It was 7:55 when Buffy
walked into General Cordova's office. Encouraged by the success of her
earlier act, and thus in a positive frame of mind, she was sure that
she could easily convince them that she was genuinely trying to find
Spike and Diana, while throwing off the real trail if they should
happen to find it.
She took a deep breath, then entered the room with grim determination
in her eyes.
"I see you're ready, Ms. Summers," the general smiled at her warmly,
rising from her desk as she entered to walk around it and greet her.
Buffy thought that was a bit odd; the general had never bothered to
come around the desk to talk to her; she had always just addressed her
from behind it. "Where is...everyone?" Buffy wondered aloud, realizing
that as of yet she and Cordova seemed to be the only ones there.
"A sudden emergency came up," Cordova said coolly as she reached Buffy.
"It's just going to be you and me and a few others I just couldn't
spare." Buffy was further unsettled when Cordova put an oddly motherly
arm around her waist. "You see, my dear, there's been a slight change
in plans."
Alarms were going off in Buffy's head; something was seriously wrong
with this picture. "What sort of change?" she asked warily, and just as
she pulled away from the woman's odd embrace, she felt a slight, quick
little pain in her side. *Did she just pinch me?* she wondered dully,
glancing down to see the hypodermic needle in the general's hand.
She wasn't even bothering to hide what she had done.
Buffy looked back up at the general with sudden comprehension as she
realized she'd been trapped. But suddenly, she could hardly bring
herself to care, as the powerful sedative she'd been injected with
began to take effect as it made its way through her system.
"I'm sorry, Buffy," Cordova said softly, as the girl sank to her knees,
trying to maintain consciousness against the black wave that assailed
her. "You had such a bright future." Her tone was sympathetic, and she
had a falsely sad smile on her face.
"I'm so sorry to see it fade away," the general finished, her smile
fading to a grim resolve. But Buffy couldn't hear her above the roaring
in her ears. And then she couldn't see her, either, as everything went
dark.
"Oh. My. God," Willow's voice was soft, hushed and almost awed as she
stared at the screen of her laptop.
Spike got up from his seat at the table near hers to peer over her
shoulder at the screen. "What'd you find, Red?" he asked her.
"Everything. I think," she replied, her eyes lighting up with
excitement as she looked at him. "I managed to crack Cordova's password
to get into her records...and what this looks like is...like her *personal*
records...kind of like a log that she keeps herself. You know, the really
*really* secret stuff!" Her voice was gleeful, like a child who had
just gotten away with something really, really bad.
"I'm in awe of you, Red," Spike said, shaking his head in amazement,
genuine admiration in his eyes.
Xander and Anya were cuddling on the couch in the living room, but had
overheard and appeared in the kitchen doorway. "Find something, Will?"
Xander asked.
"Yeah," Willow sounded distracted as she scrolled through the recent
history. "This one's from the other day when we got you and Diana out,"
she said to Spike. "Not much here...she doesn't have a clue...at least she
didn't when she wrote this." She frowned and made a worried little
hissing sound over her teeth, glancing at him as she said, "She sure
was mad though."
Willow scrolled on down to the next day's record, reading it over
quickly. Xander and Anya sat down at the table, waiting for her to tell
them if she found anything interesting. Suddenly Spike's eyes widened
and his face turned even paler than usual...a moment before Willow's face
turned bright red and her mouth opened in a shocked little "o".
"Oh, bollocks, I'm such a stupid git!" Spike exploded suddenly, turning
his back on Willow and the laptop. "Why didn't I even think of it? Of
course she'd watch the tapes, the bloody sadistic bint! Bloody soddin'
*hell*!!" he berated himself, his voice rising on the last few words
until he was shouting.
Willow was still staring at the screen, re-reading the general's notes
again and again.
"What is it?" Xander asked, interested now, getting up to go look.
Spike suddenly turned and leaned over Willow's shoulder, slamming the
laptop shut. "Nothing to see there...is there, Red?" he asked her
pointedly, catching her eye with a look that was half-threatening,
half-pleading.
"N-no...um..." Willow stammered. "It's just..." Suddenly her eyes widened
even more as a new realization struck her, much more troubling than the
notes she had just read. "Oh my God! Buffy's in trouble!"
"What?" Xander demanded to know. "What is going on here, Will?"
"Well, after we did the whole big escape thing, Cordova went back and
reviewed the surveillance tapes from Spike's room...which happened to be
where Buffy and he would meet to...strategize," Willow explained in a
voice that was somehow too innocent. "She saw Spike giving it to
Buffy...the laptop!" she suddenly burst out, her expression anguished at
the near-slip that Xander and Anya still did not understand. "She saw
him giving her the laptop! She knows that Buffy is against her. Let me
see if it says what she's planning to do about it." She opened the
laptop, carefully positioning it so that the screen pointed away from
Xander.
"I don't need to know anymore, Buffy's in danger. Cordova will kill
her," Spike said, his voice low and dark. "We've got to get in there
and get her out."
"Oh, no," Willow whispered suddenly, her eyes stricken with panic. "Oh,
God!"
"What?" Spike demanded, leaning over her shoulder again.
"She's not gonna kill her. Not *just* kill her. It's worse than that,"
she whispered, shaking her head slightly.
Spike took in a sharp breath beside her as he read what she had just
seen. "Much worse," he said grimly.
"What could be worse?" Xander asked, fear beginning to show in his
brown eyes.
"A lot of things, which unfortunately I'll never have the joy of
watching you experience," Spike snapped. "And Cordova is very very good
at most of them. Willow," he said, startling her to attention with the
use of her actual name. "We need to figure out a way to get this
soddin' chip down. I have to get in there and get her out, and I don't
stand a chance with this bloody thing in my head." His eyes met hers
intensely, desperately, willing her to see that his motives were
sincere.
"Oh, no," Xander said, shaking his head. "We are *so* not doing that!"
"We may not have a choice, Xander," Willow said quietly. "We don't know
the Initiative like Spike does, and if we did we can't fight armed
soldiers. Spike might be Buffy's only chance." Before he could protest
she turned to him and said, "Give me a few minutes. I need to see what
I can find on the controls for the chips. They changed the codes for
them yesterday, because of the escape. But now that I'm in to her
personal stuff, it shouldn't take me long to find them."
"Good, cause from the looks of this Buffy might not have long," Spike
said softly. There was silence for a few moments before he said
quietly, as a thought dawned on him. "*We* might not have long." His
voice was quiet and intense. He turned back to Willow, his ally in this
mess. "Red...if General Bitch knows Buffy helped us escape..."
Her eyes widened as they met his again. "...they could be headed right
here," she finished in a whisper. She jumped up from the table,
snapping the laptop shut. "We need to get out of here, now!" she said,
uncharacteristically taking charge of the situation.
"The containment spell," Spike frowned, giving her a questioning look.
"Oh, that's nothing," Willow shrugged. "Works just like an invite, only
backwards. All I've gotta do is tell you guys to come outside," she
said, her voice light and unconcerned.
Spike was stunned that it was that simple. "All right then," he said
after a moment. "I'll go down and get Diana and Darian."
"Good," Willow said, still in take-charge mode. "I'll start the van. We
have to get away from here like now!"
Buffy's head felt like it was about to explode. A blinding, white-hot
pain tore through it, ripping her from the fog of unconsciousness back
to awareness. She tried to raise a hand to her head. Couldn't. She
tried to remember where she was, why she couldn't move her hands...
She struggled to open her eyes against the pain in her head, but found
that no matter how hard she tried, all she saw was black. A distant
memory played at the edges of her mind...what was it Cordova had said?
*Sensory deprivation.* She moved the back of her head against whatever
surface she was lying on and felt the fabric over her eyes move. So she
was blindfolded, then.
She tried again to move her wrists, to no avail. The restraints felt
like leather against her skin, and she remembered the bonds that had
held Spike in the solitary confinement cell. She pulled against them,
but she was still weak from whatever drug Cordova had shot into her
system, and her bonds held firm.
Ok. Couldn't see. Couldn't move. She fought off the rising panic in her
at this utter helplessness. Though she knew anyone who heard her in
this wretched place would be more likely to hurt her than to help her,
she tried to scream and could only get out a weak strangled gasping
sound. She tried to pull against whatever it was that was constricting
her throat, not allowing the sound to come out, and realized that
another tight bond, like the ones at her wrists, was around her neck,
slack enough to allow her to breathe, but tight enough to prevent her
from making much of a sound at all.
And she was cold. Freezing in fact. *Oh, God!* she realized with a
strangled sob that sounded only in her mind. Her clothes were gone. She
was lying somewhere in the Initiative no doubt, bound, blindfolded,
gagged and *naked*! She had never felt so utterly helpless before – so
terrified. Desperately she strained against the bonds that held her,
but they did not give at all. Cordova had been prepared for her, she
realized.
She could feel her heart pounding against her ribcage as she finally
gave up the struggles for the moment, trying to just calm down and
*think*. There had to be a way out of this...right? There was *always* a
way out!
Suddenly, the sound of a door slowly opening made her freeze in fear,
every nerve, every muscle in her body alert and aware. She could not
tell who had entered the room, but a mind-numbing, almost physically
painful terror seized her at the realization that she was utterly,
completely at their mercy. Unbidden, thoughts of Diana came to her
mind. Was this what it had been like for her? When Riley had come to
her? Perhaps not physically bound as she was now, but nevertheless
knowing that she was absolutely powerless to defend herself in any way?
That whatever he wanted to do to her was exactly what would happen, and
there was nothing in the world she could do about it?
Just like Buffy felt now?
A familiar voice suddenly broke through her terrified reverie.
"So we're awake now, are we?" Cordova's voice, calm, smugly triumphant.
"Good. I wouldn't want you to miss this."
Buffy tried again to speak, to demand her release, to ask what was
going to be done to her, but the strap around her throat prevented it.
"You shouldn't have tried to outsmart me, Ms. Summers," Cordova
reprimanded her in an almost gentle voice. "No one ever has. No one
ever will." She paused, as if sensing what Buffy must be thinking. "Oh
I know...your little hostile friends you 'rescued.' They should be along
shortly. They're the 'emergency' that kept most of my men detained
tonight," she laughed cruelly. Her voice suddenly harder, she added,
"And when I'm through with them they'll curse your name for *rescuing*
them!"
Buffy heard a faint metallic scraping sound that set her straining,
tense nerves even further on edge and sent another wave of sick terror
through her body. "And as for you, Ms. Summers," the general continued.
"I had hoped that you would rise in the ranks of this project, do very
well for yourself and for me...too bad your priorities were so mixed up.
But it's not so bad, I suppose," she mused. "I'd wondered ever since
Lieutenant Finn told me about you...what makes this girl different? How
can this seemingly ordinary girl have the incredible power and stamina
that you do? It's a scientific mystery to me." Her voice was casual,
almost friendly, as if she was confiding in Buffy. When she spoke
again, her voice was soft, and so near to Buffy's ear that she jumped,
pulling against her bonds without even meaning to.
"Let's solve the mystery, shall we?"