Tuesday, November 25, 1997

Cordelia and Xander are going over the results of the career aptitude test posted on a bulletin board in the courtyard. She finds herself in the A-D list.

"Oh, here I am. 'Personal shopper or motivational speaker.' Neato!"

"Motivational speaker? On what? Ten ways to a more annoying you?"

She pages through the H-K list and finds Xander's results. "Oh, what about you? You're... " She giggles and leaves.

"What?" as he frantically looks himself up "What!"

A hall exit. Willow and Buffy come out and start across the quad.

"You and I are going skating? With Angel driving?"

"Unless some unforeseen evil pops up. But I'm in full 'see no evil' mode. And it was his suggestion."

"Us ice-skating." She smiles at the thought.

"I know. Two worlds collide."

Xander meets up with them followed seconds later by Jesse. "Wouldn't you two say you know me about as well as anyone else? Maybe even better than I know myself?"

Willow "What's this about?"

"When you look at me, do you think 'prison guard'?"

Willow, Buffy and Jesse giggle before Buffy answers "Um, crossing guard, maybe, but prison guard?" She shakes her head.

Xander "They just put up the assignments for the career fair, and according to my test results I can look forward to being gainfully employed in the growing field of corrections."

Buffy giggles. "Well, at least you'll be on the right side of the bars."

"Ha, ha, ha, ha! Laugh now, missy, they assigned you to the booth for law enforcement professionals."

Buffy is stunned. "As in police?"

"As in polyester, doughnuts and brutality."

Buffy whines.

Willow smiles and tries to cheer her up. "But, doughnuts!"

Buffy whines louder. "Well, I'll just jump off that bridge when I come to it." She spots Giles walking along with a tall stack of old books in his arms. "But First I have to deal with Giles. He's on this Tony Robbins hyper-efficiency kick. Expects me to check in every day after home room." She walks off after Giles. "The police?"

Xander starts to follow, but Willow holds him back. "You didn't check to see which seminar I was assigned to, did you?"

"How about me?" Jesse grabs his other arm.

"I did, and you weren't, Wills. Jesse, you're looking at a lifetime of early mornings, flour and hot ovens."

"Huh?" Jesse wonders.

"Bakery. You make the donuts and Buffy eats them, buddy."

"I wasn't what?" Willow asks.

"On the list."

"But I handed in my test! I used a number two pencil!"

"Then I guess you musta passed."

"It's not the kinda test you pass or fail."

"Your name wasn't up there, Will."

Willow is a bit taken aback and upset.

The library.

Giles walks to the table, balancing his armload of books. He carefully sets them down and leans forward a bit to much trying to straighten the stack, and they begin to fall over. He reacts quickly to try to stop them. "AH!"

Buffy puts her hand on top of the stack just as he does, and they push it back up. Giles exhales in relief while she sits. "Buffy. Thank you. I've been, uh, indexing the Watcher diaries covering the last couple of centuries. You would be amazed at how numbingly pompous and long-winded some of these Watchers were."

"Color me stunned."

"So, uh, I trust last night's patrol was fruitful?"

"Semi. I caught one out of two vamps after they stole something from this jumbo mausoleum."

"They were stealing?"

"Yeah! They had tools, flashlights, whole nine yards. What does that mean anyway? 'Whole nine yards'?" Giles begins to pace. "Nine yards of what? Now it's gonna bug me all day. Giles, you're in pace mode. What gives?"

"Um, this vampire who escaped, did you see what he took?"

"No, but I could take a guess and say it was something old."

"You made no effort to find out what was taken?"

"Have a cow, Giles! I just figured it was your everyday vamp hijinks."

"Well, what if it wasn't? This could be very serious! I mean, i-i-if you'd made an effort to, uh, to be more thorough in your observations..."

"Y'know, if you don't like the way I'm doing my job, why don't you find somebody else? Oh, that's right, there can only be one. As long as I'm alive, there is no one else. Well, there you go! I don't have to be the Slayer. I could be dead."

"That wasn't terribly funny. You notice I don't laugh."

"Wouldn't be much of a change. Either way I'm bored, constricted, I never get to shop, and my hair and fingernails still continue to grow. So really, when you think about it, what's the diff?"

"Do we have to be introspective now? Our only concern is to discover what was stolen from that mausoleum last night."

"Oh chill out, Giles. They were at the Du Lac mausoleum. I would have looked inside but my flashlight died on me. When I got home, Angel was there and wanted to say hi. I asked him to check out what was stolen. He phoned afterwards and said that it was a reliquary." He looks at her in stunned silence. "Come on. Spike's in town. Do you really think I'd let something like this slip past. And even if I did, you'd drag me back out there anyways. Besides, your expression just now. Priceless. Besides, there's another slayer out there." She smiles wickedly.

He recovers from the shock. "Josephus du Lac was buried there. He belonged to a religious sect

that was excommunicated by the Vatican at the turn of the century."

"Excommunicated and sent to Sunnydale. There's a guy big with the sinning."

"You remember the book that was stolen from the library by a vampire a few weeks ago?"

"Yep."

"It was written by Du Lac. Damn it! I let it slip my mind with all the excitement."

"I'm guessing it wasn't a 'Taste of the Vatican' cookbook."

"No, the, uh, book was said to contain rituals and spells that reap unspeakable evil. However, it was written in archaic Latin so that nobody but the sect members could understand it.

"You think they stole a decoder ring thingie for the book?"

He looks at her, impressed by her mental gymnastics. "Something's coming, Buffy, and whatever it is, I can guarantee it's not good."

"Since when is anything big in Sunnydale ever good, Giles?"

Drusilla's room. She waves her hand over an intricately carved gold cross held before her by Spike on a red velvet pillow.

"This is it then?"

Drusilla senses "It hums. I can hear it".

"Once you're well again, we'll have a coronation down Main Street, and invite everyone, and drink for seven days and seven nights."

Dalton from behind them. "What about the Slayer? She almost blew the whole thing for us. She's trouble."

Spike looks at him. "You don't say?" He gets up and paces. "Trouble! She's the gnat in my ear! The gristle in my teeth! She's the bloody thorn in my BLOODY SIDE!" He kicks the table violently.

Drusilla becomes concerned. "Spike?"

"We gotta do something. We'll never complete your cure with that bitch breathing down our necks. I need to bring in the big guns. They'll take care of her once and for all."

Dalton: "Big guns?"

Spike: "The Order of Taraka."

Dalton: "The bounty hunters!"

Drusilla deals three tarot cards. They are a cyclops, a centipede and a panther. "They're coming to my party. Three of them." She looks up.

Spike walks back to the bed to look at the cards.

Dalton: "Uh, yes, but... The Order of Taraka, I mean... isn't that overkill?"

"No, I think it's just enough kill."

Tuesday, November 25, 1997

The career fair in the school lounge. Xander and Jesse walk into the hall at the far end and spot Willow.

As they walk, Xander "Willow! What are you doing here? Fly! Be free, little bird, you defy category!"

"I'm looking for Buffy."

"Oh, she went to see Giles about an hour ago." Jesse

"Oh, that's right. But if she doesn't out here soon, Snyder's really..." She spots him on the stairs. "...done a great job with the fair this year, hasn't he, Xander?"

"Principal Snyder! Great career fair, sir! Really! In fact, I'm so inspired by your leadership, I'm thinking principal school. I wanna walk in your shoes. Not your actual shoes, of course, because you're a tiny person. Not tiny in the small sense, of course. Okay, I'm done now."

Snyder "Where is she?"

Willow "Who?"

Snyder "You know who."

Willow looks around. "You mean Buffy? I just saw her..."

Snyder interrupts "And don't feed me that 'I just saw her a minute ago, she's around here somewhere' story."

Jesse "Have you checked the library? She was there an hour ago."

Xander "For what it's worth..."

Snyder interrupts "It's worth nothing, Harris. Whatever comes out of your mouth is a meaningless waste of breath. An airborne toxic event."

"Well, I'm glad you feel comfortable enough to be so honest with me. And I can only hope that one day I'm in the position to be that honest with you."

"Fascinating."Snyder glares before stalking off towards the library.

"Well, love to stay and chat, but I got an appointment with the warden on standard riot procedure. Ciao." Xander walks off.

"He's still the bumbling idiot. Just not quite as bumbling. I'm off to the grease pits. See ya." Jesse heads off.

"Okay, see ya."

Two recruiters in dark suits approach Willow.

Recruiter "Willow Rosenberg?" As she turns to faces them. "Come with us, please?"

"Excuse me?"

"Let's walk."

The two men take her by the arms and guide her to a curtained-off area of the lounge. They pull the curtain aside for Willow. She reluctantly steps through and they follow her, letting the curtain fall closed again behind them. A waiter in a white jacket and black bow tie holds an hors-d'oeuvre tray up for her.

"Try the canape'. It's excellent."

Willow shakes her head to the waiter, and he immediately departs. "What is all this?"

"You've been selected to meet with Mr. McCarthy, head recruiter for the world's leading software concern. The jet was delayed by fog at Sea-Tac, but he should be here any minute. Please, make yourself comfortable." He gestures to the couch.

Willow "But I didn't even get my test back".

"The test was irrelevant. We've been tracking you for some time."

Willow "Is that a good thing?"

Recruiter "I would think so. We're extremely selective. In fact, only one other Sunnydale student met our criteria."

Without another word the two recruiters turn and leave through the curtain. Willow is a bit stunned, but turns around to see who the other student is. Oz is sitting there on the couch studying another tray of canape'. She decides not to stay and start to leave. As she opens the curtain, a recruiter tries to block her way. "Miss Rosenberg. What are you doing?"

"I'm leaving. I wanted to know what the test said I would be suited to. Not to be pitched woo by some sleazy recruiter." She pushes past him and heads toward the library, the slightest hint of gold shining in her eyes.

Oz turns to look at the noises. When he sees her he does a double take and realizes she's the girl he's noticed before. "Interesting."

Willow runs into Buffy at the corner after leaving the recruiters. She starts to hyperventilate as she tells her what just happened. "I can't believe I just walked out on them."

"Sounds like something Priss would do. Besides, I just stunned Giles by thinking ahead, so, lunch?"

"Sounds good." They walk off together.

Sunnydale bus depot. A bus just arriving as an announcement is being made. "Bus 219, continuing service to Los Angeles, now arriving in Sunnydale at the west gate."

The doors of the bus open, and the passengers begin to file out. On bottom step of the bus, a pair of heavy steel-toed boots stops on the step. Panning up the man's body past his leather jacket and long hair to his face. A scar runs across his milky white left eye. He looks around and steps off of the bus.

Street in front of the Summers house. A salesman comes walking along the street carrying a large case and eyes the 'Summers' nameplate hanging from their mailbox. He looks up at the house, but continues past to the next house and walks up to the front door. He knocks, and a woman answers.

"Mrs. Kalish?"

"Yes?"

He holds up his case. "Hello, I'm Norman Pfister with Blush Beautiful Skin Care. I'm not selling anything, so I'm not asking you to buy, just to accept a few free samples."

Mrs. Kalish takes off her glasses. "Free?"

"Absolutely."

She looks him up and down and nods him into her home. He walks in and she follows him, closing the door behind her. The camera closes in on the door, and a loud scream is heard.

Inside the cargo bay of a jet. The cargo door opens, and a baggage handler comes up the loading ramp and steps in. He notices that the cargo nets have been torn open, and takes off his headphones. "What the hell?" He looks around, suspecting someone's there. "Hey, you're not supposed to be in here!" He pulls out his flashlight and holds it ready to use as a club. "Hey, c'mon!"

He walks in further, looking for whoever it is. He sees a shadow moving behind a baggage container. Suddenly a foot comes up and kicks him in the face, in the gut and again in the face. He falls onto his back unconscious. The person walks toward the cargo door and peeks out. It's a young Caribbean girl with long curly hair tied back and large hoop earrings. She makes her way out of the plane, keeping a careful watch for anyone who might see her.