Chapter 24 - An Ugly Truth


Once Willow left the area with the vampires, Xander closed and locked the hall that led to the vampires’ empty rooms using a nearby control pad. He placed a gum-sized wad of grey stuff next to the pad and inserted a detonator charge and lit it.

“Run!”

Buffy and Xander raced down the hall and around the corner and hit the floor as a small explosion blew up the control pad, spewing wires, chips, plastic shards and glass everywhere. The explosion knocked out the lights and security cameras in the entire sector.

“Wow! What is that stuff? Double Bubble for soldiers?” Buffy asked as she got up and dusted herself off.

“Octanitrocubane known to civilians, such as yourself little lady, as cubanol. Twenty-five percent more blasting power than plastique, biodegradable, non-toxic, environmentally friendly and comes in a fresh pine scent. Destroying the local security circuits might keep the soldiers from figuring out we stole their vampires for a few minutes.”

They ran after the others. Willow leafed through her packet of papers printed out from the Initiative’s website, tapped in the security code and unlocked the exit door. As the huge door began to slide open, she shoved vampires out into the green mist to safety.

Buffy caught Thomas’s sleeve before he could duck through the door.

“Do you know where they’re keeping the vampire who turned you?” She hoped they were keeping Spike near the place where Angel was being held. She didn’t want to have to search the entire place to find him.

“He’s in the laboratory. They keep him in a special cell. Him and the vampire with the white hair.”

“Spike? Is he alive? Is he okay?”

Buffy danced on her toes, anxious to hear about Spike and more anxious to run and find him. She wanted to ask if he’d eaten any humans, but she didn’t dare ask that question with Xander jogging beside her. She could count on Spike to lie to her if necessary, but who knew what this Thomas vampire might say? He might blurt out an ugly truth.

“I don’t know. I never saw him. I heard the guards talking.”

“Xander,” Buffy said, “I’m going to find Spike and Angel. You get the others out.”

“Nope, Willow and Thomas can take care of them. I’m coming with you. One item to finish up before we go.”

Buffy took one last look to make sure Willow and the vampires were heading to the pier, and raced down the hall to the laboratory in the direction Xander pointed.


***


As soon as the Initiative boat landed, Riley leaped to the dock and ran to the security center to check out the video cameras. The center was a madhouse – soldiers shouting at orders at groups patrolled the base looking for the intruders – others monitoring the activities of the group at the front entrance.

“What’s the sitch?” he asked, Ramirez, the security center commanding officer.

“Finn. Thank God you’re back. We’ve got a pack of fruitcakes from SPIT at the front gate. We think some of them got into the compound, but we can’t find them. All surveillance in Section 8 has gone down, so I sent some soldiers there to find out what happened.”

Riley scanned the wall of monitors. After studying the monitor showing the front entrance, Riley flipped the channel to broadcast television. A reporter was standing on Fuego’s front dock, interviewing someone named Joyce Summers. Joyce was complaining about demons being mistreated.

Joyce Summers. She must be Buffy’s mother. What the hell was she doing here and why was the mother of the Slayer running an organization to save demons?

“Finn. We’ve got a visual on the intruders,” Ramirez said.

“Show me.”

His monitor flipped to another channel. Two people dressed in soldier uniforms were running down the hall that led to the laboratory. One of them was small and slight, the other larger and clumsy. Riley would bet his next paycheck that the small one with the dark cap jammed over her hair was Buffy, come to retrieve her vampire lover. The other was probably that moron, Xander, she hung around with.

Riley summoned Gates and the rest of his team to assist with the operations in Sector Eight. He grabbed a remote control and a tranquilizer rifle and headed for the laboratory where Bleach Head was being held. He wanted to deal with Buffy and her sidekick himself.


***


Buffy peered through the glass inserts in the laboratory doors. A man in a white coat sat in the laboratory studying medical charts on a computer. The name tag on his coat said Dr. Ekl.

There was a glass cell on one side of the room. Angel paced inside the cell, walking back and forth at the ends of his chains. He slapped his hands against the glass to make it shoot off arcs of blue electricity. He kept up a running conversation with someone who was lying on the floor of the cell. He was also in chains.

She walked into the laboratory, followed by Xander, and greeted the doctor. “Dr. Ekl? I’m Captain Summers. Dr. Walsh sent me.”

The doctor fumbled with his keyboard and shut down the program that was displayed on his computer. He stacked up some papers on his desk and turned over files marked Top Secret so she couldn’t read them.

“Dr. Walsh didn’t tell me to expect anyone. This is most irregular. May I see your orders?”

Buffy handed the doctor a set of papers that Willow had cooked up with stolen forms and printed out in triplicate on three-part carbonless forms. They looked very official.

“I’d like to examine a prisoner,” she said.

“Hostile 31?”

Buffy hoped Hostile 31 meant Angel. The information about Angel and Spike had been so highly classified, Willow had been unable to hack into those files, even with the passwords Buffy found in Spike’s coat and some magic spell that she worked up. “Yes, and I’d like to see Hostile 17, as well.”

“They’re both here,” Dr. Ekl said, waving his hand in the direction of Angel’s cell. He entered his security code into the pad beside the glass cell.

“I’ve got them restrained. You can go in, but I wouldn’t get too close. The big vampire, Hostile 31 is especially vicious when he’s hungry. I’ll close the cell after you’ve gone in. Security rules, you know. I don’t think we’ll have to tranquilize them, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful with unsecured vampires.”

Buffy couldn’t argue with that sentiment.


***

Riley peered through the glass inserts in the laboratory doors. He could see that pussy Harris and Doctor Ekl, but he didn’t see Buffy. Oh, there she was, in the cage with the two animals.

She’d come to rescue Hostile 17, and possibly Hostile 31, as well. Dandy.

As soon as she figured out some way to get Q-tip Hair out of the laboratory, Riley could capture her and Harris and deliver them up for a one-way trip to the scenic part of Kansas that was no where near the Land of Oz – Leavenworth Prison. As for Seventeen, it would be a damn shame if he happened to get damaged or dusted during the scuffle.

He took out his walkie-talkie and started to call his team for assistance, but changed his mind. Gates and the rest had been nothing but trouble. Riley would capture Buffy and her minions himself and get all the credit. Grabbing Buffy was at least good for a return to Sunnydale, if not a weekend pass and a promotion.

Riley opened a wall panel with his remote control, stepped into the next hall, and closed the wall behind him.