Intro:  Ladies and gentlemen, this is my first fanfic.  And I know 
you’ve read those very words before.  I have no idea why I decided to 
write this, except it stemmed from a dinner conversation between me and 
my good friend Victor Wisniski who helped me with some of the finer 
points of swordplay in this story.  We thought it’d be cool to do a 
crossover fanfic, but which one?  How about two warriors from opposite 
schools of war.  Nah, better yet deal with immortality as 1) spiritual 
(Highlander’s quickening) and 2) technology-based (GITS’ cybernetics). 
 As always, thanks to Masamune Shirow for creating such a fine universe 
to imagine in, and Gregory Widen for creating the character Connor 
Macleod.

Assumptions:  The true Shirowphile will recognize that the date puts 
this story in the GITS timeline between chapters 6 (the one with the 
mad Tomlis androids) and 7 (the Soviet gold chapter), thus it is before 
Kusanagi merges with the Puppeteer.  Weaponry is standard to GITS 
universe.  As for Highlander, one can notice that the flashback to WWII 
occurs immediately before a similar sequence seen in the Director’s Cut 
of Highlander.

Dedication:  To all those who suffered through the second Highlander 
movie hoping that Macleod in the future would be cool.  I hope that 
this tale satisfies that hope.


** - replaces italics

[] -  soundtrack suggestions


*** ETERNAL GHOST ****


by Thomas Price (AnimeLink)
(tprice@newssun.med.miami.edu, http://members.aol.com/tprice1995/anime.html)
with assistance from Victor Wisniski
(darkoni or danguard@aol.com)


04  Divide Overflow

7.11.2029
Nerima, Japan
0415 hours local time

[soundtrack suggestion:  "6 Underground," Sneaker Pimps]

Footsteps echoed off of the pavement, slick from the evening rain.  Connor 
walked calmly, his eyes scanning to the left and right, a small part of 
his mind waiting for that feeling of vertigo that hit him whenever an 
immortal was nearby.  It had been decades since he’d felt it, but he knew 
that if he was close enough, the Quickening could be sensed even over the 
background hum of the information net.

The hum.  It was more like a deafening roar, like trying to listen to 
someone whispering while standing near a waterfall.  Sometimes it seemed 
like it was toying with his sanity, the feeling of being "cut off" from 
the others.  A darkness.  Connor found his mind wandering to events long 
since transpired.  In particular, the memory of a hunting expedition in 
Africa.  So vivid was the recall that he could swear that he heard the 
primal beat of a hunting prayer being beaten on a drum-skin somewhere in 
the alleyways of this city.  And even with the ozone smell of rain and the 
gritty sensation of pollution filling his nostrils, he could smell the 
more ancient scent of jungle soil and blood.

Dozens of meters behind, a spidery form jumped from building to building, 
following the Highlander.  The fuchikoma, piloted by Kusanagi, kept a 
single sensor on Macleod at all times.  She took the time to study him, 
this man of mystery who was personification of the passage of time itself. 
 A warrior of consummate skill earned from years of experience.  Strike 
that, *centuries* of experience.  The man was unlike anyone she had ever 
met before and, somehow knowing that there were such men like him alive in 
the world today...it opened her up to the possibilities that maybe there was 
more to it than just whispers in the circuits, ghosts in the machine.  
There truly might be a single, unidentifiable quantum that might be the 
spark of life itself.  More than a ghost, an eternal ghost.  A soul.

Connor shook his head as he felt it.  He could feel the adrenaline pumping 
through his bloodstream, his muscles filling with blood and his lungs 
breathing more deeply.  His pupils were dilated and his visual acuity 
approached that of a predator. Different than it had been those many years 
before, different than all those other times he had felt it before.  
Instead of the vertigo, the queasiness that usually came with it, this 
time he felt tense with a primitive anticipation...a predatory anticipation. 
 Yes, he could sense it and it seemed as if the scent filled the air.  It 
was the strongest sensation he had ever felt.

He had felt the Quickening.  Southern was now his prey.

Connor regained his composure and spoke softly into the small communicator 
the major had given him.  "He’s here."

Kusanagi quickly broke her philosophical train of thought to 
reply.  "Roger."

Connor looked up at the sign above the door he stood next to.

*Pacific Electricom Nerima Fusion Power Facility -- Authorized Personnel 
Only*

[suggested soundtrack:  "Dead Cities," Future Sound of London]

He opened the door slowly and looked around.  The air had a metallic 
taste, one that Connor knew all too well.  The lights were out, but the 
illumination provided by Nerima’s skyscrapers cast a blue, dim light to 
the scene in front of him.  Southern had outdone himself this time.  The 
bodies of security guards and technicians alike were strewn about, cut 
down as weeds by a machette without so much ceremony one might expect.  
Southern’s technique had begun to decay to a more primitive style now as 
he reached his goal.

The highlander walked through this scene of death steel of jaw and stern 
of purpose.  He silently unsheathed his ancient sword from its scabbard 
and gripped it tightly in his right hand, holding it parallel to his leg. 
 While the elaborately carved ivory handle of the Masamune sword was still 
intact, the blade itself had been replaced with the satin chrome of 
ceramic and impregnated titanium.  The edge, sharpened to a two-molecule 
thick point, seemed to glisten with an electric glow as millions of  
photons were scattered by the gravitational forces of two titanium atoms 
set so close in proximity.  The blade itself was a modern masterpiece, an 
edge of both science and art and the pinnacle of a swordmaker’s craft.


Thoughts ran through his head, as they always did before a duel.  It had 
been a long time since last he pulled his sword, and now he was surprised 
at how all the old feelings came back again.  Southern was a dangerous 
man, an immortal who not only knew their ways, but the ways of the 
mortals; of their technology.  A dangerous adversary in a setting that 
clearly put him at the advantage and Connor at a disadvantage, surrounded 
by machines and electronics to which in his myopia he had never learned to 
use.  Now that decadence, that aloofness, might cost him his head. His 
only hope was that Kusanagi would compliment his failings; that her 
ability with the machines would be enough so that the both of them would 
be more than a match for Southern.

And, as the thoughts ran out so too did time for at the end of the lighted 
hallway was the Facility’s control room, and Southern at the altar of 
technology therein, surrounded by the carnage his blade had wrought.

*And so it begins,* he thought as he walked into the light and revealed 
himself and his blade to his prey.

END PART 04, Rev.1 11/28/98
NEXT: PART 05: There Can Be Only One
As always, C&C is welcome, unavoidable, and sometimes loathed too!  Get me
at tprice@newssun.med.miami.edu.
Comment:  None.  Part 5 is being released within 48 hours of this post.