"Willow?" called Buffy as she opened the door, entered the room, and saw destruction, trashage- but no Willow. Her roomate's computer tower was smashed, its chair tipped on its side. Her mattress had been slashed open. A lamp lay on the floor, the phone was crushed. There was no blood, no traces, no Willow. Buffy felt panic beginning to well in her, and pushed it down.

"Dear Lord".

Buffy turned to see Giles behind her. "Something took Willow," she said.

"Evidently." Giles took off his glasses and looked around the room. "I just came here to make use of the library for research, and knowing Willow's propensity for staying up at ungodly hours, thought she might be able to help... What happened?"

"I wasn't here. We've got big problems Giles, even without Will gone. Riley called me to the hospital, said they had an alien baby there. Thing is, Mommy wanted her kid back and sent another alien, a new one, to get it. It trashed the place and killed two people, a doctor in the morgue where the larva was being kept, and an intern who got shredded in the hallway. From what the Initiative guys found out, it looks like the thing got in through the air vents, but since the morgue's air system is self-contained, it had to pop out into the hallway and slash its way to what it came for."

Giles stared. "Were you able to stop it? A-after the killings, that is."

Buffy sighed. "I wasn't there. Didn't bother getting there fast. I learned all this from Riley, when he had a moment away from cleaning up my mess."

"You couldn't have known Buffy," Giles replied quickly. "I certainly wouldn't have expected the Queen to make an open attack on such a public place."

"Queen?"

"I think that's a fair comparison, yes," said Giles. "Hostile 100's function for the Xenomorphs appears to be the same as the queen in an ant colony, in that it is in charge of the other organisms and is the only one reproducing. The aliens have certainly shown signs of intelligence and even coordination thus far, and it is safe to say Hostile 100 is the one in command"

"Okay, fine," said Buffy. "We find Willow, then we make the Queen pay for this, the hospital, making me look bad in front of my boyfriend, and waking me up late."

"Very well. Why don't you ask your neighbours if they heard anything? This doesn't appear to have been a particularly subtle abduction."

As Buffy left, Giles removed his glasses again and took a closer look at the damage. Something seemed to be out of place somehow...

Buffy came back in to see Giles inspecting the window. "Nothing," she said. "No one heard anything strange, or at least noticed it. One of the girls across the hall actually saw the claw marks on the door, and thought it was some New Age art statement!" She sighed. "You know, sometimes I really hate this town."

"Unfortunate," said Giles, not looking away. He was deep in thought. "Buffy, you said that when you chased Hostile 100, it displayed a climbing ability, yes?"

"Sure," she answered. "Climbed right up the side of a building like a giant, evil Edmund Hillary from outer space." She noticed the odd look Giles gave her. "You do know what I mean, right?"

"O-of course, the first man to the top of Mount Everest. I was just under the impression you didn't pay much attention in history class," Giles said.

"Thank Will. She once made me proofread her history report. 'Course, then she went and blamed me for the B."

"Ah... yes. The reason I asked is, if Xenomorphs can climb so well, why did this one apparently sneak into the building, up the stairs, down the hall, all without being seen or heard, and come through the door..."

Buffy caught on. "When there's a perfectly good window."

"Precisely. Even in Sunnydale, I find it hard to believe such a violent attack," he motioned at the damage, "could take place in a public dormitory without anyone noticing at all."

"Wow," said Buffy, "they give a course in Sherlock at Watcher school?"

"Not as such, no. But we did learn how to identify demon attacks, and it certainly does pay to be observant in this line of work." Giles took another look around the room, and headed towards the door. "Did Riley give any description of the new aliens which might account for such changed behaviour?"

"He thinks the adult in the hospital was born from that dog that was captured," Buffy said. "Smaller, four legged, and the thing could definitely climb. He said it actually stuck to the ceiling."

"Interesting..." Giles looked at the claw marks on the door. There were deep gouges in the wood, about a foot long each. "The height of these indicate a bipedal creature..."

Buffy moved past him to get a better look, and as she did something caught her eye; an odd gleam on the doorknob. She knelt down. ""Uh-oh," she said.

"What is it?" asked Giles. She pointed at the small scratches surrounding the keyhole.

"Either aliens carry lockpicks in their shells, or..."

"Someone broke in."

"Right." Buffy went to the computer and checked Willow's discs. "Yep, they're all gone. After they grabbed Willow, they planted all this to make it look like an alien took her, smashed the computer, and took all the data."

"Fascinating." A hard look came over Giles' face. "Now who do we know who would not be pleased with what Willow was doing on her computer?"

"What have we got?" asked Professor Walsh as she strode imperiously up to Doctor Angleman. Just after she'd finished receiving Riley's report from the hospital Angleman had called, saying he'd found something troubling at one of the Initiative's main circuit junctions. This was not what Walsh had wanted to hear; her mood was already foul after getting the earload of catastrophe from Riley. Bad enough that two people had been killed and two hostiles escaped on her organization's watch, but keeping this quiet was going to be a nightmare. The aliens had been clearly seen, left a lot of evidence, and didn't resemble any sort of creature they could pin this on. The best they could do so far was that a Komodo dragon had escaped from the zoo. This would've made Walsh laugh even if the zoo actually had a Komodo dragon.

But what really infuriated her was that Riley had freely admitted to involving that civilian girlfriend of his. He had gone outside the organization for help to a source that had been proven completely unreliable. This uncharacteristically independent behaviour made Walsh more determined to reign that girl in. She was an uncontrolled factor at a time when her dreams were close to coming to fruition. She could interfere with everything, disturb the order of things. Maybe if she were assimilated into the Initiative she'd be easier to control...

Crouched in the middle of the corridor, Angleman looked up at Walsh. "I can't really say what we've got here, Professor," he said, motioning at the thick rectangular device in front of him. Although its exterior was black and featureless, Angleman had removed a panel, exposing a maze of incomprehensible circuits within. "My field is biology, not electronics. All I can really tell you is that it sure doesn't belong here."

"Where'd you find it?" She asked as she knelt beside him and began examining the device. Passing Initiative personnel cast puzzled looks at the sight of the two most powerful people in the organization on their hands and knees in the middle of a corridor, but neither of them noticed.

"It was wedged in very tightly between two of the conduits." Angleman looked up and pointed at the ceiling, where the panelling had been removed exposing a mass of thick wires and conduits criss-crossed over each other, running from all over the Initiative and meeting at this intersection before continuing on to their destinations. "I was inspecting all the places where the malfunctioning systems could have been affected from and… well, it looks like you were right, Professor."

Walsh traced the maze of wire and plastic within the device with her finger, murmuring softly as she learned its workings. "Miniature microwave transmitter… burst radio transmitter… This thing can emit all kinds of electronic interference, and has a self-contained communications system too." She stood up and looked at the ceiling. "This junction has access to each of the systems that has failed, and is within range of our wiretap control as well- the device can simply sit here, remotely controlled, capturing our bug transmissions and sending it to its controllers while sabotaging whatever they wish to sabotage." The Professor looked back down at the device. "And it can all fit in an ordinary briefcase."

Angleman frowned. "Now who do we know who has access to the base and often goes around with a briefcase?"

Walsh turned away. "Get a team together," she ordered. "I want him alive."

"No, no, no, no, no!" Anya protested. "You can't just barge in here at this time of night and take my Xander away! I had plans! Erotic plans!"

"Ahn, I have to." Xander turned to comfort his girlfriend as he went up the basement stairs. "Willow's in trouble."

"Is that how it is?" She demanded. "Willow's life is more important than my comfort?"

Xander shrugged. "Pretty much, yeah."

Anya sat down, pouting. "Fine. I suppose that if she died or something then you'd be sad, and then I'd be sad, so okay. Go save Willow."

"You truly are a saint, Anya," Giles said dryly as Xander and Buffy followed him up the stairs and then outside to his car.

"Okay, so shadowy corporate guy turns out to be evil. In retrospect, not so surprising," Xander said as Giles put the ancient car into gear and sped off at a very un-librarianish speed. "He finds out that Willow might be close to finding out about the evil thing and grabs her, tries to make us think that the aliens did it. That pretty much right?"

"More or less, yeah," said Buffy. "We're gonna do what we've been talking about doing- find Mr. Traeten and have a little chat with him about what he's been hiding. Except now the chat is less likely to involve words and more likely to involve the universal language of violence."

"I can get behind that," said Xander. "Do we know where he is?"

"No, but I was thinking of asking Walsh. She never liked the guy anyway."

"That may not be advisable, Buffy," Giles said. "Walsh isn't any more fond of us than she is of Traeten, and we lost all our evidence against him when Willow was kidnapped. Basing Willow's survival on whether she believes us over the people funding her operation may not be a good idea."

"Hey, why not ask Riley?" Xander said. "He should know, and if we just tell him we need to talk to Traeten and leave out the beating-him-up part, he shouldn't ask any questions."

"It's worth a shot." Buffy pulled out her cell phone and dialled as Giles' car sped further into the night.

Riley's cell rang and he reached for it carefully, not taking his eyes off the road. He'd been back at the Initiative less than five minutes when Forrest and Graham had filled him in on what had happened. Although tired, Riley had volunteered to be part of the capture team immediately. Anger had given him new enegry. Traeten had seemed like an okay guy who'd gone out of his way to befriend Riley and his men and helped fund the good work they were doing in Sunnydale, but now it looked like all along he'd been bringing the Initiative down from the inside. And Riley did not handle betrayal well.

The three of them weren't much of a force to storm Ravnon's compound, but the multiple crises had stretched the Initiative's manpower beyond its limit. Teams were patrolling the city for further alien attacks, while other teams were watching the many entrances to the old tunnels to keep them from getting out again, and still more teams were sweeping the base for further sabotage. This was in addition to the already busy regular schedule of the Initiative, and the personnel engaged in cleanup at the hospital. If this kept up, they might have to start bringing in people from the regular army base, and then it was bye-bye secrecy. Maybe bye-bye Initiative. It was ironic that they had let Traeten set up his facility and take the DemAlien to free up manpower, but now found themselves strained even further because of his trickery.

With everyone from tech to commando busy, they three were all that could be spared, even for such an important mission. It unsettled Riley to discover that his unit even had any limits. They'd all grown accustomed to the belief that they were the best, that the Initiative's resources and knowledge were limitless, that theirs was an unbeatable force. The revelation that the Initiative could be weak, coupled with the treachery and the disaster at the hospital, had all put Riley in a very bad mood, which he was looking forward to taking out on a certain guy in a suit. He lifted the phone to his ear.

"Finn. Buffy? Um, I'm kind of busy right- Traeten? You want to talk to Traeten?" Forrest and Graham perked their ears up at this. "That, uh, might not be a good id- What kind of information? Wait, hold on Buffy- Can you meet us?" Forrest frowned and mouthed 'What?!' at Riley, but he just waved him off and kept talking. "We're just on our way to, um, talk to Traeten right now. There's some stuff you should know. Where are you? Oh, good. Just take the next left and we should run into each other. No, Buffy, you won't miss us. We're in a Humvee, it's very big and green and noticeable. I am not being snippy!" Forrest buried his head in his hands. "Well, maybe a little, but… I'm under a bit of stress right now. I'll explain when we meet up. Okay, love you." He clicked the phone shut as Forrest began to talk.

"Riley, I know that I have to serve as both brains and beauty for this outfit, so I'm just gonna remind you: about twenty, twenty-five minutes ago you asked those civilians for help and they completely dropped the ball. And now you're just inviting them back into our business again?" Forrest sighed. "I mean, this is personal! This guy hurt the Initiative, it supposed to be the Initiative who brings him the pain!"

"Traeten brought ten security guys to guard that facility, Forrest," Riley said. "That we know of. And he might release the alien we gave him if he's desperate. You feel like taking all that on with just the three of us?"

"Pretty much, yeah. Graham, you're with me, right?"

"Not. Saying. A word."

Now Riley sighed. "Let me rephrase that. Do you honestly think the three of us against everything Ravnon's got in this town is a good idea? Considering what might be at stake?"

Forrest frowned. "Well, maybe it wouldn't hurt to bring the civilians to draw fire-"

"No Forrest," Riley said. "No cannon fodder."

Forrest scowled. "Fine, Finn. Bring your girlfriend along. But you're the one who gets to justify it to the Professor. Have fun with that."

They drove.

"Hey Reddy, got a question for ya. Me and Nale have a little bet, whether the thing goes for your throat or guts first. When it wakes up, could you not squirm around, make sure we get a clear view? I like to keep these things fair."

It really had been a long night.

Colt's request was only typical of the 'human company' Traeten had left her with. Between his sadistic jokes and Nale's truly pathetic attempts at flirting with her, she was starting to look forward to the creature's awakening. Mercifully, Traeten hadn't returned yet, and her other captors weren't nearly as talkative. Russell had done nothing the whole time, except stare blankly as he methodically cleaned every gun on the rack. Toni was restless and twitchy, constantly pacing and fiddling with his knife, but rarely said anything. A few minutes ago there'd been a brief burst of activity. Colt, who seemed to be in charge, had spoken with one of the scientists about something, and then the guards had passed weapons out amongst themselves, talking concernedly about 'losing contact' with someone or something, about something that wasn't transmitting anymore, and had mentioned 'the other team'. But once they had guns in their hands they hadn't done or said anything else, and Willow could do nothing except wonder what was going on now.

As for the two scientists, they hadn't even looked at her. They were in charge of monitoring the scientific equipment installed in the cell, and by extension, Willow herself. Looking up, she could see a video camera, microscope, infrared sensor, UV filter, and a half dozen things she couldn't even guess at clustered in a small, heavily reinforced pit in the ceiling.

This constant surveillance automatically ruled out many of Willow's options for escape. Most of the magic that she could do without ingredients needed a lot of concentration, and unless Traeten was completely stupid, he would have briefed the doctors to watch carefully for any signs she was going into a meditative trance. What was she going to do? She couldn't pretend to cooperate with Traeten. The guy practically- no, he did lie for a living. He'd definitely not be easy to fool.

Suddenly, there was a sound of movement beside her. Willow froze in terror, then turned her head slowly to see that the DemAlien had only twitched in its sleep. But it was definitely getting closer to consciousness. Its breathing was stronger, its muscles more tense. As she watched, one of its fingers flexed, then straightened, then curled up again. She wondered if it might be dreaming.

She was almost out of time. If she didn't get out of here, the alien would wake up, or Traeten would think of some other way to convince her, or her friends would charge into the claws of the aliens trying to rescue her… She had to get out. Willow thought there was one spell which could work: the Hammer of Nish'ta. It was definitely strong enough to shatter the shield- and her arms along with it, since a witch at her level trying to do the spell in a hurry without the proper herbs would almost definitely create a magical backlash which would blow her limbs off. But she was out of options. Besides, she thought, I might get lucky. Right?

Carefully, not giving any sign of what she was doing, Willow started mentally preparing herself, both for the spell... and the likely amputation. One way or another, the long night was about to end.