Later that day…

"… and so he says to her, I must not like it too much, or else I wouldn't'a married you!" After laughing uproariously at his own joke for a good 30 seconds, Gary finally settled down, occasionally shaking his head and chuckling at his own comedic brilliance. Buffy and the new guy, Carl, made polite noises of amusement.

After a pause, Gary glanced at the clock and said, "Hey, I'm going to the head. Try not to let any catastrophes happen while I'm gone, eh?" Chuckled. Ah, to be so pleased with oneself.

As the door shut behind Gary, Carl commented, "Well, you have to admire his regularity. I could set my watch to his bathroom breaks." Carl had been working the night shift all that week, ever since John stopped showing up for work last Thursday.

Buffy made an "eww" face. "I'd rather not think about the regularity of Gary's bowel movements, thanks." Then, "I'm going to go ahead and do the rounds early, okay? You can take the 10 o'clock."

"Thanks, Buffy."

"No prob."

Buffy exited the security room, and headed toward the first checkpoint on her rounds. She carried a clipboard with some attached forms, on which she had to mark down the times she reached every checkpoint. When she reached checkpoint 1A, she swiped her identification card through the electronic scanner that was on the wall. The lock on the door was released, allowing her to enter into the first hallway. She jostled all the doorknobs along the way, making sure they were locked. The hallway, like every other hallway in the building, had gray walls and white linoleum floors. Oh-so-flattering fluorescent lighting completed the anonymous office-building look that Umbrella seemed to be striving for. At night, the lighting was dimmed to save electricity costs, but the high-pitched buzz from the lights was still noticeably irritating.

Starting from where security was located, near the main entrance on the first floor, and continuing all the way to the fourth floor, Buffy had to stop at thirty-two checkpoints. She'd also have to do a sweep of the perimeter, which was another eight checkpoints. Umbrella had – cutely? annoyingly? – designed the building in the shape of an octagon, in order to correspond with their logo, an eight-sided umbrella icon. Buffy was biding her time, waiting for the opportunity to say, "Oh, I work at The Octagon. No, The Octagon – eight sides!" Good stuff.

After completing her rounds of the first three floors, she took the stairs to the fourth floor. Security was even tighter up here since the research laboratories were on the top floor. Each door she came to required her to swipe her card, and also type in a passcode on the electronic lock. Buffy figured that Umbrella didn't want their Petri dishes and microscope slides making their escape when the coast was clear. That, or hey, maybe there's something here that they don't want a lot of people to know about! No, that couldn't be it. Large multi-national corporations so rarely commit fraudulent acts or knowingly endanger the… oh, man, I am NOT going to talk myself into being suspicious, Buffy thought. And there absolutely was not a creepy, sterile, leaky faucet vibe going on up here.

'Kay, a little ridiculous for the Slayer to be suddenly eeked out by the sound of her own footsteps. She laughed in the face of danger, right? Or quipped, at least. Or hides until it goes away, said her inner Xander. She had just about convinced herself of her own fearlessness when, hold on, were those voices? She stopped. Yeah, those were voices. Whisper-y, plotting mischief voices. She crept up to the door of the room where they seemed to originate from.

"…once…take virus…never…again…"

"…cameras…outside…"

"…do not worry…out…sight"

"…boss…whatever…"

The conversation suddenly stopped. Oh, boy. This was about the time the conspirators are supposed to throw open the door, catching the eavesdropper by surprise, right? Must hide, Buffy thought. She quietly sprinted to the next door, swiped her card, typed her code, then closed the door behind her. Peeping through the glass in the door, she watched as the door opened to reveal two men. One looked like, whoa, okay, one of them was Gary, of long bathroom break fame. Ha! You thought you could fool me with such a simple ruse but… well, okay, it worked, Buffy thought ruefully. The other man she couldn't recognize, as she was only getting a look at the back of his head. Blondish, slicked-back hair covered the head, that much she could tell – oh, he was turning a little. Buffy got a glimpse of his face. Weirdly, the blond man was wearing sunglasses, even though the corridor and the lab from which they had emerged was dark, and they were, well, inside. Hmm… sunglasses at night… not just for bad 80's songs anymore, she two men were going the opposite way now, back to where the elevators were.

Buffy crunched her brow. Her boring job has suddenly taken a turn for the not-so-boring. She distinctly heard the words "take" and "virus" in conjunction which she was pretty sure meant the two men hadn't been conspiring to bring about Good Things like world peace or really fantastic summer clearance shoe sales. Ugh. Of all the darkened hallways, in all the towns, in all the world, they walk into mine, Buffy thought. Well, Gary and Blondie would soon find out that it was difficult to carry out evil plots with a Slayer on duty.

Buffy quickly finished her rounds so Carl or Deceitful Gary wouldn't notice that she had been gone longer than usual, all the while mulling over what her next step should be. She would talk to Xander tomorrow and make with the advice-getting. Hey, with any luck, Gary and his buddy were just involved in some nice, ordinary, non-Slayer-territory embezzlement or something. Sure, the embezzlement of deadly viruses… probably not anything to worry about, Buffy thought. Choking on own sarcasm now.

No, really, there might be a perfectly reasonable explanation for the scheming, said Optimistic Buffy. After all, at the Double Meat, she had suspected some Soylent Green redux but it had turned out to be the work of your average, every-day penis monster. So maybe it would turn out to be nothing a little kicky-punchy action couldn't handle. Could happen.

Right?

Anyone?

Bueller?