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4: Chaos Theory
Malcolm Janus climbed in through the window opening with gloved hands which protected his palms from the shattered glass. It was a few minutes before daylight and here he was alone in the Los Angeles Museum of Science. He had broken a small window near the loading dock of the museum, not really caring that there was video surveillance capturing his every move. By the time anyone watched the tapes, it would be far too late.
He pulled himself through the window and came to a stand in the corner of a darkened hallway on the first floor of the museum. He brushed off his long dark jacket and retrieved the flashlight from its inside pocket. Janus marched down the hallway with intent, making his way passed the space exhibit to the geological center.
Malcolm stomped his way into a room filled with geological stones from all over the world, most of them born of the Earth but a select few with alien origins. There was one that the Illuminati had kept careful watch over for centuries, waiting for a moment like this. Janus walked through the enormous room of stones of every size, many of them worth millions of dollars, and walked up to one particular exhibit with a heart of malice.
The former secret aide to Vice President Stillson stared through the glass wall with bitterness on his tongue. On a plaque of soft white linen, a large crystal protruded upwards in gothic fashion. It was mostly green in hue, but had a dark black center deep within the semi-transparent stone. The number 307 was posted on a small card next to the stone, which led down to a card posted at the front of the case which displayed the scientific name of the strange crystal: Ununoctinite. One could see the darkness of hell inside of the crystal if he looked hard enough, and an agent of the Illuminati as Janus was knew exactly where to look.
More frighteningly, he knew exactly how to use it.
Using the end of his flashlight, he smashed through the glass of the case, sending off a shrieking alarm that did not faze Janus. He reached into the case and took hold of the precious stone.
Pandemonium filled three square blocks surrounding Tyler Memorial Hospital as crowds of confused onlookers, police squads and firefighters pushed towards the building. Walt was trying to maneuver his silver rental car through the crowds with Bruce in the passenger seat and Johnny and Angel in the back seat. Johnny barked directions constantly.
"Here!" he anxiously ordered. "Go down this street here!" The car was blocked in wall to wall by other cars filling the street.
"I can't go anywhere!" Walt exclaimed. "This is it… This is as close as we're getting…"
Bruce reasoned with Johnny, "John, I don't really think we're gonna be able to get there—"
But it was too late. Frustrated, Johnny opened the door and rushed out into the morning crowd with Angel following.
"Never mind," Bruce sighed. He glanced over to Walt telling him, "Just leave it." The men abandoned the car, as had everyone else on the street at that time, and rushed to find Johnny and Angel in the massive crowd.
Smoke and ash filled the air around the tightly packed buildings, streams of sunlight providing a little light for those around. Walt and Bruce found Johnny and Angel rushing up the street, dashing around bewildered onlookers covering their mouths and noses from the dust. Walt and Bruce reluctantly tried to catch up, striving not to lose them in the swarm.
All of the people were standing and staring up towards the emptiness of a building which was no longer there with bizarre expressions. News crews, consisting of a single reporter and a cameraman, desperately tried to push past the crowds and the cops to get a good shot of the amazing sight.
Johnny and Angel stopped across the street from Tyler Memorial Hospital and gazed with puzzlement. Bruce and Walt, as soon as they arrived, shared the same confused feelings. The entire hospital lay in rubble piled several stories high.
Johnny glanced over past strange faces to see a female reporter holding a Channel Nine microphone. "Excuse me," Johnny asked the reporter, catching her attention. "What happened here?"
"Some sort of explosion," she hastily explained as her cameraman began to set up the shot. "Whole building's destroyed. No one knows why." She nervously primped her blonde hair as she began to compose her dialogue.
"How many are dead?" Bruce asked.
Both the reporter and the cameraman hesitated as they glanced at each other and turned towards them. "None," she explained simply. The cameraman turned on the camera light and signaled her to begin reporting. "Thank you, James. This morning, downtown Los Angeles was shaken with an enormous explosion which leveled Tyler Memorial Hospital. Officials are at the scene now and no one seems to know what caused the blast, but one-by-one survivors have started climbing out of the wreckage…"
The four men looked back towards the rubble and saw dust-covered hospital patients, doctors, and nurses wandering from the area in confusion. "Look!" Angel declared, pointing over towards a fallen steel beam pinning a man to the ground.
They dashed across the dust-covered street and carefully made their way to the edge of the pile. Bruce glanced around warily. "Everybody, watch it!" he ordered. "It's still unstable."
Johnny and Angel moved over to the conscious man, his face pale with stone dust. He stared up at the sky with a dazed expression. "Help me," the doctor whispered.
"It's okay," Johnny replied. "We're gonna find help."
Already, the beam was being lifted off of him. Walt tossed it aside as he came to the aide of the pinned man. Bruce stood by them and watched, bewildered. He stared at the steel beam and stared at Walt oddly, but he was the only one who seemed to notice.
"Don't try to move," Angel ordered, but the doctor didn't listen. He came to a careful stand as he gazed around the street. Johnny glanced him over.
"Does anything hurt?" Johnny asked.
"No," the doctor shook his head as he began to walk away in a zombie-like state. Johnny and Angel glanced at each other peculiarly.
"Nothing's broken," Bruce declared as he studying the man. "He's walking fine."
"No bruises," Angel noted. "No cuts. No blood."
Walt continued to gaze around at the wandering survivors around him. "No blood anywhere. Nobody's hurt." He turned to John at a loss. "How the hell does that happen?"
"Hey!" a police officer called from the side. "Get out of there! Are you guys nuts? Emergency personnel only!"
Johnny turned away from the officer, ignoring him. He began to march towards another side of the wreckage. "John!" Bruce called after him. "Where are you going?"
"I've got to find her," Johnny announced.
"Huh?"
"I've got to find Buffy!" he snapped.
"Johnny!" Bruce called after him, grabbing him by the arm. It took a lot to stop him, but John turned back and faced him impatiently. Bruce looked over at Walt and Angel and knew he should tread lightly. "What exactly do you hope to find?" Bruce asked. "Buffy's dead."
Johnny stared at him in silence with a peculiar expression. For a moment it was almost as if he had forgotten. A dark expression set into his face. "I know that," Johnny bit off. "Her body… we have to find it…"
"Let the cops do that, John," Walt sympathetically answered. "This whole place is a death trap. You can get hurt if you go in there, or even worse."
Angel looked away and stared down at the pieces of rock scattered on the ground. He crouched down close to them, staring at them intently.
"This has to be related!" Johnny declared angrily. "There's no way she dies and six hours later this place just blows up for no reason!"
"They haven't found the reason yet," Bruce tried to explain.
"This is about Buffy," Johnny said with determination. "It has to be…"
"How?" Walt asked.
"Janus." The three of them turned back to Angel who had uttered the single word as he remained crouched down to the ground, holding a piece of concrete in his hand. "Malcolm Janus." Johnny, Bruce and Walt glanced at each other, before Johnny approached Angel suspiciously. Angel looked up at him. "He was here. Or… in the morgue. Last night."
Angel paused in his speech as he stared up at Johnny. "How did you know that name?" Johnny demanded.
Angel's eyes fell to the ground. "I don't know."
Johnny fired back, "Don't tell me you don't know – tell me how did you—?"
"I said I don't know!" Angel declared with frustration. He glanced around the street and the chaos around him and mulled over the chaos in his mind. He was as lost in confusion as the others were. "Does the name mean anything to you or not?"
Johnny glanced back at Walt and Bruce, then stared at Angel suspiciously. "He's part of the Illuminati. He's the man behind Stillson." Johnny continued as he gazed around the destroyed block, "He and his men believed that they could bring order out of the world through chaos. It was their goal to cause a disaster that would change the world." Angel stood up as he looked Johnny in the eye. John remembered the events which occurred two nights ago vividly. He recalled finding Janus on the rooftop with them, watching Stillson, and all the plans of the Illuminati, fall over the edge of the building.
"He warned us," Johnny declared, remembering clearly. "'You will regret this night.' That's what he said."
"You think he caused this?" Walt asked.
Johnny turned to Angel with a furrowed brow, studying him carefully. "Maybe he made good on his threat," Bruce suggested.
John shook his head with disgust. "I think that there's a good chance he's behind this," he explained. "And if he is, I know where to look."
Dawn gazed blankly and silently out of the oval window of Flight 4216 from Rome to New York. She stared at the darkness of the runway as the flight attendant explained all sorts of details about what to do if the plane crashes. Oxygen mask, brace position, seat is a floatation device… Who cares?
"You know what I heard?" Andrew Wells, the short, nerdy, blonde guy sitting next to her said – one of fifty things he had said to her in the trip from the apartment to the airport to the plane. "I heard that the FAA created the brace position to kill everyone off quickly so they wouldn't have to suffer after the crash." He laughed nervously, sweat forming on his forehead.
Dawn gave him no reply. It was yet another pointless fact bestowed on her. Andrew took a deep breath and leaned back in the seat, directing the air conditioning panel above him directly on his face, twisting it to full blast.
"I get so nervous on planes," Andrew said. "I should have brought my iPod so I could be soothed by the soulful sounds of Christopher Cross." He looked at the side of Dawn's unresponsive face. "But at least they let me bring my magic rocks." He reached into his pocket and retrieved four small green stones which were shiny as glass.
After a tremor throughout the plane, the aircraft slowly began to pick up speed as it taxied to the runway. Andrew swallowed hard again as he inhaled and exhaled through his nose. He held his breath for a moment after another sharp bounce as the plane picked up speed. "And if the wind is right you can sail away," he softly began to sing. "And find serenity—"
"Andrew," Dawn silenced him coldly, her voice bogged down with frustration.
"Sorry," he replied sheepishly. Andrew glanced around as the plane lifted into the air. "Hey, Dawn," he began gently and carefully, "when do you think… we should call off the Buffy look-alikes?"
Dawn stared out the window motionlessly. "I don't know," she said with a quiet, defeated voice. "I don't know anything."
In Scotland, Giles was inside a board room in the headquarters of the Watchers Council with several key figures seated at a table. Xander Harris, Robin Wood, and Sunnydale Slayers Kennedy, Vi, and Rona were gathered at the table and were receiving their briefing from Giles based on information retrieved from his colleague in Los Angeles.
"As you already know," Giles began, removing his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose, "we received word from Los Angeles that Buffy… died yesterday evening."
"Do we know what caused it?" Kennedy asked with a bit of frustration. She was just as distraught by the lack of information as the others that had known Buffy for a much longer time.
"Not at this time," Giles shook his head tiredly. It was the middle of the night in Scotland, but it didn't seem there would be any relief soon. "But we do have confirmation that Angel has returned to L.A. as well. I believe he's looking for Johnny Smith."
"What would he want with John?" Xander asked, wearing something of a military uniform to go with his eye patch. He believed it encouraged the Slayers to call him Sergeant Fury, which gave him a kick-your-feet-in-the-air rush every time he heard it.
Giles shrugged his shoulders a bit. "Not really sure," he stated with his British accent. "But we believe that it probably has something to do with the fact that he's human now."
"Say what?" Robin, son of former Slayer Nikki Wood, exclaimed. The dark-skinned, well-built, former principal of Sunnydale High School had become a commander of some of the Slayer troops in Buffy's absence.
"He can walk in the daylight," Giles explained. "We know that after the destruction of Wolfram & Hart, he disappeared and was spotted in Romania – still a vampire. But recently he has been observed countering several vampires near Los Angeles. His powers appear to be… significantly decreased."
"Does this have anything to do with what happened to Buffy?" the red-haired Slayer named Vi asked. She had trained with the original Potentials in the Summers' household under Buffy before the Battle of the Hellmouth.
"I don't believe so," Giles shook his head. "But, of course, the details are… incomplete. What we do know is that we're now tracking a concern with the Illuminati, an ancient sect which was behind the Presidential campaign of Greg Stillson, according to Johnny Smith."
"Are there rumblings among the masses?" Xander asked.
"Quite the contrary, actually," Giles explained. "They've been remarkably silent. Right now we're looking for a man named Malcolm Janus. He's an active member of the Illuminati, the one closest to Vice President Stillson. He encountered Buffy and Johnny personally on several occasions."
"Well what do we do now?" Rona, another one of the original Potential trainees, asked impatiently. "I mean if Buffy's dead and something's going down with this Illuminati group we need to take this on now. It's what we should've been doing in the first place."
"What do you mean by that?" Kennedy asked, a bit offended by Rona's harsh tone. She was known for being the first to criticize a situation, but it was her trying to strive for perfection.
"I mean that we knew about this thing with Stillson, what, a year ago?" Rona answered sharply. "We knew about the Illuminati back when Buffy ran off to the States and lost her powers. We're the most qualified to take something like this on, so why weren't we the ones handling this whole operation?"
"You're saying that Buffy and Johnny weren't qualified?" Xander repeated, offended. "I'd say the fact that they killed the guy that was supposedly going to go trigger-happy and nuke the world is a pretty good way of handling the situation."
"They didn't stop the Illuminati," Rona argued.
"They would've in time," Vi suggested.
"And now Buffy's time is over," Rona snapped.
"That's enough!" Giles declared with a commanding voice. The discussion at the table came to an abrupt end.
"I think we need to carry out our original plan," Robin suggested, "now more than ever."
"Bustin' Faith out of jail?" Xander replied.
Giles nodded and agreed, "Her arrest was an untimely one, that's for sure."
"I'll take a team with me to California right away," Robin declared. "Once Faith is secured, we'll try to make contact with John Smith." He glanced over at Rona. "We'll see if we can take control of this situation."
"I don't believe you need to hijack their operation," Giles declared. "The man is grieving, after all. Just as we all are."
"All the more reason to make sure that he can make the right decisions," Robin replied. "We'll cross that bridge when we get there."
"Kennedy," Giles stated, "I've been trying to reach Willow for a few hours. Try to track her down, will you?"
"Sure," she nodded. Kennedy had began dating Willow Rosenberg since when they met each other in Sunnydale. "I was planning on heading back to the house anyway."
"Good," Giles replied. "Vi, Rona; I want the two of you to stay here until you have further instructions. We might need you to gather the Slayers should anything go awry."
"Where are you going?" Vi asked.
"I'm going to Westbury," Giles answered.
"England? Now?" Rona replied.
"It's important that I meet with the Coven about some of the information I received," Giles stated anxiously. "It's important that we all stay alert. Now, Xander." He glanced over at the young man who's head was tilted back and his face was towards the ceiling. "Xander?" His chest rose and fell slowly, sleeping peacefully. "Xander!" Giles snapped.
His eye opened and he sat upright with a start. "Yeah! What? Yes?" Xander looked up at Giles as he wiped the drool from his mouth.
Giles gave him a stern look. "You're going to accompany me."
"Sergeant Fury at your service," he blurted. "When do we leave?"
"Now," he declared. He looked at the others. "That is all."
The room came to a stand as one-by-one the members of the meeting exited the room and went their separate ways. Xander held behind as he reached for his jacket draped on the chair behind him. His cell phone began to ring in his pocket as his ringtone, "Trogdor the Burninator" by Strong Bad, blared out of his shirt.
"Hello?" Xander answered, hearing a rush of static on the other end. "Hel-Hello?"
"Mr. Harris?" an accented voice came through on the other end.
"Yes?"
"Xander Harris?"
"Who is this?"
"You need to find Willow Rosenberg immediately."
Xander paused as he held the phone to his ear with uncertainty. "Who is this?" he asked again.
"There's no time to worry about that," the man replied over the static. "Ms. Rosenberg is in danger. You must go now…"
More static washed through the line. "Hello?" Xander called out. "I can't – I can't hear you… Hello?" He looked down at his phone to see that the call had disconnected. "Damn it!"
Xander glanced around the empty board room nervously and rushed out of the door. He said to a passing Slayer, "Tell Giles that I can't go with him because I've got to find Willow."
"Huh?"
"Just tell him!" Xander ordered. "And... tell him... not to be mad at me!" After that, he rushed off down the hallway towards the exit.