A/N Thanks to Carol and dawnofme for their betawork :)


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Chapter Fourteen


Losing Control



Willow rushed to find the others.


“Something’s wrong! I haven’t been able to get hold of Spike for hours! Buffy, you’re going to have to go in and see what you can find out. This Adam thing has him majorly spooked, and they’re messing with him - I’m sure of it!”


“Oh, my God!” cried Buffy. “I knew we should never have let him go back there. It was a stupid idea! I mean, since when has any of Spike’s plans worked out? We must have been crazy!”


“Calm down, Buffy,” soothed Giles. “We need cool heads to work this out; we can’t just go in guns blazing.”


“Watch me!” said Buffy, standing up and grabbing her coat from the back of the chair. “I don’t care. I’m going to get him out and I’m going now! I don’t care about the other stuff, I just want Spike! Christ, I need Spike.”


She started towards the door. Xander blocked her path.


“Look, Buff, this is not a good idea,” he said.


“Get out of the way, Xander,” roared Buffy.


“Guys! Shut up!” yelled Willow.


They stopped and looked at her.


“Red? Red? Christ, I hope you can hear me?” Spike’s voice was barely audible in Willow’s mind.


“Spike, I can hear you! What’s happening?”


“You’ve got to get me out. They’re gonna…oh fuck…they’re gonna…they’re gonna make me like Adam!


“We won’t let that happen! When? Do you know when?”


“Tomorrow. I think. I’m scared, Willow. If they…if it’s started…just kill me.”


“It won’t come to that. We’ll get you out!”


“I can’t keep…I’m…they…drugged….”


“Spike!” She felt the link fade away.


Willow looked around. The others were staring at her - they knew she’d made contact with Spike, but they’d seen the colour drain from her face and were almost afraid to hear what she had to say.


“Buffy’s right, we’ve got to go in and soon,” said Willow. “They’re preparing to operate on Spike. I don’t know what they intend to do - he was drugged, only just managing to make contact, but he said something about being made to be like Adam. It’s happening tomorrow!”


They all sat down around the kitchen table.


“Willow, you’ve got to get me the access codes to this three fourteen area. If Spike’s in there when I go in, I won’t be able to get to him without them.”


“Pressure, much,” said Willow. “OK, I’m on it.” She hurried out to get started on the computer.


“I can use my security clearance to get in and out,” said Buffy.


“You can’t go in alone, Buff,” said Xander.


“Look, if I go in before the day shift starts, there’ll only be a skeleton crew on. It should be easy to slip out as long as I have the correct codes,” she replied.

“If you use your card they’ll know for sure that it was you who got him out,” protested Xander. “They’ll come after us.”


“Then we’ll be ready for them,” said Buffy. “Look, this Adam thing is obviously something Maggie Walsh has been using for her own means, so I’m not sure she’ll activate the whole of the Initiative after us. I’m betting she wants to keep it low key, otherwise she’s going to expose herself, too.”


“That’s a hell of a gamble, Buffy,” said Giles gravely.


“Yeah, but what else can we do? Spike said how strong that thing, Adam, is. If he couldn’t touch it, I doubt if I could either. We’ll not be able to take it on inside The Initiative; we’ll have to do it on our own turf,” she replied.


“So when are you going in?” asked Giles, seeing the sense in her plan.


“As soon as Willow has those codes. They messed with him last night; I don’t want him in there a moment longer.”


Dawn was having a sleep over at her friend Jennifer’s that night. The others were glad to have her out of the house, wanting to shield her from the events going on around her as much as possible.


After several hours, which to Buffy felt like days, Willow walked back to the others.


“Willow!” exclaimed Xander when he saw her.


“Yeah, I know, I had to resort to some major mo-jo to get them,” she answered, self consciously rubbing her left hand over her hair; an inch of her roots showing black in stark contrast to her red hair. “It’s OK, it’ll disappear, just need to meditate for a bit when I can.”


“So you got them?” asked Buffy.


“Yep! Here you go, that’s the number for the door to three fourteen.” She handed Buffy a piece of paper.


“OK, I’m going in now.”


She looked at her watch - it was 2 am. She knew the full crew of staff came on at six, so she should have plenty of time. She took a bag and put a couple of short handled axes in there and headed out of the door. Giles followed her as he was going to drive her to The Initiative in his car and wait to pick them up afterwards. Unless anything went wrong, Buffy was going to call his cell phone. If he didn’t hear from her he was to drive to the woods and wait for them there, as that meant she couldn’t get out the way she got in.


As they drove away, Willow and Xander stood in the doorway and watched the little red car until it was out of sight.


Oooooooo


Spike had been conscious for some time, but he wasn’t sure how long. He was still feeling light headed from the drugs. He wasn’t within the 314 complex but in the cell opposite its door. He’d tried to mind link with Willow but, despite concentrating as hard as he could, he hadn’t been able to.


He sat, leaning his back against the rear wall of the cell, his right arm throbbing furiously. Once more the bandages were soiled with blood. He started to laugh quietly in his mind.


“Won’t matter soon; not when I get my new arm.”


He felt the edge of hysteria gripping him. He shook his head.


“Stop it, Spike, won’t come to that. Christ, get a bleeding grip.” He scolded himself.


He felt a sharp stabbing pain in his neck, on the left side, just below his ear.


“Ouch! What the hell was that?”


He put his left hand up and touched his neck; he could feel a lump there under the surface of his skin. It felt like it was moving. He looked at the arm itself, the raised track now led up as far as he could see, up over his shoulder. No doubt that’s what the strange lump was. He tried to rip at his skin with his nails to get whatever it was out of him, but it suddenly disappeared from beneath his touch, with a shaft of pain that would have had Spike scream if he could. The pain passed quickly, but left Spike panting in fear. No way could that have been good.


Shortly afterwards, the door to 314 opened and to Spike’s surprise, Adam walked out of it and approached his cell. Spike stood up.


“Number Seventeen, you will come with me,” said Adam, opening the door.


Spike walked slowly to the door - no way was he going into that complex with Frankenstein as a guide. As he got to the door he took one step outside then bolted to the right as fast as he could.


“Stop,” said Adam quietly, making no effort to chase him. “Come back.”


Spike stopped.


“What the f….”


Despite trying his hardest to resist, he turned back around and walked to Adam.


“Oh, bollocks!”


His hand strayed to his neck, where the pain had been.


“Yes, Number Seventeen, Mother wanted to make sure you’d do as I said. She was worried that the chip was degrading, so she linked you to me with an implant instead. Come, there is no time to waste.”


Spike followed him in. If he had been able to stand still with horror at the sight in front of him, he would have; as it was he just calmly stepped over the body of Maggie Walsh, avoiding the pile of dust on the floor beside her, and followed Adam to where two operating tables stood side by side at the back of the room.


One was empty. The other held a demon, its right arm almost amputated at the shoulder. Maggie’s assistant was working on the creature.


“Get onto the table and lie down,” ordered Adam.


Spike, though straining inside with the effort of resisting, simply got onto the bed and lay down. Adam strapped him down firmly.


“Michael, how long before you’re ready for Number Seventeen?” asked Adam.


Michael paused in his work. “About fifteen minutes. I’ll go ahead and sedate him now.” He walked over to Spike.


“It was wrong of the Professor to worry about keeping you looking human, since you’ll make an excellent candidate for upgrading like Adam did,” said Michael, his eyes shining with fervour - the man was totally insane. He glanced back at the demon on the table. “Such a shame it attacked and killed Maggie and Number Seventeen before I stopped it.” He grinned at Spike. “Now you’re my property, not The Initiative’s. No one can get in here except me now that Maggie’s gone. When you’re complete, you and Adam will help me do anything I want!”


“Christ, if he cackles and rubs his hands together, I’ll just know he’s a villain out of a superhero movie.”


“Don’t make him unconscious, Michael,” said Adam. “I want him to be able to see his transformation like I did.”


“It’s all right, Adam. I won’t. He just needs something to keep him calm. Now go to your quarters and rest. I need to concentrate.”


Adam walked out of a door to the left and disappeared from view. Michael painted some liquid onto Spike’s stomach as Maggie had previously. This time, Spike just felt woozy. He didn’t pass out completely but could only focus if he concentrated really hard.


Michael returned to the demon and after a few minutes lifted the right arm free from its body. He packed it in ice and then approached Spike. Spike couldn’t move even a little bit, despite the terror he felt. Michael picked up some swabs and thoroughly cleaned the area around his shoulder. He then picked up the scalpel blade and started to carefully make an incision that would allow him to take the whole of Spike’s arm off, including the shoulder joint, and be ready for the demon’s arm to be transplanted.


The drug he’d been given dulled the pain but didn’t eradicate it completely, and Spike was all too aware of what Michael intended to do.




To be continued…