"Well bloody good for her!"
Spike sneered at the general, turning his back to her.
"No. It won't be," the general countered in a threatening tone, moving
around to face him. She smiled cruelly, "Bloody maybe. Not so good. Not
for your girl."
"Well if Darian made it out, maybe she will too," he shrugged, feigning
unconcern in his tone, but his wide triumphant smile at her said
otherwise.
Furious, she slapped him across the face, hard. The blow merely stung;
but its purpose had been more to "put him in his place" than to
actually hurt. Fighting his impulse to just haul off and slap her back,
he waited silently for what she would say. He did not wait long.
"This is very serious, Hostile," she snapped. "Lieutenant Finn believes
that you had something to do with Darian's disappearance. And while the
smart thing would be to do as he suggests and simply eliminate you
completely, I am reluctant to do so without evidence."
His smile became a smirk as he turned his smoldering blue eyes on her
and said slowly, surely, "Because you need me."
He saw in her eyes that he was right, and that she knew it, and...oh
bollocks. A moment later a searing pain ripped through him with vicious
intensity, and he clutched at the wall behind him to stay on his feet;
she would not have him on his knees again!
As the pain ebbed, she leaned in close and said, smiling, "Not as much
as you'd like to think." She paused, then went on, "You'll come with me
now. The facility is locked down; she can't get out. You will help me
find her."
Disbelief in his eyes, he snarled, "I bloody well will not! You're out
of your bleedin' mind!"
The general hit the button again, and this time the pain was so intense
that he could not stay on his feet no matter how hard he try, and
against his will ended up on his knees.
Just then there was a knock at the door. Still pressing the button
down, not taking her eyes off the object of her wrath, she opened the
door and acknowledged the young soldier who stood outside.
"Yes, private."
"She's arrived, General Cordova."
The general paused, still holding the button down, as her victim shook
with agony on the ground at her feet. Then she sighed wearily and
released the button. "Have her and Lieutenant Finn in my office at
once. I will be along in a moment. Dismissed."
The soldier walked away, as she crouched down beside Spike's trembling
form. The aftershocks of the chip's punishment were still racking his
body with pain, but still he struggled to pull himself up, unable to
speak yet, but glaring defiantly into her eyes. He was completely
silent, determined not to let her hear him cry out, no matter how
severe the pain was.
She watched him for a moment, aware of this and troubled by it. The
vampire was getting too cocky; something needed to be done to take him
down a notch or two. But it would have to wait. Smiling coolly down at
him, she said softly, "I'll be back soon. Try to have seen some reason
by then."
Despite their rather awkward breakup, Buffy would have thought that
Riley's presence would have made her feel at least a little more at
ease, as familiar face in these strange surroundings. But for some
reason, Riley did not even seem familiar anymore. He seemed as much a
stranger to her as any of the random soldiers they passed on the way to
General Cordova's office.
By the time they arrived, the general was seated behind her huge oak
desk. She stood when they entered, smiling politely as she shook
Buffy's hand.
Buffy was surprised by her on several levels. For one thing, she was
young, maybe only a few years older than Buffy. And pretty. Buffy had
not expected that. Also very – nice. She was very friendly to Buffy,
and her eyes were warm; she seemed like the polar opposite of Maggie
Walsh. In spite of herself, Buffy found that she was inclined to like
General Cordova.
*Evil general,* she reminded herself. *General turning people into
vampires!* But being on more friendly terms with this Initiative leader
than she had been with the last one could work in her favor, she
thought.
The first step of her plan, though she didn't really have much of one
yet, was just to get into the Initiative herself. She highly doubted
that she would see much the first day; her goal was just to be accepted
so that she would be in a position to find out more. For that reason
she had decided that she would do her best to pretend to agree and be
impressed with whatever she was told about the Initiative's current
projects.
"Lieutenant Finn tells me you are interested in joining us," the
general smiled encouragingly as she spoke.
Buffy nodded. "Yes, that's right." She kept her tone open and positive.
"If I might ask, Ms. Summers, what changed your mind about joining us?"
the general asked, curiosity in her dark eyes. "You seemed so against
it last year."
"Well, you've obviously done an excellent job keeping the vamp
population down," Buffy acknowledged. "I guess I just wanted to see how
it would go before signing on."
"Smart woman," General Cordova nodded her approval. "After the disaster
that the former operation turned out to be."
General Cordova spent the next fifteen minutes or so asking Buffy about
her slaying activities, and seemed very impressed by what she heard.
*Déjà vu,* Buffy thought. *Let's just hope this one
doesn't try to kill
me!* Then the general started explaining to Buffy a little about the
activities they performed there, and Buffy tried to focus her attention.
"We've done extensive research with the behavior modification chip
technology and impulse control," she said. She gave Buffy an odd smile
and said, "Lieutenant Finn tells me you are somewhat familiar with this
technology?"
Wondering how much Riley had told this woman about what *she* knew,
Buffy cautiously replied, "A little. I had brief contact with a vamp
who had one."
"I see," General Cordova said mildly. "And that would be the hostile
who was assisting Dr. Walsh's...abominable creation...in the massacre last
year?" General Cordova's face was a mask of disgust.
Buffy quickly put on her own mask. She did not want the general to
think that she was on friendly terms with a vampire, especially Spike.
Maybe she could even get some information out of this if she played her
cards right. "That would be the one," she said, putting as much anger
and disgust into her tone as possible. It wasn't hard. "That's one vamp
I'd love to get my hands on! He almost got me killed! I never did get
to...*thank* him for that!"
The general's smile widened a little and her eyes narrowed in
contemplation. "Really," she said softly. "Well, you just might get
your chance signing on here. He's one of the hostiles we've contained."
Buffy made herself sound shocked. "Really?" she said. She put a
speculative smirk on her face. "That could be interesting."
General Cordova was considering what the Slayer's intense dislike for
Hostile 17 could mean regarding her little situation with the vampire's
recent bad attitude, when there was a knock at the door.
The young soldier who came in wanted to speak privately with the
general for a moment, so she sent Riley to take Buffy on a tour of the
facility, while she talked with him. Buffy thought as they walked away,
although she couldn't hear the words spoken, that the general looked
very pleased by the soldier's news.
Once again, the door to Spike's suite opened unexpectedly. He had long
since recovered from the general's cruel punishment earlier, and
lounged insolently on the sofa, not even bothering to get up when she
came into the room. He expected her to order him to attention, or maybe
just glare and look disapproving, but she just smiled – which was
vaguely troublesome.
"Come with me," she ordered softly.
"I'm not helping you find Diana," he reminded her.
"I know," she said, her voice calm and even. "Come on, Hostile."
Hesitantly, not sure what was going on here, he followed her out of his
room and down a couple of hallways, until they stopped before a door.
She turned to him and smiled. "There's something in here I'd like you
to see," she said, opening the door and gesturing for him to go in
ahead of her.
Very uneasy and suspicious of this situation, but really not having a
choice in the matter, he walked through the door.
The sight before him made him sick with fear and rage. She had not
needed him to help find Diana.
They had found her.
She was facing him, in the center of the room, bound by heavy chains
suspended from the ceiling. Her wrists were bleeding where the chains
cut into her flesh, and she was dressed in only her undergarments. She
was chained just slightly too high, so that her feet could just barely
touch the ground, and she moaned with the pain of it. A soldier stood
behind her with a cruel smile on his face, brandishing a leather
horsewhip.
She seemed almost feverish with pain, but her eyes opened briefly, and
found him, pleading silently for the protection he owed her as her
sire. Unthinking, furious, he lunged forward, headed for the soldier
with the whip. Before he could take two steps the chip had fired, not
too hard, but enough to stop him for just long enough for two burly
soldiers to take his arms and pull him back. He tried to fight them
off, but his efforts only caused the chip to fire again.
"Let her go!" he snarled, oblivious to the pain, glaring at the
general, enraged. "Let her go or I'll rip your bloody throats out!"
The general approached him with a cold smile on her face. "No, you
won't, hostile," she said softly. "You can't. It's time you learned the
limits of what you can and can't do around here." She paused. "If you'd
been a bit more respectful and helpful, I might be inclined to show a
bit of mercy in this case, because she's your childe. But as things
stand...being your child is not something that's working in her favor at
the moment." She gave him a moment to take that in before walking
slowly across the room to stand near the soldier with the whip.
Shooting Spike one more vicious smile, she gave the order for the
beating to begin.
Buffy was walking down the hall with Riley, feeling quite bored with
the tour, room after room after room. *Here's a research lab, and
here's another research lab, and this room here...that's another research
lab...* She sighed, and just when she was about to ask him if there were
any rooms here used for anything besides research, a muffled roar was
heard from just down the hall.
She glanced at Riley wide-eyes for a moment – finally, some excitement!
– before she hurried down the hall toward the sound.
"Buffy!" Riley called anxiously. "Wait!"
But he should have known by now, she thought. She didn't take
instruction very well.
"You're all going to die screaming!" Spike raged as the whip fell again
and again across Diana's back. "I'll kill you all! Let her go! Let me
go!" He was nearly beside himself with fury.
Suddenly, a door across the room behind the general opened...and had his
heart still beat, it would have stopped.
*Slayer!* Then a second thought, bitter and disgusted. *Took her look
enough to figure it out! Stupid bint!*
Even as he wondered what she was doing here, hope rose in him for a
moment; surely the Slayer would see the injustice, the cruelty of this.
Surely she would stop it. He fought with the niggling thought reminding
him that Diana *was* a vampire and the Slayer might simply not care.
But then, she had declined to stake him when he was helpless and she
had had the chance. Surely she would help.
But his hopes sank as she approached the general, spoke with her for a
moment, then smiled and simply watched the proceedings with her.
His rage now had a new strength as he watched her simply accept this
brutal scene. Well, he was not going to accept it. Not for another
bloody moment. Steeling his body to fight through the inevitable pain,
he pulled his arm free with a violent jerk and dropped the soldiers
holding him with two quick blows.
Buffy stood in stunned silence beside the general, her heart pounding
with so many different emotions at once. It had been all she could
manage to return the general's calm smile after receiving her
explanation. This vampire had attacked a soldier, nearly killed him,
Cordova had said. This was her punishment.
Buffy thought staking would have been more humane. But she somehow
managed not to show her disapproval. And then her eyes had moved past
the battered, pitiful sight in the middle of the room and out to take
in the whole scene.
And she found the source of the roaring she had heard.
Spike.
*Oh, God,* she thought, her eyes widening as he jerked free of the
soldiers restraining him. Her first thought was that his chip had
malfunctioned; she readied herself to go into slay-mode. Regardless of
what she thought of these people's actions, they *were* people, and if
Spike started killing she would stake him without hesitation.
But then she saw his face contort with pain, even as he hurled himself
across the room at the soldier wielding the whip. But instead of going
for the man's throat, he snatched the weapon from his hand and struck
him a quick, hard blow to the head, knocking him out cold before he
could react. Cringing in pain, he turned to face the general, eyes
blazing with hatred.
Then for one brief moment, those hate-filled eyes leveled on Buffy, and
his lip curled up in a sneer of disgust. Buffy froze; her heart felt as
if it had stopped. And suddenly, she was filled with such shame that
she wanted to sink through the floor, anywhere to escape the accusation
in those eyes.
But then he focused back on the general as he snapped the weapon into
three pieces and hurled it to the floor. His voice low, guttural with
animal rage, he addressed the general.
"Cut. Her. Down."
The general's lips formed a cruel smile. She took a small device from
her pocket and turned a dial on it. Before Buffy could even wonder what
it was for, Spike had dropped to the ground in unspeakable agony,
gasping for unnecessary breath as spasm after violent spasm shook his
body. It seemed to go on forever, and just when Buffy thought she would
have to drop her act, it finally stopped.
The general walked slowly toward him, looking down at him in contempt.
He was trying to rise, despite the devastating pain still coursing
through his body. The general leveled a savage kick to his face.
"Stay down," she ordered, as if he were no more than a misbehaving dog.
Buffy fought her impulse to attack this woman herself. *The plan. The
plan. Think of the plan. Can't help him like this. Think of the plan,*
she told herself.
Suddenly the general looked at Buffy appraisingly, as an idea occurred
to her. Turning to two of her men, she ordered, "Take him to the
solitary confinement cell." As they moved to obey her, she turned to
Buffy with a smile.
"Would you still like your chance to...er...*thank*...Hostile 17, Slayer?"
she asked, a self-satisfied smirk on her face. She was certain that she
had just come up with the perfect punishment for her rebellious servant.
A slow smile of her own spreading over her face, Buffy nodded as she
replied, "Yes. Yes I would."