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Chapter Twelve



Where Have You Been?



Spike regained consciousness in the early hours of the morning and then promptly wished he hadn’t. His head still felt like it wanted to explode; he lay there for a time before pain in his arm made him roll over onto his back. It was a few minutes before he realised that he’d been laying on his left arm. He raised it up and wriggled his fingers; it certainly wasn’t paralysed anymore, but it hurt like hell. He looked at the incision Maggie had cut earlier. It looked inflamed, which surprised him as his vampiric enhanced healing skills should have almost cured a sutured wound by now. He touched it and would have groaned if he could.


“What the hell is going on with that?”


He leant back against the wall and surprised himself by falling asleep again.


Oooooo


“Number Seventeen,” snapped a voice.


He started awake and struggled to his feet, keeping his eyes down.


“Follow me.”


Spike followed the owner of the voice, a short fat man named Michael, the assistant, into one of the rooms containing a variety of equipment. In the centre was an ordinary office desk and sitting at the far side of it was Maggie Walsh. He was ordered to sit down opposite her.


“Well, Number Seventeen,” said Maggie conversationally. “You’re going to tell me where you’ve been and who took you.”


Spike didn’t know how she expected him to communicate and if she went into his mind to see the answers via the chip than all was lost - he wouldn’t be able to lie to her.


She pushed a pen and paper to him.


“Shit, when I can’t write she’ll go in my head for sure.”


He picked up the pen in his left arm, wincing at the pain from the wound.


“It was easy activating your arm again, but accessing your reading and writing skills were a lot more difficult. That’s why your head was so painful, I’m afraid,” said Maggie sounding anything but sorry. “Let’s hope it’s worked. I’ve got a feeling that if I use the chip many more times you won’t survive it, and after all my hard work it would be a terrible waste. I will ask you questions and you will write down the answers. Understood?”


Spike nodded.


“Where were you taken?”


He picked up the pen and to his delight he managed to form words; his writing untidy but legible and his spelling atrocious, but he managed to write.


TO A WEARHOWSE


“Were they human?”


NO VAMPYRE AND DEAMON


(They’d decided it was best not to include humans in the cover story)


“What did they do to you when they got you to the warehouse?”


PUT IN KAGE.


“Did they access your chip?”


NO


“What did they want you to do?”


FITE AN STEEL


“Fight? What did they want you to fight and why?”


OTHA VAMP 4 MUNNY.


“Like a prize fighter you mean?”


Spike nodded.


“And the stealing? What did they want you to steal?”


DUNNO LEAFT BEAFOUR TOLD


“Did you fight?”


Spike shook his head.


“Why not?”


NOT TELL ME RITE.


“Ah, gave the wrong commands,” said Maggie, delighted that her conditioning had worked even away from the base.


“How did they get you to the warehouse if they didn’t use proper commands?”


DUNNO WOKE UP THER


“Mm, they had all of us unconscious one way or another,” she said to herself.


“What commands did they give to try to make you fight?”


NOT NUMBA 17 SED SPIIK


(They’d decided this to try to make it appear that it was someone who recognised Spike but had no access to The Initiative.)


“Do you know what Spike means?”


He shook his head.


“Write it down,” ordered Maggie. It was important to establish whether the vampire had remembered its previous name.


NO


“How did you get away?”


HAD TO GET BAK TO MUTHA. WEN OPENN KAGE TO FEAD ME OWNLY WAN THER SO GOT UP AN LEAFT KAGE. TRYD TO STOP ME SO HIT HIM. HE HIT ME I HIT HIM AGEN AN HE NOT GET UP SO LEAFT TO GET HOME. SOLDYERS ELP


(He hoped he’d manage to pick the right phrases, his lack of literacy actually helping him.)


“Well done, Number Seventeen, you did the right thing,” said Maggie.


She had him returned to his cell. Once they’d left, he sat down and started to shake, nerves hitting him after the event. If she hadn’t believed him it would have been over, but she seemed satisfied with him.


“Red?” He sent the words floating through his mind.


She replied immediately.


“Spike! You’re OK?”


“Yeah, think they’ve bought the story. She’d messed with the chip, and I managed to write it down for her. Not sure what she’s got planned but she’s pleased to have me back.”


“Buffy will be there in an hour; she’s hoping she’ll be able to snoop about.”


“For God’s sake, tell her to be careful.”


“Will do. I’ll check in later to see how you are.”


“OK,” said Spike.


The mind link severed and he felt very alone. He tried not to think about what might happen to him, but he couldn’t lie to himself - being in here petrified him. He looked around to see what he could see from his cell. He’d been put in a different one than where he’d been before his interview with the Professor. He realised that he was directly opposite 314. He sat and watched but didn’t see anyone go in or out of the door. He scratched absentmindedly at the suture line on his left arm.


Oooooo


Buffy was taken directly to Maggie Walsh on her arrival at The Initiative.


“Hello, Buffy. We had some good news last night. We recovered Number Seventeen,” said Maggie.


“Oh? That’s great,” said Buffy, forcing a smile. “Is he OK?”


“Yes, we were worried that it had been targeted because of a leak here, but it turns out it was just opportunists who recognised the vampire and knew it’d been taken by us. I think when they saw it obeying me to fight you, that they thought it would do whatever they wanted but without knowing it’s name they didn’t get anywhere. Its conditioning dictates that if no correct orders are given then it must find its way back to the base, and that worked beautifully. It was picked up by a patrol and responded as trained. We’ve run tests and all seems to be fine.”


Maggie led Buffy down to the cell containing Spike.


“Number Seventeen,” said Maggie.


Spike stood up and faced them, glad he had to keep his eyes downcast as he was feeling very self-conscious about standing there naked in front of Buffy now that he remembered her.


“What’s wrong with his arm? It’s all sore,” said Buffy when she saw the inflamed wound, made worse by Spike scratching.


“Oh, it had the wound when he was recovered by the patrol. He probably didn’t even know it was cut as you might recall, its arm was paralysed when he was taken. I did a bit of work on the chip last night and got his arm working again and managed to reverse the block we had on its literacy skills.”


“Why do anything about that?” asked Buffy.


“We don’t want the creatures to be able to write. We found that they would scratch words in the cells which could incite trouble, and the reading skills just go hand in hand with that. I needed to find out where Number Seventeen had been and that was the best way of doing it,” replied Maggie.


“Why didn’t you just give him back his speech?”


“Because I didn’t want to have to go back in there to turn it off again. It doesn’t matter now if this one can read or write, it’s at such a level that it is incapable of doing anything except what we tell it to do.


Buffy had been looking at Spike the whole time. As Maggie turned to leave, Spike raised his eyes to meet Buffy’s and winked at her; she then mouthed ‘I love you’. He smiled and nodded in reply.


“Come let me show you more,” said Maggie and Buffy reluctantly had to turn away.


Spike watched until she went out of sight then sat down, once more scratching at his arm, despite the pain it caused.


“What have they bleeding done to it?”


oooooo


“What’s in there?” asked Buffy, pointing to the door with 314 written at the side of it, never being the best at subtlety.


“Just the records room,” said Maggie, leading her swiftly by.


Apart from once more being appalled at the experiments done on their prisoners, Buffy learned nothing of 314. What if Spike had been wrong about it? His mind had been messed with so much; what if he’d got it wrong and he was back in here for nothing? She decided that if nothing had been discovered in two days, she was coming to get him out regardless of what he or anyone else wanted.


To be continued...