Chapter 4

Cold. He was cold and his insides were shivering with the shock of what had been done - clenching tight against any further invasion as his hands gripped the hard edge of the exam table. They'd started by searching his body. Every inch of it inside and out. Three doctors, each taking turns examining him and correlating their findings. There'd been x-rays, followed by an alphabet soup of tests. MRI, EKG, EEG and an EMG where painful electrical charges had been run through his arms and legs to see how the nerves worked. Somehow, he'd thought that was the worst. He taken hundreds of Quickenings, felt the exquisitely agonizing sensation of being seared by lightening, but this was not the same. The sudden, random impacts of electrical energy in the space of a few moments were nothing compared to the slow, methodical, utterly impersonal torture of waiting for the comparatively tiny jolts to come.

Then they'd started taking samples. Blood, hair, fingernails, saliva and tissue from various portions of his anatomy. He was handed a cup and told to fill it. With what he didn't have to ask. Finally, they'd opened him up again with a brightly cold speculum, took a stool sample, checked his prostate and filled another little cup with his ejaculate. All without ever asking his permission or inquiring as to whether or not he was comfortable.

Through it all Methos had remained silent and aloof, deliberately numbing himself to either anger or humiliation. He'd lived through worse, certainly. Although, he was forced to admit, nothing so impersonally cruel. Even being fingered for sale at auction had at least taken into account that he physically existed. That he was not simply an amalgam of parts to be catalogued, scrutinized and studied. Still, he would heal, and he would not allow them to see the emotional hurt they had rendered. There would be time later to lick his wounds and weep for his lost dignity.

Without a word the doctors left and he hopped from the table and went to clean himself as best he could. He moved slowly and the guards at the door, who had remained throughout, did not trouble him. When he was done one of them handed him something to wear. Not his own clothes, but a crisp blue prison issue coverall and a pair of soft shoes.

Oh, dear gods, they knew! They knew what he was. Or if not that, then that he was something other than human.

Methos put a hand on the counter to steady himself. He must not give in to despair. How much they knew was still in question and, more importantly, what they intended to do with that information. He dressed in silence, trying to maintain his emotional distance and not speculate on how they had learned that he was different. He must simply bide in quiet and allow them to ask their questions, which surely they would do and soon. His answers must depend on what they asked, not what he thought they knew.

He didn't have long to wait, these people were nothing if not efficient. He was led across the hall and into a room so brightly lit it made his head ache. Which was, he supposed, the point. The walls were painted a drab, institutional grayish green, obviously meant to instill hopelessness. A hard, straight backed chair and nondescript table were bolted to the concrete floor and he was told to take a seat. Behind him, a single, sexless guard in the black on black ensemble they all wore stood silently at attention in the corner.

An entirely sobering setting indeed, Methos was forced to admit. The physical examination, long and painful, had been meant not just for the gathering of information, but to break him down - softening him up just enough for this. And to some degree it had worked, he realized with chagrin. He was definitely afraid of these people and of what they were capable of doing to him. Still, he was made of sterner stuff and unlike anyone they had ever encountered which he hoped would be to his advantage.

"Who are you?"

Methos glanced around the tiny room, no bigger than a walk-in closet, searching for the origin of the disembodied, electronically altered voice, but the speakers were extremely well hidden. No doubt the cameras watching him were as well.

"You should know," he finally responded. "You invited me here."

"We invited Adam Pierson, but it's obvious that's not who you are."

He shouldn't have been surprised by the accusation, but he was. "You must be mistaken."

"You are not Adam Pierson. There is no Adam Pierson."

"I am Adam Pierson," he insisted, though he suspected it was futile and he was right.

"Your birth certificate is a fraud. Adam Pierson does not exist. Neither did Helena Pierson, or Benjamin Pierson, the supposed parents of the child. They are fictional constructs."

Shit! Methos inwardly cringed. Unlike most Immortals in the modern era he'd learned early never to take names off headstones and assume a real identity. Instead, he thought he'd been clever, using his medical background to issue false birth certificates over the years. Even now, it was easy enough to slip into the system through small, backwater hospitals as an orderly or nurse, create the necessary documents, have a distracted clerk file the appropriate forms and allow them to remain dormant until he had need of the identity. Adam Pierson had come into existence in just such a manner in 1965. Twenty years later he'd simply gone round to his "father's" solicitor, produced an equally fictitious set of death certificates and inherited his modest estate. And now the game was up.

On the other hand, he thought with just a touch of hope, maybe he wasn't as bad off as he had thought. Perhaps they simply thought he was a spy. He hadn't been the first to have that idea, not by any stretch of imagination. He had in fact stolen it from the Americans, who'd played that game even before the First World War. But then, he wasn't about to admit to being a spy either if he could avoid it. A bullet to the brain might be the least of his worries at that point.

"Your research is wrong," Methos said to the blank wall before him, hoping to draw them out a little more. If anyone was Adam Pierson he certainly was. Let them prove he wasn't.

And they did exactly that. With his stomach tightening in ever increasing knots the voice proceeded to list almost every identity Methos had ever owned during the age of modern banking. Every account had been traced and by virtue of these his university records. From Vienna to Harvard they had it all. From there they recounted a plethora of evidence from ships' logs, deeds, estate sales, property taxes he'd paid, court cases he'd either brought or been named in, to the church bans posted for his three most recent marriages - essentially public records of every kind from the 16th century onward. "Now, what are you?" the voice asked when it had finished with its accounting. He sat quietly for a long moment wearing a calculatedly distressed expression, plotting. They did not know about Immortals, he decided. In fact, they did not really know much about him. They were simply on a fishing expedition having inadvertently found something they'd never seen. Good, he thought. He would give them what they wanted. A nice, neat fable with enough truth thrown in for them to do whatever checking they needed and believe. He would not worry now about what came later.

"What am I?" he repeated thoughtfully. "I am a man. I was born in the year 1283," he told them, dating himself a little earlier than they had for the sake of realism and because there would likely be no records that far back. "I was called Valerie du Fontaine. The third son of a third son of minor nobility with little ambition except to enter a monastery and further my studies as a monk. My family found this acceptable and I was shortly enrolled with the brothers who served the Knights Templar in France. Not long after this the King of France declared the Knights anathema. Soldiers came and arrested those they could, killing the rest who were of little importance.

"They killed me, too," he murmured softly, recalling the day it had happened and he'd been driven from his brief sanctuary. He sighed deeply for his captors' benefit. "At least," he added, "I think they did. I do not know for certain.

"This monastery was built above an ancient grotto, where it was said a vision of Christ himself appeared to a shepherd and baptized the boy." In truth, it had been an old Roman bathhouse, where the whores had been among the best in Gaul. Then again, maybe Christ had appeared to bless that notorious den of sin and iniquity. It would have been just like him according to Peter and Paul.

"Weak with blood loss and thirst I crawled to the shrine and drank of its holy waters. For three days I lay there," he went on, keeping up the Christian imagery. "Praying to God and asking that I might be healed. On the fourth day, which was the Feast of All Saints, I awoke to find my prayers had been answered." He paused to increase the drama of his tale and devoutly crossed himself, murmuring a blessing.

"Amazed," he finally continued. "I left this place and returned to my home, remaining in the bosom of my family for many years. Eventually, it came to be noticed that I was not growing older and in fear of being burned for a witch and as a heretic because of my past with the Templars, I fled to England. From there began my many journeys and many lives, such as you have discovered. I broke no laws, harmed no one, and disrespected no man worthy to be called such. I have lived as honestly and as honorably as can be expected of any man, until this century where I was forced to take steps to ensure my survival. I stole nothing from anyone. I did not take a name that belonged to another, nor moneys I had not earned."

"You entered this country fraudulently and illegally claimed dual citizenship," the voice pointed out.

"Damn straight I did!" he told them putting a little honest anger into his voice. "I fought in your bloody revolution!" He'd been running from Kronos back then and hadn't had much of a choice, but he still felt entitled. "Didn't you find a record of that? Dr. Francis Benjamin of Bedersville, Pennsylvania. There used to be a plaque in the town square with my name on it!"

There was silence from the gallery and he knew he'd scored a point.

"We will continue checking your story, and watching you closely," the voice told him. "In the meantime, you may return to the project until we find another use for you."

"Another use?" Methos asked softly. He didn't like the sound of that.

"If you are not useful, then you're dangerous. Don't bite the hand that feeds you," the voice threatened. "It hits hard."

The icy finger of dread trailed down his spine as he followed the guard back to the changing room. They would not let him go. Not in a year, not in ten years. And what if they couldn't find another use for him? He shivered at the thought as he stripped off the coverall and got out his clothes. Then he would make himself useful. He'd done it before. To Kronos, to Caesar, even to Khan. He would be the most useful, docile cat in the barn - until he unsheathed his claws and they realized he wasn't tamed at all.


The little cottage was quiet and filled with late afternoon shadows when they dropped him off and watched him go inside. Reflexively, Methos locked and bolted the door then headed for the bathroom where he hurriedly shed his clothes and climbed into the shower to wash the stink of fear from his pores. He turned the hot water up until it was near scalding and stood in the billowing waves of steam as it pounded over his back while he rested his forehead against the cool of the tiled stall. It eased the cramps in his muscles, gained over the long hours where he'd held himself tense and relaxed him enough to allow his stomach to unknot. Finally, he slid to the floor, kneeling over the drain as he heaved up bile and shook so hard he had to grab hold of the wall.

A delayed reaction to the stress and the shock, he reminded himself. Neither unprecedented, nor unexpected. Quite healthy, in fact, came the sardonic thought. He turned his face up to the spray and rinsed his mouth, then sat with his arms wrapped around his legs while the water poured down on his head. Eventually, the water cooled and he drew himself up, turned off the shower and toweled himself down.

Pulling his robe off the back of the door he slid into it and climbed into bed, curling up with his arms around a pillow. He was so tired and yet so overwrought sleep would not come. He hated this feeling. This helplessness he recalled all too well from days long past when others had taken charge of his life. It was useless, he realized, to even contemplate escape at the moment. They would be watching for that. And it was doubtful he could get off the base, or if he did, he suspected, he wouldn't get very far. Why they had even let him return to work on their little pet project he couldn't even guess, nor did he want to try. In their own way these people were as dangerous to him as any head hunter. Revolutionary war hero or not, he doubted they would trouble much over dissecting him like a frog.

He shivered at the thought. Better their willing tool than an unwilling science project, he reasoned. There was nothing they could learn from his body anyway, he realized. The medical exams could not have shown anything untoward or they would not have let him come back to the project. It was all in the Quickening. And if they got that from him it wouldn't matter anymore.

Methos lifted his head as the solemn sound of taps began to play in the distance signaling the end of the work day. This was the time when in days past the soldiers would leave off what they were doing and lay their dead to rest as they laid aside the day. It was a quiet time. A momentary pause in the insanity of war which he'd once come to love for the sense of peace it brought him. And given his reaction, he mused, as the last of the shudders left him, apparently he still did. With a sigh, Methos punched up the pillow and tucked it under his head. He was free of that place for the moment, and if he played their little game one day he would be quit of them too. He yawned and closed his eyes. As the last notes faded in the distance, Methos made peace with the terrors of the day and at last drifted off into the tranquillity of a dreamless night.

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