy said helpfully.
“Does that mean I salute you?” Joe needled.
“If it is diplomatic at the time,” Kirk said with a touch of warning.
“And if I say hell no, I won’t go?” Joe asked.
“You’ll be provided with travel and education credits, enough to start over anywhere in the Federation,” McCoy said, carefully watching Joe. “And full medical benefits will be applied to the civilian option as well.”
Joe slowly relaxed, reeling in his attitude. Just a bit. “I suppose I could get a job in a museum in Seacouver as a talking exhibit,” Joe speculated. “What are you going to do to keep track of me, put a chip in my head?”
Even Kirk looked a touch mortified. “Involuntary bioimplants are illegal under Federation law. However, for your safety, we think precautions are in order.”
McCoy reddened, and confessed, “There’s a transponder in the distal phalanx of your left little toe.”
“Decent of you to mention it,” Joe said, losing his sardonic edge. “One other question -- if I stay in the navy, what color shirt do I have to wear?”
Kirk silenced McCoy with a glare, and took back the reins of the discussion. “You’d begin in operations.”
That raised flags in Joe’s mind. Red flags. “I’d like a day to think on it,” Joe requested.
They gave him back his coat and other possessions, or most of them. Kirk wouldn’t let him keep the loaded 20th century gun. McCoy wouldn’t let Kirk keep the ammo. Spock preferred beaming both into space in a wide dispersal pattern, but settled for securing it in the arsenal.
Listening to them bicker, Joe was surprised by a surge of homesickness triggered by their competitive camaraderie. He excused himself to consider his decision. He was halfway down the hallway before he realized that he no longer had a minder.
Joe spent the rest of the shift on the observation deck, looking at the beckoning stars above, and the deeply familiar contours of the Earth below.
Joe returned to his cabin and surveyed the sum total of his belongings: an old shirt and faded Levi jeans, and a practically new antique wallet filled with useless plastic. Also, one Walkman Pro, missing it’s cassette. Joe picked it up and pressed the play button. It whirred to life. “Batteries are still good. No idea where I’ll find replacements.” He thought back to the foggy bits in the brewery and afterward in sick bay. “Spock must still be analyzing the tape.”
Last item on his tiny inventory -- his cane. Always his cane.
The Watchers were still a secret, if they survived at all. He had avoided searching the keywords. If Google remembered keywords, then the Federation library computer would remember what Joe had under his bed when he was fourteen. But if the Watchers were dead, then what was the use of keeping their secret?
His immortals could be scattered all over the galaxy, and a ship like the Enterprise provided one hell of a platform, if he wanted to find his friends. MacLeod and Amanda. They had to live. Finding out he outlived them all would be too much to bear.
There was still Methos to trace down, but that would also mean Starfleet, and no guarantee they would be assigned within parsecs of each other. Light years. Whatever. “Have starship, will travel.” That was an old Watcher for you, talking to himself. Just like old times on stakeout.
“Save us. Save yourself,” Methos had said. “299. 781.643.” Joe swore at himself for dithering, and opened up the library computer, tapping into long forgotten search algorithms and overlaying modern coordinates on historic street maps. 299, the Dewey Decimal code for “Religions not provided elsewhere.” And 781.643 -- “Traditional rhythm and blues.” Artists, styles, venues. Dewey hadn’t been in vogue for over two hundred years. “Correlate, baby, correlate,” he said, remembering Methos’ search tips.
“Searching.” Joe found it a little creepy that the computer talked back. “Search complete.”
One paid advertisement sorted right to the top. The banner said it all: ‘Blues, Brews and Dumuzi, All under one roof!’ Inanna’s Place. The Holy Ground of Blues. ‘Open sunrise to sunrise! The only licensed establishment in Seacouver proudly offering beer for breakfast!’
Swearing just confused the library computer. After he got it out of his system, Joe tried to muddy his tracks by extending the search outward, mixing in other deities, music forms, astrology, all peppered with scat phrases guaranteed to curl the software. As planetary dawn crept over Seacouver, he finally sang, “Eight Six Seven Five Three Oh Nine! Erase all search history.” Hopefully the Enterprise would be in another galaxy, far, far away, by the time someone dug into that particular pile of computer trash.
Joe took off the Enterprise’s off duty tunic, and buttoned up the soft cotton shirt. He pulled on his spring coat, which now hung a little looser around the hips and a little tighter around the shoulders. Wallet, Walkman, keys to a car that no longer existed, and keys to a bar that existed only in his mind.
Or so he thought.
++++
The Seacouver skyline was a fantastic playground of swooping transparent architecture that captured the rays of the watery sun, exploding them into rainbows. Buildings absorbed the droplets of a rainshower. Lighted pavers guided pedestrians, faux trolleys, and multi-colored taxis in a delicate dance.
Joe tried not to stare at the pedestrians, particularly the one with blue skin and two antennae. He gave a passing Vulcan some extra personal space, watching the crowd to gauge how much was not enough, and how much was just plain rude avoidance. He’d read up on why Spock wasn’t really a touchy feely kind of guy.
McCoy had given Joe a credit chit at their last meeting, along with a satchel containing a new tricorder, communicator and the Extraterrestrial Guide to Manners on Earth, as a joke. At least, Joe thought it was a joke. Experimentally, Joe waved the credit chit at a passing yellow vehicle, and got schooled.
“Hey bud, can’t you see I’m methane? Oxybipeds get green, blue or purple, if you’re into that sort of thing,” the voder on the door hooted, and the taxi scurried off. There was no driver. Apparently taxi rudeness had been inherited by the firmware.
A green taxi skidded to a halt on the next try. He slid the credit chit in the slot. “I’m feeling like a little sight-seeing,” he announced. “What do you recommend in sea cruises?”
“Leaving the port today are vessels destined for Prince Rupert, Juneau, Floating Fiji, and Sydney Sound. The circumpolar cruise leaves for Vladivostok and ports west this evening.”
“Vladivostok sounds lovely this time of year,” Joe elected. The stateroom, he found, was really quite nice. Joe took the time out for a real water shower. He gave himself a careful manicure. He groomed his hair and trimmed his beard. Methos was right. It was turning darker.
Leaving behind his bag, tricorder, credit chit, and other baggage piled neatly on the desk, carrying only his spring coat, wallet and Walkman, Joe left the boat and ambled into the twilight, navigating by the stars.
Inanna's Place was a lot bigger than he had envisioned. An outdoor concert pavilion on the waterfront melded into a green park, where couples strolled beneath budding trees and families tumbled in play. There was a bustling open air bistro, protected from the elements by a near transparent energy screen. Beyond the bistro was a smaller stage and longer bar, and a dance floor in between. Joe saw Starfleet personnel mixing with students and all manner of off worlders mixing at the bar. A couple of young musicians tested the sound on the stage. Joe didn’t recognize the instruments. He moved on.
One antiquated stone building stood neglected and leaf strewn, surrounded by tall oaks, gloomy in the shadow of Inanna’s lightshow. It lacked environmental screens or fairy lighting, but Joe’s eye was drawn to a lumen-challenged sign next to the darkened door.
Beyond the bar was a narrow path lined by dim green wayfinders. The path beeped at him when he stepped on a paver. “Authorized keyholders only,” it said firmly. Joe took another step. The paver repeated itself, slightly louder, and with subtitles.
Bemused, Joe took out his set of keys and jingled them.
“Authorized.” The metallic tone softened, managing to sound slightly sheepish. “Proceed.”
Up close to the sign, Joe could see the neon tubes had been repaired many times, and the ‘J’ in Joe’s had been replaced with different tube. The font was slightly off. He doubted anyone but him would know the difference.
The key slid smoothly in the lock, and the door opened into darkness, but a definite rustling sound made Joe think of wharf rats. Did the Federation allow wharf rats in its Prime Directive? Joe wondered about that, and much more, as he clicked on the lights.
“Joe! You made it! Surprise!”
The wave of sound almost short circuited Joe’s new heart job. The bar floor had been cleared, and decorated with one round table surrounded by thirteen chairs. With varying degrees of enthusiasm, nearly all the occupants of the table shouted greetings. Joe recognized at least half as immortals. Cory Raines seemed to be paying off a side bet to Carl Robinson.
Onlookers lined the edges of the room, some waving, baring their arms. Watchers, behaving like fans, baring their tattoos. That wasn’t very circumspect of them, Joe thought, and frowned at the unguarded display.
Then half the contingent sitting at the round table stampeded, and Joe was buried in a pile of immortals. MacLeod pounded his back in Highland fervor. Constantine gravely shook his hand. Liam, disconcertingly, blessed him. Ceirdwyn solemnly congratulated him with a warrior’s clasp. Methos, sporting artfully graying pointed sideburns, resplendent in a red Lieutenant’s tunic and wrinkled red pants, handed him a beer.
“What is all this?” Joe demanded.
“It’s your welcome home party! Congratulations! You made it. Cory owes me money.”
“But how did anyone know I was going to be here?” Joe asked, bewildered. “I didn’t know I was going to be here.”
“But we did,” Methos grinned. “We sent out the invitations in 2002, with keys to the original door. We party on the anniversary every year, and take turns on the upkeep.”
“For two hundred and fifty years?” Joe asked, stunned.
“Not quite a religion, more than a fad,” Methos winked, and whirled away to pour more rounds. “Oh, and remember, I left you your copy of the invitation in the shrine on the bar. Don’t lose it.”
Another immortal rose from the table with an air of indomitable dignity, walking in fragile, aging beauty. The august company parted before her. MacLeod’s eyes shone with grief as he took her hand, and she accepted his kiss remotely, as properly due, but her eyes were fixed on Joe.
He caught his breath. Amanda. Decades weighed her dancer’s step. Fine silver hair curled around her ear. Gravity stole her grace. She was old. She was beautiful.
Joe warmed at the spark in her eye and the curve of her smile as he took her in his arms. She rewarded him with a long, welcoming kiss that was in no way proper at all. “I knew you’d come,” she whispered, smiling with pride, piercing Joe’s heart. “I bet my double eagle on you.” Amanda waved off the wolf whistles and returned to her seat, her aura of remote aristocracy effortlessly restored.
Joe was left with his blushes. So much for being the model of circumspection for the next generation of Watchers. A weight did lift from his soul that four thousand years of Watcher history hadn’t been reduced to one man with a cane. More miraculously, they were welcomed here, with their charges. Tipping his glass to Methos, Joe drank to that.
“I take it that Cory was betting against me,” Joe said in an undertone to Methos.
“Nothing keeps the attention of a rabble of immortals like a good gamble.”
Joe drank to many other toasts as the crowd swept him into the room. Touching glasses with MacLeod, Joe noticed that the immortal circle was painfully small, and at close range all revealed subtle ravages from the passage of years. Constantine limped. Ceirdwyn tipped her head to hear. MacLeod’s sword hand was gnarled with scars, and did not fully close.
Methos drifted close again, refilling glasses. “Yes, we are all older, Joe. We all travelled outward from Earth at various speeds, different decades,, surfing the diaspora. In breaking the bonds of Earth, we broke the spell of our immortality. The farther we travelled from its source, the more we aged. There are only a handful, now. The critical matrix may be a result of biochemistry, particle physics, even ley lines. It is found only on Gaian Earth. Even when we return home, we have found no way yet to recapture the magic.”
“Yet?” Joe hung on that one word.
“Prevention is our best option,” Methos said with a sad smile. “We’ve run out of time for a cure. Our best scientist is in failing health and abandoning his research, presumably to do good works for the galaxy. He’s full of himself,” he added in tone meant for Joe’s ears only.
Joe and the assembled company drank to friends (lost and found), stories (true and false) and their interwoven lives, very short and very, very, long. It was enough to bring tears to his eyes.
The crowd slowly quieted, and Joe noticed uneasy watchers and annoyed immortals were sending veiled glances toward the center of the room. The crowd parted. He saw that someone still sat at the far end of table, aloof from the celebration, refusing toasts. His shoulders were stout and squared, and his face bore centuries of pain and grief, and no little suspicion. “You’re late,” Flint declared.
“I thought he died in 2001,” Joe pointed out to Methos.
“Not yet.” Methos gave him a warning glance.
“This charade proves nothing, Methos,” Flint said, his cold, ringing voice bringing the conversation to a dead stop. “You waste my time. I will die at the hour and place of my own choosing, not yours.”
“I brought you the proof last year, Flint,” Methos said, the model of restrained reason. “Then you demanded a witness. Here’s the man who observed, and recorded. Here he is. Ask your questions.”
“You could train any mortal mummer to mouth your words.”
“Hey, insults are not called for,” Joe said, prickling. Flint shot him a look of pure disdain.
“Put the recording on the table, Flint,” Methos ordered. “Or we forego civility and I draw what I need from your quickening right here.” Perhaps not the model of restraint, after all, Joe judged. Watchers inhaled in alarm around the room. Immortals backed away.
“On holy ground?” Flint challenged, clearly unafraid. “Then you all die with me. And perhaps that is the way the last of our kind should end, in one vast inferno.”
“You can make yourself the hero, Flint, and save immortal kind. Or, the Watchers here and for generations to come will forever revile you as the villain who condemned his own race to slow death, just because he could not attain the prize. Are you sure you want to take that chance?”
“It is all the same to me,” Flint shrugged, pretending indifference. After preening in his own importance, he slowly drew out an archaic spindle-driven tape cassette and placed it in the center of the table.
Joe walked forward to get a better view. “Sony. I used that brand.” He picked the cassette up, held it to the light to check for twisted tape, and tightened the spindle. Taking out his Walkman, he slipped the tape home into the slot and pressed “play.”
The immortals all gathered around.
Joe faded back out of the crowd and scooted up on the stage where he could watch the reactions and attitudes of the crowd. Watchers drifted over to pay their respects. Being treated to the awe of dozens of total strangers made Joe uneasy. They scattered like pigeons when Methos materialized. “This is their territory, their chronicles, not mine,” Joe said. “I’m just a guy passing through.”
“Are you kidding? You’re a rock star to them, Joe. This is the Woodstock of Watcherdom, and you’re on stage. Everyone here came to see if you could pull this off.”
Joe patted the age-blackened boards, and looked around. The wooden stage felt almost good. The bar felt nearly right. One little corner of his own time, preserved in amber. Methos flipped a spotlight on, quieting the nattering crowd around Flint. The light centered on a lone guitar on a stand behind him, just within reach. His guitar. His bar. His stage.
Everything snapped into place.
“Play something for us, Joe,” Methos asked softly.
++++
“I can’t believe you got Flint to agree to losing his head to you.” Joe accepted another draft. The Dumuzi went down easily.
“He’s not convinced he can lose,” Methos said. “It’s that narcissistic bend in his makeup. He always convinces himself he might win. Theoretically the rift ramps up if either of us lose our heads. Practically, I’d rather keep mine.”
“So you’re going back home to 2001, to get Kirk to bring me here, so you can bring me back home to 2001.” Joe was on the edge of drunk, and trying to trace the timelines. He suspected beer wasn’t increasing his IQ. Maybe whisky would help.
“That is the current plan, yes. We’ll trick out a shuttle, using the schematics I stole from the Enterprise. I pack into the shuttle with you and Flint, we trigger the rift, and go back to 2001. I’ll take Flint back to the brewery to challenge my younger me. That will anchor the open particle funnel in the past. Then we hide under the canal and play yahtzee for a few hours. Kirk’s crew gets paid for playing hero. You get to hitchhike on a starship. Everybody wins!”
“So you triggered the rift. You’re the one Kirk was after, after all. But why nearly nuke Seacouver?”
“Bad things happen when you meet yourself. Take my word for it. The rift didn’t surge just because of the quickening. It surged because I got too close to myself.”
“But why trigger the funnel at all?”
“We needed to open the rift so Kirk and his crew would find you and bring you and the Walkman forward.”
“Why is Flint agreeing to this?” Joe asked, mystified.
“The worst personality disorder in the world. A Hero Complex.”
“Why doesn’t he just give his research results to himself in the past, and have him finish the cure?” Apparently Joe wasn’t quite drunk enough.
“Shhhhhh! Don’t let him hear you. That did not go well the first time,” Methos warned. “Your part is easy, from here on out. You just have to go home and convince my younger self to stick close to Earth until a cure is found.”
“Like that will be a walk in the park,” Joe snickered. He looked around the bar. “Do we have to go right back?” MacLeod waved from across the room. Amanda winked. “The party’s just starting.”
“We’ve got months to work on refinements,” Methos pointed out. “And Flint has years left, if he just stops whining and eats his vegetables. Also, we still have to build the shuttlecraft and give it a good cloaking device that hasn’t been invented yet.”
“You’ve got a lot of plates spinning, Methos.” Joe’s head spun with the possibilities.
“I think the bases are mostly covered, this time,” Methos said, going over a mental checklist. “I’ve always been able to rely on you.”
“This time? How many times have you tried this before?” Joe straightened, almost falling over.
“You know the secret of survival, Joe?” Methos steadied him by the elbow and handed him another beer. “Practice, practice, practice…”
++++
The Enterprise didn’t resume her mission immediately. The landing party remained tied up with extended debriefings with Starfleet Command and the Science Council. After two weeks of meetings, Kirk was more than ready to barrel out of orbit, leaving a trail of bureaucrats in his wake. Then Spock met him in the transporter room as he beamed aboard. That was not a good sign. “What is it now, Spock?”
“I have found an error in the historical record, Captain.”
“Only one, Spock?” Kirk asked, already feeling a new headache coming on.
“The library computer now has two diverging historical accounts of the incident in the brewery. One matches our original account, with Mr. Dawson going missing, and eventually declared dead. Another version is overlaying the first.”
“And in that version, Mr. Spock?”
“The reports of Joe Dawson’s death in 2001 are greatly exaggerated.”
“Have you scanned for his transponder?”
“I have located Mr. Dawson’s transponder in a suite on a cruise ship circumnavigating Earth’s oceans. Or, more precisely, I have located Mr. Dawson’s prosthetic left distal phalanx.”
++++
The elder Methos eased the shuttle out from under the waters of the Seacouver canal. Water cascaded from the disguised superstructure, and the gunnels smelled like seaweed and salmon guts.
Emergency lights dappled the lock area, which had imploded into a larger lake. “Behold, your new waterfront footage,” Methos commented. “You should build some outdoor tables to take advantage of the view.”
“Waterfront bistro by day, blues dive by night?” Joe speculated. “We’ll see what the city fathers say about that. Any idea how I’m going to afford all this?”
“That would be telling,” Methos declared. He guided the falsified fishing craft up to a deserted dock. “Are you sure you’ll make it back to the bar from here? I’d be disappointed to hear you were taken out by a mugger after we got you there and back again through 500 years of particle storms.”
“There’s not that much irony in the universe, Methos,” Joe reassured. “I’ll be fine. I need the walk to clear my mind.”
Methos helped Joe over the side, and then handed him up his gun, unloaded, half a clip, safety on. Kirk had had it last. Joe didn’t ask how Methos had acquired it, or when, or why. He really didn’t want to know.
“Hold for a moment. I have one last gift,” Methos said, ducking in the wheelhouse and returning with a fine, leather bound book.
“It’s beautiful.” The pages were covered with precise and elegant handwriting, and finely detailed illuminations. The book felt stiff, new, unread.
“Flint’s final theories and notes on the breakdown of immortal biology during space travel, and wellness recommendations for the prudent,” Methos explained. “There are also experimental results, which I don’t recommend reading on a full stomach. He believed his science was quite groundbreaking, and he was close to a cure. He might have been half right.”
“He believed the sun shone out of his ass, from what I saw. Why don’t you keep this for yourself? For insurance? Show it to someone like McCoy in the future. Find the cure yourself.”
“Ah, but you are my insurance, Joe. That’s the beauty of it. In giving it to you, I’ve already restarted the clock. My other me has a couple of centuries to work on it. The future awaits,” the elder Methos said, taking Joe’s hand and measure one last time. “Take care, my friend. You live in interesting times.”
Joe noted the crinkles around Methos eyes, and faint lines harrowing his visage. “Take care of yourself. Growing old bites.” Joe gripped his hand hard. “Will I ever see you again?”
“Who knows?” Methos eased back into the boat, pushed his hands into the pockets of his raveling red pants, and shrugged. “Will my timeline fade if you manage to save the immortals? Will it snap like a twig?” The fog rolled in, softening the air between them, concealing the years. He didn’t look a day over 5000. “I don’t believe I will fade, Joe. You’re too concrete. Too real. You make me real as well.”
“So, a paradox.”
“Or a parallel. Maybe one universe can’t grow without the other, like vines intertwining. Or perhaps there are many threads winding through the cosmos. The weaving gods know. Someday I’ll rebuild a shrine.”
“Farewell, Methos,” Joe called over the water.
“Fare thee well too, Joe. Fare grandly!” Methos’ shuttlecraft drifted into the mist, leaving only the faint smell of fish hanging on the dock.
Joe did make it safely to Joe’s Bar. He paused to stare at his neon sign, watching the light flicker, hearing the noble gases hiss. Then he dug out his key and unlocked the door. The bar was dark and deserted, except for a cocktail candle burning on the back bar. He found a trail of beer bottles leading to his office. The light was on. His guitar was stashed safely on the stand in the corner next to his reading chair.
Methos sprawled on the office sofa like a dead man. There was still a faint crust of blood in his eyebrow, but most of the rest had dried and flaked away, or been washed away in the flood. His cotton pullover was singed where it wasn’t soaked. Joe sniffed. He also reeked of a medium pale ale.
“Where have you been?” Methos cracked open an eye, clearly miffed.
“You look fried. And toasted.” But Joe silently thanked the stars he was there at all.
“I came back to life in your alley in the middle of the night. You weren’t there. You weren’t open. Why were you not open?” Methos complained.
“There was a quickening,” Joe reminded.
“There was a very big, no good, very bad quickening,” Methos agreed. “Flint is a very demanding fellow. He keeps trying to tell me something important. It keeps leaking out of my brain. Did you record the fight? Maybe I can figure it out from your tapes.”
“Save yourself,” Joe whispered. He felt the weight of his Walkman in his pocket like a stone.
Methos sat up halfway, then groaned, holding his head. “Save me. This hangover is the worst. Flint collected personality disorders like credit cards. Narcissism. Paranoia. I’m still trying to find his sense of humor! Can you believe he totalled my new brewery? I was going to surprise you today!” Methos tried to rise again.
“Surprise,” Joe laughed, easily pushing Methos back into the cushions. He most definitely needed to replace the couch. “We’ll salvage what we can from Dumuzi and move it here. There’s a lot of work to do.”
“Easy for you to say. Why are you so chipper? Last I saw, there was a ton of mash avalanching your way. You should be dead.” Methos thought about that, before adding, “I am, by the way, glad you aren’t dead.”
“I’m glad you aren’t dead, either,” Joe soothed, as he shook out a blanket and threw it over Methos, as much to cover the smell as to keep him warm.
“Did you know today is Dumuzi’s Day?” Methos rambled in a waking dream. “He get’s hitched to Inanna. The tavern keepers used to make out like bandits. It was going to be my grand opening. Inanna is going to be pissed.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll invite everyone we know to the party, and have beer for breakfast.” Joe stretched out in his reading chair, then realized his reading glasses were still on the register in the bar. He slid Flint’s book into the bookshelf, to scare himself later. He ran his hand softly over the neck of his guitar, and turned off the light. “Sleep, Methos, while we have the time. Tomorrow, we’ll have a long, long talk.”
END