“Well bloody good for her!” Spike sneered at the general, turning his back to her.

“No. It won’t be,” the general countered in a threatening tone, moving around to face him. She smiled cruelly, “Bloody maybe. Not so good. Not for your girl.”

“Well if Darian made it out, maybe she will too,” he shrugged, feigning unconcern in his tone, but his wide triumphant smile at her said otherwise.

Furious, she slapped him across the face, hard. The blow merely stung; but its purpose had been more to “put him in his place” than to actually hurt. Fighting his impulse to just haul off and slap her back, he waited silently for what she would say. He did not wait long.

“This is very serious, Hostile,” she snapped. “Lieutenant Finn believes that you had something to do with Darian’s disappearance. And while the smart thing would be to do as he suggests and simply eliminate you completely, I am reluctant to do so without evidence.”

His smile became a smirk as he turned his smoldering blue eyes on her and said slowly, surely, “Because you need me.”

He saw in her eyes that he was right, and that she knew it, and…oh bollocks. A moment later a searing pain ripped through him with vicious intensity, and he clutched at the wall behind him to stay on his feet; she would not have him on his knees again!

As the pain ebbed, she leaned in close and said, smiling, “Not as much as you’d like to think.” She paused, then went on, “You’ll come with me now. The facility is locked down; she can’t get out. You will help me find her.”

Disbelief in his eyes, he snarled, “I bloody well will not! You’re out of your bleedin’ mind!”

The general hit the button again, and this time the pain was so intense that he could not stay on his feet no matter how hard he try, and against his will ended up on his knees.

Just then there was a knock at the door. Still pressing the button down, not taking her eyes off the object of her wrath, she opened the door and acknowledged the young soldier who stood outside.

“Yes, private.”

“She’s arrived, General Cordova.”

The general paused, still holding the button down, as her victim shook with agony on the ground at her feet. Then she sighed wearily and released the button. “Have her and Lieutenant Finn in my office at once. I will be along in a moment. Dismissed.”

The soldier walked away, as she crouched down beside Spike’s trembling form. The aftershocks of the chip’s punishment were still racking his body with pain, but still he struggled to pull himself up, unable to speak yet, but glaring defiantly into her eyes. He was completely silent, determined not to let her hear him cry out, no matter how severe the pain was.

She watched him for a moment, aware of this and troubled by it. The vampire was getting too cocky; something needed to be done to take him down a notch or two. But it would have to wait. Smiling coolly down at him, she said softly, “I’ll be back soon. Try to have seen some reason by then.”


Despite their rather awkward breakup, Buffy would have thought that Riley’s presence would have made her feel at least a little more at ease, as familiar face in these strange surroundings. But for some reason, Riley did not even seem familiar anymore. He seemed as much a stranger to her as any of the random soldiers they passed on the way to General Cordova’s office.

By the time they arrived, the general was seated behind her huge oak desk. She stood when they entered, smiling politely as she shook Buffy’s hand.

Buffy was surprised by her on several levels. For one thing, she was young, maybe only a few years older than Buffy. And pretty. Buffy had not expected that. Also very – nice. She was very friendly to Buffy, and her eyes were warm; she seemed like the polar opposite of Maggie Walsh. In spite of herself, Buffy found that she was inclined to like General Cordova.

*Evil general,* she reminded herself. *General turning people into vampires!* But being on more friendly terms with this Initiative leader than she had been with the last one could work in her favor, she thought.

The first step of her plan, though she didn’t really have much of one yet, was just to get into the Initiative herself. She highly doubted that she would see much the first day; her goal was just to be accepted so that she would be in a position to find out more. For that reason she had decided that she would do her best to pretend to agree and be impressed with whatever she was told about the Initiative’s current projects.

“Lieutenant Finn tells me you are interested in joining us,” the general smiled encouragingly as she spoke.

Buffy nodded. “Yes, that’s right.” She kept her tone open and positive.

“If I might ask, Ms. Summers, what changed your mind about joining us?” the general asked, curiosity in her dark eyes. “You seemed so against it last year.”

“Well, you’ve obviously done an excellent job keeping the vamp population down,” Buffy acknowledged. “I guess I just wanted to see how it would go before signing on.”

“Smart woman,” General Cordova nodded her approval. “After the disaster that the former operation turned out to be.”

General Cordova spent the next fifteen minutes or so asking Buffy about her slaying activities, and seemed very impressed by what she heard. *Déjà vu,* Buffy thought. *Let’s just hope this one doesn’t try to kill me!* Then the general started explaining to Buffy a little about the activities they performed there, and Buffy tried to focus her attention.

“We’ve done extensive research with the behavior modification chip technology and impulse control,” she said. She gave Buffy an odd smile and said, “Lieutenant Finn tells me you are somewhat familiar with this technology?”

Wondering how much Riley had told this woman about what *she* knew, Buffy cautiously replied, “A little. I had brief contact with a vamp who had one.”

“I see,” General Cordova said mildly. “And that would be the hostile who was assisting Dr. Walsh’s…abominable creation…in the massacre last year?” General Cordova’s face was a mask of disgust.

Buffy quickly put on her own mask. She did not want the general to think that she was on friendly terms with a vampire, especially Spike. Maybe she could even get some information out of this if she played her cards right. “That would be the one,” she said, putting as much anger and disgust into her tone as possible. It wasn’t hard. “That’s one vamp I’d love to get my hands on! He almost got me killed! I never did get to…*thank* him for that!”

The general’s smile widened a little and her eyes narrowed in contemplation. “Really,” she said softly. “Well, you just might get your chance signing on here. He’s one of the hostiles we’ve contained.”

Buffy made herself sound shocked. “Really?” she said. She put a speculative smirk on her face. “That could be interesting.”

General Cordova was considering what the Slayer’s intense dislike for Hostile 17 could mean regarding her little situation with the vampire’s recent bad attitude, when there was a knock at the door.

The young soldier who came in wanted to speak privately with the general for a moment, so she sent Riley to take Buffy on a tour of the facility, while she talked with him. Buffy thought as they walked away, although she couldn’t hear the words spoken, that the general looked very pleased by the soldier’s news.


Once again, the door to Spike’s suite opened unexpectedly. He had long since recovered from the general’s cruel punishment earlier, and lounged insolently on the sofa, not even bothering to get up when she came into the room. He expected her to order him to attention, or maybe just glare and look disapproving, but she just smiled – which was vaguely troublesome.

“Come with me,” she ordered softly.

“I’m not helping you find Diana,” he reminded her.

“I know,” she said, her voice calm and even. “Come on, Hostile.”

Hesitantly, not sure what was going on here, he followed her out of his room and down a couple of hallways, until they stopped before a door. She turned to him and smiled. “There’s something in here I’d like you to see,” she said, opening the door and gesturing for him to go in ahead of her.

Very uneasy and suspicious of this situation, but really not having a choice in the matter, he walked through the door.

The sight before him made him sick with fear and rage. She had not needed him to help find Diana.

They had found her.

She was facing him, in the center of the room, bound by heavy chains suspended from the ceiling. Her wrists were bleeding where the chains cut into her flesh, and she was dressed in only her undergarments. She was chained just slightly too high, so that her feet could just barely touch the ground, and she moaned with the pain of it. A soldier stood behind her with a cruel smile on his face, brandishing a leather horsewhip.

She seemed almost feverish with pain, but her eyes opened briefly, and found him, pleading silently for the protection he owed her as her sire. Unthinking, furious, he lunged forward, headed for the soldier with the whip. Before he could take two steps the chip had fired, not too hard, but enough to stop him for just long enough for two burly soldiers to take his arms and pull him back. He tried to fight them off, but his efforts only caused the chip to fire again.

“Let her go!” he snarled, oblivious to the pain, glaring at the general, enraged. “Let her go or I’ll rip your bloody throats out!”

The general approached him with a cold smile on her face. “No, you won’t, hostile,” she said softly. “You can’t. It’s time you learned the limits of what you can and can’t do around here.” She paused. “If you’d been a bit more respectful and helpful, I might be inclined to show a bit of mercy in this case, because she’s your childe. But as things stand…being your child is not something that’s working in her favor at the moment.” She gave him a moment to take that in before walking slowly across the room to stand near the soldier with the whip. Shooting Spike one more vicious smile, she gave the order for the beating to begin.


Buffy was walking down the hall with Riley, feeling quite bored with the tour, room after room after room. *Here’s a research lab, and here’s another research lab, and this room here…that’s another research lab…* She sighed, and just when she was about to ask him if there were any rooms here used for anything besides research, a muffled roar was heard from just down the hall.

She glanced at Riley wide-eyes for a moment – finally, some excitement! – before she hurried down the hall toward the sound.

“Buffy!” Riley called anxiously. “Wait!”

But he should have known by now, she thought. She didn’t take instruction very well.


“You’re all going to die screaming!” Spike raged as the whip fell again and again across Diana’s back. “I’ll kill you all! Let her go! Let me go!” He was nearly beside himself with fury.

Suddenly, a door across the room behind the general opened…and had his heart still beat, it would have stopped.

*Slayer!* Then a second thought, bitter and disgusted. *Took her look enough to figure it out! Stupid bint!*

Even as he wondered what she was doing here, hope rose in him for a moment; surely the Slayer would see the injustice, the cruelty of this. Surely she would stop it. He fought with the niggling thought reminding him that Diana *was* a vampire and the Slayer might simply not care. But then, she had declined to stake him when he was helpless and she had had the chance. Surely she would help.

But his hopes sank as she approached the general, spoke with her for a moment, then smiled and simply watched the proceedings with her.

His rage now had a new strength as he watched her simply accept this brutal scene. Well, he was not going to accept it. Not for another bloody moment. Steeling his body to fight through the inevitable pain, he pulled his arm free with a violent jerk and dropped the soldiers holding him with two quick blows.


Buffy stood in stunned silence beside the general, her heart pounding with so many different emotions at once. It had been all she could manage to return the general’s calm smile after receiving her explanation. This vampire had attacked a soldier, nearly killed him, Cordova had said. This was her punishment.

Buffy thought staking would have been more humane. But she somehow managed not to show her disapproval. And then her eyes had moved past the battered, pitiful sight in the middle of the room and out to take in the whole scene.

And she found the source of the roaring she had heard.

Spike.

*Oh, God,* she thought, her eyes widening as he jerked free of the soldiers restraining him. Her first thought was that his chip had malfunctioned; she readied herself to go into slay-mode. Regardless of what she thought of these people’s actions, they *were* people, and if Spike started killing she would stake him without hesitation.

But then she saw his face contort with pain, even as he hurled himself across the room at the soldier wielding the whip. But instead of going for the man’s throat, he snatched the weapon from his hand and struck him a quick, hard blow to the head, knocking him out cold before he could react. Cringing in pain, he turned to face the general, eyes blazing with hatred.

Then for one brief moment, those hate-filled eyes leveled on Buffy, and his lip curled up in a sneer of disgust. Buffy froze; her heart felt as if it had stopped. And suddenly, she was filled with such shame that she wanted to sink through the floor, anywhere to escape the accusation in those eyes.

But then he focused back on the general as he snapped the weapon into three pieces and hurled it to the floor. His voice low, guttural with animal rage, he addressed the general.

“Cut. Her. Down.”

The general’s lips formed a cruel smile. She took a small device from her pocket and turned a dial on it. Before Buffy could even wonder what it was for, Spike had dropped to the ground in unspeakable agony, gasping for unnecessary breath as spasm after violent spasm shook his body. It seemed to go on forever, and just when Buffy thought she would have to drop her act, it finally stopped.

The general walked slowly toward him, looking down at him in contempt. He was trying to rise, despite the devastating pain still coursing through his body. The general leveled a savage kick to his face.

“Stay down,” she ordered, as if he were no more than a misbehaving dog.

Buffy fought her impulse to attack this woman herself. *The plan. The plan. Think of the plan. Can’t help him like this. Think of the plan,* she told herself.

Suddenly the general looked at Buffy appraisingly, as an idea occurred to her. Turning to two of her men, she ordered, “Take him to the solitary confinement cell.” As they moved to obey her, she turned to Buffy with a smile.

“Would you still like your chance to…er…*thank*…Hostile 17, Slayer?” she asked, a self-satisfied smirk on her face. She was certain that she had just come up with the perfect punishment for her rebellious servant.

A slow smile of her own spreading over her face, Buffy nodded as she replied, “Yes. Yes I would.”