The vampire relished the
surge of strength flowing through him as he pummeled the object before
him mercilessly, releasing a rain of vicious blows upon it. True, it
was only a vinyl punching bag, and not the particular soldier's face
that he imagined it to be, but he was still allowed to dream, wasn't
he? He kept pounding until he felt strong enough to tear down the walls
of the prison that held him and finally break free.
Too bad the prison was in his head. Literally.
The brick walls that surrounded him were nothing but a show, really.
The lock on the outside of the door, a mere insult, a mockery of his
powerlessness. He knew, they all knew, that he could break it in an
instant if he wanted to. The real prison that held him here was the
tiny piece of metal in his head.
Because he also knew that, should he choose to smash the door open and
make a break for it, the tracking sensors in the chip would immediately
notify his captors of what he had done, and the agony would drop him in
his tracks. He would be helpless, too incapacitated by the pain to do
anything but wait for them to find him and lock him up again – and
certainly not without severe punishment for the attempt.
Only when he felt exhausted to the point of collapse did he finally
abandon the punching bag and sink down onto the soft leather of the
sofa. The spacious suite that was his living quarters – his cell – was
comfortably furnished, ,cleaned for him regularly, and always stocked
with a ready supply of blood. But he knew that it was all an illusion,
designed to disguise the fact that he was a prisoner here – to make him
feel somehow indebted to them, as if he had chosen this. It was an
elaborate mind game, really, and he knew it.
Still, he thought, there were less pleasant illusions and much more
vicious mind games he could have been subjected to.
He thought back to the first day, the day the illusion had begun to
slip into place. Two burly soldier types had come to his crypt. He had
made a brief attempt to fight them off that ended in the double
punishment of his chip going off, followed by the fists of the
soldiers. He had been bound and blindfolded and brought to this
underground place, where he had spent hours – days possibly – locked in
a small, dark cell, alone, hungry, and increasingly afraid.
As a master vampire, he had had much experience in conquering his
fears. But there's nothing like silent, dark loneliness to revive it.
He had plenty of time with nothing to do but think about how helpless
he was, and wonder what plans his captors had for him.
So by the time the general had arrived, he had been near enough to
terrified to listen to her explanation without interruption. Or rather,
he would have been, if he had been someone who was physically capable
of listening to someone's diabolical ranting without interrupting.
She had come to him in the cell, swaggering in with all the arrogant
confidence of one so young, thrust suddenly into a position of great
power. She had flipped a switch outside the cell before entering, and
the dark room had been suddenly flooded with light, making him feel
exposed and vulnerable in the sudden brightness.
The first thing he had noticed when his eyes had adjusted to the light
was the strikingly beautiful woman who was looking him over
appraisingly. She was obviously of Hispanic descent, with long, silky
almost-black hair and chocolate-brown eyes. She was only a few inches
shorter than he was, with a figure that could not be concealed by the
sharp edges of her military uniform.
An arrogant smirk that she could have learned from him on her lips, she
had turned to the soldiers flanking her and sneered, "*This* is Hostile
17? The only HST ever to thwart our security systems?" Looking back at
him with what could only be described as a leer, she added, "Doesn't
look like much."
Irritated by her derision, he had put as much menace as possible into
his voice as he advanced on her, saying in a slightly suggestive tone,
"Looks can be deceiving, love."
Her smile had widened just slightly in an unsettling way, as she had
replied softly, "Can they." Then without warning she had backhanded him
savagely. Her strength was astonishing for a girl her size; that
combined with his weakness from not having fed for days, sent him
staggering backward, struggling to keep his balance.
After giving him a few moments to recover, to be sure that he could
actually hear her, she had continued in that softly authoritative
voice, "I am General Serena Cordova, and you will address me as General
or Ma'am. And you will speak only when spoken to, Hostile. Is that
clear?"
His pride had risen up at that, every part of him loathe to submit. But
one look in her eyes told him that he had seriously underestimated the
danger in crossing this woman, and submission would probably be wise at
this point. Spike had never been one to confuse courage with stupidity,
or cowardice with sheer wisdom. He would wait for a better time, a time
when he was not chipped, half-starved and surrounded by armed soldiers.
"Yes, *General*," he had drawled, putting as much derision into the
term as possible, as he wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his
hand. He had had years of experience with Angelus at being respectful
in his words and insolent in every other part of his being. The mockery
in his voice had been so obvious that he had almost expected her to
strike him again. Angelus would have.
But she had just smiled coolly. "I'll come straight to the point,
Hostile 17. Your reputation precedes you, and you have proven your
skill and intelligence when it comes to battle, espionage, that sort of
thing. It is for that reason only that I am giving you a choice to
make."
That was the first step of the illusion: choice. They both knew he had
none.
"Your skills could be very useful for a certain project of mine," she
had continued, her voice calm and level. "I've long thought that your
kind has tremendous resources to offer us, which are currently being
wasted. You have incredible strength, healing restorative powers, not
to mention the fact that you are nearly unkillable. I've long thought,
if such power could be contained – controlled – it could be used for so
much good! Imagine – an *army* of vampires – they'd be unstoppable."
Spike had often imagined just that, though "good" had never had
anything to do with his ideas, and in truth he doubted it had much to
do with hers, either.
"What I would like you to do for us, Hostile 17," she went on in that
same even, polite tone, "is to assist us in training the vampires we
currently have here, and any others we acquire. Training them for
battle." She paused, then continued in a more intimately conversational
tone, as if she were talking to a colleague, "The vampires don't trust
us."
Despite the alarms going off in his mind, warning him of how terribly
dangerous this woman really was, he could not suppress his sneer at the
sheer obviousness of her statement. But the cruel gleam that came into
her eye quickly wiped it from his face as she went on, "You would be
able to get through to them better than we can." She had paused, as if
waiting for his answer.
"Please!" he countered, shaking his head in disbelief. "They'll see me
as a bloody traitor is all! They'll despise me worse than they despise
these wankers!" He indicated the soldiers accompanying her with a wave
of his hand...before her fist shot out and sent him stumbling back again.
"Bloody hell!" he snarled in rage and pain. "You've *been* speaking to
me for a soddin' hour!" He did not understand why she had hit him again.
The general responded calmly, "You will address my men with respect."
"Bloody hell," he muttered again, reaching up to gingerly feel his
nose. The girl hit like a Slayer.
Going on as if nothing had happened, the general said, "Regardless of
how they *feel* about you, you'll know how to reach them. They'll all
answer to you first. You'll be their commanding officer. Under all of
my...human...officers, of course."
The anger building in him at the blows he had taken for next to
nothing, the way she was just *telling* him what he was "going" to do,
until it threatened to overcome his good judgment. "Of course," he
repeated with sarcastic venom in his voice.
The general frowned, her eyes narrowing, glittering with anger. "Of
course, if you don't *want* to help us," she said in a softly warning
tone. "we can't force you to."
"No, you'll just use me for some soddin' experiment, or simply dust me,
or some worse fate you'll come up with just for me, right?" he spat out.
The general did not deny it; rather smiled in acknowledgement. Now,
*that* was just bloody scary!
As the perilous situation he was in finally hit him full force, he
tried to keep his voice calm and steady as he replied, "Well...if I *do*
decide to help you...what exactly is involved in this job?"
And with those words he outwardly accepted the illusion. But he never
would allow himself to actually be deceived by it.
Once he accepted the "offer", things began to move very quickly. The
very next day his chip was reprogrammed to the specifications ordered
by General Cordova. It was no longer set to fire only when he tried to
hurt a human. Oh, it still did that. But it also fired any time he left
his quarters without permission, any time he went into game face, any
time General Cordova decided that she *wanted* it to go off! It now was
equipped with a manual trigger device which was constantly in her
possession.
He quickly learned to do whatever it took not to displease her.
The training part of his job description was the only sometimes
enjoyable part. Against his expectations, the "recruits" for the
vampire army did not despise him. Torn from familiar surroundings and
placed here, he seemed to them someone familiar, a possible ally among
enemies. They looked to him for guidance, a fact which did not escape
the notice of the former vampire master, whose ultimate goal was still
escape – escape followed by vengeance.
Then, a few weeks into his captivity, a soldier showed up at his door
with a young man in chains. Shoving him into his suite, he had ordered,
"Turn him."
Shocked and disbelieving, he had called the general first to be sure
she had ok'ed it. Upon finding out that the order had indeed come from
her, he had enthusiastically carried it out.
The young man had been the first of about a dozen that were brought to
him over the course of the next year. He soon discovered the reason for
his good fortune. General Cordova needed officers for her vampire army
– officers that would not inevitably be killed before all their troops,
leaving them leaderless. In other words, non-human officers.
The problem was not a shortage of vampires, but rather a shortage of
them with that much potential, intelligence. Most of Sunnydale's vamps
were merely minion material, no more. Somehow the general had found out
about his own distinguished Aurelian heritage, and derived, accurately,
that vamps sired by him would have more intelligence and potential than
most.
At first he enjoyed this particular responsibility. But the longer he
was there, the more abuses of power he was witness to, *subjected* to,
at the hands of the general and her soldiers, the more it bothered him
to do it. It was not so much the turning that bothered him as the fate
he was condemning them to by doing it here.
Of course, the vamps he had sired received special treatment. Private
quarters, like his, only much smaller of course, education in skills
besides simple warfare. He was pleased that he was allowed to have a
significant hand in their training and vampire upbringing. The other
vamps viewed these few as elite.
But to the humans, they were nothing more than cattle.
He had once viewed humans that way. A lot of things had changed.
Although he was generally better-treated than most of the vamps, lately
he had come under suspicion by some of the soldiers, led by General
Cordova's second-in-command, a man he had known before he had come
here, and hated the entire time. One of his children had escaped. No
one knew how. But they all knew who was the only one to have pulled it
off before.
Personally, though he had had nothing to do with it, he was pleased and
proud of his childe for his successful escape.
*Just hope he doesn't run into the Slayer out there,* he thought with a
shudder – and an odd fondness. "That bloodthirsty bint will kick his
ass!"