bliss1-4

Author's notes: Huge thanks to Cindy Hudson, Terry Odell and Sue Factor for their beta-reading. Any remaining mistakes are obviously my own fault. Thanks also to Johanne Briere, whose constant encouragement is a beacon. This story is rated R for violence and occasional sex. It also gets a little sad. Rabbi David Grossman was first introduced in my story "The Victories We Claim," and this story presupposes a friendship between Methos and Richie. Enjoy!

Bliss
Part 1

Connor blocked effortlessly and returned the favor. "A police officer," he repeated.

The two Immortals circled each other, their bare feet gliding smoothly over the hardwood floors of the studio. Harsh Manhattan sunlight fell through the open clerestory windows. Ceiling fans, Connor's concession to the brutal heatwaves and power shortages of the twenty-first century, strained to move the thick, sluggish air. Sweat soaked Methos' tank top, trousers and underwear. Better to end this quickly, and grab a wonderfully cold shower.

"A police officer?" he demanded, lunging for Connor's left side. He scored the slightest of scrapes before the Highlander turned his blade aside. Connor always had been quicker than he looked.

"A detective. One of New York's finest," David Grossman offered from where he sat on a bench, eating his lunch. "Charged with protecting and serving his community."

"I know what a police officer is." Methos blocked Connor's next two moves and resisted the urge to wipe away the sweat dripping into his eyes. "I'm just having a hard time reconciling the idea of Richie Ryan and a career in law enforcement."

Connor grinned. "I have a hard time seeing you enforcing the law, but not Richie."

David spoke up over the clash of steel. "No, our dear Methos would never make a good policeman. A spy, perhaps. A most excellent spy."

The swordplay went on for several more minutes until David declared a tie and urged them to sit and eat. Methos grumbled that in a real fight, there would no tie. Connor's stubborn nature made him just as disinclined to give up. But David dangled synthetic roast beef sandwiches and real chocolate chip cookies as incentives, and the two fighters capitulated.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, still sweating and a little winded, Methos pressed a bottle of icy root beer against the side of his face. He would have preferred real beer, but he'd take what he could get. The conversation turned back to the topic of their young Immortal friend.

"This interest in police work must be a fad," Methos scoffed. "How long has he been at it?"

Methos waved his hand. "A blink of an eye. He was in the Peace Corps longer than that. And he was a social worker for - what? - ten years?"

Connor finished chewing and swallowed before answering. "He's one hundred years old. He doesn't need our approval."

In that, Methos decided, Connor was wrong. On the outside, Richie Ryan appeared independent and headstrong. He'd started fighting for his life at age nineteen. He'd crossed the United States and part of South America on his motorcycle just a few months later. He'd worked his way through dozens of occupations, taken his fair share of heads, and lived interesting lives all over the world. But some small part of him still craved the approval of his mentors. Disapproving words from Duncan or Connor might not persuade him from his course of action, but they might make him steer more carefully.

Then again, he hadn't seen Richie in several years. People changed. Immortals changed. He himself was proof of that.

"Why do you frown?" David asked curiously. "Police work is an honorable profession."

"And a dangerous one," Methos pointed out. "He could get killed in front of a dozen witnesses, and have to start all over again."

Methos plucked a stray chocolate chip from his lap while he pondered his answer. "Fighting crime is futile. People have always broken laws. They always will. Trying to change that is impossible."

David's eyes twinkled in anticipation of an interesting discussion. "You prefer a lawless society? Might overcomes right, survival of the strongest?"

Methos refused to be baited. "No. I prefer saving my energy for battles I know I can win."

Connor shrugged. "I don't think Richie's in it for winning or losing. I think he wants to make a difference."

"Don't we all?" David finished off his sandwich and neatly swept the crumbs into his lunch box. "Even you, Methos. In some small, tiny, barely acknowledged way, don't you want to make a difference?"

"It's a stage," Methos said firmly. "We've all seen it. A pre-Immortal dies and discovers there's more to life after death than he ever imagined. First comes denial. Then fear - of fighting, of taking heads, of the Game. For most, fear gives way to acceptance, training, the first Quickening. Then - ta da - celebration! Cunning acquisition of power and wealth. Life becomes one big endless party, punctuated every now and then by occasional bloodshed. But, alas, hedonism doesn't work for everyone. It grows boring. Some turn to self-sacrifice and community work, trying to make the world a better place."

Methos ignored the jibe. "Others start families, try to settle into quiet, anonymous lives that offer the illusion of comfort and safety. But spouses and children die. The Game keeps landing on your doorstep. Eventually you realize that no matter what you do, what you improve, what you try and hold together, life and the Game take away. Entropy. Things fall apart - buildings, societies, civilizations. At the end of the day, all you have is your sword and your head. Pretending otherwise is nothing but sheer ignorance."

Connor and David gazed at him with mixed surprise and thoughtfulness. Methos met their scrutiny squarely, but then suffered a flush of embarrassment. He didn't mind making speeches, but he suspected he'd just revealed more about himself and his motives for coming to New York than he'd intended. He felt as though he'd accidentally dropped his trousers in front of a room full of strangers, not two of his most valued friends.

The hum of an approaching Immortal saved him from making a further fool of himself. Richie Ryan appeared in the doorway, looking as young as always, a sword case in hand and a hopeful smile on his face. "Hey, guys. Do I smell lunch?"

The last thing Richie had wanted to do that sweltering Thursday afternoon was visit Connor's studio. He and his partner Baxter Bushwell had worked late the night before, tracking down leads on a particularly heinous and frustrating murder. The pressure from on high to solve the case had started to give Richie a permanent headache. The electricity had been off in his building when he arrived home after midnight, a scheduled blackout as the city rotated its strained power resources. He didn't mind climbing the ten flights of stairs as much as he did the hot, stifling air that met him when he opened the front door. How was he supposed to sleep in that oven? How could anyone?

Judging from the messiness of the apartment, Jennifer had spent the day too absorbed in her studies to do the slightest bit of housework. The smell of dirty dishes made Richie's nose wrinkle, but when he went to put them in the dishwasher he saw that the machine had broken again. With luck, they might be able to get someone to fix it in six or eight weeks. Every service company in the city had waiting lists that stretched for weeks, months, sometimes even years. The building's plumbing had clogged over the winter, back when Richie still lived alone, and he'd had to move into Connor's place for the month it had taken to get an 'emergency repair officer' in to fix the problem.

Richie stood in the dark kitchen by the broken dishwasher, half-tempted to just turn around and go rent a hotel suite somewhere that had electricity, air-conditioning and a pleasant smell. Instead, he spent the next twenty minutes cleaning Jennifer's caked-over dinner plate and scouring the pots she'd used to make spaghetti. His stomach growled, reminding him that he'd skipped dinner, but the leftovers in the refrigerator looked greasy and nothing else appealed to him. Reeking of tomato sauce and city grime, he showered under a weak fall of lukewarm water and crawled into bed. The clock read 1:20 a.m.

Jennifer, sprawled over half the mattress with no clothes on, didn't stir when he whispered her name.

"Jen, wake up," he tried again. Richie lay near to her, their heads close together. He whispered, "There's something I have to tell you. I'm an Immortal. I take heads."

Richie rolled onto his back. He'd confessed his secret to her at least a dozen times, all in the dead of night. The question of whether or not to tell her while she was actually awake weighed seriously on his mind. Surely she should know. Surely he could trust her with all his secrets. But some distrustful part of him held back, hedged all bets, and he didn't have to be a certified genius to recognize that signaled a problem in their relationship.

Duncan had told Tessa, and that relationship - even though it was almost hundred years in the past - remained his standard for every relationship since.

Richie turned his head. Jennifer's chest rose and fell in even rhythm, her lips slightly parted, her breasts heavy and cream-colored in the darkness. Her long blonde hair lay spread like a fan across the pillows. Her body was all curves and soft edges, with strong thighs and graceful hands. They hadn't had sex in a month. He supposed he should feel bad about that, should take steps to correct the situation, but he just didn't have the energy. Besides, Jennifer hadn't been complaining, either. The pressures of his job and her studies probably contributed to the situation, but maybe, after two years together, their fiery passion had just slipped naturally into a more sedate state.

Besides, he was a hundred years old. Not eighteen. The raging libido he'd carried with him over the threshold of Immortality was bound to fade sooner or later.

Still too wired to sleep, Richie listened to the sounds of skytrams through the open windows. God, he was beginning to hate the city. The constant noise, the unbearable crowds, the chaos of too many people and too few resources. Although he'd enjoyed being a cop at first, grisly and awful cases like the Alice Uberay murder made him really wonder about the future of mankind. Maybe he needed a vacation. Duncan had decided to stay in Europe for awhile, leaving his beach house on the Gulf of Mexico empty for the summer. "Use it, Richie," the Highlander had urged. With all the vacation time the department owed him, Richie could easily fly down and do nothing for a few weeks but surf, sleep and watch women in bikinis brave the dangers of ultraviolet radiation.

But he couldn't go to Florida. First off, Jennifer had until the end of the summer to pass the bar exam or lose her chance to take it for two years. She couldn't afford to spend time frolicking in the waves with him, and wouldn't take it well if he went off without her. The second reason he couldn't go had to do with ghosts, old memories and love lost. He and Felicia Martins had spent several happy summers in Mac's house, and the thought of going there without her made his chest constrict. Richie looked at the phone, wondering if Felicia were still awake, if she would talk to him. Their break-up had been a spectacular and ugly fiasco, an eight point zero on the Richter scale of relationship disasters, and he was lucky he'd walked away from it with his head still on his shoulders.

Still, the idea of sitting on the beach and doing absolutely nothing appealed to his tired and overworked heart. Richie fell asleep dreaming of the ocean and woke barely five hours later when the beside alarm started screeching. He hit the snooze button twice and overslept by a half hour.

"Why didn't you wake me?" he yelled as he tossed his way through the closet, trying to find just one pair of clean pants.

Richie appeared in the doorway with two rumpled shirts in hand. "Do you think you could do the laundry today?"

"I have to study," Jennifer replied, her hands wrapped around a cup of coffee, eyes glued to the television. "Why don't you just drop everything off at the cleaner's?"

"I would if I had just a spare second in my day. Some of us don't have the luxury of making our own schedules!"

So in addition to being late, having no decent clothes and operating on a scant few hours of sleep, Richie found himself fighting with Jennifer. They exchanged a number of sharp, caustic words before he slammed the door behind him. At least three hundred people were in line ahead of him at the commuting station, and he impatiently used his badge to bypass them all. To make matters worse, the skytrams had backed up because of a breakdown above Fifth Avenue. He sprinted the last four blocks to a midtown court to testify in a robbery case, and for all his effort received a rebuking from the prosecutor's office.

"If the judge wasn't running late already, you'd be in deep shit," the lead attorney told him.

"Yeah, well, when was the last time anything didn't run late in this city?" Richie shot back.

He went in search of a vending machine, but the only two he could find were both out of order. Richie contemplated smashing their glass cases and swiping breakfast, not a great idea in a courthouse. For two hours he endured examination and cross-examination while his stomach growled from hunger. A call from his captain dragged him down to the precinct immediately afterward, with only a sugary doughnut for a quick energy boost. After a thorough ass-chewing for failing to make progress on the Alice Uberay case, Richie found it hard to justify taking the afternoon off.

"Fuck it, just go," Baxter said. The mortal detective, thin and balding and just thirty-five years old, wiped at his forehead as the overhead vents pumped out barely-cool air. Sweat stained his underarms. "You said your cousin's only in town for a few days, right?"

"Yeah." Richie slipped his debit card into the small beverage cart circulating through the bullpen and gulped at an iced coffee. "But I can always see him next time."

What Richie couldn't tell Baxter was that he had deeply ambivalent feelings about seeing Methos, his so-called 'cousin,' for the first time in five years. The ancient Immortal had been living like a recluse in Turkey. He hadn't attended David Grossman's last wedding in '72, and he'd also missed the party Duncan and Connor had thrown Richie in September for his hundredth birthday. Behavior like that had gotten him scratched off Richie's Christmas card list. In addition, Richie didn't think Methos would approve of his being a police officer. Although the time when Methos' opinions mattered had long since passed, he didn't want to hear any acerbic remarks about his latest occupation.

And, truth be told, Connor was bound to comment on about how little time Richie had spent on his swordwork lately, and he felt guilty enough without the nagging.

Baxter shook his head. "Go, go, go. We haven't had a day off in two weeks, and you're going to have to cover for me on Saturday when I go to Katie Ann's dance recital."

What Richie really wanted to do was go home and sleep. But if he went home, he and Jennifer would probably just fight more. He could still feel himself simmering from their morning confrontation. Women. Relationships. Maybe neither one of them was worth the effort. With those thoughts in mind, he retrieved his sword case and gym bag from his locker and took an autocab uptown to Connor's building near the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

On the way up the stairs to the second floor studio he felt three successive buzzes and guessed that David had dropped by. Perhaps the rabbi - Richie always thought of him as a rabbi, even when he wasn't working as one - had brought food, too. He sniffed the air hopefully. When he saw Connor, Methos and David sitting against the far wall he forced a smile and said, "Hey, guys. Do I smell lunch? I'm starving."

"You're in luck," David said, pulling a sandwich from his lunchbox. "Sabra packed enough to feed everyone twice. My wife is very enthusiastic about food."

"Which is why I love her." Richie crossed the room and put down his case. To Methos he said, as if only a day had passed and not five years, "Nice to see you, old-timer."

"Nice to see you, too." Methos replied. He didn't rise or offer his hand, but the smile on his face seemed sincere.

Richie sat down on the floor and eagerly unwrapped his sandwich, resisting the urge to just chomp through the wax paper. "Busy. Murders, mayhem, mysteries, same old, same old." He looked up at David and asked, "Did my friend Isaac come see you?"

"Indeed he did. Such a fine young man. He signed up for one of my fall courses."

"Every time I send one of my friends to you, you sign them up for classes," Richie pointed out. "I should get referral fees."

David smiled and folded his hands over his rounded belly. "One day, maybe you'll sign up, too. Convert. Become a good Jew. Marry a nice girl and adopt children."

David taught Jewish theology at Yeshiva University in Washington Heights. His wife Sabra, an Immortal herself, had come from Israel to study at Yeshiva for her Ph.D. in philosophy. They'd met at a rally against biological warfare and married twelve months later. Sabra was just a few years older than Richie, no slouch with a sword, an amazingly smart woman who, by all appearances, was as much in love with David as he was with her.

"How do you know?" Richie retorted, for the sake of banter. He felt better with each swallow of real food. "I could if I wanted to."

Connor lifted his eyebrows and put a little humor in his voice. "Good little Richie Ryan, raised by sweet old nuns and stern priests in the everlasting glory of the Church? Baby in the manger, cross on the wall, your best clothes on Easter Sunday? Guilt, confession, penance? Any of this ring a bell?"

Richie laughed. "There are no such things as sweet old nuns. It's all an act. They secretly play poker and smoke cigars and take the name of the Lord in vain."

Duncan and Connor were both Catholic. Duncan was the pious one, prone to brooding about God and immortality. Connor acted much more relaxed about his faith. Duncan wouldn't even joke about Jesus Christ, whereas Connor was known to make a dry observation or two. Their beliefs had been forged in the violent, superstitious Highlands of Scotland, a land and time Richie could only experience vicariously late at night, around campfires or blazing hearths, when whisky had loosened his elders' tongues. As far as Richie could tell from those half-inebriated ramblings, both Highlanders believed to one extent or another in Jesus Christ, the Little People, the Immaculate Conception, screaming Banshees, saints, witches, heaven, woodland spirits, the Virgin Mary and demons.

Tickled by the idea of converting - he hadn't been to church in thirty or forty years except when ducking other Immortals or going to funerals - Richie turned to David. "What makes a good Jew?"

"Service to community and family," David replied promptly. "Living joyfully and prosperously. Obeying God's laws. Appreciating what's been given to you and showing that appreciation. Making the world a better place."

David folded his hands. "The Jewish people are much more concerned with the here-and-now than the afterlife."

"Well," David conceded, a bit reluctantly, "some believe in the World To Come, the land of eternal bliss."

The remaining weight of Richie's shitty morning lifted from his shoulders. Being around David almost always improved his mood, made life look less bleak and threatening. David just had a gift in that regard. "I could do all that," Richie said easily. "Make the world a better place, no problem. Where do I sign up?"

Methos, who had stayed silent during the exchange, spoke in a cool, scornful voice. "You sign up in the gas chamber where everyone you ever loved just died. You sign up in pain and agony, because God shows his love for his chosen people by letting them suffer and die."

David blinked as if struck in the face by an open hand. Richie, pinned by Methos' sharp gaze, felt as if he'd somehow said or done something unforgivable. Connor glowered at the ancient Immortal, and gave a retort of his own.

"Catholics have died for their faith, too," he said, with his own particular MacLeod iciness. "Burned at the stake, starved and driven out, torn from limb to limb. You think the Jews are the only ones who've suffered?"

For a few seconds, only the thump-thump-thump of the ceiling fan sounded in the studio. Methos turned his gaze from Richie and reached for his towel. He rose to his feet gracefully, fluidly, like a snake uncoiling.

"Maybe it's best to believe in nothing at all," he said, and walked into the locker room.

Bewildered by Methos' reaction, a little angered as well, Richie asked, "What the hell was that all about?"

David offered a small smile before ducking inside the locker room. "We'll find out, won't we? If I lose my head, make sure Sabra knows I won't be home for dinner."

Richie remembered, belatedly, that Connor and Methos had fought together in World War II. He didn't know the specifics. The murder of six million Jews had happened over one hundred and thirty years earlier, long before his birth. His history had been forged with different catastrophes. Chemical warfare had destroyed much of the Amazon jungle. Nuclear detonations had flattened parts of India, Pakistan and Russia. Ongoing climate changes had triggered devastating floods, typhoons and crop failures. Scientific mishaps such as genetically engineered viruses and the collapse of wide-spectrum antibiotics had caused their own disasters as well. And overpopulation, perhaps the worst of the world's problems, had led to birth restrictions even in the United States. The planet simply could not labor much longer under the burden of twenty billion people.

Given all those disasters, given the ruined world he'd inherited from his Immortal and mortal forebearers, perhaps he could be excused for detonating a Methos landmine he hadn't even known existed.

Richie stifled a groan. He briefly considered a half-dozen flimsy excuses, none of which would work, and then lifted his sword just as the Highlander lunged for Richie's stomach. How cruel, to try and skewer his lunch before he even had the chance to digest it. Richie blocked the move and, in retaliation, sliced across Connor's chest. A thin line of blood appeared, but Connor only grinned.

"No," Richie admitted. "Maybe I'll just buy enough time to run away really fast."

Humor and cleverness couldn't get him past the fact it had been several weeks since he'd trained in earnest, at least five months since he'd last battled another Immortal to the death. His response time had slowed, his stamina decreased. A dozen injuries later, with significant pools of his own blood on the floor, Richie became peripherally aware that Methos and David had returned to the corner of the room to watch. Their presence and critical eyes distracted him, and he left a wide opening on his right side. It took only a split-second for Connor to plunge his sword right through Richie.

Richie didn't want to scream in front of any of his friends, but, shit, that hurt. He lay doubled-up on the floor, breathing through the pain, enduring several minutes of agony while silently cursing Connor, sharp objects, Immortality, the Game and anything else that came to mind. The Highlander toweled off, drank water and cleaned his sword. David packed up his picnic basket. Methos came over to Richie's side, crouched down low and said, with a perfectly straight face, "Well? Are you going to just lay around all day?"

Healed, showered and in fresh clothes, resigned to showing Methos whatever he wanted to see, Richie soon discovered the ancient Immortal disdained autocabs and refused to climb into one.

"I don't trust the descendant of a toaster to drive me around," he said, referring to the autocab's computer. Richie guessed that pretty much ruled out an autobus as well. Privately owned, human-operated transportation had been banned from New York for decades. Autocabs, autobuses and autotrucks had free reign of the city streets, interrupted only occasionally by official police cars or fire trucks. The hydrogen-electric engines of all vehicles had improved the pollution problem, but sometimes Richie missed the thrill of gunning a diesel engine, or of dodging traffic on his motorcycle.

The two Immortals stood outside Connor's brownstone in the sweltering heat, the sun beating down on their backs as they considered their options.

"We can take the subway or skytrams," Richie suggested. Electric-driven trains still ran beneath the city, although the air down there wasn't always the best quality. He preferred the more expensive monorails that ran above Manhattan's major streets.

That might have once been true, but strolling around an overcrowded island besieged by pollution, radiation and blistering heat didn't rank high up on Richie's list of beneficial physical activities. Nevertheless, without waiting to hear any objections, Methos set off down Amsterdam Ave and Richie reluctantly followed.

The crowds kept them from getting anywhere quickly. People on their way to work or already coming home from it. Workers on lunch breaks, students caught in between classes. The unemployed, the unemployable. Homeless families begging for money alongside street musicians. Gen ZYX slackers with their shaved skulls painted in rainbow colors. Zealots shouting about the end of the world to anyone who would listen. A thousand different nationalities, bodies of every shape, size and color, dozens of languages ringing through the air. Many people hadn't showered recently, or needed to shower again soon. Sweat-soaked men brushed by Richie, dirty children ran underfoot, women spritzed cloying perfume. Corner vendors sold portable ventilators at exorbitant prices.

If Methos noticed any of it, if the teeming crowds bothered him or if the air burned in his chest as it did Richie's, he gave no indication.

"Did David ever take you on one of his famous walking tours of the city?" the ancient Immortal asked as they waited for a pedestrian light to turn.

"Yeah." Richie rubbed the collar of his shirt, which had begun to chafe in the heat. "It gets old after a while."

"It's like being stuck in a huge museum," Richie said. "Gets kind of boring. 'This is where Four Points was.' 'This is where the United Nations used to be.' So what?"

"In reasonable doses," Richie answered. "I really don't need to know the history of every single city block, you know?"

Methos gave him a look Richie instantly recognized. He'd seen it often enough from Connor or Duncan. That look, which could only be delivered by someone with several centuries under his or her belt, and which could only be directed at a younger Immortal, always conveyed the message, "You've still got a lot to learn, kid."

"Maybe I just think my attention is better off focused on the present and the future," he told Methos.

They crossed the street and soon ran into a knot of people gathered around a man having a heart attack. The paramedics had already arrived, no need for Richie to help. Three blocks later, a drunken man tried to scale a monorail tower. Two street cops talked him down while trams continued speeding uptown and downtown. News clips and dizzyingly quick commercials blasted from electronic billboards mounted high above, while music and TV programs roared from storefronts.

"Surely things will be quieter in the park," Methos muttered, and they headed down 103rd Street. Scaffolds, cordoned-off blocks and construction crews made him halt. "What's going on down here?"

"They have to. Too little ozone, too much pollution - if they don't protect it, the whole thing will be dead in a few years."

Richie flashed his badge at the crews so they didn't have to detour several blocks around. They slipped past the yellow barrier tape. "They're going to start charging admission, too."

The crowds dissipated a little inside the park, although not by much. Robots mounted on electric carts mowed the sparse grass and tended the slowly dying trees. The canopy of greenery, thinned by radiation and acid rain, offered at least some sparse shade to mitigate the heat. They purchased two bottles of water from an automated vendor for fifty dollars each.

"I remember when fifty dollars was a lot of money," Richie said, feeling just a twinge of nostalgia.

Richie knew better than to try and win a pissing contest with Methos. The ancient Immortal probably remembered the time before money even existed. Or even before people climbed out of caves and set up banks. Richie had never really asked how far back Methos' memory stretched, although Duncan had once told him it was pretty damned far.

Richie, who'd been busy watching two teenage girls in very tight shorts, didn't understand the question. "Why a policeman what?"

Methos drank some of his water and gazed off into the distance. "I was a policeman once. Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard."

Richie didn't immediately believe him. Methos couldn't always be trusted to tell the truth, the whole truth or anything but the truth. Sometimes he said things just to get a reaction. "Scotland Yard, huh? Next you're going to tell me Jack the Ripper was an Immortal."

"Not hardly," Methos replied. "But as to whether or not he was a member of the royal family . . . well, that's a story for another day."

Richie had no idea what Methos was talking about. He recognized, however, that the ancient Immortal had sidestepped his question about Turkey. "So why the recluse act? And don't change the subject by telling me you were also a policeman for some pharaoh or something."

Methos said, "Careful. Some of my best friends and worst enemies were pharaohs."

Methos stopped walking. A teenager on a turbo-skate zoomed past him, followed by a woman jogging with two orange-colored dogs. "People die all the time, whether I answer my email or not."

"Nice attitude." Richie pitched his empty water bottle toward a recycling bin. It bounced off the rim and rolled down the sidewalk. A litterbot rolling up the sidewalk caught it immediately.

The little machine tucked the bottle inside its hull along with other stray refuse and continued on its way.

"Maps?" Richie echoed. Drawing maps. Such a typical Methosian answer that Richie had to smile. "Look, I don't know how to break this to you, but you can buy maps of Turkey in bookstores. You can even download them off the net."

"No computer. No laptop, no handheld, no ocular implants, no cell phones, no wireless satellite phones, nothing. Just me, my camera, a notebook, a knapsack, and several pairs of boots."

Richie scratched his head. "This might be a stupid question, but didn't anyone ever drew a map of all these ruins before?"

"Oh," Richie said, as if he understood, but he really didn't. Spending five years walking around Turkey and drawing maps of Roman ruins sounded like a mammoth waste of time. Maybe when he turned five thousand years old, he'd think differently. Probably not. He took a deep breath.

"Tell me," Methos interrupted firmly, his gaze hopeful. "Do they still sell beer in this vast metropolis? Real, honest-to-goodness, no-imitations-allowed beer?"

Richie grinned. "Yeah. Beer's not illegal - it's just really, really expensive."

Battling the ever-present crowds that swelled with the onset of night, Methos and Richie made their way steadily from uptown to downtown. City lights burned as far as the eye could see, a million colorful beacons. A mind-numbing tornado of traffic, people and music whirled around them everywhere they went. New York had become the city of all cities, the pinnacle of both greatness and disaster, genius and madness. Every other city in world history had been a mere prelude to the vast metropolis, every other civilization a trivial footnote. Methos, the oldest man on the planet, the very embodiment of human history, felt like a dwarfed and inconsequential ant.

"How can you live in a place like this?" he demanded as they pushed their way past the crowds around Rockefeller-Suyung Center. Further down the narrow canyon of buildings, aircars pirouetted around the New Empire State Building like golden hummingbirds.

"I'll take a nice medieval village any day," Methos grumbled. The extraordinary city he remembered fondly from the 1940's and 1950's had turned into a monstrous maze of technology, commercialization and excess. Intoxicating glitter above the streets, toxic sewage beneath them. He tilted his head back and looked at the night sky, which glowed a dull orange. "You can't even see the stars."

"Who needs stars?" Richie grinned. "I want to see stars, I'll go to the planetarium."

Just three weeks earlier, Methos had stood contemplating his future in the middle of the vast, dark, marvelously underpopulated Goreme Valley. Gazing up at the constellations that had guided him both figuratively and literally for more than five millennium, he'd decided to break his self-imposed exile and leave Turkey. In retrospect, perhaps he had been wrong. He felt no kinship to the modern world and its largesses. And the sudden, inexplicable bitterness that had overtaken him in Connor's studio surely indicated he wasn't fit to be good company yet.

Richie hadn't really deserved the harsh words Methos had leveled at him. He was just a kid, after all, with no real understanding of Judaism or the historic suffering of Jews. That Richie had even lived to be a hundred was a grand achievement. The cocky, immature teenager Methos had first met in Duncan's loft should have been an early casualty of the Game. But against all odds, he'd survived countless swordfights against older and superior opponents. Three or four times he'd managed to avoid being beheaded by his own teacher. If he could just get past the ridiculous habit of trying to help everyone he came in contact with, he had the potential to live a long and prosperous life.

But that helping thing, that was bound to trip him up sooner or later. Or even that very moment, as Richie approached a girl with glittered hair who sat sprawled in a nearby doorway.

"New York, Ne-ew York, city of light," she sang, quite badly. She patted her own breasts and licked at her yellow lipstick. Her knees fell open, revealing a swath of pink underwear. "Take me back to Ne-ew York . . ."

Other pedestrians kept moving, ignoring the sight, just more madness in the streets, but Richie crouched beside her and flashed his badge.

The girl - she couldn't have been more than fifteen - was high on some unknown drug. She couldn't or wouldn't tell Richie her name and address, though did giggle that both Richie and Methos had 'cute asses.' Richie decided to call a patrol unit to come lock her up overnight.

"Is that what they used to do in Scotland Yard?" Richie asked. "Leave people out in the street?"

"Survival of the fittest," Methos said. He bore the girl no ill will. Neither did he see himself as her guardian or rescuer. "Those rules will never change."

Richie stood and looked down at the woman. "My partner and I are working on the case of a pregnant woman who was kidnapped and chopped into tiny little pieces. She and the baby both. Guess it was her fault, for being so stupid to think she was safe in a restaurant in the middle of New York City."

The younger Immortal lifted his gaze, and Methos realized he was wrong. Richie might only be a hundred years old, but he was no kid.

"Just one at a time," Richie replied, and he sounded so very much like David Grossman at that moment that Methos had to look away.

Two uniformed officers came to escort Miss Pink Underwear away, leaving the two Immortals to the serious pursuit of finding good beer. They downed the best of the offerings in an exclusive retro-techno palace on Fifth Avenue, an extreme-sports bar near Greenwich Village and a disreputable watering hole near what had once been called Wall Street. Piss-poor, most of it, at least in Methos' seasoned opinion. Such was the price of computer-run breweries and genetically altered wheat. Still, he drank enough to get reasonably intoxicated. Falling-down-drunk was a luxury he couldn't afford. Manhattan had too many dark corners and attracted too many damned Immortals for him to completely lose his guard or ability to wield a sword.

The unrelenting heat and riot of the city seemed to suck tolerance right out of him, though. By the time he and Richie stumbled into the lobby of the younger Immortal's building around midnight, Methos felt far drunker than he'd intended. Richie's redshot eyes and bleary gaze gave no better impression. Richie waved his keycard at the security gate, overshot his mark, and grabbed a nearby column for support.

"Ooops," he burped. To the post he said, "Sorry, ma'am, didn't see you there. Do you need some help getting home?"

Methos dragged him toward the only working elevator, and they lurched inside together. Richie waved his card a second time and the car jerked into its ascent.

Methos' thoughts wandered in several different directions before he remembered Jennifer was Richie's fiancee. He'd mentioned her a few times during the evening, had indicated she was a law student. But the younger Immortal hadn't complained much when Methos brought a pair of charming sisters back to their table. The twin brunettes from Maine had disliked beer but loved to dance. Methos still felt a certain tingling where one had held him as they twirled across the floor. Manhattan always had been a good source of pretty women with soft hands and softer lips.

"Do you think?" Richie asked again, looking at Methos like a blue-eyed puppy dog.

"That I should tell her about us." Richie cut through the air with his hand. "You know. Swish-swish-swish."

"No," Methos said firmly. "Absolutely nothing about us. Should you choose to tell her about you - well, that depends. How much do you trust her?"

"I'm going to marry her!" Richie said, nearly indignant. "I trust her a lot. Don't you think that's important? Trusting her a lot?"

Since leaving Connor's studio they had managed to avoid most personal topics, and now the kid wanted relationship advice. "I don't think you should tell her," he said, as the car ground to a stop. "I think silence is golden."

Richie wandered down the hallway, peering closely at the apartment numbers. "I think I should," he mumbled. "Marriage is about trust. Trust is about love. Marry me, marry my sw- "

A second later Richie found his front door and let them inside. The apartment was small and cramped, which Methos expected. Of all the changes the twenty-first century had brought to New York, affordable quality housing wasn't one of them. Richie's fiancee sat cross-legged on the sofa, her straight blonde hair hanging to her waist. A man in his twenties sat on the floor near the coffee table, typing into his palm computer.

"There you are," Jennifer said, looking up with neither welcome or rebuff. Her gaze flickered from Richie to Methos and back again. "Welcome home."

"Thanks." Richie burped again. He didn't go to her, but instead flopped down in a chair across the crowded room. He eyed Jennifer's companion. "How's it going, Evan?"

"Hey, Rich. Same old crap. Tort reform sucks." The man rose and offered Methos his hand. "Hi there. I'm Evan Barnes."

"Thomas Linden," Methos said, using his most recent identity. Evan Barnes had a ragged haircut, a freckled nose, intelligent eyes, a solid handshake and a smudge of red under his left jaw.

"Not recently." Richie gave Methos a lopsided grin and turned back to Jennifer. "So what did you two do all day? Study, study, study?"

Evan met his gaze and flushed. He would never be a good poker player, Methos decided. Not good at hiding his hand. Jennifer, though, wore a smooth, calm expression that would one day serve her well in court.

"I'll just be glad when the damned exam is over," Evan said. "Jen, I'm going to take off. I'll meet you at the library tomorrow, how's that? Noonish?"

Richie protested, "No, you should stay. Get to know Jen. The night's still young, and I don't have to be at work for . . . " He blinked owlishly at his watch. "Seven whole hours."

Evan said nothing as they walked down the hall to the elevator. Methos eyed him covertly, considering different plans of mischief. Normally he wouldn't get involved in such a matter. Whatever was going in between Richie, his fiancee and this third person was entirely none of Methos' business. Richie would find out on his own and deal with the situation as he saw fit. On the other hand, Methos had drunk more than he'd intended, and he did like Richie Ryan, and he knew what it was like to be cuckolded.

"So," Methos said, once they were the elevator car and descending, "how long have you been fooling around with her?"

"No, I don't - " Evan started, but then let out a startled yelp as Methos threw him up against the scratched mirrors that lined the car. The ancient Immortal pinned him in place and yanked Evan's head back.

"Let me go!" Evan struggled to free himself, even tried kicking, but Methos twisted his right arm up between his shoulder blades and bent close to his ear.

Evan's struggles subsided. Methos hadn't thought him stupid, after all - just young, and reckless, and now more than a little scared. "What the hell do you want?" the law student demanded.

"Whether or not she loves him, whether or not she tells him, you stay away from her," Methos said coldly. "Arms, ribs, backs - you'd be surprised how many things there are to break in a human body. Would you like to find out?"

He felt the dark thrill then, the victorious surge that came from delivering a threat and having the power to back it up. But the thrill was muted and muddled by alcohol, and he had no preference one way or the other when it came to breaking Evan's arm.

Methos let him go. The car stopped and the doors slid open. Evan pushed himself away from the mirror and lurched into the lobby, his left hand massaging his right shoulder, his face twisted with shame. He turned and glared at Methos, who hadn't moved from the car.

Enough was enough. "I don't?" Methos asked, stepping forward. "Perhaps I'd better break something after all, then, just as a reminder."

Evan squared his shoulders as if to face the threat, then bolted through the lobby doors and sprinted off into the night. Methos shook his head. The folly of youth. Had he ever been so easily inflamed, so foolishly brave? Perhaps, in ancient times, but he really couldn't remember that far back. Better that he didn't, he supposed.

A skytram rolled by overhead as he stepped outside Richie's building. Heat radiated from the pavement and asphalt, along with the lingering smells of too many people, too much food and garbage, too much waste. People everywhere, despite the late hour. A malfunctioning litterbot kept ramming itself against a fire hydrant, its small, muted cry distorted by a broken speaker.

He started walking back towards Connor's studio, his head tilted up as he scanned the sky fruitlessly for stars.