Faith

"Wait a minute," Nick had moved in behind Doc again– it was getting to be like Grand Central back there. "Is that stripped down?"

"Yeah, that's the soul signature. I've run it three times, and all the calibration programs report green status."

Brow furrowed, Angel moved around to join Nick, still being careful to avoid the light from the lowering sun. "Okay, uh… what exactly am I seeing here?"

A couple graphs came up on the screen, helpfully labeled "Spike" and "Dru."

"We figured out that 'souls' are basically packets of native magical energy, while vampiric blood demons, and the animating essence of true demons, are packets of extra-dimensional energy. Spike, being a souled vampire, has a soul, signified by this sine curve, in blue, and a demon, this spiky line in red. Drusilla has a blue soul, a red demon, and this purple line– which is a remnant of her original soul, that of a psychic or magic user. Part of it got… caught, I guess, when she was turned, which is part of why she and Spike were weird."

Bossman made an uncomfortable face, but nodded. "Okay, so… mine doesn't look like that."

"Nope. There's a human soul right here, that's expected, but the other half of the signature… that's not demonic. The period and amplitude don't line up with anything we've recorded yet, but the signal is very definitely a sine curve."

"Mendel." Nick's gaze was distant, and he was obviously thinking hard. "You didn't take readings of Spike or Dru after the fight with the cult, did you?"

"Uh… no. Why?"

Instead of answering, he turned to Angel. "Did you have a weird reaction to something six months ago? It would have been early evening, in late May."

"If by 'weird reaction,' you mean 'collapsed screaming and then passed out until the next day, scaring the living shite out of all of us,' then yeah, you could say that," Doyle replied. That got him a glare, but he just shrugged.

Wes cocked his head. "Are you saying you know what that was?"

"During our fight with the cult, Spike had to basically redirect a gigantic wad of magic, native plane magic, back into the planet's energy network," Nick replied. "He said he could feel Drusilla, and you, and that he felt like he'd been scoured out. There didn't appear to be any effects from it afterwards, and Drusilla wasn't worried, so everybody just let it go. But if you three are linked by Drusilla's fragment of her original soul, tying together three links on the sire chain, then that energy probably affected all three of you."

E looked thoughtful. "From what Giles said, native magic and demonic energy don't like sharing space unless something makes them. With half-demons, the soul halves grow together naturally; with the ensouling curse, the curse beats the blood demon down, but…"

Madgirl perked up. "That much native energy woulda kicked the blood demon outta the body completely! And settled into its place, I guess."

"But that's definitely not human energy. Not even magic-user," Doc said. "It looks closer to.. Oh. It looks like yours, Nick. A little."

Angel was frowning harder now… no, wait, he was making some kind of weird face, lowering his eyebrows and tensing his lips. Then he stopped and shook his head.

"I can't change my face. It's just… not there."

Wes adjusted his glasses, moving closer. "Don't try to force it, just will the change as you normally would. I have a theory."

"Oh joy," Bossman grumbled, but he relaxed. "Okay, done."

"... Open your mouth."

"Ahhh?"

Wes peered closer, then pulled back. "Your eyes are golden rather than true yellow, and your fangs are simply elongated canines, rather than the distinct dentition of a vampire. No facial shifting whatsoever."

Angel blinked. "Huh. I wonder…" His eyes went to the windows, and I'm not sure who moved to grab him faster, Wes or Doyle.

"You are not going to stick your hand in a sunbeam, idiot," Doyle said roughly, shaking him a bit.

"How about just a finger? I can put that out fast enough, and… it would be really good to know, one way or the other."

Over on the couch, I heard Randy snort. "You got any Irish ancestry, jefe?"

"Actually, yes," Nick replied, voice deliberately light. "Kieran's an Irish name, and from what he told me, his mother's family was from there. But it's a big country."

Apparently the boss's logic had been convincing, because nobody grabbed at him as he made his way over to where a beam of sunlight was shining through the gap between the shade and the sill. Taking a deep breath, (and making me wonder if he needed to breathe now, or if it was still just reflex,) he poked one finger into the light and waited.

And waited, as smoke totally failed to erupt from his skin. After a second, he poked his entire hand in. Still nothing. Pulling it back, he turned to the rest of us, grinned and waved.

"It worked! See how much fire I'm not on?"

Wes and Doyle exchanged glances and sighed. Madgirl, on the other hand, was bent over laughing.

"Looks like your demon energy was replaced with native magic, something closer to youki," E said, tugging the blanket tighter around her. "Probably still nocturnal given the eyes, might still need blood given the fangs. Apparently blood feeding is common in a whole host of supernatural types, from youkai to fae. Like the baobhan sith, although you're the wrong nationality, not to mention the wrong equipment package."

He rolled his eyes, then sobered. "Wonder what this means for the curse." And, hanging in the air in big shiny letters, what it meant for his relationship with B. Which, whoof, that was a soap opera and a half, and who knows if this would make for a happy ending or not.

Wes frowned, mostly like he was thinking. "If I might speculate, a great deal of it depends on whether or not the curse anchors your human soul, or merely prevented the demonic energy from displacing it. If it was the latter, than the breaking of the curse would have no effect, as youki coexists with human energy far more gracefully. If it is the former, then… well, you would be functionally a full youkai rather than a hanyou. But that youki would be fresh, new. The only patterns would be the ones laid down in the last six months, which means they would be influenced by your current personality, your current soul. And youkai, heaven knows, are perfectly capable of understanding and caring about human moral codes. Your personality might alter slightly, but it would be nothing like Angelus. He is, for all intents and purposes, truly dead."

"I'm more interested in what it means for our food budget," Doyle replied. "You're not combusting, you're breathing pretty regularly, and from what I've heard, youkai are generally alive, not undead. Where are you falling on the scale?"

Madgirl grinned. "Only one way to find out. You guys bring any medical equipment down with you?"

… Angel was starting to look like he was considering hiding behind Nick.

Angel

Booted footsteps on the concrete of the roof had me opening my eyes to peer through my sunglasses, but I had a pretty good idea who it was. Only two people currently in the hotel wore those kind of heavy rubber-soled boots, and Faith generally walked like a cat, unless she was trying to make a point. Sure enough, I saw Nick Tatopoulos pulling one of the old deck chairs up to sit next to my lounger.

"You know, you can probably still sunburn pretty badly," he commented. "From what I've read about nocturnal youkai, you're basically functionally human in the sunlight, maybe a little more sensitive than most."

"Got it covered," I replied, holding up the bottle of SPF 50 I'd had shoved at me earlier. "To quote Doyle, 'You may no longer be a vampire, but you're still Irish, so combusting is still a real threat.'"

He snickered. "Yeah, Elsie feels your pain, although I think her ancestry's equally split between Irish and Scottish."

"Either way, you're talking about seeing the sun for about three weeks in June," I agreed. "And yeah, I know I need to take it slow, but… it's been so long since I've been able to just feel this on my skin. Necrotempered glass blocks whatever makes sunlight turn us into bonfires, but it takes a lot of the warmth out of it, too."

That got a slow nod. "Eyes still sensitive?"

"Oh hell yes. Even in 'human' mode, this would be blinding without the shades. Gets worse when I vamp out… or whatever the hell it actually is now. Hearing and smell are still about where they were, sense of taste is… um. Better." I felt my cheeks heat slightly, and wondered just how long I'd been ignoring or writing off evidence of the changes I'd gone through.

"I… did hear," he replied, coughing slightly. Elsie and Fred had given me a thorough check-over, finding that yes, I had a pulse, respiration, circulation, the works. Then they'd run me through several other tests, including a piece of Dove chocolate. Turns out that while feeding on blood was enough to keep me satisfied and running, I was more than capable of consuming solid food now, not to mention enjoying it. The noise I'd made was frankly a little embarrassing.

I let the silence stretch for a little while longer, then sighed. "I wanted to say… thanks, by the way."

Blue eyes gave me a startled look. "For what?"

"For taking care of Buffy. We don't… she and I don't really talk right now, but she and Faith do, and Wes talks to Giles, so they keep me informed on what's going on in Sunnydale. So we heard about that mess back in May, and also that little trip you guys took in August. And how you two kind of adopted each other. I know Giles is really glad of it too."

"She takes care of me, too, so it's not all one-way," he replied, settling back into his chair. "For the first thirty years of my life, I thought I was human, just not very good at it. Finding out that no, part of me is something else… I'm still me, yeah, but it's like with a wolf-dog, it puts everything into a different perspective. She gets that, she's been dealing with it for a lot longer."

"I really… I do love her," I said, looking out over the city. "I don't know how good I am for her, but I do love her. Not just the Slayer, I love Buffy. She's got this sense of humor that sneaks up on you, and she's kind, and has a soft heart under everything, but she's so strong– not just tough, strong. Strong enough to keep caring even after she gets hurt. Strong enough to offer an idiot vampire a second chance, even knowing who and what he was."

For a long moment, Nick didn't say anything, just stared out at the city along with me. "My ex-girlfriend, Audrey, and I broke up– no, that's not right. I broke up with her, after what happened in May. And I really do love her, and probably always will, but we really, really weren't good for each other at the end. My father… he really did, I think, love my mother. Which didn't stop him from gaslighting her, with and without magic, to try and make sure she never left him. And when I was… scrambled, I was pretty much the same way. No gaslighting, though that probably would have come eventually, but I was willing to hurt her to make sure I didn't lose her. I don't– I like to think I wouldn't do that in my right mind, but…"

"But what you'll do drunk, you at least have the instinct to do sober," I agreed. "You sit on it, you put a collar and a choke chain on it, but it's still there. And maybe in the end, it's better if you just don't get into situations where it might get loose."

Nick sighed gustily. "Yeah. Doesn't help that a lot of what he did wasn't magic, it was just bringing out what was already there."

"You want to talk about living with an internal demon, I am your guy," I pointed out. "Though I don't recommend the way I handled it for the first… oh, hundred years or so? Because I didn't, really. Handle it, I mean. I isolated myself, I wallowed, I did a lot of stuff, but I didn't really handle it. I was just drifting. Then a demon named Whistler shows up, drags me to a high school downtown where a teenage girl has just been called as the Slayer and… honestly, encourages me to stalk her, which, why I didn't notice how fucked up that was until just now, I don't know.

"But watching her, I fell hard. Now, though, I don't know if I fell in love with her, or just the possibility of redemption that Whistler told me she represented. I've had to come to terms over the last hundred years with the fact that I'm not Angelus, and I'm not Liam, the guy Darla turned two centuries ago. But they're both in me, and that means I can be… obsessive. So yeah, I love Buffy. But right now, I don't know if I'm in love with her… and even if I am, how healthy that is for either of us. So I'm not going to ask you not to tell her about this, just… let her know all of it."

"I will."

"So. Dragon's Tooth, huh?" At his nod, I snorted. "No wonder you and Buffy get along so well. There's an old… not even a legend, it's basically just gossip that seems to have survived for a few centuries. Theory, maybe? That Dragon's Teeth were made as a failed attempt to basically copy the Slayer. Innate sense of weapons and combat, predatory nature, strong protective instincts for the in-group, you can see where that might come from."

A thoughtful expression crossed his face. "We know the first Dragon's Teeth were created from a fountain in… call it another world," he said slowly. "But that world is created and manipulated by the thoughts and emotions of people. If somebody was trying to create their own Slayers, and knew anything about that world, creating that wellspring would make sense."

"You know, I've only met like, one other Dragon's Tooth, and that was… jeez, ages ago. Early 1900s, I'd just gotten to the States. Ran into the guy in San Francisco of all places. Tiny little Japanese guy, except his hair was bright red and his eyes were so dark blue, they were violet. I remember I took one look at him, and the vampire demon in my head just went 'nope.' Quietest I ever felt. Anyway, I remember something he told me– something I told Doyle once, back when we were dealing with the Scourge. He said 'Just because you die... doesn't mean that the people you killed will come back to life... instead using this sword to save just one more soul is repentance in truth.' I didn't really listen, but I stopped thinking about going out and watching a sunrise, which… I guess that's something."

"Guess I'm in good company, then."

I laughed a little. "Definitely."

We were quiet after that, just watching until the sun disappeared below the horizon.

Riley

I swear to God, our paperwork is cursed. The Major isn't even here– he's out doing an inspection tour of Monster Island– and yet here I am. I was taking the opportunity to do an inventory check when I heard it. Or… didn't hear it, actually.

Military bases are never silent. Somebody is always up walking patrol if nothing else. And they sure as hell aren't silent during the day. Yeah, the high-security facilities might not have anybody in them if nobody's scheduled to be studying the Hivemind tech, but there are still guards on all the checkpoints and walking rounds. It makes a background that you barely even notice… until something blanks it all out.

Pulling my sidearm, I moved carefully out of the closet I was in. Yes, I was taking inventory in the high-security facilities, I'm the Major's aide, I'm the only support staff with clearance. The eerie silence continued, and I headed for the closest checkpoint.

They call it "The Barn," an old aircraft hangar that got converted into storage and study facilities for the hulk of the Leviathan after it had been raised from the seabed… and after the aliens who had influenced the Army to go get it had been sent packing, of course. Smaller buildings, labs and computer centers had sprung up around it, plus a couple of clean rooms, but there was only one access to the complex, right past two guards and a neural scanner that made sure whoever was entering was free of external influences. Most external influences, anyway, it's not like we had any equipment that could handle magic yet, even if some members of the brass knew about it these days.

And… yeah, that was a problem. Set up at the front door of the Barn was a small plexiglass shelter containing the guard station, which had a mantrap equipped with the scanner. You weren't getting through there unless the guards opened the door for you. Except that the mantrap had both doors open, which wasn't supposed to happen, and the two guards were sitting in their seats, silent and still.

I moved in to check on them– pulses were good, respiration was steady if a bit slow, and they were even blinking, but their gazes were fixed in the middle distance, and they didn't even react when I waved a hand in front of their faces, or gave their earlobes a vicious pinch. Whatever had hit them, they were well and truly out of it.

Pulling my radio, I tried raising the guard center, only to get static. And not normal static, either. This sounded… cold and empty, like the sound of falling snow. Which meant I was probably being jammed, and not by a normal source. Great.

Popping the magazine out of my sidearm, I slammed in one of the "special" sets I carried. Tracer, silver-jacketed, hollow point, armor-piercing, repeat. Because while a lot of things that went bump in the night were immune to bullets, just as many weren't, as long as you got the right kind of ammo. Tracers could wreck a vampire's entire day, silver messed up weres, hollow points put nice big holes in some of the heavy hitters, and armor-piercing shots to the brain generally made a lot of demons at least reconsider their life choices. They weren't exactly standard carry, but better to ask forgiveness than permission, sometimes.

Then I carefully made my way into the Barn, walking the way they'd taught me early on at the Initiative– rolling my point of contact from heel to toe to minimize the noise of each footfall. With enough practice, it isn't much slower than a normal walking pace. The whole place was empty today, which actually wasn't a surprise– most of the scientists studying the thing were processing the data back in their own personal labs. Nobody wanted to spend too much time on site, just in case. The Hivemind's semi-organic technology tended to creep people out, especially ones who'd maybe seen Aliens a few too many times.

Taking a deep breath, I listened harder. There was an odd lack of sound coming from the back of the hangar, the part where we'd wound up storing anything that looked like it might have been part of the central computer system. Of course it was going to be there. I was seriously beginning to sympathize with Dr. Chapman's opinion that we should just slag the entire thing with thermite and have done with it.

I carefully picked my way through the various walls and partitions put up to section off one study area from the next, taking a shortcut through the area where what was left of the Leviathan''s outer structure sat, gutted and somehow forlorn. It made excellent cover, though.

Finally, I reached my target and poked my head out to peer into the area sectioned off by the temporary plastic partitions. The various consoles were all lit up and activated, and I could swear I should hear them beeping– but there was nothing, not even the hum of electricity. Standing in front of said consoles was a woman, red hair, wearing a bright pink dress shirt and a pair of black pants, both with the kind of sharp lines that suggested they'd been tailored to fit her figure. There was something familiar about her, but I couldn't quite get it.

Taking a deep breath, I raised my sidearm and stepped out into the open. "Please put your hands in the air and step away from the consoles," I ordered, or tried to. I only got about halfway through the sentence before my words faded into inaudibility, and the intruder turned, rather lazily, to look at me.

Well now, I wasn't expecting to see you here, a voice echoed inside my head, as those green eyes sized me up. The feeling of familiarity got stronger, like I'd seen this woman before, several times, but I just couldn't make the pieces match in my mind.

Tightening my grasp on my gun, I sighted down the barrel at her. "I won't ask again." Again my words were inaudible, but I was pretty sure she could hear me anyway.

You're right, I can, came the amused response. And you might as well put the gun down, it won't help you. If I can broadcast a counter-wave to nullify any sound in my area, I can deflect a piece of metal, even one moving at supersonic speeds. Or… I can just keep the firing pin from moving when you pull the trigger.

Before I could test that assertion, the gun twisted in my hands, leaping free to land somewhere behind her and skitter off across the concrete floor. Well, shit, this was not going well. Telepathic and telekinetic, just like the Hivemind… and obviously able to read my mind just fine, considering. I needed a new plan, and fast.

Her expression turned considering as she stepped closer. Where's your boss, Lieutenant? I didn't think you usually went too far from him.

[C-130 rolling down the strip,/ Airborne daddy's gonna take a little trip./ Mission uncertain, destination unknown, /Don't even know if we're ever coming home.]

She blinked at me, apparently not expecting to get one of our ROTC running cadences blasted into her head at full volume. Then I saw her grin. It was an appealing expression, except for the fact that I couldn't quite shake the feeling that she was smiling at a pet that had just done a good trick.

But that wasn't really so bad, was it? I mean, she hadn't really tried to hurt me, and I'm sure she could have. She was obviously very smart, and very powerful, and all she wanted was some stuff that was really hers anyway, wasn't it? I could totally help her with that.

I know you can, she told me, as the warm, fuzzy feeling in my head increased, and she floated closer. You're very good at carrying out orders, smoothing things out for your bosses, getting things done. I can definitely use the help of someone like you.

I watched her approach, almost as if I was dreaming. A red flag waved somewhere in the back of my mind, but I could barely pay it any attention over the feeling of… adoration that was washing through me. Slowly, fighting myself every step of the way, I took a deep breath, and bit down on the inside of my cheek. Hard.

The faint copper tang of blood was almost as much of a shock as the pain, and I saw her stumble backwards, obviously caught by surprise at the backlash. I wasn't going to get much time– I could already feel that warm fog trying to fight its way back to the front of my brain. I threw myself forward into a combat roll, popping up on the other side of her and lunging for an alarm box mounted on the nearby wall. I grabbed the handle and pulled, just as a telekinetic grip closed around me like a velvet vise. I couldn't hear the alarms blaring, but that box set off an alert in the main security office, and there wasn't much chance she could suppress that.

You're brighter than I thought, Soldier Boy, she remarked, turning me around to face her. I couldn't even twitch, held like a bug in amber by a whole-body gentle pressure.

I'll have to come back for you later– you'll definitely be useful. But for now, I've got places to be… so why don't you just take a nap?

I had just enough time to hope somebody warned the Major about this, before darkness pulled me down like a tidal wave.

Fred

"... Do you seriously have a spring-loaded wooden stake on this guy?" I asked, poking at the port directly above the robot's sensor ball.

Mendel looked up from his scanner-camera and nodded firmly. "I am trying to be prepared for every eventuality. One day, I am going to be able to deal with a threat before it can destroy NIGEL, not after." Then he sighed. "And then I'm going to buy a lottery ticket."

I did my best not to choke on my giggle. HEAT had all agreed they were staying in LA with us until we turned up some answers on what exactly had happened to Elsie, and hopefully how to fix it. We were currently working in the lounge that had been repurposed into Mendel's lab, while the rest of both teams had split up to do what they did best. Wesley'd grabbed Doyle and was making a deep dive into his archives looking for anything that might be precedent or prophecy. Nick and Elsie'd set up in another parlor and were running analysis of bio samples, including for DNA. Apparently HEAT had a pretty good portable genetic sequencer they were still trying to get a patent for.

"The legal profession doesn't seem to like returning my calls," Nick had said, dryly.

Randy was apparently going over the business's computer security, "just in case," he'd said. As Angel and Wesley had both told us about the time a demon had been accidentally scanned onto the Internet back in Sunnydale, we were all pretty much fine with that. I'm a pretty good programmer, but my hacking is only so-so. Randy kinda left me in the dust.

Angel, of course, was sunning himself again. None of us were begrudging him that right now. Give it a few more days, it might get old, but… maybe not. I had problems going without tacos for six months once, I couldn't imagine a few hundred years.

"So what's that you're looking at?" I asked, moving to check out his laptop screen. "Doesn't look like the graphs from yesterday." It looked more like a map of the area, dyed various colors from all over the spectrum.

He shook his head. "Nope, this is the output from the thaumometer, which is sort of a variant of the scanner-cam. Aerial drones scan the area looking for PKE signatures and build up a sort of a heat map of the area. I've been working on a way to really distinguish magical vs. psychic signatures at a glance, but that's been difficult, even with Ray and Egon's help."

"You know the Ghostbusters?"

"Ray and I are third cousins, believe it or not, although we didn't know it until early this year. But there was this giant caterpillar that apparently ate time– don't ask, the whole thing still gives me a headache. After that, and what happened to Nick in May, we've kind of kept in touch. Most of the time, our work stays nicely in the mundane side of weird science, but every so often…"

Boy, did I know how that went. Although… "There's actually a lot more crossover than you'd think, just a lot of supernatural stuff is kinda subtle. I did a paper on it a couple years ago, I could probably dig it out for you."

"Thanks, I think that'd be nice. Speaking of crossover, though, how the heck did a physicist wind up working for a supernatural detective agency?"

I had to laugh a little. "Funny story, actually. Four years ago, I was workin' for my degree under a guy by the name of Seidel. One night, I was shelving books for him, and this giant portal came outta nowhere. Went to try and swallow me, and the damn thing bounced. Disappeared, and I found out later, so did Seidel. Nobody's seen him since. Somehow, I don't think that's a coincidence, 'specially since four of his other grad students disappeared in exactly the same way. What do you think?"

He made a face. "I think it sounds like instant karma kicked in, yeah. Any idea why the portal bounced?"

"Well… I realized later that my good luck charm disappeared. It was a little necklace I picked up when I was visiting New York on vacation, before startin' at UCLA for grad school. Cute little golden apple, I bought it as a souvenir from a little cafe in Brooklyn. Never did find it again.

"Anyway, I wanted to know what the hell had happened, so I started doin' more research into parapsych along with my physics work. GBI had a lotta papers out by then, all peer reviewed, so while I got some funny looks, I didn't exactly wind up drummed out of academia. Got my PhD, was doing research into paraphysics, mainly, when Angel and Wesley showed up at my lab askin' for my help. A bunch of fascist demons known as the Scourge had this techno-magical death ray– seriously, a death ray– that burned anything that had non-demon DNA, an' they were gonna use it on a bunch of Lister demons. Guys who'd never hurt a fly. Angel needed somebody who could figure out how to shut the thing down, ideally without anybody gettin' killed doing it."

Mendel nodded. "And you managed?"

"Rigged up kinda a tuning fork, hit the thing's resonant frequency, shattered it. Was kinda touch and go there, Angel and Doyle both got some nasty burns keepin' the fork on target, but we won. And then Angel offered me a job. Which, I was barely keeping afloat on grants, so I said 'what the hell' and threw in. Haven't regretted it, either. Much."

A snicker. "As origin stories go, it probably beats 'recruited to help stop a giant lizard, was completely superfluous, then recruited to help find another giant lizard, wound up chasing squid and just never stopped.' I'm not complaining, it's just not the sort of thing epic tales are made out of."

"Epic tales are kinda overrated. Honestly, not that I'd trade any of these guys, but I gotta admit to being a little envious about having three whole scientists on your team."

"Three and a half, the punk actually counts when he puts his mind to it and stops acting like he's twelve."

I had to giggle a little- Mendel's tone was a lot more fond than I think he probably knew.

"Yeah, I love my team, but Angel, Doyle, Faith, they're all about applications. Wesley's the only one who even really knows what the scientific method is. And he's all the soft sciences– oh, that sounds bad, but you know what I mean."

He nodded, tapping at his keyboard. "Yeah, I get it. Ninety percent of the theory comes from you, and that can be draining. Of course, even though we're all field researchers, we're still researchers. That can have… issues, sometimes."

"Oh?"

"For instance, Nick and Elsie occasionally need reminding that the proper response to being attacked by sheep that have suddenly become carnivorous is to run, not express fascination about the changes to their dentition."

I had to wince. "Um. I can kinda relate."

"The amount of shock I am experiencing would require a molecular microscope to even begin to measure." He gave me a little grin, though, and I could totally see why Elsie liked him so much.

Speaking of… "So, we got anything interesting on the scanning front?"

"Well, the readings I took of Elsie are reminding me of something, but I'm not entirely sure what just yet. As for the thaumometer… check this out." He used his mouse to indicate an area currently colored in an oddly light blue.

"Is that the alley where you guys found Elsie?"

"Yeah, that area is showing residual effects of stressed space– it's not magical or psychic, it's a purely electromagnetic signature. We've seen it before, Nick and Buffy got displaced to a… different vibrational plane? There are differences, this looks like there's some displacement along a dimensional line, which they didn't have, but it's kind of a similar signature."

I leaned in, tracing my finger around a few other spots of that color. "Same thing?"

"Well, it's stressed space. You can see purple edges here, suggesting that these are probably magically created, dimensional pockets or something. That spot's the only one with a green ring instead. It's not much, but it might at least give us an early warning if that other version of Elsie decides to pay us a visit."

Which given our lives was likely to happen sooner or later. Some people just aren't cut out for a peaceful existence.

Hicks

There is nothing out here. Absolutely nothing. Hell, we're only a little farther out from Point Nemo than Ducie Island, in the Pitcairns. Monster Island is only the largest island in the Devil's Spine archipelago, and while we've spread out to the rest of them, they're none of them big enough to put a runway on– at least for a plane the size we'd need to carry enough fuel to get out here. It's boat or nothing.

Which is why the guys out here do six-month hitches, and don't get rotated back for at least a full year. Bored soldiers are a recipe for disaster, every commanding officer knows that. And it doesn't help that my guys are slowly developing mindsets more appropriate for Special Forces than standard grunts. Oh, there's a movie theater of sorts, and the whole place has satellite internet, even if everybody's browsing is strictly monitored. (Adult websites are not blocked, because when there aren't any civilians on the base to date, your options are porn or fraternization, and only one of those isn't against the UCMJ.)

But six months is about all anybody can stand in the ass-end of nowhere. I try to get out here every three or so, just to let the soldiers know they haven't been forgotten. Besides, in the dead of winter, it can be kind of nice to hop hemispheres and head to the tropics.

Sgt. Bleakman met me at the dock, saluting snappily. He was one of the few exceptions to the six-month hitch thing, mostly because losing him for a year would make this place pretty much implode. Instead, he was stationed here five months and then got rotated back for a full month's leave before heading back to do it all again. It was pretty unorthodox, but it worked.

I returned the salute and fell in beside him as we headed up towards the main command deck via the scenic route. "Anything interesting you didn't get a chance to put in the reports?" I asked, as walked.

"Odds are running three to one on Crustaceous Rex turning out to be more cephalopod than crustacean," he replied promptly. "The team studying it says that their expert opinion is 'fucked if I know' and will remain such for the foreseeable future. The Giant Bat has apparently developed a taste for Johnny Cash and Destiny's Child, and will sit quiet for hours if either of those are being played. The King Cobra is still spitting at anybody who passes the enclosure. Other than that, nothing I know of, sir."

"Johnny Cash?"

"Ring of Fire and The Ballad of Ira Hayes in particular, sir."

Well, at least the bat had good taste in music.

"Anything interesting with the personnel?"

"The last paintball tournament was won by Doctor Delgado, which has had a surprisingly strong positive effect on how gracefully the enlisted are reporting for their monthly psych evals."

No shit. Doctor Marisol Delgado was fifty years old, five foot even, and the most terrifying woman it has ever been my privilege to know. I still fondly remember complaining about expecting to be over the occasional nightmares, after the Hivemind invasion. In response to which she pointed out, using small words no less, that trauma recovery was more like clearing a minefield than repairing a bridge, and that it was, unfortunately, extremely common to blunder into a mine even years later, "so suck it up and admit vulnerability, soldier." Giving her a weapon only made it clearer that you could run, but you'd only be delaying the inevitable.

I could see Bleakman giving the hospital building a sidelong look as we passed it, obviously weighing whether or not he wanted to say something. Raising my eyebrows, I caught his eye and waited expectantly. The art of not giving orders to subordinate officers was just as important to master as any other.

"It's Sopler and Hoffman, sir," he said, finally. "They've been… restless."

Well, that sent a chill down my spine. "Restless how?" Last time I'd been by the hospital, they'd still been completely unresponsive to stimuli, and the doctors hadn't seen that changing any time soon. We still kept the place on the island, a good five hundred yards away from any command staff, just in case.

He chewed thoughtfully on his lip for a second. "They move. Not in response to anything, at least nothing any of us can see or hear. But they turn their heads from side to side sometimes, or try to move their arms. Still no sign that they're conscious, but… more like somebody moving in the throes of deep sleep."

"No trace of tachyon transmissions?"

"No sir, nothing. I had communications run an active scan, even, rather than just checking passively. No sign of anything at all. Maybe it doesn't mean anything, but…"

But pessimism was a very good habit to develop, in situations like this. I sighed, pulling my hat off to run a hand over my hair. "Keep an eye on them, and don't let anybody tell you it's nothing."

"Believe me, sir, I won't."

We walked in silence for a few more minutes, until I heard a familiar voice floating by from one of the work groups.

"So the fucker grabs the hood off Jacobsen's hazmat suit, rolls down his sleeves, and runs in to arm the fucking bomb by hand, yo. The bomb that is fucking crawling with the tiny little poisonous spiders that have already left one dude in critical condition. Not to mention everybody says it hurts like injecting fire right into your veins, yo."

That was Private Reno Flynn, who'd apparently taken it upon himself to make sure some of the other soldiers understood just how crazy Nick could get. I'd asked him why, the last time I'd run across him telling stories, and he'd looked at me like I was a little bit slow.

"Because, sir, HEAT may be a bunch of fuckin' lunatics, but they're our fuckin' lunatics, and most of us would be spider chow if it weren't for them. Or maybe manta food, or buried under a half ton of sand by a robot kitty with a taste for oil. People like that need keepers, or they're gonna get their asses killed. I should know, my cousin Axel's the same way."

I sighed. "He been doing a lot of that?" I asked Bleakman. The sergeant smiled.

"Yes sir. And every time someone calls bullshit, we pull out the reports. It's been enlightening for all concerned."

"I bet." We'd arrived at the top of the cliff, where the main entrance to the base structure was. The thing was built like an oil rig, on a set of high-tech stilts, but attached to the side of the island. That left the majority of the land area for the monsters, and of course the outbuildings with the forcefield generators.

There was a private standing at attention outside the main doors when I got there, which did not help my peace of mind any. The guard station was farther in, with better shelter and at a choke point. Somebody out here was waiting for us, and that never indicated good news.

"Sir, the energy scanning instruments are picking up something… odd," she reported, as soon as I'd returned her salute.

"Tachyons?"

She shook her head. "No sir, according to Captain Schwartz, it appears to be some sort of spatial discontinuity. Like somebody tied space into a knot, except not actually like that at all."

… That's what you got when you let a quantum physicist enlist in the goddamn Army.

Before I could ask for clarification, and probably regret it, there was a sound like tearing paper and something appeared in the air above the rig. It was humanoid, I could see that much, with red hair, wearing a fuchsia shirt and black pants. Bleakman, the private, and myself all went for our sidearms, only to have them knocked away by a wave of force as soon as they cleared our holsters. The figure looked down at us, and I got a sense of amusement, despite being too far away to see her face clearly. Her? Yeah, it was a woman. Couldn't tell you how I knew, but I did.

She floated in midair for another moment, and then raised her arms and–

There's no way I could do that moment justice with words, but to try and describe it, it was as if the air around us rang, like a bell, a wave of sound and warmth washing over me like a tide. It wasn't like Nick's power– that was the exhilaration of adrenaline, the sharp focus of battle and knowing you had someone at your side who'd never let you fall. This was gentler, calmer, a wave of pink and sparkly fog– except that it wasn't actually visible, so "pink" and "sparkly" weren't the right words at all. I could feel it as it hit me, but then it just drained away, like water running off rainproof vinyl.

Beside me, Bleakman and the private were staring up at the newcomer in what looked like awe. More soldiers were joining us now, filing out of the rig or coming in from their posts around the island, all of them gazing up at our visitor as though she were the sun. I started to back through the crowd as unobtrusively as I could, right up until my entire body just… stopped moving.

"Hmmm… Guess I shouldn't be surprised," a familiar voice said, and I looked up to meet the amused green eyes of Dr. Elsie Chapman. Except there was something… off, in that gaze. Not the glazed look and sickly green glow of the Hivemind's control, not the unfocused look I'd seen on people under domination spells, this was something else. I don't mind admitting it scared the shit out of me.

"Nicky's fingerprints are all over you," she continued. "And his power definitely does not like to share. It looks like I'm going to have to do this the hard way."

She gestured, and I could feel my feet leave the ground. I tried to struggle, but I couldn't even make my fingers twitch. And around me, all of the soldiers simply watched, and waited.

One of the medics pushed his way through the crowd, a small black wallet in hand. "Can you extend one of his arms for me, ma'am?" he asked. "I don't want to risk missing the vein."

Dr. Chapman– or whatever it was– smiled. "Sure thing." This time I could feel the gentle push as something moved my arm to stick straight out from my body, palm upturned. The medic quickly rolled my sleeve up to the elbow, pulled a syringe out of the black leather wallet and filled it from a small vial stored in the same. He administered the shot to me very professionally, then withdrew.

I did my best to fight, but all I could do was hang there in the air, almost like an afterthought, as consciousness slipped away. The last thing I remember hearing was Dr. Chapman telling the assembled soldiers to go make sure none of their friends were hiding on the island, because she had "plans." Then the world fell away into gray, and I slept.

A/N - Little red-haired badass Dragon's Tooth is property of Nobuhiro Watsuki. Private Reno Flynn is the property of Square Enix.