ACT TWO

2003

INT. ANYA'S SUNNYDALE APARTMENT

Anya enters and throws her keys in a dish. She sighs heavily, takes off her jacket, and jumps ever so slightly when she finally notices D'HOFFRYN's looming figure in the middle of her living room.

ANYA
Come to kill me yourself, have you? Demon lackies not doing the job efficiently enough?

D'HOFFRYN
I never had any intention of killing you, Anyanka. I thought I made that clear when I killed Halfraek in your place.

ANYA
That explains the demons you sent after me, then.

D'HOFFRYN
Such an accusation! I was under the impression you knew me better than that, Anyanka. We did, after all, associate for a dozen centuries.

Anya sighs and, sensing a lack of anger in D'Hoffryn's demeanor, lets her guard down and walks a little closer to her former boss.

ANYA
What do you want, D'Hoffryn?

D'HOFFRYN
Simply to congratulate you on your audacity.

ANYA
What, you want to rub it in my face that I lost my powers? That I fell in love? That I lost my powers… again? I thought you'd done that enough already.

D'HOFFRYN
You should be forever haunted by these facts, Anyanka. But no, I'm here on a different matter.

D'Hoffryn smiles falsely and conjures a scroll. It's obviously a few centuries old. Anya's expression changes instantly from tired exasperation to alert mortification.

D'HOFFRYN (cont'd)
I was in my quarters the other day when some insolent demon approached me. I was about to kill him when he presented this to me. I found it most illuminating. I can only assume by the look on your face that you'd simply forgotten about it.

ANYA
I had.

D'HOFFRYN
That was immediately clear to me. I thought that certainly you would have been much less hesitant to hand over your immortality, not once, but twice, if you were able to recall that you'd signed your life over to the Wolf, the Ram and the Hart.

ANYA
I signed my death over. Not my life.

D'HOFFRYN
Centuries as a vengeance demon and still it escapes you that life and death are one and the same.

ANYA
Get out.

D'HOFFRYN
Whatever inspired you to do such a thing, Anyanka?

ANYA
Leave. Now.

D'HOFFRYN
This is not a small matter. Soon the tides will change, and you'll have desperately regretted your insolence.

ANYA
Do you seriously have nothing better to do?

D'HOFFRYN
I am doing you a favour. You'd best watch yourself, Anyanka. Death is not elusive. Surely you're aware of that much.

Anya looks up and D'Hoffryn is gone. She stands in her living room for a moment and catches her breath. She runs a hand through her hair and there is an immediate cut to the

Present

INT. WOLFRAM AND HART LOBBY

Anya leads Angel, Wesley, Gunn and Alexa out of an elevator and through the lobby, identical to that of the L. A. offices. A few other people/demons are milling about, but no one pays any attention to the other.

ANYA
So when I died last year, I woke up lying on that metal table without having the slightest idea as to what was going on. Of course, the boss set me straight… strange now that I can't remember his name since he's been eviscerated. Anyway, he was the former CEO.

WESLEY
Why was he eviscerated?

ANYA
He was destined to. Since the first one a couple months ago, people have been pretty on edge. It's both amusing and annoying. That seemed to be the only one, though, until today; suddenly the boss, the head of research and the head of the law department all got their insides turned outside. The stench was terrible; they only just got the lobby cleaned up.

ANGEL
So you're the new liason?

ANYA
Yep. Immortal again. I don't really see the point, though; Xander's not here, he's too busy in Africa to pay any attention to the fact that I'm dead. He was supposed to die, too. It was supposed to be all romantic, and we'd maybe get married in the afterlife because it's not like he'd have to worry about the rest of his life or anything.

Anya stops in front of the doors to what had been Angel's office in L. A. and whirls around to regard the people behind her.

ANYA (cont'd)
What is wrong with him? First he won't marry me, and then he goes and gets all sexy with his money and I have to go and still love him, and okay, we slept together a few times, and then he doesn't even die when I do! He just cries for months and then goes to Africa and starts "helping people". I mean really!

GUNN
Yeah, he sure sounds unreasonable to me.

ANYA
Thank you! See? I'm not the crazy one! He is!

ANGEL
Yeah, great. Can we go in now?

MELODY
(from behind her desk)
I don't think you want to do that, actually.

ANYA
Still smells?

MELODY
Like a Kragshlog demon. The cleaning crews are still in Pistoll's office.

ANYA
You'd really think a multi-billion dollar establishment like this would have more than one evisceration cleaning crew. Everyone always underestimates how difficult it is to get spinal fluid out of the carpeting. If they had regular eviscerations around here, maybe they'd understand that it's not just slice and pop when it's done properly.

Pan over everyone's face. Looks of various extremities of disgust are apparent on everyone's features, except Angel's.

ANGEL
Why don't you just go ahead and tell us about the case out here?

ANYA
All right. It's not like the documentation will help with the search, anyway.

Anya starts walking again, and after some exchanging of looks, everyone, including a curious Melody, follows suit.

INT. WESLEY'S OFFICE

Everyone files into the room and stands around. Anya opens the cupboards and starts rummaging through for something. Wesley's look is very skeptical.

WESLEY
This is my office.

ANYA
Yes. You can sit if you want; Monaie was eviscerated in the lobby.

GUNN
And no one tried to stop it?

ANYA
Oh, no one did the eviscerating. She was destined to, like the boss. She was born that way. When you're born into a backdrop dimension, you're provided with a prophecy as explanation and sent on your way. They knew that upon your mutiny in your home dimension, you'd be shipped here to take their places.

GUNN
Harsh.

ANYA
Way of life. They were brought up to accept their fate. Aha!

Anya finally brings her head out of the cupboard, along with a stack of newspapers. She drops them on the desk and everyone except Melody and Alexa picks up a paper.

GUNN
So we are still in L. A.

ANYA
Yes. Certain events have happened differently than have in your home dimension, so it's not quite the same, but most aspects are pretty much in tact.

ANGEL
All these papers are reporting some kind of major accident.

ANYA
Only they're not accidents. The Senior Partners are having trouble with some invisible brigade that they created. A bunch of semi-psychopathic invisible human beings bent on giving the visible world what's coming to them. At first things were going really well… the seven years of training were completed and the invisible people were set out into the commonplace, creating organized genocide and making it look like an accident. But soon that got boring for them; people die too easily. Soon the army turned on their trainers.

ANGEL
Now they're out of control and the partners are feeling threatened.

ANYA
Senior partners don't get threatened. Not without repercussions. And unless you and the rest of the scoobies can step up and bring down the invisible army, the repercussions are going to make themselves apparent.

GUNN
Scoobies?

ANYA
Sorry. Old habit.

A silence falls as Gunn and Angel read through the articles. Wesley's eyes seem to want to read the article, but they always settle on the strangely silent Alexa. Angel suddenly frowns, checks Gunn's paper, and checks the others in the pile Anya produced.

ANGEL
These are all from the same date.

WESLEY
Assuming the time flow is the same here.

ANYA
It is. Well, actually, there's no such thing as A. M. or P. M. here. It's takes some getting used to… one time someone asked me when a client was scheduled to show up, and I told him two o'clock, and he told me to get out of town. Of course, by the time I realized he wasn't being literal—

ANGEL
Anya.

ANYA
Yes?

ANGEL
Either tell us what you know about the case, or get out.

ANYA
Oh, no you don't. Just because you used to yell at the liasons at home, doesn't mean you get to yell at me. I don't work for you, buster.

ANGEL
I'm not—what?

ANYA
Used to having people stand up to you? Well, I don't care that you're CEO of a majorly evil company. I used to be majorly evil myself you know, I can anticipate anything you throw at me.

ANGEL
What do you mean, you don't work for me?

ANYA
Well, I don't. It's not a hard concept to grasp.

ANGEL
I thought you said I was CEO.

ANYA
You are.

ANGEL
And that everything at this branch was exactly as it was in L. A.

ANYA
It is.

ANGEL
Then explain the part where you don't work for me again, because my other liasons to the Senior Partners did. They may not have always been loyal to me… actually, I haven't found a loyal one yet…

ANYA
Hamilton was, more or less.

ANGEL
He tried to kill me.

ANYA
But he wasn't working for you at that point.

ANGEL
I never received any resignation.

ANYA
That's because you resigned from him, not the other way around.

ANGEL
Anya, I'm in short supply of both time and patience, so maybe you should just get to the point.

ANYA
Hamilton tried to kill you after your appointment to the Black Thorn. Therefore, he didn't work for you anymore at that point. I don't understand why this is a difficult concept for you. I get it.

ANGEL
What does the Black Thorn have to do with any of this?

ANYA
You mean no one explained?

ANGEL
Anya…

ANYA
There's a reason that the Senior Partners sent a team that massive to take you down. The Black Thorn isn't just a secret society. It's an elite society, of fairly epic scale. Every member receives a special status according to their interests or career choice. The Senator wasn't made Senator before her appointment to the Black Thorn. There are no coincidences in the business of evil.

WESLEY
So when you say it was Angel who resigned from Hamilton…

GUNN
What you really mean is that Angel's above a liason to the Senior Partners.

A pause as everyone tries to let this sink in. Wesley and Gunn try fervently to figure it out. Wesley's reflexive glances at Alexa, however, show him that she doesn't seem as surprised as the others.

WESLEY
You've been awfully quiet, Alexa. Surely you have some light to shed on the matter?

ALEXA
(sighing nervously)
The… the prophecy states that the vampire with a soul will come with a small army to infiltrate—

GUNN
Yeah, yeah. We've heard that part already.

ALEXA
…Not all of it.

WESLEY
You hid some aspects from us before.

ALEXA
I didn't hide them, per se…

ANGEL
Fine, you just conveniently didn't include some things in your explanation. Phrase it however you want. I think we'd all like to know, however, what exactly it is you didn't tell us.

ALEXA
Look, just chill, okay? I'm not the enemy here.

ANGEL
But you're starting to make yourself look that way.

ALEXA
Okay! Okay. The Unulat prophecy is… is only one aspect of this dimension's predictions. It deals with only things relating to Wolfram and Hart… on the topmost scale. Angel isn't just CEO anymore… he's made Junior Partner.

A beat. Then a hard cut to

INT. HOSPITAL FLOOR

The third floor, to be precise. It's very clean, as hospitals tend to be; equipment lining the halls, nurses milling calmly about. Suddenly the camera descends through the floor; we see the second floor, a similar scene, scroll by before the camera disappears through the floor again; and past the first floor; and finally into the basement. A strange beeping, perhaps like a heartrate monitor is heard. Broken bedframes are splayed carelessly about; the cement walls and lone lightbulb in the middle of the room present a much different scene from the first three floors. It's abysmal. A pan shot of the stained mattresses, moldy blankets, pillows and their stuffing everywhere, and finally a broken table—with a bomb sitting upon it. The source of the rhythmic beeping.

A chuckle is heard. The camera follows a series of depressions on a set of mattresses leading up to the one tiny window in the room; the window is propped open as depressions on the grass outside become apparent. The window slams shut and the bars on the outside are replaced. A pair of chuckles are heard now, and the invisible culprits run away.

ANGLE: the bomb.
Fifty-eight minutes on the digital readout ticks down to fifty-seven. Dramatic music to end the scene.

END OF ACT TWO