Maggie Walsh hurried to her office, closing the door behind her. Part of her wanted to rant and scream in furious indignation about this inspection team – how dare they come and attempt to interfere with her experiments? She would not scream and rant, she would not carry on like an insane lunatic. She had everything saved to a secure backup, she would just… make sure that these inspectors found nothing when they finally made their way down to the base.

She began deleting files from the computer system. Erasing everything about the ADAM project would have to b her top priority. After that, perhaps the finer details of the vitamin supplements for her soldiers. If she still had the time, the third series of internal inspections and tolerance testing would have to go, some weak minded fools might harp on about violating some sort of natural rights possessed by those inhuman beasts. Or perhaps they would call it animal cruelty…

Maggie Walsh didn't realize that some of the files swept up in her frenzy of erasing the evidence included security protocols. Or that some of her deletions affected the programs containing the HST's in their cells. She ignored the small message box that cautioned 'Deleting this file will disengage cell electrification' and deleted a folder of ethically questionable security measures. She didn't need to waste her time explaining to a panel of ivory tower fools about the necessity of harsh measures to contain wild beasts.

In the containment cells, a variety of angry demons noticed that the electric hum of their cell doors fell silent. When one reached towards the glass barrier with sharp talons, nothing happened to him. He ran those talons down the glass, and as a sharp squeal echoed in the corridor, fangs were bared in what might be called a smile.

Glass panels and iron bars wouldn't hold them for much longer. Soon, they would be able to thank their captors for what had passed for hospitality…

On the other side of the base, Maggie Walsh kept deleting files. She would make sure that they couldn't find anything to use against her. All she needed was for Gamma squad to delay them long enough. Just long enough to erase everything.

She didn't think about the boxes of documents and reports awaiting the shredder. She didn't think about cabinets of hard copy. And it certainly didn't occur to her that some of the expired test subjects might not have been fully disposed of quite yet. Let alone the probable reactions of anyone finding the incomplete ADAM-2 and ADAM-3 units.

The basic facts made it impossible for Maggie Walsh to get rid of all the evidence fast enough to conceal what had been happening. There were too many cabinets and folders of reports. Too many papers waiting to be shredded. Too many computers with incriminating information. Too many HST's confined down a corridor of cells.

Too bad that Maggie Walsh had never been one for listening to others. Had she listened, she might not have pursued the chain of experiments. She might not have developed the ADAM project. She might not have started drugging her soldiers with a combination of vitamins, minerals and demonic hormones.

She might have had the chance to live to see forty.

In a corridor of cells, glass shattered and doors were forced open. Almost two dozen vampires and demons were now loose inside the base of the people who had captured them. The fire resistant door at the end of the hall no longer required a security code to open.

And the lab technicians and soldiers were too busy trying to get things in order to notice the lights indicating opened cells. Various doctors scurried about in their labs, making certain that inspecting officials wouldn't trip over their equipment, tidying up projects, and organizing records. Nor was Dr. Walsh the only one who felt the need to arrange the disappearance of a few files in their preparations.

Gamma Squad knew how to handle their weapons, and they were quite familiar with the Sunnydale area. As a point of pride, they had the lowest injury record and lest amount of time off due to injury of any of the capture squads. However, they had not been given orders to prevent higher ranking military officers from inspecting the Sunnydale Initiative Research Facilities. They had inspected identification, and asked a few questions to verify that the officers were highly placed officials, but there was a limit to how much time that could take. Likewise, a full inspection of Lowell House was accomplished swiftly, leaving only the descent into the secured and hidden areas.

Time was up for the Initiative.

End part 93.

Dr. Karl Lykos sighed as the portable drive finished copying the records of his evaluations. He wasn't the only person in charge of the soldiers' health, or even just in charge of their mental health, but he was one of three psychiatrists evaluating them on their initial reactions to learning what they would be capturing, the required monthly evaluations, and to offer an opinion and counseling if there were deaths or serious injuries. He had records for everyone with last names from Fe to Pa, though his recommendations weren't always followed.

Once again, he whispered the set of promises that helped him look into the mirror each day "Never enough that they'll notice, Never outside of their required sessions, and not enough to let Him out." It had been a minor miracle that nobody had suspected the link, and nobody had asked any questions. He had hoped, under Vanderhoff, that he could manage to find a measure of redemption for himself. But things had changed when Vanderhoff died, and he still wasn't quite certain how Maggie Walsh had clawed her way to the top of the hierarchy. But he knew that she couldn't ever find out.

Nobody could learn of his other-self. His dark half.

Karl Lykos deliberately didn't think about the various occasions when stress, accidents and disasters had reduced his control. When emotions had run so thick and so heavy that he hadn't been able to keep from drinking them, feeding on them. He'd found small ways to cope, tricks to keep thinks safe and manageable, even with the stress of their jobs, the danger of capturing the HST's.

That unpredictability was why he spent so much of his time going over the files in the controlled surroundings of the underground base. Away from nervous students and traffic problems, the chances of some sort of emotional overload causing problems was vastly reduced. He'd come close to losing control in the aftermath of that security breech a few days back, but he had fought down his other, managed not to slip and let Him out.

He would make certain that everything in his office was ready for inspection. His records would be in order. Evaluations and suggested courses of treatment would be ready, in his coded records so that he could discuss his patients without violating their privacy. His master code to identify them all was tucked away in one of the files, easily overlooked.

When his civilian contract expired in February, Karl didn't think he wanted to renew. Not under the leadership of Dr. Maggie Walsh. "I can manage for a few more months. It won't seem that long. And then maybe Los Angeles, or San Diego would be a good place to go."

Police Officer Paul Blaisdell stretched at his desk, glancing around the office. Chief Oakley had been taken away in July on a list of charges as long as his arm and they had a new Chief, sent over from San Francisco. It still looked like Chief Lucas Miller wanted to clean things up, to make the Sunnydale police into a group that tried to protect the people. They were actually trying to figure out what killed people instead of just calling them 'wild animal attacks' or 'neck ruptures.' He'd seen a few things while he'd been in Sunnydale, and his younger brother had told him a few more things. Some of the figures lurking in the shadows could be awfully strange, and sometimes the truth was far worse than any fiction.

Paul doubted that they'd be telling the Sunnydale people the truth about some of their cases. He still didn't know what that creature had been that had charged out of the magic shop, but it hadn't been an ape or a big dog. He'd been talking to Dustin, and the coroner had all sorts of things to say about 'odd bodies' that had been brought in to his office. Bodies that weren't human, bodies killed by medieval weaponry or ripped apart with teeth and claws. Chief Oakley had been right that the people wouldn't want to hear the truth.

But the officers deserved to know. He and everyone else out there in uniform deserved to know what to watch out for, what had really happened to their fallen. He wasn't sure he wanted to know, but he thought he'd need to know.If it explained why he thought he'd seen Morgan last night when he knew that they'd buried Morgan two months ago, he wanted to hear it fast.

"Things have to change. We can't just tuck things out of sight and never learn why," he shook his head, picking up his coffee mug. "Maybe if we have answers instead of excuses, we won't have quite so many bodies turning up."

"Sometimes the answers make you wish you didn't know," Garret interrupted Paul's quiet monolog. "When I was your age, I thought knowing what and why would help, would make everything better. The answers were more horrible than the questions, and I still couldn't make things any better. There are monsters out there, most of them with teeth and claws. Things that eat people."

"I'd pieced that together myself," Paul retorted. "So why didn't the Chief at the time do something? Why didn't he tell someone?"

"Mayor Wilkins said he was already on top of things," Garret sighed and shook his head. "That was thirty years ago. He never looked any different until… until…"

"You were at the High School Graduation ceremony, weren't you?" Paul murmured. "My brother was there, he's now attending a college in Oregon. How the hell someone could do that…"

"But we can try to change things now. Wilkins is gone, finally. Oakley won't be around to tell us that it's handled, give people a line of bull and move on. Maybe Flutie'll give us enough of a budget that we can get some new people, better equipment. Enough to get rid of some of the monsters."

"We can hope," Paul smiled, and then he remembered some of the other things that he'd seen out on the streets. The whispers from the night shift. "Wilkins and Oakley are gone, but there's something else out there. A group of people. I don't know who, or why, but… I've got a bad feeling."

"It'll come apart soon," Garret rubbed at a series of round scars on the back of his hand. "Whatever it is, it will be soon, and it will be messy. Things always get messy here."

"We'll have to be ready," Paul glanced over the rest of the office. "Ready for something like Graduation again, and hope that we're over-preparing."

End part 94.