Willow and Vi had just gone through a brief version of Introduction to the Supernatural 101; when they were done, Taggart said, "That confirms quite a lot of the things I've seen. So, Vi, you're a plant biologist and a vampire slayer, then?"
"Yes," Vi said.
"You likely won't find much hunting around these parts, then, unless you continue to seek out the nefarious giant hogweed. If vampires are bothered by sunlight, then they'll fry any time someone turns on the shield." At Willow and Vi's puzzled looks, he said, "The EM shield?" When he still didn't get a response, he said, "What are they teaching at orientation these days?"
"We're new," Willow said, finally getting it, "And because the way Vi looks caused a minor crisis when we showed up we're not actually starting till tomorrow."
"Right. That explains it," he said. "I thought you looked like someone – related to Holly Marten?"
"She was my aunt," Vi confirmed.
A bit sadly, Taggart said, "I only met your aunt a couple of times but she seemed like a good woman. Bright as anything, too."
"Thank you."
"Anyway, where was I? Right, the EM shield. I'm not fully up on the hows and wherefores – I'm a biologist, not a physicist – but there's an EM shield over our town that's kind of a protector of last resort, you know, in case the missiles come flying in." To Willow's bemused look, he said, "It happens more often than you'd think."
"That's . . . disturbing," Willow said.
"Naaah," Taggart said jovially. "It's all part of the fun. What's life without a little danger? Oh, right. Anyway, the shield's main power generator is solar and for a while was leaking radiation like nobody's business whenever it was activated – people would get nasty sunburns just from being outside at the wrong time. They fixed that, of course, but it still generates a mite extra any time it's tested, day or night. Certainly enough to give take care of any vampires."
Willow wasn't sure she entirely bought this – there was plenty of underground here the way there was in Sunnydale – but it would explain why Vi hadn't seen even a hint that there were any vampires in town, and why there wasn't a single mysterious death that would fit the profile. (In fact, there weren't any mysterious deaths at all, technically. Admittedly, more people died around here from 'explosion of untended machinery' than most other places in the world, but that technically wasn't "mysterious.")
"That doesn't mean there won't be other beings causing problems," Vi said. "I did see a couple of nature spirits when I was running through the woods."
"Any of 'em do anything?" Taggart asked.
"Just waved, mostly," Vi said.
"I'd think that anything that would have caused trouble would have come to my attention by now," Taggart said.
"I thought you were an animal specialist," Willow said.
Taggart grinned. "Nature, supernature, close enough. Anyway, I'll be around here for a few more weeks; I'll let you know if I see anything and you can let me know if you need any kind of traps. All nonlethal, of course." He nodded. "Ladies," he said, and left the house.
"Well," Vi said after a few minutes. "That -"
"Could have been worse?" Willow said. "Yeah. A lot worse. Still, when you patrol again, you're going to need to be more careful. Wear exercise gear so if anyone asks you can just tell them you were out for a jog."
Vi nodded, "Yeah. Good idea." After a second, "So, what do you want me to do tomorrow?"
Willow began to explain what she'd found that evening.
X X X X X
Early the next morning – Jack having gotten very little sleep – he, Zane, Jo, Fargo and Henry Deacon were all gathered in Fargo's office. Zane explained what he'd dealt with the previous night.
"You let her invade GD's systems for a half hour?" Fargo said. "What were you thinking?"
"I was thinking I'd give her enough rope that we could figure out who she is, where she's from, and what she's up to," Zane said. "She didn't go anywhere near the project files. I was ready to push the button if I had to."
"Yeah. Then he called me." He took over the story from there, ending in the deduction Zane had made. "And I know looking through medical records is a violation, so I took precautions and had SARAH black out the patients' names and anything else that could readily identify them."
"Beverly?" Henry said. "She's not a computer expert. She wasn't incapable of using one but I would hardly say she was anywhere near being a competent hacker. Certainly not world-class like this Scarlet Witch seems to be."
"Not like she's ever deceived us before," Jack said pointedly.
Zane brightened up a bit. "Thank God. Everyone else here seems to think this idea is on a par with phlogiston and Lamarckian evolution."
"Jack? You don't think Zane's right, do you?" Henry asked.
"No, actually," Jack said. Zane's face fell. "But I don't think it's the dumbest idea I've ever heard, either. At least it's worth looking into." After a second: "Lamarckian evolution?"
"I'll explain later, Jack," Henry said. Terrific. Jack knew he shouldn't have opened his mouth. "In any event, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to see if she does have the credentials."
"She was in Southern California six years ago, when the Scarlet Witch was still reportedly there," Jack said. "According to the records I could access, she was assisting in some military project, but that's where my security clearance ended."
"Okay," Jo said, "I'll look into it, see what the project was. I still don't think she's the hacker, but Zane's at least right that whoever it is is interested in Beverly Barlowe for some reason."
Fargo nodded, "Okay. I see why you did it, then. But could you please not let it happen again? I think we have enough to go on." He looked around for support.
"At least for now," Jack confirmed.
"Good. Is the new improved firewall ready?" Fargo said.
"Yup," Zane said. "I'd like to see someone try to break in now. All it needs is your okay."
"And you didn't use anything from the Scarlet Witch?" Fargo asked suspiciously.
"You know as well as I do," Zane said, "That we couldn't completely avoid anything that resembled her ideas without tearing the entire thing down and starting over. But, per your instructions," he stressed sardonically, "I didn't consciously base any of it on her ideas."
"I'll look it over and you should have my okay within the hour," Fargo said. "Then, could you keep helping Sheriff Carter try to figure out who and where she is?"
"Of course," Zane said.
"Anything you need me to do there, Jack?" Henry said.
Thinking a second, Jack said, "Nothing directly. I could always use you for a little brainstorming, though."
"I'll be by after lunch."
Jack yawned, stood up and said, "That it for the moment, then?" Nods all around, and then he said, "Good. God, do you know how much I'm glad to be part of an actual old-fashioned investigation? Nothing about to explode, disintegrate, or attack, just a little sleuthing and logic?" He grinned.
Jo said, like she was humoring him, "I'm very happy for you, Carter. Fargo?"
"Hmmm?" He was already distracted by something on his computer.
"It's time to meet our new employees."
Fargo sighed. "Right. It's gonna happen eventually, it may as well be now. He stood up and sat back down. "I don't want to."
"Maybe not," Jo said. "But you need to. It is going to happen eventually. Violet Fisher's going to be around here for a while. You're going to have to cross that bridge."
"You'll be there?"
"Every step. Now, let's go."
X X X X X
Willow and Vi had a driver pick them up in the morning; the woman said, "Trust me. Everyone gets a driver their first day." They saw why soon enough, when the car began barreling towards what looked like a collapsed bridge over a thousand-foot-deep gorge. Willow was about to say something when it her, and she had to restrain herself from bursting out laughing.
When Vi looked like she was going to open the window and dive out, Willow held her back. "Relax," she said.
"What?"
"Trust me. The driver's not a lunatic and -" they passed through an illusory wall and kept driving on the other side – "She doesn't have orders to murder us."
The driver said, "Damn. Well, at least I got one of you."
"What was that?" Vi asked.
"Probably a hologram of some kind. Am I right?"
Laughing, the driver said, "Yeah. Probably fakes out 95 out of a hundred new employees. How'd you figure it out?"
"Logic," Willow said. "You didn't seem like a lunatic and, like I said, if we'd done something that would have made the people at GD want us dead there would have been a lot easier ways to kill us than by having someone Thelma-and-Louise us into a deep canyon."
"And if I had been?" the driver asked.
"Then I would have had about 15 seconds to learn how to fly," was Willow's answer.
The rest of the trip was unremarkable – though anything short of a massed attack by Fyarl demons would have been, after that. As they walked to the front of the building, Vi asked Willow, "Would you have been able to –?"
"Big with the hoping we never have to find out," was Willow's answer.
Jo Lupo was waiting for them at the front entrance. "Hey there," she said. "How was your trip?"
"Uneventful," Willow said.
Jo stopped in her tracks. "Really?" she said with an amused tone in her voice.
"Yeah," Willow said. "Oh – you mean that hologram thing? 'cause, you know, pretty impressive, but I did figure it out."
"I didn't," Vi said. "Just for the record. I was ready to dive out the window."
They walked through the front door. Jo said, "I heard you had an encounter with Taggart last night."
"Yeah," Vi said. "I was doing a late-night jog through the woods, stopped to rip out some giant hogweed, and he saw me and wondered what I was doing." Then she said, "You're not warning me about him or anything, are you?" Good catch on Vi's part.
"What? No! Taggart's one of the weirder people in a town full of them, but there's nothing there to warn you about. No, he mentioned your jog through the woods. You like to keep in shape?"
"I do," Vi said.
"Good. Not many of you scientist-types do. I was hoping you might want to run with me every once in a while – but we can talk about that later. Wait here." They were in what had to be the Rotunda, and spent a little time people-watching.
Two minutes later, Douglas Fargo came out, half leaning on Jo, half being dragged by her. He saw Vi and stiffened.
Well. This was going to be fun . . .
