Chapter 25: Depth Perception
Buffy dove.
The water was blood warm, breathable. She remembered something about placental fluid, from some long ago Health Class, how babies breathed water in the womb. The Dauphin swam past her, grazing her arm with its electric bulk. She took a deep breath, drinking the liquid into her lungs.
How do you feel?
Gross, she said/thunk. But I’ll live.
Maybe. Maybe not.
She felt a groan coming on. Is this the part where you go all Yoda on me? Because, I’m really not a fan.
The Dauphin swam closer, sliding it’s long tail around her leg. A huge neon eye blinked curiously at her, a few inches from her face. Nah. In fact, I’ll let you do most of the talking, Slayer. I don’t know the answers, you see. I only know how to know them.
Okay, see? You threw in a little Yoda. Right at the end there.
Sorry. I... don't get out much.
Fair enough. So, how do we get start…?
***
“-ed.”
Study Hall.
For real?
Buffy was slouched low in her little desk-let, her ballpoint Troll pen frozen mid-doodle. She was wearing an egregious sweater-vest over one of those billowy white blouses that were popular for eight seconds in 1995. Her shoes weren’t something she’d want to discuss in mixed company. Two rows in front of her, Betty Farmer was playing oogy eyes with Brent Whatshisface. Austin? Or was that the Six Million Dollar Man?
Mr. Pulchaska sat observing them over his horn-rimmed glasses, with that same creepy Future Serial Killer look in his eyes. In the seat next door, a monochromatic goth kid snored into his open copy of “The Body Thief.”
“What the hell is this?!”
You don’t know?
“Yeah, I know what it is. And it’s got zilch to do with Willow.”
Doesn’t it?
“Hello? Not even Sunnydale. It’s freakin’ L.A.!”
“Ms. Summers!” Mr. Pulchaska boomed. “Study hall is QUIET TIME!”
“Oops,” she said, strangely embarrassed. “Sorry, Mr. P.”
So what am I supposed to do here? Meditate, or something?
Well, Slayer, it’s Study Hall. Why don’t you try studying?
Nobody actually ‘studies’ in Study Hall, dweeb. Exasperated, she glanced down at the drawing on her textbook’s brown bag cover. It was pretty detailed, actually. Way better than the unicorns and dancing panda bears of her artistic past. There was a country road winding around the side of a very steep hill. At the bottom of it was a van covered in flames, curly-cues of smoke roaring up into the sky. Nearby was a person on their knees, crying. Not as cheerful as the pandas, mind you.
Curious, she flipped the book open and started thumbing through it. It was boring, boring Math, of course. Columns and columns of nonsensical equations, “a2= b2 x c2,” etcetera. And what the heck was pi, anyway? Something to do with circles. Pies were circles. She could really go for some pie.
She got to a section with some word problems, and stopped to check it out. She remembered these could be fun, sometimes. Made it easier to picture things in your head without it going all kabloowie. She started to read:
Question 1:
The universe is placed 10 superstrings away from a black hole 800 billion times the mass of our galaxy. How many days will pass before the black hole swallows all of Reality as we Know It?
Whoa! These problems were bit more complicated then she remembered. She mouthed the words once, carried the four, and wrote down the answer. “2 days.” Sounded about right.
Question 2:
Willow and Buffy are hiking in an alternate dimension. They decide to leave their tent and walk around a lake. They start going in the opposite directions. Willow hikes at the rate of 2miles per hour. Buffy hikes at the rate of 3 miles per hour. The perimeter of the lake is 260 miles. How long will it be before Willow meets Buffy, and kills her?
This was a tough one. She always hated these travel-distance thingees. Bit her tongue. Scratched her head. “52 hours.” Hmmm, she thought. That’s a bit late…
Question 3:
The most brilliant hoax of the century has been planned! Sheriff Summers is giving a Lie Detector test to a pool of six suspects, trying to discover the identity of the Mastermind and his Accomplice.
The Sheriff knows that four of the suspects have been duped into believing that the true Mastermind is innocent, and will make one statement saying so . Of those four suspects, three have been also led to believe that an innocent person is the Mastermind, and will make one false accusation.
Other than the seven false statements listed above, every other statement made below is true. Also, one of the suspects correctly identifies the Mastermind.
The Mastermind's Accomplice is afraid of getting caught by the Lie Detector. He or she does not lie, and doesn’t mention the Mastermind’s name.
The Mastermind has had him/herself hypnotized in order fool the Sheriff. Therefore, the Mastermind is capable of making one or more of the seven false statements without setting off the Lie Detector!
From this information, can you tell who is the Mastermind and who is the Accomplice?
Willow said:
It isn't Dawn
It isn't Kennedy
It isn't Drusilla
Dawn said:
It isn't me
It isn't Rupert
It isn't Drusilla
It’s Willow
Rupert said:
It isn't me
It isn't Frank
It isn't Drusilla
It’s Dawn
Kennedy said:
It isn't Willow
It isn't Frank
It isn't Rupert
Drusilla said:
It isn't Willow
It isn't Kennedy
It isn't Frank
It’s Rupert
Frank said:
It isn't Rupert
It isn't Kennedy
It isn't Willow
It's me
Aha, A brain-twisty logic puzzle! Hrmmm. She tapped her pen thoughtfully, tried to get the ol' rusty gears churning. These sorts of puzzles were rarely as complicated as they seemed, she recalled. There was always some kind of trick to the wording, and – after you eventually cheated by looking up the solution - it all seemed so fiendishly simple. Feeling pressed for time (and more than a little Blonde) she flipped the book upside-down and peeked at the Answer Key.
No way!
Holy duh!
After the Meat Grinder of Intrigue she’d just been pulled through - all the double and triple and quadruple plot twists – she almost had to laugh. Made perfect sense.
But why didn’t they just tell me?
Question 4:
When Kennedy sets off her thermonuclear bomb in the ECU, what would be the nuclear binding energy in joules (to 4 significant figures) of 19F if the experimental mass was found to be 18.9984 u?
She decided to skip that one and come back to it. Sounded like a job for Mr. Copy Your Nerdy Neighbor, anyway.
Question 5:
A van leaves from London at 8:00pm traveling north at 35 miles per hour. 140 miles into the journey, it will swerve over the edge of an embankment and tumble down onto the rocks below, killing all but one of the passengers. The sun will rise at 6:00am the next morning.
How many hours after the crash will the final passenger die?
***
“Five hours,” said Faith. “That’s how long before they set the dogs out looking for us. You got five hours left to live, babycakes.” The vamp was getting fidgety, now, starting to pace. Second guess itself. Would’ve been fun, under other circumstances. Freak got the drop on her, though. Caught off her game. Fucking England.
“You wouldn’t say that if she was here,” Justine hissed. “Grans would set you straight.”
“Princess, I know all about your grans. The bitch is blah to the power of blah.” She tested the restraints. Casually. No need to look all Damsel in Distress. Tied up helpless wasn’t her bag. It wasn’t true, so much; the thing about Drusilla. Faith didn’t know all that much about the Big Bad’s Big Ex, except that she was all Psycho Killer, Qu'est Que C'est.
Still knew more than this baby bloodsucker, though. Dumb vamp was a scared vamp; scared vamp was a soon-to-be-dusty vamp. “Granny’s gonna crap her panties once she finds out you got me tied up like this," she said. "She might be crazier than a snake’s armpit, but even she don’t want this kind of heat.”
“Nana is not mad” Justine protested. “She was confused. Doctor Nicky helped her. She’s much better now.”
“Ooh, bad news,” Faith snorted, trying any old goddamn thing, now. “Crazy was your only hope. If that that wannabe Mortisha's got enough Christmas lights on to see how bad you fucked this up? It’s gonna be maximum spank for you, kiddo.”
Five hours, she thought. What a steaming load of crap that was. Once Drusilla showed up to this party, she’d be lucky to get ten seconds to kiss her ass goodbye. Heard she has a thing for Slayers. It would take a miracle for Frank and the girls to find them in time, and Faith Lehane wasn’t exactly on speaking terms with the miracle crowd…
Justine picked the knife up again. Looked like the little bitch was gonna graduate Night School after all. “Perhaps you’re right,” she said. “I suppose I’ll have to make extra nice with Nana. Give her a present.” The vamp grabbed one of Faith’s ears and nestled the blade. “These will make a beautiful, beautiful necklace.”
Faith closed her eyes. Braced for it.
It’s coming off.
Nothin’ you can do about it, girl.
Fucking get ready.
Any second now.
Any second.
Hey.
She opened her eyes. Justine was gaping down at her chest, awestruck. A crossbow bolt had shish-kabobbed her, right through the love muscle. Their eyes locked for a beautiful, beautiful moment before she dusted.
Faith peered into the gloom of the cellar. “Nice shootin’, Tex,” she said. “Timing could’ve been a little less dramatic, but who am I to complain, right?” It was too dark to make out the shooter, but she could hear his wheezing dude-breath. “Alright, enough suspense, pal. Just tell me who I’m supposed to put on my Kwanza list this year, and get me outta here, kay?” There was movement out in the shadows, the sound of footsteps slowly retreating up a set of stairs. “Hey!” she cried. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
The footsteps paused for a moment, then kept going.
“Don’t be stupid. One dusty little vamp doesn’t make you Rambo, man! These things are gonna kill you!” She thrashed her legs to try to loosen the chains, tried to gnaw at the straitjacket with her teeth. “Let me out of here!” she screamed. But he was already gone.
Asshole!
***
“So,” he said. “How long have you been having these feelings?”
The vampire started squirming again, increasingly restless. It clearly wasn’t a subject he was comfortable with. “It’s hard to say,” he admitted. “I’ve always been a bit. Well, experimental.”
“I see. Go on.”
The creature closed its eyes, as though trying to translate some impossible and tarrying tongue. “I mean, I’ve always wanted him. Never wanted to admit it to myself, I suppose.” He was nodding now, trapped in some sort of tragic agreement with himself. “I’ve been with women, too. Obviously. But there’s only been one person… one man… who’s ever really understood me, you know?”
“And this man…. Does he feel the same way, about you?”
“Damned if I know. We use to work together. But we’re always fighting. Bickering. We'd have these arguments that feel like they’re a hundred years old.” He was shaking now, practically gagging on the truth. “But in my dreams…”
“Yes?”
“In my dreams. He takes me to his bed,” he confessed. “Where it’s dark and safe. It’s like…” The poor beast was shivering now, his dead bones trying to mime an emotion he could no longer truly feel. “It’s like he can taste my music.” He glanced away quickly, mortified. “Sorry. I’m not even sure what that means.”
Spike shook his head sadly. “Well, the diagnosis is simple,” he said. “ You’re a ponce.”
Doctor Nick shot him a ferocious scowl. Apparently, he wanted a second opinion.
In a helpful mood, Spike tried to sculpt him one. “You know. Pillow-biter. Nancy boy. A mincing little poofter.”
That set Dru's infant right off, sent him leaping to his feet. He looked deranged standing there; sparse, cotton candy locks all distressed, eyes crossed from straining his pint-sized wit, trying to work out when the tables got all turned around. It was the closest thing to entertainment Spike had all year. He'd almost forgotten how fun it was to torture small anim–
"I've named all the stars," she said.
And she was just there: alabaster sheathed in a shocking crimson, guarded over by a pair of huge and alien eyes. Her hair was different; a dark, lush bob, like Louise Brooks on the Moon. Everything else was the same. The thought struck him that a hundred years would eventually pass. People would wear bloody jetpacks, fly into outer space on great ships. And Drusilla would float into their black company as well, and name all the bloody stars.
He tried and tried to think of something clever to say.