Author's Note: Hi everyone! Thank you for the many reviews I got and sorry that it took me so long to get this thing going again. Seeing as my life is a bit hectic at the moment I'm afraid new updates will be infrequent, at least for the next few weeks, maybe months. Not sure yet. I will keep working on this, though, never fear.

Oh, and one more thing. Someone asked about Spike. I'm not going off on a rant here again, so let me just put it this way: You'd have to pay me an awful lot of money to even consider putting that sorry excuse for a character in my story. Spike was ruined for me by the chip, the so-called romance with Buffy, and the soul that made him Angel Mark II. So no Spike! Ever! This will be a good story. Don't ask me about Spike again!

And now, on with the show!

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Part 11: Strategies

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Several days had passed since Faith's children had stepped into their lives and Angel was a bit worried. From everything they had been told so far this wouldn't be an easy mission. Quite the opposite, actually. The Manticore complex in Gillette, Wyoming, was a fortress if he'd ever seen one. Heavily fortified, heavily guarded, and containing an unspecified number of transgenic super soldiers, all of them brainwashed into unthinking loyalty to their creators. Max and Zack both estimated that a few of their siblings might be able to break the programming and switch sides (apparently it happened before), but wouldn't bet any money on it.

What layouts they had of the complex were stitched together from the kids' memories and some satellite shots provided by Max' mysterious friend 'Eyes Only'. Said friend was with them right now, just not in the flesh. A monitor and a small camera stood on the table before them, the former showing nothing but a pair of eyes. Max had apologized for the secrecy, but according to her a few too many people had learned Eyes Only's identity in the last year or so and he didn't want to risk any further exposure until he was absolutely sure that Faith and her friends could be trusted. Angel couldn't honestly be mad at him for being careful.

Max, Faith, Wesley, and Zack were present as well, all of them sitting around the table in Angel's office. The purpose of this meeting was to lay down some kind of attack plan on the Manticore base. Unfortunately so far they had very little in the way of ideas on how to proceed.

"A direct assault is out of the question," Angel said, having studied the lay-outs quite extensively. "Even with eleven transgenics, seven Slayers, and myself on the team I doubt we'd get very far."

"We need to be sneaky about this," Faith agreed. The days when her idea of a plan consisted mostly of 'Let's go in and kick their butts' were long over. A Slayer didn't live as long as she had without learning the value of carefulness.

"The objective is to get the kids out," she reminded everyone, "and give us a chance to unwash their brains. From what you told me Manticore is heavily funded by the government, so merely destroying the complex isn't gonna cut it. They'll simply rebuild elsewhere. We need to do something to make sure that the government will drop this thing for good."

"I believe I can help with this," Eyes Only said, his voice distorted to prevent identification. "If you can manage to take along documentation from the complex, documents proving what Manticore is and what it did, I can broadcast them and supply information to all major news outlets. If I know our government they'll quickly find a scapegoat and wash their hands of the whole thing. It's not a perfect solution, but it should take Manticore down for good."

Angel was tapping his fingers on the table. Something about this situation did not feel quite right to him. There were a lot of open questions they needed answers to. How had Manticore known about Faith, known that she was special? And how had her DNA made the creation of super soldiers possible? Angel would be the first to admit that he didn't know much about modern genetics, but he had quite the extensive knowledge regarding the Slayer.

A Slayer's powers couldn't be explained genetically. Someone of Faith's stature and weight simply couldn't have as much strength and speed as she did. It was magic, pure and simple, and some part of him couldn't quite believe that magic-based abilities could be captured in a DNA helix and given to someone else.

Case in point being Faith's husband Robin, the son of a Slayer. Granted, he had been born before his mother had been called, otherwise the healing powers of the Chosen One would have aborted the pregnancy before it had the chance to impair the Slayer's fighting prowess. Still, if the Slayer's powers were genetic in nature Robin should at the very least have gotten something extra from his mother. Only he hadn't. He was one hundred percent human. One of the best fighters Angel had ever seen, but still just human.

"Which still leaves us with the problem of how to get in, free the kids, and get them to safety without getting killed or having the entire US armed forces on our tail," Wesley's voice interrupted Angel's train of thoughts. "You escaped from this installation. How did you get out?"

He looked at Max and Zack. The two siblings exchange a short look that spoke volumes about the unresolved issues between them, then Max shrugged. "We knocked a hole in the wall and ran really fast. We vaulted the fence. I don't know about the others, but I fell into a frozen lake and hid underneath the ice until the guards were gone. Then I got to the road and hitchhiked."

Wesley gave her something of a sour expression. "That might be a viable option for getting out again, but first we have to get in."

"I can get in without being seen," Angel offered, confident he could do it.

"And how exactly?" Zack asked, clearly not impressed.

"He has no heat signature, he makes no noise if he doesn't want to, and he's really sneaky all-around," Max pointed out for her big brother. Zack was still rather skeptical about the whole vampire issue, but Max was a believer by now. "Also, bullets don't really hurt him."

"Oh, they hurt," Angel corrected her.

"Okay, but they don't kill you. If all fails you can just fall down and play dead for a while. Make them carry you inside."

"If Angel can get inside," Wesley continued the thought, "he has a good chance of shutting down whatever surveillance equipment the complex has, allowing the rest of us to get in unnoticed."

"And how is he going to do that?" Zack looked at Angel. "No offense, but the complex is huge. None of us has a clue where they've set up the surveillance office and I doubt even you can walk around among a hundred or more transgenics for any length of time before you're spotted."

Max glared at him, but nodded reluctantly. "I'm afraid he's right."

"There is another problem," Eyes Only added. "I don't know how good your technical skills are, Angel. The surveillance needs to be deactivated in a way that doesn't immediately draw suspicion from whatever guards might be watching the monitors or patrolling the parameters."

Angel nodded, always the first to admit that his skills in the areas of technology were lacking. Being nearly three centuries old, sometimes he still had a hard time getting used to all that electrical light nonsense and such.

 "If we want to pull this off," Max said, "we need someone with more insider knowledge of the base than any of us can provide."

A smirk appeared on Faith's face. Angel knew that smirk. It usually meant that the Slayer had just gotten an idea that was liable to either save the day or get them all into a lot of trouble. Usually both.

"Hey, Zack," she addressed her son. "I seem to remember you going on and on about how dangerous it was to have all you kids together in one place like this. How it was liable to get you all caught by this ... what was his name?"

"Lydecker," Zack growled, the one word speaking volumes about what he thought of this man. "He's gotten closer and closer to us this last year." A side-glance towards Faith clearly stated whom he blamed for that turn of events.

Angel also smirked now, picking up on Faith's idea.

"Maybe the good Colonel should get some helpful hints from a concerned citizen?" Faith asked. "Or maybe some rumors about a bunch of super-strong kids hanging out in LA?"

Zack and Max also understood what they were planning now.

"This isn't a good idea," Zack said. "Lydecker is no fool. If he's told we're all here he'll arrive with enough backup to reduce LA to smoking ruins."

"Then we'll have to be selective about what we let him know," Eyes Only made himself known once again. "Unless I'm mistaken you and Zack are the only ones he knows by sight, Max. How about we make sure that one of your faces gets shown on television. That will have him here in a heartbeat."

"Even if he thinks it's just two of us he'll bring a lot of reinforcements along."

Max gave Zack a playful punch to the shoulder. "What's the matter, big brother? Don't think we can handle a squad or two of Manticore enforcers?"

Zack gave her a sour look, but said nothing in return.

"I know a reporter or two who owe me a favor," Wesley said. "I think we can arrange for Max to 'accidentally' get her face on national TV."

"Even if this works," Zack once more the voice of doubt, "we still have to get Lydecker to help us."

"Don't worry about that," Faith brushed his concern aside. "We got a few persuasion experts in residence." A dark look was briefly visible in her eyes, one Angel had no doubt was mirrored in his own. Both Faith and he had more than their share of experience when it came to torture and neither of them was proud of how they had gotten it.

"I think we can convince the good Colonel to help us," Angel just said, banishing his feelings of remorse.

"You're all crazy," Zack muttered, but seemed resigned to the plan, such as it was. Max and Faith gave him nearly identical smirks, a sight that was still a little weird to see.

TO BE CONTINUED