THE REMNANTS

Chapter 9: Bella (Buffy)

Buffy went to the kitchen pantry to dig out the next serving of what she thought of as "grow food" for the unfortunate chosen for her master's future culinary pleasures and stopped to dig her own personal stash of "grow food" out of her cupboard. Cheetos. A gift of the internet gods. She savored each cheesy bite before she licked her fingers. She considered her empty bag for a moment, shrugged, and pulled down another bag.

Ever since she discovered the power of internet shopping, product reviews, and the unlimited credit card in Edward's possession, her standard of living (and her waistline) increased exponentially. She told herself she would do an online exercise class again that afternoon before meeting up for her next anime fan club chat.

Oh, it's Buffy rerun night with the German film history students. She would do her exercises tomorrow.

She pulled open the door to the massive pantry and gave a squeak when she found a woman sleeping on three bags of rice inside.

It's her, she thought. The poor Bella who had been "captured" (i.e. Was smart enough to get out while she could and managed to survive it) and then been "rescued" (i.e. kidnapped) by their dearly beloved, total nutcase of a creator.

She'd only caught a glimpse of the woman her first night when Edward carried her back, kicking and screaming and crying. She wasn't anything like what Buffy expected. To hear Edward go on about her, she expected some paragon of female beauty, but this woman looked like something straight out of a National Geographic special.

It was the same face, her face, but aged and tanned, and so so thin. She didn't have much more flesh on her than the Others fresh out of their tanks and pumped full of "vein juice." Her long hair and sun-soaked skin set her apart though.

Buffy heard her crying and shouting for weeks. It was something awful to have to overhear. She turned her headphones on extra loud so she wouldn't have to listen. Even worse was Edward's pathetic attempts to serenade her and express his undying devotion from the hallway to the poor woman who clearly wanted nothing more than to get away from her doting lover. Edward had taken up permanent residence outside her room and hadn't even taken a break to eat in over a month. She knew what that meant. He would be as taut as a dried out rubber band, ready to snap into insanity at the slightest provocation. (More likely, he was already floating in and out of himself and climbing the walls without knowing it.)

She'd been around long enough. The dude was certifiably nuts. The guys' hands shook so much, he could barely feed her useless self when he first "chose" her as his honored minion-in-training. If she hadn't learned real quick to feed herself, she's convinced she would have starved. The day he froze with a spoonful of food in the air hovered just out of reach from her very hungry mouth was the day she decided she needed to take care of business herself.

The guy kept forgetting to feed her or would stall out in these brainless trances where he stared at nothing, oblivious to the world, for anywhere from a few minutes to a few days and he didn't even know he'd done it. He'd stop talking mid-sentence, zone out, and finish the sentence three days later and not notice she was wearing different clothes or wasn't even there to hear him. She didn't even think he ever noticed he'd lost three days of his life in the interim. He just picked up where he left off and kept going.

That's why he needed her. If he didn't have a responsible adult around to feed his zombie horde and pay his bills and order his stuff, the dude would die. At least metaphorically. She wished he would die in reality, too, but she didn't think it was possible. He was harder to kill than a cybernetic nuclear cockroach. She'd tested a few theories on him when he was out-of-it. She hadn't even made a dent and so gave up.

She may not have any cool super hero skills and may be as athletic as a pug, but she could work her way around the internet and teach herself how to do useful stuff. She could also wait and watch. Covertness came more naturally to her anyway and she could just pretend she was a super secret spy out to save the world….ok, or to save herself, but for that moment, that was her world so she counted it. (She even bought herself sunglasses and an invisible ink pen. The vampire world's worst nightmare for sure, or so she told herself.)

Buffy had worried about this one, though. This woman wearing a faded orange dress and sleeping on her side with her metal-clad arms over her face. Out of all of them, this woman carried the honor badge of gray hair. She had proved she could escape and live on her own outside the fishbowl in the world of "real people." If Buffy ruled the world (or at least Edward's world), she'd grant the woman a medal or something. Instead, the woman slept in a pantry on bags of rice. Buffy couldn't deny she was glad to know her personal hero still lived, but she was a little upset to see her hiding in the pantry like an insect.

"You," Buffy said softly and pushed the renegade Bella's shoulder with her foot. The woman's eyes blinked open and she stretched and sat up. It was then Buffy could see the woman looked better than when she first arrived. She must have been eating well because her previously super skinny frame was nicely filled out and rounded to an extent to give her a glow of health. Her cheeks were full and rosy, even if tear stained.

"I'm glad you're still alive," Buffy said as she held out a hand to help her off the floor. The woman gave her a curious expression and responded in a language Buffy didn't know.

"English? Can you speak English?" Buffy asked.

She shook her head.

"Of course not. Bastard. Hold on." Buffy pulled out her universal translator she used in her chat rooms and held it up to the woman. She gave her a confused expression.

"You need to talk so it can figure out what language you speak."

She said something and the translator did its magic.

"'I don't understand what you want'...Arabic, Chadian dialect," the digital voice responded.

"Ah ha ha! There we go. Translate back, 'I'm glad you are still alive. Why are you in the pantry?'"

The woman listened with a look of amazement at the device and back at Buffy.

"I was hungry and I didn't want to stay in my room," she responded. The translator did its magic. It meant their conversation was slightly stilted and delayed, but it worked.

"I'm glad you are eating. You look better now than you did. You OK?"

The woman's face grew cautious and guarded. She didn't answer at first. "Are you going to tell him where I am?" she asked instead.

Buffy laughed. "Nope. Let him guard your door all he wants. It will keep him out of trouble for awhile."

The woman stared at her and then broke into a semi-relieved smile. She still held tension in her shoulders and gave a cautious glance around the kitchen. She looked over Buffy carefully. "You take care of the Others?"

"Yeah. I guess I'm your replacement. He was a hot mess when you took off so I got nominated for zombie-care instead. I take care of all the ordering of supplies so we don't have a famine here in his frequent absences. I don't get to drive the truck or go outside though. I'm a little jealous."

"He taught you to use the computers and read?"

"Yeah. The dude can barely type or remember his own name, let alone order complicated pharmaceutical prescriptions and medical equipment. He kinda didn't have much choice and to say he was desperate is an understatement. "

"I always wished he taught me to read," she said with a slightly wistful expression.

"He never...unbelievable. Of course not. Why teach you anything remotely useful? Selfish bastard."

At this the woman laughed, a rich, genuine laugh so similar to her own it was uncanny. Young brown eyes met brown eyes weary in years. Then they both broke into identical warm smiles that overflowed into their identical eyes.

"I am called Badiyah, since I came from the desert," the woman said. She took Buffy's hand and then she kissed Buffy on the cheek. "I am very glad to meet you."

"I'm glad you have a name. You can call me Buffy," Buffy responded and gave her hand a squeeze.

"Buffy, I am happy to know your name," Badiyah said. "You chose your name?"

"Yeah. I didn't want to be known as…," she began and trailed off.

"I was given my name by my family. I left the old name behind when I left. It was time I had my own."

"Yeah. Understand."

ooooo

Buffy brought her to her little haven in the corner of the supply room. It wasn't much, but it was hers and she felt safer there than a lot of other places. Edward had very little reason to enter the supply room since she managed most of their supplies. There, her cot was placed between two shelves. Besides it, she kept one laptop for personal use and another set up for constant monitoring of every security camera in the facility. Part of her super secret spy duties involved constant supervision of her "master's" moods and movements. It was how she stayed alive. On the nearest shelves, she filled two cardboard boxes labelled "records" with her stuff and on a rope hung between the shelves, she hung her clothes. A curtain separated her haven from the rest of the room and from her assistant's cot on the opposite side of the room. Her assistant, whom she fondly referred to as "Decoy," slept soundly after her long shift guarding Buffy and now it was Buffy's turn.

It was the day that Edward burst into her little haven and tried to kiss her when she slept that she decided she needed a decoy by the entrance for her own protection. Edward, out of his mind at the time, never knew he'd done it, but she couldn't sleep for a week. Thus, Decoy had been chosen and groomed and was now mobile enough to take her own surveillance laps around the dark, dingy hallways of the Temple and help keep watch twelve hours a day.

Badiyah knelt on a blanket on the floor with her legs curled besides her and she fixed her bright, warm eyes entirely on Buffy as she answered her questions. Buffy sat on her cot and told stories with both her words and her hands.

"Yeah, so I was watching a horror movie and was super excited cause, you know, I was like 'hey-people who live like me!' right? Afterwards, I was in an chat room talking about the movie and was like-'so how do other people deal with living in secret lairs in the desert with their sadistic vampire overlords?' and the people there were like, 'hahaha, great movie plot,' or 'Oh! you want to role play?' and after I finally got around to Googling what movies are and how they are made, it hit me. The horror movie wasn't a documentary about other people's lives. It was pretend and to scare people and not normal….and other people's horror movie plot is like my real life. Yeah, sometimes I still go into chat rooms and talk about how my day has been, like for real, just to see people's reactions and be assured that my normal is really super freaking not normal.

"I mean, I've figured out ways to make it work. As every horror movie plot ever tells you: avoid dudes who want to eat you, don't mess with anyone's genes, let dead people stay dead, and don't go to the bathroom alone…or naked…or with a dude….or alone with a dude naked….and then you'll survive till the end a bit better. I'm doing my best to survive to the end, whatever that is," Buffy said with a shrug.

"I do not know half of the words you used-movies and Googling and chat rooms," Badiyah replied and leaned forward to take Buffy's hands. "However, I think I understand what you are saying. You are correct. Nothing about this life is as it should be. I did not have the ability to contact the outside world during my time here, but deep in my heart I knew it was not right."

"I can't imagine being stuck here without the internet or the ability to read. How did you survive it?" Buffy asked.

"Now you know why I ran," Badiyah responded with one eyebrow raised.

"No joke. Here you want some chocolate?" Buffy asked and handed her a bar of dark chocolate with almonds. She took a bite and by her expression, Buffy couldn't tell if she hated it or loved it. Her subsequent smile and second bite gave more hope of it being the latter.

"Delicious, but almost too sweet. Where does it come from?"

"He never got you chocolate? No wonder he never won you over. As the one in charge of ordering supplies, I get what I want. When I started, he had me wearing some dead girl's clothes from literally like a hundred of year ago. Super creepy, right? Yeah, I was not putting up with that. I can get my own clothes now, thank you very much."

"My clothes?" Badiyah asked and tilted her head to the side just enough that the bangles in her hair jingled and the light caught on her nose ring.

"No. I wouldn't go near your space. Edward pretty much colonized it after you left. Anytime he wasn't in that lair of his, he moped around your room talking to you or pretending his latest zombie love was you and playing with her in there. Yeah, there are some things I'd rather not have to bleach out of my mind later. No, I'm talking about the tomb in the middle room from the poor kid he ate first. You know, the one he got our DNA from to play with in the first place. Haven't you seen her creepfest of a shrine?"

"I've never seen the inside. That room was off limits to me."

"You had room limits? Can someone say prison? He never bothered to give me limits. I figure, don't ask, don't get told no," Buffy said with a shrug. She ate the last bite of the chocolate bar and licked the delicious little crumbs off her now chipped pink-painted fingers.

"Doesn't he watch you?"

"Hell no. He doesn't even know I exist most of the time. I pretty much do as I please and avoid him on purpose. I don't want to be around him any more than I am forced to."

"Does he play piano to you?" Badiyah asked. She dropped her eyes to the cement floor when she asked.

"Does he play piano? I never knew. He hasn't gone into the gold room since I've been here. I played on it a few times when I was bored but I preferred to master my online gaming skills to developing my inner musical genius."

"So he's never gotten better? I hoped he would...," Badiyah said with such a sadness in her voice that Buffy felt uncomfortable. The thought that anyone in their right mind could develop fondness for her vampire overlord clashed too much with her strong disgust for the man for her to sit with without internally squirming.

"Nah, I don't think there's a screwdriver in existence that can fix his screwy mind. He spends more time out-of-his mind these days than firmly rooted in it. That's why I have Decoy over there," Buffy said and quirked her head to where Decoy slept with her face towards the wall and her back to them. "If I'm chillin with someone and I can't tell from one minute to another if they are going to, you know, eat me or something, then I'm not gonna be ok. I like both my arms, thank you, and I don't get off on that whole 'make out with jaws of death' thing and sniffing hair? Yeah, nobody touches my hair without receiving a death glare, even the bringer of death himself.

"So I stole one of his zombie brides from his harem when he wasn't looking and she's done a marvelous job of covering for me. She's chased him off a few times when he tried to come in here when I was sleeping and so I think I'll keep her. Besides, it's nice to have, you know, a real person to talk to sometimes. I figured if I'm going to be stuck here as Primary Minion Number One, I'd rather live as 'co-star' than 'prison fodder'.

"Life's not so bad," she continued. "I've made it work. I mean, I get to sit around and watch movies all day, listen to music, read, and chat with people virtually from around the world. Still, all this is temporary. I've got my own plans to get outta here at the first chance I get. For one, I've been looking into options for replicating only the blood he wants instead of an endless supply of disposable people. If he can get what he wants without anyone having to die in the process, he might put an end to this nonsense.

"Still, if that doesn't pan out, I'm still getting out. I hacked his bank account and am slowly draining it into my own secret account each month. Without the funds, he can't keep it up, or so I hope. Someday, I'm gonna get out of here and live pretty off his money somewhere where I can see flowers and trees and rain and real people. It won't be too much longer."

Badiyah pulled herself up onto her knees and her eyes glowed in burning passion as she entreated Buffy. "Run! You go. Live your life and see the world. My years away have been the best of my life."

"Yeah. You know you are one of my heroes because you got away. You proved it's possible and if you can do it, so can I."

"You can!" Badiyah said in earnest.

Buffy smiled. "You know what I'd like to do someday?"

"What?"

"Have a cat."

"A what?"

"A cat-you know, tail, furry ears, catches mice," Buffy said.

"Oh, yes. I saw one once in a city in Niger. It was like a small leopard without spots," Badiyah said.

"Umm, yeah, I guess? Like that. Wow, you were really sheltered here weren't you?"

"Sheltered? Yes. I had a roof over my head and walls to keep the heat out."

"No, no. I mean, Edward-he didn't let you get any exposure to the outside world at all did he? He controlled what you could and could not know about."

"I suppose so," she said, her eyes lost in past years. "For a long time, it wasn't so bad. We were happy, or I thought we were." She grew sad and shook her head.

"Wait, wait-did you, you know, have something going on? I mean, is that why he's all stalkerish possessive of you? I mean, he's got years' worth of security camera footage of you saved on his hard drive and he'll sit there and just watch you walk the halls or put away boxes in the supply room. It's weird and different than he is with any of the rest of us. Did you, you know, have some kind of love affair with him?" Buffy said and wrinkled her nose in disgust at the thought of it.

Badiyah pursed her lips and rolled her shoulders back in a movement of elegant pride. "That is a difficult question," she said. "Yes, I was in love with him…in many ways, I always will be. But he was different back then, and so was I. We both have changed and there was much I did not know about him and the way the world works and the ways of a man with a woman.

"But yes, I loved him with all my heart. He was my world and he was so very beautiful…and kind…and he had something so very captivating in his soul that drew me into him. He has lost most of that, I think, and I chose to live rather than to die here. And that all ended a very long time ago….and really, it consisted of two kisses and a lot of books and music. Hardly something to fill a storybook with, though the events that followed in the years after may very well have been enough to fill what you call your 'horror movie'."

"So you married another…did you love your husband?" Buffy asked, more out of a desire to not think about Edward having once had good traits in him than out of curiosity of her answer.

Badiyah laughed. "Fatima would chide you for thinking that was important for marriage. Am I romantically in love with Amir? No. Do I respect him and love him as my husband? Yes. Sometimes life is about more than desires. As Fatima says, romantic love cannot survive long in the heat of the desert and there are other kinds of love that are more important to survival. I needed a family and protection and Amir offered me that. In return, I was a good wife to him. We appreciated each other and I am deeply indebted to him for all he's given me."

"Wow. That's a downer."

"You wished for a tale worthy of a storybook?"

"Yeah, kinda."

Badiyah laughed. "You are still young. You have many days still to learn. I love Amir, but I love my son, my niece, and my sister-wives and their children more than I love him. I fell in love with our people and that was more valuable by far. Especially after so many years alone here, I longed for a family more than anything else and they have given me that and it has been a beautiful gift to me."

Badiyah grew quiet and a tear slipped down her cheek as she sat lost in her musings.

"I'm sorry," Buffy finally said. "That he made you come back."

Badiyah dropped her eyes to the floor and more tears fell as she wrapped her arms around her knees and pulled them tight to her body.

"Promise me something," Badiyah said. She wiped her cheeks on her sleeve and met Buffy's eyes again. "Promise me that when you leave here, someday, you will go to Paris and when you go, that you will climb to the very top of the Eiffel Tower, and when you are there, you will stare down over the world below you and think of me. Then it will be like I have been there too," she said.

"Random, but sure. I promise. But why not do it yourself? You still have years left in you," Buffy replied. Badiyah shook her head and sank back onto the blanket.

"My days are coming to a close. My people were surprised I could still bear a child at my age. Even if I can escape here again, where will I go? If I return to my family, I put them in danger. Where else can I start over again? I have no skills I can use in a big city and no connections to help me start over. It was a gift that Amir had compassion on me and took me in. No, I fear that if I escape here, I will only be exchanging one death for another."

Buffy shook her head and fought back own surprised tears. "No, no, no! You are gonna make it out and return to your family. You have to. You've come too far not to and I'm gonna help you. I'm already working on a plan here in my head, you see," she said and she wobbled her short, unevenly bobbed hair back and forth to demonstrate where her idea was found. "We still have your truck and you still know how to drive it, right? We'll wait till Edward's so passed out he won't see a thing and you'll make a run for it. We'll fill the truck with supplies so you can lay low wherever you need to for awhile."

Buffy stood up and began to pace the small space in front on her cot in her excitement. "I'll send you with a satellite phone so I can call you if you need to be on your guard…and I'll put a tracker on the nutcase so I can see where he's going. Yeah, that could totally work."

"How long do I run for? To what end?" Badiyah answered sadly.

"As long as it takes!"

Badiyah tilted her long, braided head and her bangles made sounds like bells as she did. She thought for a moment before she smiled. "I will go. I would rather die out there than in here."

"That's the spirit!" Buffy said. "Operation Breakout is officially underway!"

It was time, Buffy decided, to break in her invisible ink pen for its first stealth mission. She played her own theme song in her head to inspire her courage. She was Buffy, Vampire Slayer and if (no-when) they pulled this off, it would be worth at least five more points in the Buffy vs. Vampire score chart she kept in her notebook.

Ooooo