Part 16
It was a tight fit when they all crowed into the office. Since Angel had
insisted on adding Gunn and Cordy, Jonathan was out front with Jeff, a swim
team survivor, and Marcia, a former Cordette, handling operations.
Fortunately Giles had angled an ornamental mirror on the wall across from
the window in the office’s door so that the front of the shop was visible.
Xander divided his attention between what was happening in the office and
the steady stream of people out front. He would just have to trust that
Laura would not blow up the training room now that she had been left alone
with the groceries and the hotplates.
“I called Megan’s her mom said they went to the mall. She isn’t answering
her phone but Megan’s mom said they were going to a movie...” Willow looked
appealing at Xander. In under fifteen minuet she had erected a barrier which
not only blocked any form of technological but also any magical
eavesdropping and yet she seemed to think she had failed Xander by not
producing Dawn.
“I’m sure she’s okay. If we don’t hear from here within the hour can you and
Tara find her...you know?” Xander made a wavy motion with his hand.
Willow smiled and started to bounce but it was Tara who said, “We can track
her anywhere. We made it part of a slumber party game, even if another magic
user tried to block it we could follow the blank space.”
“Good.” Xander didn’t mean to cut Willow off but she had looked like she was
going to elaborate. While he was impressed, proud, and a little frightened
by how powerful the two witches were together, now was not the time to find
out how they did what they did. “The important thing is that she is safe and
out of this.”
“What is this?” Angel asked. “Do we know any more than we did last night?”
“What we know is that Cordy’s vision said that the Hellmouth was going to
have an attempt made to open it, that if that attempt was successful... Well
we all know the drill. Since then we have been setting up a system to find
out who or what is going to do that; and getting ready to take it out before
it can completes its objective.” Xander sat on the edge of Giles’ desk with
his back to the wall. He ran his fingers though his hair. “We have a vague
description of who will be there when the attempt is made from Cordy’s
vision.”
So, help me.” Cordelia interrupted. “If one more person,” and she shot
Xander a meaningful look. “Says one more thing to me about little green
men.”
“Big.” Xander cut in calmly. “Big buff commando types, with ‘moldy’
camouflaged faces.”
Silence greeted that remark. Tara grasps Willow hand, her eyes never
leaving her. Willow looked at Xander. He could see that brilliant brain of
hers realizing the implications. Her lips moved but no words came out, her
eyes filled with tears and she looked to Giles. “But... Riley said... There
is no more initiative. Is there?” Her voice begged Giles to tell her Xander
was wrong. Xander would have given his right arm to tell her that there was
no chance that the well organized, highly trained, weapon wielding commandos
weren’t going to be the ones they were throwing the remaining members of
their graduating class at in a desperate bid to save the world. But he
couldn’t. Couldn’t lie to her. Couldn’t lie to himself no matter how much
wanted to.
About a week after her birthday, Willow and Tara had come over for another
movie night. Spike had been getting drunk on JD and the girls had been
sipping peach schnapps. Xander had missed the exchange, he and Tara had been
in the kitchen making snacks, but Spike told him latter. Spike had been
cursing the ‘fucking soldier boys’, as usual. He said he had offhandedly
made a remake to Red about how he knew since they had been protecting humans
that she probably thought they were the good guys. She has shocked him when
in a soft breathless voice she had said no, that she thought they were
scarier than anything she had ever met, including Glory. Xander wasn’t
surprised. He had learned about the Holocaust at the knee of the same
grandmother that Willow had. In everything else Willow was the most liberal
person Xander knew, but the moment something seemed to take the power from
people and put it into the hand of a bureaucracy especially a government
backed bureaucracy she became very conservative.
Giles seemed at a loss looking it Willow’s eyes. Then he straightened and
once again became their foundation. “While we can be sure that the
installation at the university is now defunct, we have had every indication
that the agency behind it is still very much active. We know when Buffy
faced the Quellor demon that while Riley did show up late, he did not arrive
alone. That suggests that he had a means, other that the one Buffy used to
summon the doctor when he was ill, to contact them. We also know that when
he left Sunnydale, he went as a part of a team with enough influence to rate
what Buffy described as a ‘black ops’ type helicopter.
Willow smiled weakly at Xander and asked. “Is it too late to put the Omega
Plan it to play?”
He nodded and smiled back “we’ll have to save that one for when we have more
notice about an Armageddon.”
“What is the Omega Plan?” Wesley asked.
“We’re almost positive we can break Faith out of prison, and with a
combination of illusion and a magically enhanced computer virus we should be
able to wipe out any record of her existence.” Seeing the shocked looks on
Cordelia, Wesley and Angel’s faces, Xander said to Angel. “What? You’re the
one who thinks she all changed and stuff.”
Jeff knocked at the door and opened it without waiting for a response.
“Xand, I got TJ on line one, he has to speak with you now.”
“Thanks.” Xander nodded a dismissal and Jeff closed the door. Xander took
the call from the desk’s phone. “TJ?”
“Dude, I wanta know who your sources are. You’re amazing.” He sounded like
he was calling from outside and Xander could hear engines in the background.
“What’d you have?” Xander grabbed a pen and Spike handed him his clipboard.
“Twenty minuets ago two fucking huge choppers set down with biological
cargo. Whatever it is it came from a base out in Nevada and they have more
guards on it than the president. Their locking everything down, every
cellular and digital signal in a three-mile radius should be toast. All the
landline on the base are inoperational. Whoever these Special Forces are
they should be moving out within the next two hours.”
“Thanks, anything else.” Xander set aside the clipboard.
“Yeah, I just wish I was there.” TJ sighed.
Xander hung up, sighed and rubbed his face with both hands. ‘What the hell
is everyone looking at me for?’ He looked at Spike and then Angel. “You
heard?”
“Fill in those of us with a pulse.” Gunn said.
“The initiative is back it town. They brought someone or something with them
and are mobilizing a major effort. For those of you just joining us these
guys are the KKK of the demon world, they drew a line between species that
they couldn’t enforce and one of their little biological experiments nearly
started a race war, as in humans verses everybody else.”
Xander was tired; bone deep tired like he hadn’t been since that first empty
week after Buffy had died. He had told Dawn that when you loved people you
kept a piece of them with you even after they died and, because they loved
you back, they took a piece of you with them to heaven. He had wondered if
the binding they had used to take down Adam hadn’t exchange a large part, if
the reason he felt so tired was because part of him had died with Buffy. Was
part of Giles and Willow also missing? If they lived thought the night
maybe they could discuss it.
“Cordy, I need you to move operation to the Beta site. Use who and what you
have to but get everyone and everything there in one hour. All communication
from now on is landline only. Will, can you extend the spell blocking any
taps on the phone to cover the incoming lines at the new base?” He looked at
Cordy; she seemed to be waiting for more.
“That’s it?” She asked in a disbelieving tone. He knew it was going to be
like evacuating a sinking ship but he thought she could pull it off if
anyone could.
“Yeah, you might want to get started.” She pulled Gunn with her as she left
the office. “Load up the weapons; pack every thing in the U-Haul. Get the
rocket launcher out of the storeroom and bring that damn thing the fairies
gave you.”
“Sprites.” Willow corrected.
“Xander, as we realize with the dragon, the rocket launcher won’t be useful
without ammunition.” Giles said.
“Gunn and I picked that up while grocery shopping.” Xander frowned down at
the list, now resting on the desk. “Now if I can just think of a safe way to
transport the bombs Laura’s making.”
“Bombs?” ‘Oh look, Wesley and Angel can do the stereo thing too.
Part 17
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