Disclaimer: I own neither Highlander nor Inception, neither the characters nor the concepts.

Not Everybody Can be Xanatos

Methos' immediate reaction to hearing shots fired inside the bank he was currently in the process of robbing was to think that he had been discovered. It was quickly dismissed, however. After all, the shots weren't being made at him, and he was alone in the manager's office.

So the next conclusion is that he's not the only one who felt it was a good day to acquire some ill-gotten gains.

It was a coincident, but such coincidences happened all the time, really. Or rather, statistically speaking, the longer he lived, the more they would happen.

As he first grew older, Methos had made more and more elaborate plans, tightly structured schedules, and specific details. His mastery of such plans had peaked, though, late in his third millennia or thereabout. Since then, the times that called for such plans became increasingly rare.

The world was too rich and full, people too complex and contrary, to ever not throw some surprise his way. It was better to not plan, but instead to go with the flow. Now, rather than plan and manipulate, he mostly made sure he stayed observant of what was around him, self-aware of his own goals and desires, and ready to act when opportunity presented itself.

If he'd had a plan, the addition of a dozen armed robbers would undoubtedly have ruined it. They would almost certainly have ruined Garrik's day if Methos hadn't done that already. But since Methos didn't have a plan, then nothing could be ruined. Instead he just had a few more variables to take into account.

He got on with his own theft, taping away at Karrigan aka Garrik's computer.

He was pretty much done, except for exiting out of the various systems by the time someone finally interrupted him.

"Mr. Karrigan. You're going to tell me the vault code." The guys in masks and with guns sounded just the right combination of professional and menacing. It was a very good effect, completely ruined by the fact that he apparently hadn't done the research to know what the bank manager of this branch actually looked like.

Well, one good rule to going with the flow was to not correct the guys with guns, and allow them to dig themselves into a deep a hole as they wanted. Hopefully none of the actual employees would feel the need to point out their mistake.

But if the robbers were going to be young and dumb, then so too would he. With a side order of high-as-a-kite just to make sure no one thought they could torture him for anything useful.

"Whoa," Methos channeled one of his more idiotic acquaintances from the sixties. "Are you guys real? Like, really-real? Cause I think I underpaid my dealer. This stuff is awe-some."

"You're the bank manager?" The poor robber sounded disgusted rather than suspicious. Young and dumb. There was a difference between having an elaborate plan and being suitably prepared. The robber apparently had one but was not the other. Methos was the opposite.

"Yeah." Methos nodded mournfully. "My daddy says I need to learn how to work."

And okay, it was a terrible stereotype, of the young, dumb, and rich, but this kind of situation was just what stereotypes were for, and the robbers appeared to be swallowing it hook, line and sinker.

If they'd caught him out, he'd planned to give them the vault code and allow them to recruit him. Since they didn't, they probably weren't worth being recruited by.

The executive assistant who had looked over his documents earlier before ever allowing him to "wait" in Mr. Karrigan's office was watching this all from the huddle of hostages with the utterly blank face of an experienced executive assistant and the others were taking their cue from her.

Excellent. He loved good executive assistants. Too bad she was wearing a wedding ring.

So, now he was fine, the hostages were fine, and whoever it was that was peering down at them from the ceiling was fine. The robbers were not fine, since their twelve man team was now an eight man team, but they seemed professional enough. And it was time to see what their plan was.

The fact that Methos didn't really make plans anymore wasn't to say that he didn't admire a good plot when he saw one.

Garrik (or more recently Karrigan) had been a good plotter.

Methos had been impressed by the man. Garrik reminded him of a younger Kronos. Plotting and clever. A smart man and a vicious one with just the right balance of curiosity and caution that could help an immortal survive.

Unfortunately, in addition to being smart, ruthless, curious, and cautious, an immortal had to be lucky, too. Garrik's luck had run out when he'd found Adam Pierson and thought he was young and manipulatable.

Methos figured out the progression of events from a combination of his own investigation, memories carried in Garrik's quickening, and records left on Garrik's computer.

Garrik had discovered the Dream technology when he'd been a mercenary and had recognized it as the weapon it was. He had known he needed to know more about it and how it might interact with an immortal's quickening, but had been too cautious to experiment on himself.

So he'd found a young immortal, or at least who he had thought was a young immortal, with knowledge that he wanted (about the Watchers, oddly enough), and begun making the connections needed to order an extraction on the immortal. It was supposed to be a Xanatos Gambit, Methos assumed.

If the extraction went well and there was nothing unusual, then Garrik would have the information about the Watcher's that he wanted. Part of being cautious was that most older immortals were aware of the Watchers to a certain degree because an immortal didn't survive for very long if they didn't know when they were being followed, but they also didn't talk about it, because an immortal also didn't live very long if they picked unnecessary fights - Watchers didn't interfere because if they did, then those fights would not longer be unnecessary.

If the extraction went poorly, then Garrik would learn how and why it didn't work.

It was a plan that Methos could appreciate and he kind of wanted to arrange something similar himself. But if there was one thing Methos had learned in his long life, it was that events never went true to plan. Never. The more complicated the plan, the more likely it was to fail utterly. The more scenarios he thought he had accounted for, the more likely he was to have missed an important one.

Garrik had certainly missed an important one, not expecting an older immortal to be hiding as a younger immortal. And Methos was no more willing to be the experimental subject than Garrik had been, and he didn't like other immortals researching him and his role with the Watchers.

Methos didn't make elaborate plans any more. Instead, he watched and waited for events to arrange themselves in such a way that he could take advantage. He was a master at improvisation.

Like Garrik, Methos had recognized dream technology as an important weapon to be aware of, and he recognized his own need to know more.

Unlike Garrik, Methos had waited to see how the information he wanted might be presented to him.

And lo, Methos had killed the immortal who had used mortals to stalk young Adam, and had acquired all the information and records regarding dream technology that Garrik had worked so diligently to acquire, plus enough specific bank information to transfer a few large accounts from Garrik's name to his own next identity.

It was a win-win situation for Methos; less so for Garrik.

The question of how it would turn out for the robbers still needed to be answered. They seemed to be even less aware of the situation than Garrik had been. He smiled with a bit of genuine delight as he swayed towards the robber.

"Hi."

"Okay, Mr. Karrigan. We're robbing this bank and you're going to help us into the safe, you got that?"

"Sure, man. Call me Kerry." He was pretty sure his eyes were sparkling at this point, although he made sure to keep his vision unfocused. It enhanced the impression that he was high and also allowed him to keep track of the rest of the room.

The hostages were staying silent and unobtrusive, following Methos' own technique of waiting for their opportunity.

The guy in the ceiling seemed to be cracking up, but still watching with a gun likely at hand.

And the police outside were congregating and looked to have established themselves in an organized fashion.

And the robbers seemed unsure of how to react to Methos spiking their plan to question the manager. When confronted with someone like the Kerry that Methos was playing at the moment, they really should have fallen back to a different plan.

He wondered who, if anyone here, knew about the secret exit that Garrik had created for his own use and that Methos hoped to use himself to avoid the police. He didn't think the robbers did, but ceiling-guy might. If Methos got caught by the police then he might have to use his new ill-gotten gains and his new felony reputation to start off his next identity as a criminal master mind. MacLeod would not approve but Amanda would probably get a kick out of it. But if he ran into ceiling guy in the escape passage, then there might be a more elegant introduction to high crime. And if he didn't, then he could always continue on as he had was.

He'd just have to see what happened next. Life was fun. He giggled a bit and whispered to the robber in front of him, "I can't feel my feet."