"Yes, I know that. In fact, I take it as a compliment. You Americans are all soft. You don't know what hardship is, and you expect everyone to play along with your soft little world-view. So, yes, I'm a bitch. I am what life has made me. But what you'd do well to remember is that I'm a bitch with lots of scalpels and needles and a prisoner who's taped to an operating table.

I could always decide I need another sample or two, if you don't keep quiet."

"Well, if you don't let me off this table you might find you get a urine sample that's kinda difficult to collect."

"You should have said." The older woman continued with her task of administering the milky looking contents of a hypodermic syringe. "It's a smaller dose than your sister received, so it may take some time to take effect, but our tests confirm that it is sufficient to do the job." Only then, did she open one of the lockers and pull out something that looked like a papier mâché potty.

She slit the tape around Dawn's arms, shoulders and forehead leaving the tape at her knees and ankles still intact. Her panties weren't going to be a problem as Sam had removed them somewhat earlier in the proceedings. Passing Dawn the wide-rimmed bowl, Sam remarked, "You should be able to manoeuvre just enough to be able to use that."

"I was thinking more of using a toilet."

"And why would I let you do that? We haven't finished our tests yet?"

"What? You want to stick me on a treadmill and see how long I run for before I say, "Fuck you!"? We can skip that one. The answer is no running."

"Actually, the last test is simply one of observation." Sam pressed a button and an opaque plastic screen slid back to reveal a barred cell no bigger than a shower stall. Huddled in the bottom of the cage was an unkempt old man, wrapped in a woollen overcoat that smelled as if no one had allowed him use of a cardboard potty. Clasped tightly in one hand he held half a bottle of bright purple liquid.

"How can you do that to him?" Dawn asked.

"Do what?" Sam countered. "Ninety nine percent of what has been done to him he did himself. We're merely giving him somewhere warmer and keeping him supplied with what his addiction demands."

"You can't really think it's okay to treat people like that. He could go blind drinking that stuff."

"People die, little one. All my life I've seen people die from cold, hunger, disease, alcohol and war. His death was already ordained by the time we picked him up. This is more humane than letting his addiction take its course. Have you ever seen a hospital ward where they keep the alcoholics before they die? Not, of course that that is why we chose him. He's simply convenient."

Sam drew a heavy baton across the bars making them vibrate and clatter like a child dragging a stick along a set of metal railings.

The man seemed to be startled into wakefulness and his arm immediately came up to shield his eyes.

"What is it?" Sam probed, pulling another plastic bottle of meths from a nearby locker. She waved it in front of the cage, but, of course, the man couldn't see it unless he removed his arm. "Tell me what you see, old man, and you can have an extra bottle."

"Oz," the shrivelled heap that had once been a man replied, a trembling hand stretching out through the bars of his cell for his reward even though he couldn't see where Sam was holding it.

"That is not an answer."

"Yes, it is. You just don't get it," Dawn protested.

"Then why don't you explain it. Before I open this bottle and pour it on the floor to watch him lick it up like a dog."

"It's a kid's story, with wicked witches and dwarves and stuff. All the heroes think they need help with something, so they all travel to see this powerful wizard who lives in Oz, the Emerald City. Then, when they get there they find the Wizard isn't a wizard at all he's just a man with a lot of neat tricks to make him look impressive, and Oz isn't made of emeralds it's nothing but green glass."

"So he sees the key's energy." She turned to the unfortunate in the cage. "You see the light? Is that it?"

" But then, you did pick him because he's at that stage where he's seeing things that aren't there, didn't you? So, it might mean nothing at all. Well, either that, or he knows you're just an impotent little sadist with no true power or ability, who's just trying to look like someone important."

"I think I liked you better when you still had the tape on your mouth." Sam picked up the roll of duct tape and ripped herself off another strip.

Dawn opened her mouth as wide as she could trying to prevent the woman from replacing the tape over her mouth, and while she had her mouth wide she figured she might as well go for a good old scream. There had to be someone on this train who wasn't a psycho, right?

"Keep your mouth open, little one, and you will be the one drinking this." Sam held up the bottle of meths and Dawn immediately decided that given the choices, she'd put up with the tape, thank you very much.

Sam walked over to a phone that was mounted on the wall at one end of the carriage. She picked up the receiver and spoke to the train's driver. "I've finished here. You can quit stalling any time you like." As she passed the old man's cage, she tossed in the bottle of alcohol before she pressed the button that slid the plexi-glass into place. "Hoo. I guess we could do with some fresh air in here." She pulled open what seemed to be a freight door at the opposite end of the carriage.

"I'll tell you what?" she said as she slit the tape that bound Dawn's legs and hauled her to her still somewhat shaky feet before pushing her out the open door. "Just to prove I'm not really a bad guy," the dark-haired woman reached into a pocket and tossed something small and metallic to land at Dawn's feet. "You might need that to call your precious sister, assuming you don't collapse before you get to a phone."

Dawn looked on stunned as the train pulled away without her before she reached up to pull the tape from her mouth.

She looked up and down the tracks. Aside from the fact that the train had gone one way, no particular direction seemed any better than the other. Part of her wanted to go as far and as fast as she could in the opposite direction from the train, but Sam might be counting on that, perhaps dropping her off where the next town back was twenty miles away and the one ahead was only two. Maybe, if it had been daylight she might have climbed one of the nearby hills to get an overview of the terrain. Then, she corrected herself, if it was daylight and she had any shoes. Dawn picked up the quarter that Sam had thrown and tossed it. "Heads I go on, tails I turn back," she told herself as she caught it and slapped it down on the back of her left hand. 
 
 

Spike squirmed uncomfortably as Buffy's finger drew patterns on his abs under his shirt, causing the bike to swerve slightly before he righted it. Then, he became aware of a certain impatience that began to accompany the gesture and realised that the pattern she was drawing wasn't random, but an arrow pointing to one side. Finally, he did what she wanted and gradually pulled the bike closer alongside Wes's. Somehow, with nothing more than eye movements Buffy managed to communicate to Willow what she wanted. Either that or the witch just decided to take the easy route to finding out what she wanted.

"What is it, Buffy?"

"I need you to set up one of your special conference calls for the four of us."

"Hokay, but we'd best warn the guys so we neither of us end up in a ditch."

Buffy simply raised her visor and leant forward to speak to Spike. Willow had a slightly more difficult job and eventually resorted to the very telepathy that she had been supposed to be warning Wes about in order to issue the warning.

"So, what's with the cloak and dagger, Buff?" the redhead asked when she had established a mental link between them all. 

"I think Riley's getting twitchy. I think he's not only having second thoughts, but third and fourth and fifth ones. When I mentioned Angel's crew he pretty much lost it. I think by the time we get wherever we're going, he's going to have just about convinced himself it's all a misunderstanding, that Sam has a good reason for anything she's done and that he really should be on her side rather than pal-ing around with a bunch of vampires and demons."

"And we all know what comes after denial..." Willow added.

"He's not going to just go home and leave wifey to a bunch of demons and demon-lovers. So, what do you want to do about it?" Spike asked.

"I was thinking, when we get to Simi, we're probably going to end up following the track, which goes through these tunnels, which might be like an opportunity to put up a barrier that would give us enough of a head start to get Dawn out and take Sam. I guess we need to wait and see what happens when the train starts moving again."

"You mean we go through, and then, pouf, barrier before the first truck gets there? That's quite an order."

"But can you do it, Red?" the vampire asked impatiently.

"Sure... I think."

"Cool." Buffy laid out one last surprise. "There's just one more thing. Riley wanted me to send Angel to Burbank, but it turns out they were already headed up the I405. They'll meet the train at Chatsworth, but I think, for now, it's safer to let Riley think he's got a few more miles of track to play with."

"But how are they going to stop the train?" Wes asked. "Isn't Riley's man in the control room going to think he has a bit more time to get it somewhere out of the way?"

The glee in Spike's "voice" was apparent even through the spell. "Well, how would you stop it, if you were them?" he asked.

"Probably with more finesse than any of the others except Fred is capable of."

"Just when I was thinking you got my idea of fun, watcher... At least, long as Bit's safe."

The minutes dragged on as the convoy continued to eat up the miles between them and the train. Skirting Oxnard, they travelled on through Camarillo. At Thousand Oaks they turned off the 101 taking a link road that would become the 118 at Simi Valley. They had already followed the railway tracks for several miles when Riley's contact rang back to say the train was, once more, on the move.
 
 

"You're sure this is the right place?" Angel looked at Fred. "This is definitely the right line."

"Well, assumin' they're usin' the passenger lines. There's all sorts of freight lines, but I figure this is the most likely way they'll come," Fred replied.

The entire LA gang had piled into Gunn's truck and Angel's car and now stood around beside the two vehicles, watching the level crossing in front of them as if they expected it to suddenly do something.

"So, just as a purely theoretical question, I don't suppose anyone has any ideas on how we're actually supposed to stop a hundred ton train?" Lorne asked from beneath his baseball cap, "or were you and junior planning on doing the father and son Superman act and just standing in the middle of the track?"

"You know, when I was checking up on the Net, there were all these stories from like ten, fifteen years ago where they reckoned gangs would push cars onto the tracks and wait for the next train to smash into them. Eventually they started running patrols to check the line in front of all the scheduled trains... but this isn't really a scheduled train. Thing is, the train would have to stop to check there was no damage before they could go on. Sometimes maybe a bit of debris could damage a brake line or something so they couldn't take any chances."

Angel turned and looked at Gunn's truck with an appraising eye, at least until the young man realised what he was doing.

" Get real, I sold my soul for this truck. You want to write off a car for a kid I only met once, use your own."

"But..."

"No buts. This truck is staying this side of that there barrier and that is final."

"But I don't have insurance," the downcast vampire almost whined.