Donovan sighed as he returned to the house at dawn. His schedule allowed eight hours sleep between 10 am and 6 pm. After plugging the robot back in and eating something for breakfast he had three and a half hours to track down Warren Meers. Today he had a meeting with the man at the coffee shop in the main street. He wasn't looking forward to it.

Warren Meers was a stuck up slimy bastard who was convinced of his own intelligence and importance. Donovan felt tempted to beat him down before he even introduced himself.

The young man waited for him expectantly as Donovan sat down. Donovan opted for the off-putting straightforward approach.

"Do you want a job?" he asked.

Meers looked him with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm serious. I've seen your work. I want to offer you a job. Of course, you will have to go through a security check. You'll be working in a classified area."

"Who are you?" Meers asked.

Donovan was pleased. He'd broken through the façade. He was in charge of the conversation. Maybe he could pull it off. Willow's warning was still in his mind.

"My name is Simon Donovan. I can't tell you who I work for. But a few months ago you made a robot for a vampire called Spike."

Meers looked around quickly. Whether he was checking for audience or bugs, Donovan wasn't sure, but he knew neither was there. He had also had one his guys go through the robot's programming. They'd gotten a lot of information. But no one was sure how the language held itself together.

"What do you know about that?" Meers demanded.

"I know exactly what I told you," Donovan said.

Meers was getting paranoid.

"Do you know Willow Rosenberg and Buffy Summers?" Donovan asked.

"Buffy's dead," Meers said.

"Yes. Do you know what that means?"

Warren had thought he'd be able to use this guy. Donovan knew the connotations of his question. Warren swore silently. He hadn't wanted to get caught up with the Slayer's pals until it suited him. The stony look on his interrogator's face overturned Warren's automatic thought to lie.

"Yes."

"I'm helping do her job for a little while. When I have to leave again, I'd like to take you with me. We could do with a robot of our own."

"Who's 'you'?"

"I can't tell you that until you've passed the security clearance checks. Normally I wouldn't even have approached you without doing a basic background screening, but we don't have the facilities where we're set up."

Donovan hid a smile as Meers worked out what he had said. They didn't know anything about him except that he could help them. Willow was right. This man was not to be trusted.

"I'll have to think about it," he said.

"Sure."

"There are people I'll have to talk to."

"If you think they might be able to help us, too, I'd look forward to meeting them," Simon offered.

He didn't like the calculating look Meers had, but didn't think the boy was smart enough to really pull off what he had planned.

"How will I contact you again?" Meers asked.

Donovan suddenly understood. He was meeting an unreconstructed nerd. Meers thought this was going to work out the way TV episodes did. He was playing the part of the evil mastermind, and Simon was the well meaning but dim witted sidekick to the hero.

"We're staying at Buffy's house, you know where that is?"

Meers nodded. Donovan tried not to laugh at the spasm of disappointment that crossed his face.

When Donovan got back, Duncan O'Leary had set up the robot and computer again. Donovan didn't understand the programming language at all, but Duncan was excited by something that he'd found.

"Can you make her less bright and sparkly?" Donovan asked.

"Yeah," Duncan breathed. "It's brilliant. The verbal responses are set up separately to the 'emotional' ones. It's a mix and match system, takes up much less room, if you can weed out the obvious clashes. It's straightforward, if you can get the right system of checks in there."

"I assume he did."

"I don't know. I think it might have been a later addition. The first level seems to have been fairly, ah, single minded. The programming is original, just the stock phrases have been updated, and the checks inserted. That was clever work."

"So Willow did that, not this Meers guy?" Donovan asked. He hoped that was the case. Willow would be easier to work with than Meers. And if Meers wasn't as smart, he would be easier to deal with if things, when things, got out of hand.

"It looks like that, yeah. Although I'm not sure how generally the first robot was programmed. She was definitely a sex-bot, but she knew things the original Buffy did, too."

Donovan decided to give up for the moment and go back to bed. He would be able to worry again in the evening.

Leo picked up his phone and dialled the extension to the First Lady's office. He really should apologise for his conduct earlier in the day, even though she seemed to have forgiven him. It wouldn't do for her to drag it out as a past misconduct in some more vital argument.

The phone rang out. He dialled Max's number and got his assistant. She had no idea where the First Lady was, except that she had gone out to find the President. So he called Charlie.

"Is the First Lady with you?" he demanded.

"No, Leo, she isn't," Charlie replied.

"Do you know where she is?"

"She's with the President, Leo," Charlie said.

Leo rued giving the boy a backbone.

"And where's he?"

"I can't tell you, Leo. Mrs Bartlet made it quite clear that they were to be left undisturbed."

"Then I need to talk to C.J," Leo said.

"The best way of doing that is calling her on her own phone," Charlie said.

Leo slammed the phone down and called C.J's number. He heard it divert to Carol's, and then to Donna's phone. When it diverted again to the switchboard he hung up. He called Josh.

"Where's Donna?"

"C.J borrowed her for something. Why?"

"I can't find any of them," Leo said. "Margaret!"

Margaret rushed into the office.

"See if you can find C.J, or Toby, or Donna for me please," he told her.

Margaret nodded.

"Now."

Margaret nodded again before leaving.

"Okay, I've got Margaret on it now, she'll follow them to Manchester if she has to."

"Thanks, Leo. I can't find the finance report for the meeting with Gianelli."

"It's on your desk," Leo said.

"It was, but I picked it up to read it."

"Ask Sam for help," Leo said. "I'll let you know when Margaret gets back. Actually no. I'm coming over now and we'll look ourselves. Sam can man the fort."

"Thanks, Leo."

Leo took a moment to prepare himself for an extended tour of the West Wing with a Donna-less Josh.