DISCLAIMERS: I do not own Adam Pierson/Methos, or any other recognizable Highlander or Highlander: The Series Character(s) in or referred to in the following story. All original characters are just what I said they are: MY original characters, or characters belonging to one or more of my friends. Do not use them without my consent, or there will be dire consequences.
*April 26, 2003, Gatwick, UK*
My name is, for all intents and purposes of this mission, Dr. Adam Pierson. I am five thousand, two hundred and sixty-seven years old today. I read, write, and can speak fluently Sanskrit, ancient Egyptian, Cuneiform, and several other ancient and/or dead languages as well as others can do the same with their native languages. I am a bookish looking chap if I do say so myself: I can usually be caught wearing a baggy, somewhat careworn sweater, faded jeans, and comfortable sneakers. I do not wear glasses, though I carry a fairly heavily prescripted pair, purely for sinister purposes, I assure you. The ants do not like me. I am about six fairly lanky feet tall. I can creep up on you, and your only warning will be the rush of air before you lose consciousness (or I scare the living daylights out of you, depending on your relationship with me). I have high, clear-cut cheekbones and a prominent roman nose. My eyes are a nondescript hazel color, and are brimmed with thick lashes, over which are situated my thin, black eyebrows, which are always in a state of motion. My black hair is cut short, and most of the time it sticks in right angles with my head. My reflexes are honed razor sharp, and my senses are especially keen. I am thin and graceful, and have a certain languid fluidity to my movements that I am told are reminiscent of a cat. I am also powerfully built, though the only sign that I work out are the muscles visible when I remove my shirt, and the indentation my pecs make in my loose sweaters. I am part of a secret society of people who track certain strange elements of human mutation, but I am temporarily on lease to an American corporation that is seeking a valuable prize, mostly for the PR points they'll make if we find it. The goal is the Egyptian formulas for wind and solar energy, which the world is currently embroiled in seeking out for themselves. For this, my team and I must travel to Cairo to do some in-depth research, where I will teach my team to read Egyptian hieroglyphs - a language that has been dead for centuries. Myself and several of the heads of the American corporation I am hired out to for this mission carefully chose my team.
Fox J Darrell-Logan is a twenty-year-old American who wishes she were British, and in this she is very naive, but she is the best linguist money can buy, and one hell of a researcher. She is a lithe six feet tall, with ringlets for hair and curves in all the right places, along with a passion for her work that is unrivaled. She is also trained in weaponry, martial arts, criminal and general psychology, all of which I believe will come in handy when facing the EYE agents who are the major opposition to our mission. She is a down-to-earth tactician who has a reputation for getting her teams out of rough spots.
Tina LaWolf, twenty-one, always accompanies her soul sister, Fox, on her journeys. This is a package deal that more than one employer has originally objected to, and then totally changed their minds after seeing the pair work together. Tina is every bit the rough-and-ready person that her sister is, but with more fire in her fury. An excellent weapons master and martial arts expert with working knowledge of almost every language current on the planet and connections in as many governments, this 5'11", well-built blonde is an essential person on any covert operation I have ever accepted.
Jareth Nicolas, twenty-five, is a computer programmer with cyber connections for veins. This Hacker, programmer, and compu-virus expert can seek out, download, and leave behind a trail of destruction in a server faster than a Ferrari can hit sixty miles per hour. His lean good looks give him an edge with the ladies, but his Cajun charm is useless against his two female teammates. Also trained in martial arts and an accomplished sniper, and gadgetry expert/inventor, Jareth's 6'4" frame completes a well-rounded team.
We leave for Cairo from Gatwick International Airport at 2:00 today. For now, we are all being lavishly pampered in first-class hotel rooms in the airport proper, awaiting liftoff.
*April 26, 2003 Over Gatwick, UK*
Methos looked out the window of the airplane, onto the wing of the private jet. A laptop computer sat opened and on in his lap, being busily ignored by the young-looking man. The data on it was completely in Hieroglyphs, and only half of it intelligible. Across the aisle, Fox and Tina were arguing about who was getting the seat farthest away from Jareth this trip, while the man in question looked on in red-faced embarrassment.
"Really, you two, I would think you had enough maturity to have settled something like this last night, in the comfort of your hotel room," Methos, a.k.a. Adam Pierson stated, and the two women simultaneously turned and stuck matching pink tongues in his direction before sitting on either side of Jareth. The bickering was almost like a ritual now. The group would get together, catch up on what was happening in everyone's lives, night spent in separate hotel rooms, then the fighting over who got to sit farthest from Jareth before they decided to make him sit between the two of them. Methos knew that they were simply feeling their age, but for a man who had five thousand years behind him, it was just a bit frustrating. He sighed, looked out the window at the rain again, then turned his attention back to the hieroglyphs on his lap. Headquarters had sent him the stolen image after intercepting it from EYE, the rival team, and a ruthless one at that. Almost all other teams in this race had gone missing, and after a few days had been found dead somewhere, usually in some sort of mortifying and horrific manner. It was Methos' opinion that EYE had finally thrown the entire book out the window and hired serial killers and convicts to their team. It was not a tactic entirely new to the old-world corporation bent on controlling commerce around Egypt, and especially Cairo. EYE had been known to "terminate" unprofitable alliances by simply making the allied party "disappear" suddenly, with no real evidence pointing to them, but enough suspicion to make people wary.
Adam examined the hieroglyphics that sprawled in straight lines across and down his computer screen, identifying which direction to read them in, as there were about four different directions to read Egyptian Hieroglyphs, depending on which way certain characters were facing. The symbols said something about light energy being captured for use in the pharaoh's tombs for the afterlife, and ways to harness and store the energy that to Methos' mind were still fresh ideas. Adam Pierson, however, was supposed to find some of this a novelty.
"If only I could just bloody well tell them how to do it, instead of hiking halfway around the globe on some fool dangerous mission," he grumbled moodily. Fox and Tina had settled their blonde heads on Jareth's broad shoulders. They looked even younger than usual. Their faces while asleep showed the innocence that had been stolen from them in their first deaths, by the man who had also taken their virtues and carved them up like last Thanksgiving's turkey. It wad been the traumatic death that was needed to trigger the change to immortality, but it came with a terrible price, and one that both were bent on hiding through their masks of perfect adjustment and harmony. Fox's brow crinkled and she whimpered softly in her sleep. Jareth had seen these nightmares before, and knew that a gentle touch was enough to calm the torment within. He gently traced the line of Fox's jaw before going back asleep, and she snuggled closer into his shoulder, hiding her face like a small child who was scared. Tina made the same motion. There were times when Methos wondered if the girls shared some sort of psychic link, a bond that came into being when they were murdered together, awakening at the same time in the morgue, in drawers next to one another. Cold, naked, traumatized, and utterly alone in a dark place. He knew that both had superior extra sensory perceptions, and a strange and uncanny instinct and intuition that even most women didn't have. Perhaps this instinct, amplified by the horrific events of their deaths, had reached out while their senses were deprived, and had formed a link. Methos would never find out, he knew. Every time he asked, the girls simply looked into each other's eyes and giggled in that way that made you wonder if there was something hanging out of your nose.
Sighing, Methos closed the laptop and pushed it into it's canvas bag. There would be time for translating later. Methos looked over at where the three young immortals slept, noticing how innocent they looked.
"It's a Kodak moment," he muttered, and then settled down in his seat to follow their example.
*April 27, 2003 Cairo, Egypt*
Methos awoke to someone's cinnamon breath washing over his face.
"Good Morning, Old Guy," The voice attached to the breath whispered in his ear, sending a wash of warm air across his face. He groaned and tried to roll away from the voice, but the arms of his first class seat blocked his movement. He felt a soft hand trace his jaw line, and he involuntarily leaned into the feeling.
"We're almost landed, and I need to have a chat with you, Methos," The voice said, and memories came rushing back to him. Solar and wind energy mission to Egypt to get the formulas before the EYE agents. HE sat up, rubbing sleep form his eyes.
"Okay, okay, I'm awake . . . almost. Is there any coffee?" The smell of fresh-brewed Colombian coffee wafted to his nostrils, and he took a moment to savor the scent. Fox hated the stuff, but Methos, Jareth, and Tina drank it religiously, so she always kept a few singles in her pocket. Methos opened his eyes and took the Styrofoam cup from her hand and sipped it, feeling much more awake by this point. Fox let him have a moment, then moved into the seat beside him with Jareth's laptop.
"Okay, now down to business," She settled herself in the seat and set her tea in a beverage holder, then opened the laptop. On it was a website with his, Fox's, Tina's, and Jareth's faces plastered across the screen in large photographs obviously taken by an inferior digital camera while moving in the airport at Gatwick. Methos shook his head.
"So what? IT just says we're good detectives or some such thing," he observed, puzzled by why she would show this to him. She shook her head, and then began tapping something into the computer.
"Watch." The screen revised itself, picking out certain letters of certain words, until the message was quite different. It was a bounty hunter's webpage, and there was a handsome contract out on the four of them.
"I was looking around the plane when I woke up, because no one else was awake, and I saw this guy who looked kind of familiar, and not like a nice kind of familiar, you know what I mean?" Methos nodded. "SO I got a quick look at him, and entered his image into Jareth's Little Unfriendly Database, or L.U.D. - don't ask me why it's called that - but anyway, I put his features into LUD, and it came up with this guy, an international bounty hunter. Then I hacked into this website's mailing list and replies, and found out that there were quite a few takers on this little offer. Then I got really curious, and wondered just how many of these guys had managed to catch the same plane as us, so I hacked into this airline, and got the passenger manifest for this and any plane going to Cairo within forty-eight hours of our departure, either before or after, then checked it against the known aliases of some of the mailers on this particular website. There were forty-three matches. So then I wondered if whoever posted this was going to be a little more thorough, so I looked for our pictures on the Internet, or any usage of our names or aliases, and I found us plastered all over no less then seven search engines, twenty-four websites, and sixteen e-boards. There were almost a hundred responses, and all are for Dead or Alive. The message basically says that dead would be preferred." She stopped for a moment.
"Methos, how in all that we hold sacred are we going to do our jobs with so many bloodthirsty bounty hunters on our hands? And that's not even to mention all the bloodsucking EYE agents we'll be going up against! Is there some reason you took this assignment? Or did you not know that it was going to be a suicide mission?" Methos smiled wryly and put his hand on Fox's shoulder.
"You know, it's not like we're going to STAY DEAD," He reminded her in old Egyptian.
"NO, not unless one of these happy little crackheads takes a lucky shot and blows our heads off," She replied in the same language. The only word that sounded English was the one word that had no Egyptian equivalent: crackheads. Methos laughed. Fox always got tense when it came to death and dismemberment. Methos could understand this sentiment for the most part, but sometimes Fox let it run away with her.
"God, Fox, loosen up, girl, it's not like it's anything new," Tina joined in, using the same language, though somewhat more haltingly. She was a good study, but with a mild case of dyslexia, Tina found learning foreign languages somewhat more difficult than her sister. Fox stuck her tongue out at both of them.
"Well maybe I'm averse to the idea of pain," she stated indignantly. Tina laughed.
"So why are you a weapons specialist? You know you like to feel the burn, Soul-Searcher," Tina said, using Fox's chosen name for when they were role-playing ElfQuest. It had become more of a 'quit pretending you're someone you're not and get to business' signal. Fox glared at her.
"Yeah, I like to feel the burn, child, but I don't like the thought of losing my head over something that the Real Old Guy here could just write down in the original language and pretend he found in this pyramid we're supposed to be finding." Tina rolled her eyes.
"I swear, you've been spending too much time around the ROG, you're beginning to think like him," she observed, eliciting two angry glares that she had to back away from. So she hid behind Jareth, who was now awake and listening intently to the conversation.
"Um, guys, why don't we all just be friends and not do our pursuers' jobs for them, okay?" Jareth intoned, speaking in the language they'd adopted for this conversation. Methos sighed; sometimes going on missions with people under a thousand years old could be trying, even if they were the best in their fields.
*April 27, 2003 Cairo, Egypt*
"Awright! A cool hotel room!" Fox said, rushing in and bouncing on the bed that she and Methos would be sharing. Tina and Jareth had an ongoing relationship, and so Fox and Methos had allowed them to take one room, while they took the other. They were on a loose budget, but not a loose enough one to get four rooms of the type that would be needed to ensure that the security would be tight enough to talk freely. Jareth was at this moment sweeping his and Tina's room for audio and video recording or transmitting devices. Methos didn't think that there would be any, but one could never be too careful, as he was always reminding his trio of protégées. Meanwhile, Methos and Fox were getting settled into what would be their home for possibly as long as a year. This was not going to be an easy or quickly over with assignment, and who better to do it than people who had all the time in the world and no families or attachments who would miss them. Fox claimed the left half of the bed as hers, and began unpacking her things onto it. Among them were no less than four Katanas, which she'd explained to the security at the airport as items from her antique dealership that she was bringing to Cairo to show a prospective client (Which wasn't totally untrue, she DID run an antiques shop in Sydney, where she made her home, but there was no client). There were six throwing knives, four boot knives that Methos knew were sharp enough to split a hair lengthwise, a whole slew of Chinese stars, a small pair of folded nunchucks, a laser pointer that was a combination tool complete with a tiny torch and full screwdriver and lock-pick set, a glock, a Sig Sauer, and all the ammunition and sharpening tools she needed. Methos didn't want to know how she got the small arsenal through customs, but it probably had something to do with her lack of a very expensive watch that she'd bought expressly for the trip. Methos could now guess why. In the rest of her luggage was shorts that seemed just a bit too short for comfort (mostly because they showed off her long, lithe, exquisitely proportioned body to proud perfection, which made Methos' jeans feel just a tad too tight), a bikini swimsuit, many colorful wraparound skirts (all of which of course had hidden pockets for daggers, throwing knives, etc.), several pairs of jeans, some light, cannon-legged slacks, two nice, formal evening dresses, tank tops, sleeveless shirts, Chinese Mandarin style shirts with no sleeves that were deceptively formfitting (deceptive because of the impressive array of sharp objects she could hide in them), and of course, sandals, boots, tennis shoes, gym gear, her boxing gloves and athletic tape, and just for fun, a small first aid kit. She also had all her make up (which she hardly ever wore, and which Methos was sure had some sort of weaponry hidden in it), and some interesting wall hangings and small electrical equipment.
Methos looked at his small duffel bag and knew that all he had was his Ivanhoe sword tucked into his trenchcoat, a small dagger in his boot, some old clothes he didn't mind getting dirty, his shaving kit, and a map of Egypt. Suddenly HE felt like the rookie. Fox stopped in her distribution of her possessions throughout the room to watch Methos for a moment. He was standing at the foot of his bed, his small duffel sitting open in front of him. Fox knew that he was not carrying any backup weaponry; he'd been in too much of a hurry to get everyone gathered and on the plane in time. Fox had discovered the ease of keeping a bag packed ahead of time for just such emergencies. All she had to do was throw in a couple swords, and she was prepared for world war three. Granted that it was face-to-face combat.
"Is someone a little unprepared for close-quarter confrontations?" She asked teasingly, earning her one of Methos' famous glares.
"You want to find out how good I am at close-quarters without any sharp toys?" He challenged, and Fox, ever the sportswoman, accepted gladly. They made sure that there was nothing breakable in their area, pushed the beds lengthwise against the wall, and snapped into their defensive crouches. They had another room in the suite the occupied, but that never occurred to them. Fox had been training with Methos for several years now, so they knew each other's moves as their own, and the corresponding blocks. For half an hour, they moved in a coordinated flurry of movement, kicking, blocking, punching, dodging expertly and so fluidly and swiftly that they were almost too fast to be seen. Finally, a well-placed feint by Methos sent Fox moving in the direction he wanted, and he leapt onto her, pinning her to one of the beds, hands above her head. The triumphant grin he gave her lasted only a moment, before becoming an expression of surprise as she brought her legs up and locked her feet under his chin, then swiftly straightened her legs, sending him crashing to the floor. She followed him, flipping him over onto his stomach and pulling his arms behind his back until his shoulders were almost dislocated from their sockets. Her legs and feet pinned his down to the floor, so he couldn't try any variation of what she'd done, or kick her in the back. She leaned down by his face, but not close enough to be caught off-guard if he reared his head.
"Do you yield?" she asked, putting a hint of cruelty into her voice for intimidation purposes. He smiled.
"What happens if I don't?" He asked, turning his head to look at her. He saw a menacing and childlike grin on her face as she dipped her head down and trailed her tongue across the back of his neck, then blew on the trail softly. He closed his eyes, enjoying the attention, and laid his cheek against the carpeted floor. Fox leaned back up into a sitting position.
"I won't do that anymore," she purred. Methos considered the pros and cons of yielding, and the probable scenario that would follow if he did.
"Okay, I yield," He replied, his voice husky. Her grip on his arms loosened, and he rolled over under her onto his back. He looked into her eyes, noticing the familiar yellow ring that separated the two colors of her irises, the dark blue-violet color that had overtaken them. Her expression was gentle and playful, a question there that he knew the answer to all too well. Her high, wide cheekbones, a throwback to her Seminole blood; the ringlets in her hair that could be attributed to the Moorish part of her Sicilian heritage. The freckles that powdered her cheeks that told of the Scottish and Irish ancestry. He wrapped a red-gold ringlet around his finger, studying the way the light hit her flowing hair, then pulled his hand to the softness of her face. He traced her cheekbone with his thumb, and she leaned into the caress, her eyes falling closed as she reveled in the soft feel of his large, gentle hand against her face. Slowly, carefully, he slipped his hand behind her neck, pulling her gently down to him and kissing her lips softly, running his tongue along her lower lip, tasting the strawberry lip balm she was never without. She leaned in farther and ran her tongue along the rim of his ear, breathing onto the trail she'd made, sending shivers down his spine, and raising gooseflesh on his arms. She pulled back and let her tongue trace along Methos' lower lip, then kissed him softly, asking entrance with her tongue. He granted it easily, then allowed a chuckle when Fox started toying with his tongue with her teeth. Her canines were capped to resemble those of the vampires of myths, and grated just right against the sides of his tongue, tickling and sending shivers down his spine. He shuddered and allowed his hands to roam over her lithe body, finding the places that made her writhe, that made her laugh, and the ones that made her melt into his embrace. She dipped her head low and nipped at his collarbone, at the sides of his neck. He gasped and pushed her gently away from him.
"H - how did you know about the neck?" He asked through a fog. She smiled impishly.
"I haven't met a man - or an immortal - yet who wasn't sensitive there," she whispered. Suddenly, the door was thrown open, and the two of them pushed apart quickly, both because they didn't want to be caught like that, and because lying on the floor wasn't the best defensive position in the world.
"Hey Fox, did you-" Jareth fell silent as he realized what he had just interrupted - and between whom.
"You wanted something, Jareth?" Fox intoned, causing Jareth to jump. He looked from one to the other and back again, before he finally settled into some semblance of composure.
"Yeah, uh, Fox, did you have all those hit men arrested without telling us?" he inquired.
"Oh, yeah, I did. I figured that it would delay them long enough for us to get settled in and maybe out of town. I took the liberty of distributing some illegal drugs in their baggage. The ones that weren't there already, I put out an APB of sorts on, said they were militant activists and were here in a threatening capacity. You know how edgy it is in the middle east, especially in this century. I also happened to 'accidentally' delete some files that one of them had set up about us to get us somewhere they could grab us. A nice little game of cat and mouse. I love the police system." Jareth looked puzzled.
"How did you-" he started, brows furrowed.
"Don't ask unless you really want to know, kiddo," Fox interjected before he could get any further. Jareth weighed the possibilities, and decided that he did not, in fact, want to know. He shrugged his shoulders and left, closing the door behind him and hanging the 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the door. He had a feeling that he and Tina wouldn't be the only ones who would be 'busy' tonight.