“I think I’ve got it!” Willow’s voice broke the solemn silence that had reigned in the room for hours, ever since Buffy’s revelation about Riley. “Man, I’m good!”

“The best,” Buffy agreed, hurrying to look over her shoulder at the laptop screen.

The odd symbols were changing to logical letters and numbers before their eyes as they watched in amazement. “Cool,” Buffy said, then frowned. “How’d you do it so fast?”

Willow looked sheepish. “I got bored,” she shrugged, then reluctantly admitted, “It’s magic.”

Buffy felt a vague sense of awe as she turned her wide eyes toward her best friend. Willow was getting pretty good with this magic stuff. *Pretty cool to have that much power,* Buffy thought. *Our little Willow! Good for her!*

The first disc held several rather large files including the words “Project Viper” in the title.

“I’m thinking jackpot,” Xander said quietly, scanning the list.

“One way to find out,” Buffy shrugged as she looked expectantly to Willow, who clicked on the first in the list of files.

A quick glance revealed that these discs did indeed hold detailed, classified information on the Initiative and its activities, specifically Cordova’s pet project, the vampire army. However, the heavily loaded military jargon made Buffy’s head spin with confusion.

“We’re gonna have to go through all this later,” she said. “Can we print it out?”

Willow gave her a dark look. “If we go buy like, 5,000 sheets of paper, yeah.”

“Yuck,” Buffy grimaced in distaste at the thought of *reading* that many sheets of paper. “Well, for now, let’s just see what we can find on the controls at the Initiative. The chips, the electronic locks, that sort of thing, so we can try to find a way to get around them.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Xander broke in as Buffy and Willow exchanged a pained look; they had known this was coming. “Getting *around* the chips? I thought we discussed and decided, there was to be no ‘getting around’ of the chips!”

“We kinda – got around the – not getting around,” Willow hesitantly admitted.

Buffy quickly explained about the containment spell, before Xander could blow up.

When she was finished, he let out a heavy sigh. “At the risk of being not so politely asked to leave,” he said pointedly, “May I just express how much I absolutely *hate* this idea?”

“Ok, you’ve expressed,” Buffy replied, rolling her eyes. “Now back to planning.”

After about an hour of scanning files and discussing them, they were finally beginning to get somewhere.

“Ok, so all the chips are controlled by the main computer in the control room. So if I can patch into their system using some of the coding I found on these discs,” Willow said slowly, thinking it out as she went along. “I could shut it down. But it would turn off *all* the chips, Buffy.” She shot her friend an apprehensive look.

“But they have a back-up, right?” Buffy reminded her.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “From whenever they find out the controls are down, it’ll take them about twenty minutes to get them back up again. So we’ll only have a really short time.”

To Xander’s worried frown, Buffy added reassuringly, “And the thing is, if we do this at night, when everything’s shut down, it won’t even matter if the chips go down, because all the plain old vamps, not Spike’s vamps, will be locked in their cells. The locks are electronic and they won’t be able to get out. Spike and Diana are in regular rooms with key locks on the outside of the doors. The chips’ programming keeps them from breaking the locks, but once they go down he can break out and go get Diana, and get her out to the back exit…”

“Where we’ll be waiting with the van,” Willow said, referring to her old, beaten-up but reliable current mode of transportation.

“Buffy,” Xander began, his voice filled with worry, “if you get caught doing this…”

“Very little chance of that, as long as I don’t go in. We can have Spike just bring her to the back exits…”

“And then what happens to Spike?” Darian asked suddenly, his voice very soft.

Silence filled the room. Buffy frowned, as the words sank in. She hadn’t even given a thought to that. She looked at the young vampire who searched her face with wide eyes filled with fear and concern.

“What are you talking about?” Xander asked impatiently.

“When they review the surveillance tapes later and see that he helped get her out…” Darian’s voice was trembling. “The general will kill him.” He paused, swallowing hard, before adding, “Eventually.”

Buffy felt sick as his meaning sank in.

“I – I can figure out a way to take the cameras down, too,” Willow suggested. “You know, through the computer system, or – or magic, if I have to.”

Buffy nodded. “We’ll have to,” she agreed, feeling relieved. She needed for Spike to be at the Initiative, at least a little longer, as a contact to get information, but she hated the thought of his suffering for helping her. It surprised her how much she hated it.

“So we go in late, like midnight,” Xander began the recap.

“When there’s just one guard on duty in the control room,” Buffy nodded.

“That’s it?” Xander was surprised.

Buffy shrugged. “A bunch of chipped, helpless vampires, locked in electrified cells don’t require much guarding.”

“And then we deactivate the chips and cameras so Spike and Diana can get out of their rooms without the chips firing and down the halls to the exit without being seen,” Willow continued.

“We’ll have the van parked at the rear exit waiting, Spike brings Diana out to us and we go. End of story,” Xander finished, sounding satisfied.

“They’ll know it was him,” Darian broke in again, turning fearful eyes on Buffy, begging her with his eyes not to let this happen. “First me, then Diana escaping…”

“He’s a big boy, Darian,” Xander interrupted, irritated and dismissive. “He can take care of himself.”

But all Buffy could picture was Spike, lying on the floor of the room where Diana had been beaten, helpless even to rise as the general had savagely tortured him. “They won’t have any proof that it’s him,” she insisted, more to convince and reassure herself than Darian. “The general thinks he’s useful to her…and as long as she thinks that she’s not gonna kill him.”

The conversation went on, though Darian looked as if he wanted to say more, and only didn’t due to his continued fear of the Slayer. Buffy’s mind did not catch up with the conversation for a very long time.


The next morning, Buffy went to Spike’s room to tell him about the plan, which they had decided to carry out that night. Unlocking the door, she was surprised to find the living room and kitchen area empty. Hesitantly she approached the bedroom door, her heart suddenly racing. There was no sound from inside, so perhaps he was sleeping.

Awkwardly, she lightly knocked on the door.

There was silence for a long moment before she heard his voice, a question in his words, “Come in?”

She smiled grimly, sympathetically. Probably no one ever *knocked* on his door here. She never had herself in the past, but suddenly she determined that she would in the future, when this was all over.

*Hey,* she reminded herself. *When this is all over you won’t have any reason to knock on his door at all!*

Steeling herself for her body’s usual rebellion against her good sense at the sight of Spike – probably half-dressed as usual or – or if he was sleeping, maybe even – oh, God…

She started to turn away, but the door was opening, and *Oh, no, don’t let him be…*

Spike stood before her in his usual lack of attire, impossibly form-fitting black jeans and nothing else. She was surprised to see that he was even barefoot. But the thoughts racing through her mind of his rock-hard abs were momentarily drowned out by the shock at the sight of his face and stomach.

His lip was split, and there was a massive bruise on the left side of his face from Riley’s nightstick. But the worst of it was the purplish-black bruising across his torso, indication of several cracked ribs.

“What happened?” she asked sharply, surprising both of them with the venom in her tone, for once not directed at him.

“Not as much as would have happened if you hadn’t taken that bloody laptop, love,” he shrugged, turning away to painfully lower himself back onto his bed.

She glanced around at the wreckage that had been his bedroom. “They searched your room?” she asked unnecessarily.

He nodded, his intense gaze drawing her further into the room. He was lying back now on the bed, watching her with an unreadable expression on his face. “So…can I…help you with something, Slayer?” he finally said, a slow suggestive smile turning the corners of his mouth up.

Buffy startled at the slow, husky seduction in his voice. “No!” she hastily answered, then stammered, “Um…yes…um…we’ve got a plan.” She cringed inwardly at how weak and flustered her voice ended up coming out. Here he was all bruised and beaten up and exhausted, and *still* he managed to somehow make her heart race and her insides quake with desire for him.

It made her angry.

He loved that it made her angry.

“Tell me all about it, love,” he invited, patting a spot on the bed beside him, indicating for her to take a seat, that predatory smile never leaving his lips.

In spite of her better judgment screaming at her not to do it, she went and sat down beside him. As she outlined the plan for him, he held her gaze the entire time, and she found herself distracted by the intense blue of his eyes.

“Sounds like it just might work,” he said softly, looking away thoughtfully for a moment, considering the plan.

When he looked back up at her, the hint of a smirk was back, and his tone was low and enticing as he said, “I’m going to have to think of a way to thank you, love.” As he spoke his eyes trailed up and down her body suggestively, and she felt herself blushing.

“Can you think of any way that I could show you my appreciation, Slayer?” he went on, his voice a sweet seduction, his fingers gently tracing up her arm to her shoulder, his eyes once more focused intently on hers, his perfect lips slightly parted in a false innocence that was so, so tempting…

This time she knew for sure, he *was* coming on to her…and…and she could not manage to work up any sense of indignation.

She wanted him…God, she wanted him!

She found herself leaning slightly closer to him, her own lips parted as she struggled to find words. Suddenly, his hand had moved, was no longer touching her, and she almost whimpered at the loss of his touch. His seductive smirk became a full smile as he said in that brighter voice he had used last time, “Let me know, love. I need to get a bit of rest now; not feeling so well, you know. You know your way out.” And with that he turned his back to her, settling in to sleep.

Her mouth opened and closed again several times as she tried to comprehend what had just happened. Without a word she got up and headed out toward the door. The more she thought about it, trying to work it out in her head, the more her frustration built in her, until it was very rapidly building into fury.

*How dare he! How dare he just play with me like that, make me want him, make me feel something for him, just to…to…DO that!* Fuming she stalked down the hallway. *Like it’s just a game! Like he just thinks it’s funny to see how far he can make me go…*

Suddenly, determination washing over her, she stopped short in the hallway. No. She was not going to let it end there. A calculating smile slowly crept over her face as she turned on her heel and headed back toward his suite. She was going to teach that cocky, over-confident, so-too-sexy vampire a lesson he would not soon forget.

*He may have years of experience on me,* she thought. *He may have invented the game…but I’m gonna show him how it’s played!*