Chapter 9
Giles paralysis lasted only a few seconds. "Wesley, get the hell over here!"
It took Wesley ten seconds to reach the library. His hesitation didn't last as long, no doubt because he hadn't spent as much time in the library as Giles had. "You think that chair's the only thing holding him?" he asked Rupert.
Jonathan shook his head as much as he could.
"I guess that's our answer." The two of them moved into the gap and began to work to free Jonathan. Both of them knew enough about this kind of trap that it took only half a minute.
Once he was loose they pulled the gag out of his mouth.
"You…couldn't….have done…that…first?" Jonathan managed to gasp out.
Giles realized that should have been his first course of action. "Where are the rest of them?"
"I don't know. Once they figured out I wasn't going along with this, they decided they left me here." Jonathan paused. "They didn't leave any guards?"
"We've searched the place. You're the only person we've found." Wesley said.
If anything, Jonathan's face grew even more forlorn. "I'm not even worth keeping watch over. They probably just intended to kill me the moment they got back."
Wesley finally recognized him. "Why did they take you in the first place? Was it just to identify Dawn?"
Jonathan shook his head. "About a month after…what I did had been stopped, I got visited by two of your colleagues. They said that my skills were evidence that I had the potential to be a powerful mage, and they wanted be to join them."
Wesley looked at Giles for an explanation. "Last year, Jonathan managed to cast a spell that created an alternate universe where he was the most important figure in it," Giles told him.
Wesley wondered how that was possible, then had this vague flash of how the recording that they'd have of The Matrix had for a few moments seemed to have someone who wasn't Keanu Reeves on it.
He looked at Jonathan sternly. "The Watchers would never attempt to recruit someone that dangerous."
"Yeah, it would have been nice to know that before they stuck a syringe in me when I got into their car," Jonathan said briskly. "I don't know how long I was unconscious, but when I woke up I was in another building. Not here, but it had the same design. I received the kind of threat to my impending safety that I'd heard in every Bond movie I'd ever seen. Only when it was over, they made damn sure not to leave me alone for the next six months."
Neither Watcher said anything. They knew all too well the kind of process the Council elders believed in when it came to dealing with threats that they considering dangerous but that they considered too potentially useful to outright dispose of.
"I mean, I wasn't expecting any of the Scoobies to come and rescue me. Even if I hadn't royally pissed all of them off with that spell I did, you guys had a Hellmouth to guard." Jonathan actually didn't sound like he held a grudge, which actually made Giles feel worse. "But I'm worried about my parents. They told me that they were fine, but I don't believe a word that came out of their mouth."
"If it's any consolation, neither do we," Wesley said gently.
"How much of what they put you through was for information about what was happening on the Hellmouth?" Giles asked.
"They kept asking the same questions over and over again," Jonathan said. "I spent the first month asking why they didn't just ask Buffy."
"Buffy quit the Council just before graduation," Wesley told them. "Giles had been fired because of an earlier act of malfeasance on their part. I resigned before the Mayor transformed."
By now the three of them had enough sense to know that they had to get out of here, quickly.
"Can you walk on your own?" Giles asked.
Jonathan managed an imitation of a smile. "If I could, I would sprint. Then again, I was never much of an athlete."
As they began to move to the exit, Wesley asked the inevitable. "That spell you cast last year; the Council must have realized something like that had happened when Dawn showed up."
Jonathan shook his head. "I guess I know how the other half lives now. Apparently they found some entries in Giles' reports that didn't match with something they'd put in the official record."
"But I never included Dawn in anything," Giles said.
"Well, they must have learned something." Jonathan said. "After six months, they finally stopped asking me questions I couldn't answer and asked me one that I could. They asked me if I'd ever seen Buffy's sister hanging around Sunnydale High. It seemed like such an obvious question that I didn't think twice about answering it. I couldn't understand why that one seemed to make them happy."
Giles guessed that had to be around the time he had to the Council asking for information about Glory.
"What happened after that?" Wesley asked.
"Well, they didn't let me go but they eased up on the torturing," Jonathan told them. "For the next several weeks, they basically asked me about everything I knew about the Summers family. There wasn't much I could tell them; aside from the occasional Parent-Teacher night I didn't see your families much. But considering how patient and understanding they were about it; I wasn't inclined to look a gift horse in the mouth."
"And of course they didn't tell you anything that was happening on the Hellmouth," Giles said tiredly.
"You know being held prisoner looks easier when it happens in those old war movies," Jonathan told them. "Looked so simple when you can just say name, rank and serial number for weeks and months. They don't show you how much it actually hurts if you're not Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger." He paused. "My grandmother managed to get out of Buchenwald. She told me doing what you need to in order to survive isn't a sin."
Giles had an uncle who had seen Dachau after it had been liberated. He understood where Jonathan was coming from. He also knew the methods his former bosses had used for centuries. "It's impressive you manage to hold out as you long as you did," he said kindly.
"You grow up in Sunnydale, you had to," Jonathan said simply. "But I wasn't naïve. I knew that they weren't doing this out of some goodness of their collective hearts. I knew that they had a purpose in my mind. But the idea that they would kidnap a thirteen year old girl-"
Jonathan shook his head. "They never even told me that Mrs. Summers was dead until last week. They showed me her obituary, then they showed me Buffy's. They said that Giles had been appointed guardianship."
"And you believed them."
"Of course not!" Jonathan looked appalled at the idea. "I knew Giles had some inner toughness in him, and I could believe that Buffy might do that in case of an emergency, but the idea that they would act on his behalf? Absolutely not. You cared for Buffy. These guys didn't care for anyone but themselves."
The dots were connecting themselves. "And I assume they didn't ask nicely when they took you to their little hideaway."
"I haven't exactly had much in the way of choices for the last year," Jonathan said bitterly. "But at least they were willing to untie me, so I went along with it. And then I get there, and I see Dawnie's been bound and gagged."
"Did you tell them that it was her?" Wesley asked.
"It wouldn't have made a difference if I hadn't," Jonathan said. "One of them – her name was Warner…"
Giles knew the rest. He knew the names of two of the telepaths the Council had working for them. Sally Warner was one of their best.
"I knew the moment I saw her that even if they were telling the truth about Buffy, the rest of you would have been moving heaven and earth to find Dawn," Jonathan paused. "Maybe literally. By that point, they were willing to give me a little freedom, so I might be able to drop a hint or two before they moved her."
Wesley gathered it. "You left the note for us."
"I was thinking a more elaborate cipher, but I thought I'd better keep it at something that wouldn't have to do with sci-fi. I figured Sherlock Holmes was a safe bet."
"Well played." Giles said admirably. "I'm guessing they found out."
"Either that or they had no use for me anymore," Jonathan said. "There was a guy in a trench coat who wanted to take me out right when we got back, but they said they had to make their meeting and…I wasn't really a threat anyway."
It must have been bitter for Jonathan to hear that, especially considering where he'd been just before he'd graduated.
By now they had made it outside.
"I have to tell you none of this makes any sense to me," Jonathan said as they got to the car. "First of all, Buffy's alive, right?" When Wesley nodded, Jonathan looked even more baffled. "What is this, some kind of messed-up power play? I know these guys can hold grudges but if they're trying to use this as leverage over Buffy, they really don't know her."
"It is the kind of Travers might have done before," Giles admitted. "Unfortunately, it's actually far worse than that."
"We need to get back to the Hyperion and regroup," Wesley said. "I'll drive and we'll explain on the way. Bear in mind, it probably won't make much sense."
"I saw the Mayor of my hometown turn into a giant snake on my graduation day," Jonathan reminded them. "Please keep that in mind."
HILLCREST MALL
"Wonderful," Buffy said. "I've been back from the dead for two months. This is my first time in a shopping mall since then and I can't even enjoy it."
"I do understand the logic," Anya said. "Look at them. All of these stores, all of these consumers, all of the chintzy decorations. You know, I was actually in Missouri when the first mall ever opened in 1922. Moment I saw it, I knew that communism would never have a chance. What possibility could it have over the ability to get thirteen kinds of shoes in the same place?"
"And leave it to our shadow government to take this one great and beautiful thing and spoil it forever," Cordelia actually looked furious at this. "I mean, the very least they could have done is put it next to a Wetzel's Pretzels or even a Foot Locker. But no. There it is the forces of pure evil next to a damn Lord and Taylor!"
The women of Sunnydale had seen some pretty messed up things in their lives fighting evil, but it was hard not to take the presence of secret underground lair in one of the most prominent shopping malls in California as a personal insult, even if it hadn't been directed towards the abduction of someone they all cared about immensely.
"How do you think I feel?" Willow said through their earpiece. "I can't even enjoy the perfect shopping mall; I have to see where the sausage is made."
"Are you being literal? Because there's a Weinermobile on an upper level," Anya said.
"No, I am going to deliberately avoid looking at the kitchens; I've heard the horror stories of hot dogs and I don't want it proven," Willow said with a shudder. "Seriously, this is the one time I wish my parents believed in keeping kosher."
"One evil corporation at a time," Buffy said. "Right now, this is simple reconnaissance. Though honestly, if their guards are like the ones at the Initiative, we may not have a clear idea how big the detail it is."
"You really think the military can handle putting security as shoppers?" Cordelia asked.
"They did a good job disguising the military as college students," Anya told them. "Besides, they're just trying to fool the average mall-goer. Most of them are busy looking for the best deals possible."
Cordelia thought for a moment. "You know, this might be the one area where my knowledge trumps yours," she said thoughtfully.
Buffy thought about this. "You have been on the supernatural detail the last two years. Are you still good at picking out people based on superficial appearances?"
"Please. I've improved at it, if anything," Cordelia scoffed. She took a few minutes to get a look at the area surrounding the Army recruitment facility.
"Okay, there are two people who just have truly horrible fashion sense, but that's the average for any social setting," she said carefully. "But I can make out at least seven people who are clearly trying to pretend to be shopping and not pulling it off."
Buffy looked around. "I must still have some rust from the grave. I only see five."
"She's talking about the woman who's made three laps around the Circuit City and the thirty-year old who's pretending that he's auditioning for a high school comedy." Both Cordelia and Buffy looked at Anya, who shrugged. "I may not know malls as well as you two, but I know when there are actual shoppers and those who are just trying to fake their interest in something else."
"That is a universal trait," Cordelia acknowledged. "Willow, have you made any progress on the foundation?"
"Good thing malls are so heavy on security," Willow said. "I'm picking up an enormous amount of electrical humming in the sublevel below it, but according to the schematics…"
"There's no there, there," Buffy finished. "This must be a government operation; they don't even bother to change their model from one city to the next. You have any idea on security?"
"Hard to get a read on it, but it looks like there are at least three people there. Pretty light given the circumstances."
"I imagine most of the security is inside the secret lair," Cordelia guessed.
"Probably a safe bet," Buffy agreed. "Well, the normal play for this thing is to kill the power for the entire area, but that would be too big a distraction, and we don't want to tip our hand yet."
"Maybe we don't have too," Anya said. "The military doesn't want to stick out like a sore thumb. Which is odd because the whole point of a thumb is to stick out."
"Anya," Cordelia said.
"Right. They don't want to draw attention to themselves, so I imagine they'd have all their power connected to a separate source. Maybe there's a generator of some kind." Anya said.
"Hang on, let me look," Willow said. "I think you're on to something."
"I usually am with this sort of thing." Anya said in her matter-of-fact way. "Of course, because this is military they're going to make it so access has a redundancy of some kind."
Buffy shook her head. "I don't want to know how much of this was pillow talk with Xander."
"This was just when Riley was with us. He's usually too exhausted after intercourse to engage in regular conversation." Cordelia shuddered. Buffy barely blinked. "Hey, you're the one who was fond of bringing up Xander's sexual habits in front of everybody. Now's not the time to become a shrinking violet."
Buffy smiled. "You did kind of bring that on yourself."
"Can we just talk about breaking into a top secret military facility like normal people do?" Cordelia was blinking as if she was trying to get the image of Anya and her ex-boyfriend out of her head – which in all fairness, she was.
"The point is even if Willow were able to knock out the power remotely, they have to some way to turn it on manually fairly close by," Anya finished.
"In other words, there's going to be a clock," Cordelia said.
"And probably not a very long one," Buffy said. "All right, since I'm the fastest and the strongest I have to go in."
"This is no time for bravery. We'll let you," Anya said. "But we knew that before we got started, so what part do you need us for?"
"The redundancy has got to be close to the basement," Buffy said. "It's a longshot that they actually put in the recruitment office itself…"
"…but it is the government. They might hide it in plain sight," Cordelia agreed. "So you need Anya and I to serve as a diversion."
"It's going to be a two-person job," Willow said. "One of you will be the lookout, and one of you will be inside."
Anya shook her head. "This is the problem with being part of your little adventures. There's never a place to easily run and hide if you need too."
"Are you saying I should be the one who goes in?" Cordelia asked.
"We both knew it. You can at least pretend to be subtle and to blend in. Whenever I try to do that, I immediately send up red flags." Anya said matter-of-factly. "But let's not kid ourselves. My guess is, there's a substantial force down there and when things go haywire, they will immediately realize what went wrong and who to start running after."
Cordelia couldn't help but agree. The military might be stupid when it came to the supernatural, but they would definitely recognize an attack.
"That's the other reason you'd have to go in," Buffy said gently. "You're the only one of us the Initiative wouldn't immediately have registered as a possible threat."
"You don't think they'd have me under known associates?" Cordelia pointed out.
"I actually handled that part before we came here," Willow said. "The military doesn't have anybody in Angel Investigations on file. They'll probably run an ID scan on you in some form, but I've managed to work around a stall. Another reason to get this done quick."
"How much time do you think we'll have from start to finish, Will?" Buffy asked.
"I'd starting getting into position now." Willow said. "I'm gonna get on the line with Fred so each of us can handle this separately, but I think best case scenario we'll have five, maybe seven minutes from the moment we get started until the alarms start ringing for at least one of you."
"And then we have all start running away without looking like we're running away," Anya said. "That's assuming that nothing goes wrong in between, and we're all former residents of the Hellmouth, so we know better even to suggest that's a possibility."
"Right now, there's only one thing working in our favor," Buffy said. "It's not a Tuesday."
"I almost wish it were," Cordelia said. "There's a sale at Gucci that starts that morning."
"Hopefully everything will be resolved by then," Buffy said. "If coming back from the dead and this impromptu high school reunion doesn't deserve a new pair of Manolos, I don't know what would."
"Shame they don't give discounts for the paranormal," Cordelia said.
"If they did, the Sunnydale mall would have gone out of business years before I came to Sunnydale, " Buffy said with a shrug. "All right, pleasure before business."
"You sure that isn't backwards?" Anya asked.
"Have you been to a Prada sale on Black Friday?" Cordelia said. "The people there make Darla and Drusilla look like infants learning to walk."
HYPERION
"I guess that's the thing about growing up on a Hellmouth," Fred shook her head. "Even if you're not part of the cool kids, there are extracurriculars that aren't just part of the mathletes."
"For all I know that Jonathan bloke was," Spike said. "With the exception of that whole alternate universe bit I never had any reason to cross path with him while he was at Sunnydale High."
Fred and Spike had been relieved that half an hour earlier Wesley and Giles had finally told them they were coming back to the base – and perplexed to learn that yet another Sunnydale resident had been one of the Watchers prisoners. After a slight debriefing, they decided it made sense to take his back to the hotel and try and tend to Jonathan's injuries there – it was apparent the young man had been horribly abused and he didn't have the healing capabilities the Slayer did.
"You think there's any possibility that was the only reason they took this Jonathan?" Fred asked. "I mean, I get their defense of the supernatural realm attitude and everything have to do with Dawn, but is there any chance there's more to it than that?"
"This is normally the part where I'd say isn't that enough?" Spike said carefully, "but this lot has been around as long as the Slayer has been. They might have angles we can't see. And I think you have an idea what that angle might be."
"A theory, for what it's worth," Fred said. "From what you told me last year, Jonathan managed to use a magic spell to basic create an alternate universe where he was the most important figure in it. Several months ago, Giles comes to them about Glory and the Key. They do their homework and they find out what the key is capable of. We already know why they kidnapped Dawn. Is it possible they'd decide to kill two birds with one stone and use Jonathan?"
Spike gave this some consideration. "What I'm going to tell you is third-hand at best. The Scoobies were never inclined to share with me the inner details of their own adventures, and certainly not gossip about their schoolmates. But the last year or so, Willow and Anya were willing to share some details about Sunnydale high. You're clearly smarter than most of that lot; you're definitely smarter than me."
"I think you're being immodest, Spike," Fred said.
"I'm cunning, wily and I was once book-smart," Spike said, holding up a finger. "But my books were basically 19th century literature; you're applied science." He paused. "And I'm guessing that high schools are alike everywhere even if they aren't on Hellmouths."
Fred got what Spike was implying. "Are you saying that Jonathan was a nerd or that he was bullied?"
"I think we both know the two are rarely mutually exclusive," Spike reminded her. "According to Anya, one of the Cordettes told her after she and Harris broke up, that Jonathan was the 'stallion' she should rebound with. Cordelia was so pissed after that she made a wish that basically changed the structure of the universe. It could not have been much better for Jonathan's state of mind at the time."
He went through what Willow had told him about where they had found Jonathan about a month before graduation.
Fred shook her head. "And he created this alternate universe rather than get therapy?"
"In Sunnydale, learning magic might be cheaper," Spike said sadly.
"Well, I get why he'd do a spell to make himself the center of the universe," Fred said. "Though honestly, that's wish fulfillment for just about everybody. Does that per se he's the evil mastermind type?"
"Evil, no. And I don't think he would deliberately hurt anyone." He hesitated. "What I'm about to tell you I will deny under pain of staking. But before Dru turned me, I was not that different from Jonathan."
Fred blinked. "I've had to accept a lot of things in the last few years; you'll pardon me that I have trouble with this."
"I know, the Cockney accent, the punk hairdo, the sweeping black leather; I basically scream bad boy," Spike said slowly. "Truth is, I was part of the cultured set growing up. I'd gone to Eton. I was in my second year at Cambridge. A month before Dru turned me, I'd seen them perform Pirates of Penzance at the Savoy."
Fred looked intrigued by that part. "Was Sullivan actually conducting?"
Spike smiled. "Brains and good taste. No, he only did the opening nights." He gathered himself. "Back then, I wanted to be the next Tennyson and if I was truly ambitious, the next Browning."
"Robert or Elizabeth?" Fred said.
"Honestly, either would have done." Spike said fondly. "The problem was, keeping with the G and S metaphor, I loved, alas, above my station. And the day before I found Dru, I had opened my heart to that same woman. She spurned me in public." He sighed. "One of my first actions as a vampire was to slaughter not only her, but everyone who had seen her to do so."
"I guess history does rhyme as well as repeat," Fred said with sadness. "But from what you told me, Jonathan doesn't have that in him."
"No, which already makes him better than me in that regard. The thing is before Dru turned me, she told me I was her knight. She said exactly what I wanted to hear, right at the time I needed to." Spike said. "Jonathan took the blows for more than year. I could see the Watchers maybe manipulating him magically to do this. But him doing this of his own free will, even out of some misguided sense of vengeance? No. It's beneath him. Still, it doesn't mean he might know something without actually knowing it."
"We're about to find out." Fred said. "They're pulling up."
Giles and Wesley came in a minute later, Jonathan with an arm around either of them. "Fred," Wesley said, "the first aid kit in the back."
"My head must hurt worse than I thought," Jonathan said. "Because I'm not sure what one of them is doing here."
"Head's working fine," Spike said cheerfully. "They invited me here to lick the pot."
"Spike," Giles said warningly.
Spike turned serious. "They update you on what the Watchers wanted with Dawn?"
"Yes, and even if I didn't have a splitting headache, I don't think I could make any sense of it," Jonathan acknowledged. "I'll tell you what I know, but whichever one of you has a minor in spellcasting, you should probably use it on me, and the quicker the better."
"What is he talking about?" Fred had come back in with the first-aid kit.
"First of all, even if the Watchers weren't guarding me, I think we all know they're going to notice when they get back to their secret hideout and I'm not there," Jonathan pointed out. "And the only reason they would do something that apparently stupid—"
"-was if they could figure out a way to track you if you disappeared," Giles realized.
"They could have used technology as easily as they could have magic," Fred said.
"Our bosses never thought highly of computers," Wesley reminded her. "Which doesn't mean they haven't upgraded somehow in the next two years. Jonathan, are these the same clothes you had since they took you?"
Jonathan was thinking. "Even if they are, they spent a lot of time torturing me until I was unconscious." He looked around and pulled his watch off. "When in doubt, go for the obvious."
Fred took it. "You're not particularly attached to this are you?'
"It's a Timex knock-off; what do you think?"
Fred ran to the desk, reached into one of the drawers, grabbed a hammer and smashed it. "I know they're supposed to take a licking, but this doesn't look like your typical battery."
"They've clearly been collaborating with the Initiative," Spike said. "I recognize the model. And if it works the way that one did, the security forces will be here any moment."
"It's hard to figure that this would come as a shock to them," Fred said. "They were here several hours ago. Do you think they'd run the same game twice?"
"They were never capable of learning knew tricks," Giles thought for a moment. "This gadget, does it only transmit our location?"
Fred looked puzzled for a moment. "I don't understand what you're asking."
"I believe Rupert is asking if there might be a way to use this transmitter to determine whose currently using it," Wesley translated.
"It would be difficult with the technology we have, but I might be able to find a workaround," Fred said carefully. "Willow or Xander would doubtless know better than I would, but we can't afford to redirect them right now."
"I might be able to help."
"Jonathan, if this is some holdover from that enhancement spell…" Spike began.
"I was never as good at the internet as Willow was, but at any other school I would have been the top of my class," Jonathan reminded them. "Besides, considering that not only did you rescue me but I brought this gadget here, I think I owe you twice over at least."
No one could argue with any part of that statement. "You sure you're up to this?" Wesley asked. "You have just been through a fairly traumatic experience and you have earned some time in recovery?"
"We all know that once your colleagues find out I'm missing, they will not be happy," Jonathan said grimly. "And you know as well as I do what happens when you cross them."
Spike looked at Wesley and Giles. "I know your former employers could never do anything subtly but that doesn't mean you can't be direct."
Both Brits clearly knew what Spike was talking about. "Even if we're direct, they'll spend as much time as possible in denial and stalling," Wesley said. "Still, we've avoided it long enough." He looked at Giles. "Do you still have the old contact number?"
Giles took his glasses off and put them in his pocket. "No use prolonging it."
"For your sake?"
The Ripper answered. "For theirs."
HILLCREST MALL
"Excuse me, sir," Anya said. "I hate to draw you away from your work, but I could use your assistance."
Two of the men exchanged a glance that anyone who hadn't either been raised on a hellmouth or spent a thousand years as a demon wouldn't have noticed before one of them walked over.
"They can put a man on the moon; they can't make any of these mall maps translatable," Anya said. "I've been past three of them in ten minutes and they've all told me I'm in four different places. Could someone please just tell me how to find the sunglass boutique?"
As Anya was drawing one of the guards outside, Cordelia had entered the building. "What's the process for enlistment?"
This time the glances weren't subtle. Cordelia would have been insulted by them even if she weren't there to distract them.
"Okay, I now understand why the Marines have such a horrible reputation," she said in her haughtiest Queen C tone. "First don't ask, don't tell; then Tailhook. You know, all those catchy slogans aren't going to work if you keep acting like pricks everyone who doesn't who doesn't look straight out of ROTC walks into your office and says she wants to join the service."
Now the men in the office were clearly starting to twist around uncomfortably. "I'm very sorry…"
"The next words out of your mouth had better be: 'Here are the forms to fill out to help in connection with military and college.' Cordelia's voice had dropped below zero.
All three men began to jump to help her.
"How very chivalrous of you. A little late."
"Okay, they've done their job. I'm about to do mine." Willow whispered to Buffy. "No lights, no camera, time for action."
Even having spent the last couple of years more focused on Wicca than the World Wide Web, Willow still had some serious game in the field of hacking. In this case she made it look like a complicated military electronics device looked like it had blown a fuse.
The Fire Exit sign blinked twice. Fortunately at that moment, no one except Cordelia was looking directly at it. She still had a feeling what it meant.
She looked at her watch. "I'm having dinner with my boyfriend in half an hour, which is a conversation I'm not looking forward too. If this is going to take too long, could you just tell me when I can come back for the packet?"
One of the men actually looked sympathetic. "Have you told him what you're planning?" he asked.
Cordelia changed her tone. "He's very persuasive. I don't have something resembling coherent information, he might be able to talk me out of it. Or he'll do something half-assed like give me a promise ring. Which will lead to a fight and a lot of crying and moaning. And I always hate it when he gets like that."
The man nodded. "Give us five minutes."
"This has to be government issue," Victor said. "Five million dollar budget; it goes off because of a four buck fuse."
"Hey, we should count our blessings," Pete told his friend. "This is the only the third time we've had to turn the generator back on today. Give me a hand."
Tilly helped them begin to open the latch. "I knew that the military wasn't nearly as glamorous as it looks in the ads, but this has gotten the most boring detail in the history of the armed services."
"Would you have preferred to be on the ground in Sarajevo?" Victor asked.
"I would at least like to know why the three of us got assigned to a shopping mall in LA," Tilly said. "No, I take that back: the 'secure facility' in the subbasement of a shopping mall in LA."
Vic and Pete rolled their eyes: they'd been in the 'trenches' for the last several weeks and they'd all gotten used to their friends' rants about how boring their detail was. All of them shared the same irritation about their posting; Tilly was just the most vocal with her complaints.
In truth, Pete had spent the last few weeks reminded of an old bunch of Warner Brothers cartoons he loved as a kid. There was a dog who was guarding a flock of a sheep who every day had to protect it against a wolf. It was clear the wolf and dog were just doing their jobs; they said hello to each other every day and were friends most of the time. None of this was personal.
The part that was the most pertinent was that at the end of every shift, the dog – and sometimes the wolf – would clock out and another dog and wolf would take over. Victor, Pete and Tilly had the same responsibilities; every eight hours another three people would clock in and they exchange greetings.
All of them had applied for the same job – the pay had been twice that of the usual fee - and the responsibilities far less. But six weeks in, not only had they not seen any wolves, they weren't even sure who the sheep they were supposed to guarding were.
All that any of them knew was that they had been sent there to guard 'the gadget' for an eight hour shift. The gadget was apparently a giant box in the middle of the room that all three thought looked like a computer that had gone out of style when they had been in grade school.
No one knew what it was for, not even the men who were in the room above them maintaining the cover that this was just another recruitment base in a mall. The supervisor who they had reported to at the start of the job had told them that this was need to know and that they didn't need to know. All they had to do was just stand guard and in two months all of them would have enough money to pay for their first year of college. For that kind of money, they were find not asking questions
Which didn't stop them from asking them when they got bored – which was at least five or six times a day. There were all kind of theories – most of them having to do with this being some holdover from the Cold War to the possibility of an alarm system for an alien invasion - but they were no closer to their theory from the first time they asked.
And it wasn't like that anyone else had a clear idea. The people in charge of recruitment had no regard for their presence; there had yet to appear a single soldier other than the changing of the guard, and they hadn't so much as heard more than the occasional beep from the gadget they were guarding. What they did know is that for all the secrecy that surrounded this project, it did not seem to work very well. The power seemed to go off three times a day on average; the phones would ring every few hours but no one ever answered, and the gadget had never so much as altered once in the midst of all of this. There was just a blinking green cursor that never flickered at all.
The theory that Tilly kept coming back to over and over was that this was all just some kind of psychological experiment. She was majoring in psych at Berkeley and she had a feeling that, even though there were no cameras visible, someone in a giant room in a lab somewhere was observing them to see what they would do. Perhaps it was to measure the effects of isolation on soldiers over long term periods; perhaps it was a study in how well people will follow orders even with no explanation. Given the government's shady track record in this process, she could understand why they might do it in such a hidden matter.
"All I know is that they're paying us well to just do this and not ask questions," Vic told them.
"Keep saying that in a few months when you wake up and their growths in places you really don't want to see," Tilly said, only half in jest.
At that very moment, there was a pounding on the door. All three of them froze.
"Okay," Pete said. "That's a new one."
They had all been assured this was a completely safe posting with no danger. It was now beginning to look like they had been lured into complacency. Maybe this was the experiment.
"So…do we open it?" Tilly, who had been questioning every part of this found herself unprepared for what to do next.
"We're not supposed to let anyone in without permission," Vic said with no assurance.
The pounding grew heavier. "I don't think whoever is there is going to ask permission," Tilly was starting to sound shakier – perhaps because dents were starting to form in the door. The door which was made with reinforced titanium.
"Are there any weapons here?" Pete was increasingly unnerved.
"We've searched every inch of this place. There isn't anything sharper than a pair of scissors in the whole room," Vic said.
"Maybe we're supposed to defend ourselves against the intruder." Pete was now out and out terrified.
"With what? Paper clips and a staple remover?" Tilly was now clearly terrified. "Remember when you joked that we might be part of a ritual sacrifice? Doesn't sound very funny now."
The door was clearly on the verge of coming off its frame.
"Look on the bright side," Pete said quietly. "We're finally going to find out what this is all about."
Finally the door came down. And… a girl around their age walked in with a determined look in her eyes.
Pete said the first thing that popped into his head. "Hello, Ralph."
AUTHOR'S NOTES
Jonathan never truly seemed to be part of the Troika from the start. I think the Watchers might very well have done something like this in the aftermath of the spell that he did in Superstar in order to 'protect the world' even if Dawn weren't involved in the equation. Jonathan, as we all know, spent his tenure in Sunnydale High aware of what was going on but never truly part of the action until the final episodes of Season 3. I hope that I'm not being offensive by saying that he might have a relative who survived the Holocaust; sadly that was probably a near inevitability for so many Jewish people in America. I'm also reclaiming his basic intelligence and common sense in this story; I think Jonathan was smarter than most of the characters gave him credit for being and not in the evil genius sense he ended up being portrayed during Season 6.
Spike would, of course, have almost no awareness of Jonathan until Superstar; he didn't really spent much time in Sunnydale High after 'School Hard'. I imagine he would have learned what he did through gossip from the other Scoobies (and of course, Harmony might have shared some of it during their two season dalliance). The parallels between William and Jonathan are clear and he knows it. I also thought he might be willing to share some secrets with Fred; the two of them got along very well in the final season of Angel and she doesn't have a built in opinion on him.
By the way, the Gibert and Sullivan reference is something I've wanted to make for a while: the two were at their peak when Spike ended up being turned and I think William would have appreciated their music and lyrics. (Arthur Sullivan, the composer did conduct opening night premieres at the Savoy, I don't know if he did others.) William was a cultured child and we all know he wanted to be a poet. (There's a Mikado lyric I may actually use to make this clear at some point. Okay, classical music references done.)
The first American mall was built in 1922 in St. Louis, so its possible Anya could have been there and we all know her experiences with Russia are part of canon. And as we all know, the Sunnydale women preferred hanging out at the mall to demon hunting when they could.
Yes the names of the three soldiers are very clearly a Star Wars reference. But as I wrote their story, I began to think of a different use for them in the larger context. The Cabin in the Woods reference was unintentional, but as someone who has loved the particular Warner Bros series that I have referenced in this story (and I don't blame you if you don't know it; it doesn't have any of the famous Looney Tunes characters), I honestly thought that would be a good metaphor for what might be going on. As to what this base is for…I'll get to that in the next chapter.
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