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Author's Chapter Notes:
Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Holiday. To that end, here is a long, slightly edited, chapter.

For the record, Spike in this universe is Hostile 18.
Riley instructed the scientists, "as soon as the device is powered up, let me know." His eyes fell on Spike as he coldly added, "I want this to be as personal as it gets."

One of the scientists spoke up, asking, "Are you sure that's wise, Commander? I mean, this device is experimental. We don't know how long it will last. What if the hostile…?"

Riley tapped the riding crop device in his hand gently against his side. He held it up for emphasis, saying, "That's why I also have this. The top brass want a full demonstration of our latest development, and I intend to give them what they came for."

His eyes fell on Spike as he mentally promised, **when I'm finished, you'll ask me for permission to blink, let alone for anything else!**

When one of the scientists indicated that the device was ready, Riley ordered, "Begin."

Spike's glowing orbs narrowed. He had heard every word. He knew he would not submit to their games. He had survived his Sire's and his sodding brother's tortures before leaving them for good, and he would never be in the position of victim again.

The last thing he saw was Riley's lips making a kissing motion as the military man put his fingers to his mouth and blew. Suddenly, the vampire could feel himself losing consciousness.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Anya started up the getaway car. She backed it near the back entrance where the hospital stored supplies and waited for Wesley and Willow. After some moments passed, the former vengeance demon was getting annoyed, and worried.

"Humans have no concept of time!" she muttered to the dashboard, even though it couldn't answer back. She wished that she had her powers. If she did, she decided smiling, the Army men would never know what had hit them!

So it had been since the beginning; so it would have been now. Anyanka remembered countless males who had suffered from her magic while she was wielding the power of the wish. In Spike's case, Anya had made him pay by revealing something about him which would provide an advantage to his foe, Drusilla.

Anya felt a momentary twinge of guilt at what she had done in the past. She had put the unsuspecting victim William Pratt into Drusilla's hands by telling her his address; by also letting nature, or probability, take its ugly course.

When Drusilla had said in passing, "I wish tha' Prince William would be mine," Anya's softly whispered command had set the wheels in motion so that the unsuspecting bad poet would be where Drusilla was that night. And, because of Anya's partial participation, an innocent human life had been ruined.

She hadn't thought about the consequences of her actions. After all, he was just a MAN, wasn't he? And all men were guilty of SOMETHING, weren't they?


Although, she reasoned now, there was an advantage to Spike's being a vampire, the best of all possible scenarios being that Buffy got to have orgasms with him even if he could send even the most powerful woman running away in terror at his beastly appearance.

**Stop worrying about what you can't change,** the sensible side of her reasoned. **What's done is done.**

A much better thought crossed her mind as Anya imagined Wesley's muscles rippling just then while he touched her in the most intimate of places, his blue eyes lighting up for her in excited anticipation of what she could give him in bed.

**If they've harmed Wesley so that I won't experience any sexual bliss with him…** she thought.

But what could she do? It wasn't as though she was even a witch anymore. The 1000+-year-old woman thumped the dashboard, completely frustrated. D'Hoffran and his minions really screwed her in the worst way.

She was about to get out of the vehicle and see what was going on when she saw two military men come out and stand guard at the back entrance. Their faces were grim. Anya could see one speaking into a communication device. She only wished she could hear what he was saying.

**Damn this human body and its limited hearing!** She thought, rolling down her window. The former vengeance demon couldn't hear anywhere near what she had wanted, but as she saw another soldier meet the first, Anya's ears picked up some words.

Her lips curled into a smile when she heard some crucial words that one of the soldiers was saying, "All this for a nerdy British guy!"

**Wesley!** Her mind supplied. Willow must have gotten him out.

"I could almost kiss her!" Anya murmured. "I wonder what it would be like, kissing a woman?" She returned to the business at hand, focusing on the soldiers and what they were doing.

Her elation turned to fear as she saw one of the men guarding the back door walking toward the car.

"Uh oh," she said, wondering what he was going to do.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Spike woke up inside a long corridor. The hallway had no windows and no doors. The walls were smooth and grey, and they seemed to extend forever.

**Where 'm I?** He thought.

He looked at the walls and tried to get his bearings. The platinum haired revenant tried to focus on his internal clock to sense how much time had actually passed.

Spike remembered that one of the earliest lessons he'd been taught by his nocturnal family was that a revenant didn't just have superior senses in the five realms of see, hear, taste, touch and smell. They also had a heightened internal clock that could measure the exact timing of the sun so that a blood sucker would always know down to the second when sunrise and sunset would occur.

Because that sense of time was so finely tuned, even upon first waking up as a vampire, a blood drinker could also measure other instances of time as well, provided they practiced enough. He told himself that too much time couldn't have gone by; Riley, presumably, wouldn't stand for letting his victim out of his sadistic grip for long.

Using the skills he had mastered, Spike tried to figure out the length of time that had passed between the Commander's blowing him a kiss goodbye and his being wherever the hell he was. When all of his other senses abandoned him, the blond vampire reached out with his mind.

"William," a soft voice laced with Cockney called suddenly.

"Drusilla?" Spike responded. "Dru, where are you? I hear you, but I don' see you."

He kept going on toward the sound despite his reluctance to be with his Sire. The vampire reasoned that even an insane Dark Mother was better than the Army blokes.

"'M here, my Spike," her voice said. "Keep coming. I'm waiting for you."

Spike kept following, but the walls remained the same, dull grey, with no variations at all. His sallow fingers reached out to touch them, hoping that he could feel any kind of vibrations or mental impulses of any kind that might lead him to the one who had given him unlife.

"C-can't feel you," Spike said, his voice growing more agitated.

He could see everything, he knew that, but without being able to feel her, he felt like the blindest person in the world. "Can't sense anythin'," he told the empty hall.

"Reach out wi' your mind, my William," Drusilla bade gently. "Touch me wi' it."

Spike tried again, letting his mental fingers probe for wherever she was. "'M trying, but I can't…" he said softly after a moment.

"Slow, idiot childe!" Drusilla's voice sounded deep in his mind, even if she wasn't visible. "Now there will be no time for tea! Bu' I have someone better. Miss Edith has replaced you!"

"Wha'…?" Spike asked, still confused from his lack of control of his sensations.

The younger vampire forced himself to try harder, letting his thoughts drift on the mental currents, making the walls and every corporeal thing around him slip away. After a moment or an eternity,

Spike saw a shadow directly in front of him. He knew this one; her diminutive back became visible to him. She didn't move, didn't speak, but he still heard her calling to him. This time, as his hand reached out to her, Spike felt her fingers in his larger hand. He felt the smallness of her, and her raw power at the same time.

"Buffy?" he queried. "What are you doing here? Where's Dru?"

Her face was encased in darkness, cloaked against his superior eyesight. But she looked up at him, and then he saw what he feared most.

"Spike," she said, showing him her beastly face, her glowing eyes, her ridges, and a perfect set of canines.

"Fancy my gift to you, my Prince?" Drusilla's cruel, mocking voice said from all around him.

"No!" he yelled. "She's the Slayer! You can't have turned her!"

**I'm in my cell…** Spike kept telling himself, forcing his conscious mind to believe it, **'S all in my head! I'm in my cell!**

A moment later, vampire Buffy and his Sire faded as he felt his neck being jerked back. Spike felt the stinging leather lash of the whip the Army Commander held in his gloved hand on his back.

"Where are you, you git?" the vampire roared, swiping the air for any sign of his tormentor. He tried to hone in on Riley's location, but Spike still could not sense anything. A blur came toward the blond seemingly out of nowhere.

Spike then felt nothing but a boot kicking him down. The vampire stayed down for the moment, his eyes blazing with fury. Spike knew that he had to pretend to be defeated so that Riley would slip up and the Commander could be overpowered.

The blood drinker also knew that he had to find out if Buffy and Drusilla had been captured. Was Riley using them in some fiendish experiment to try to get to him?

Were they actually there, or were they just images conjured up by his mind playing tricks on him as he'd thought? The vampire started to rise, but then was brutally slammed back to the floor by his invisible assailant. Spike felt himself being caught in a vise like grip around his neck.

"Did I say you could get up yet, you ugly, disgusting beast?" he heard Riley's voice ask.

Moments later, Riley let the revenant go. Spike coughed, getting slowly to his feet.

"Been gettin' up on my own for over a century without you havin' a say in it, mate!" the blond vampire whispered, coughing again.

He rose before feeling another kick to his side. Feeling weak because he still had not fed, Spike grabbed the air with no success. He felt an electric jolt just then, not nearly enough to kill, but painful all the same.

Spike prepared himself for another attack, but the assault never came. While the vampire still tried to reason why he couldn't sense anything, on the other side of the transparency, Riley smiled.

"See?" Riley cried triumphantly to the generals and colonels who were watching. "I can do anything I want with Hostile 18. It's the ultimate technology, the next step in controlling the vermin!"

"No' bad," the Tennessee Colonel said over a PA system, "but you still have a long way to go before this one's house broken, ah'll wager."

"Oh, this was just the appetizer," Riley told his superiors. "Wait until I REALLY get started!"

Another voice, this one feminine, asked, "But what exactly did you do to Hostile 18?"

Riley faced the room where the other officers were looking through a glass window in a control booth.

"I would rather not reveal that yet," he told them. "I want you to see the full extent of the experiment, and then I will answer any and all questions from the floor."

Several murmurs of "impressive", and "let's see more" reached the commander's communication device.

"If you think THAT'S good, wait until you see the other surprise I've got planned! I will have it ready by 14:00 hours tomorrow," Riley said to the Colonels and Generals. Once they departed, Riley looked at the scientists. As one switched off the machine, the second handed him a folder.

"Before stopping here, I received this information for you," the second scientist told him. "I believe you wanted any and all data on the Slayer."

Riley eagerly took the folder and scanned its contents. His eyes flew back to one of the technicians.

"You've been following this individual since reports of a Chosen One were initiated?" he asked.

"The VHIP has been along with other agencies. Apparently, this Slayer is a girl: one who is chosen to defend the Earth against the demons and vampires," the first doctor said. "According to everything we've discovered, she's supposed to be activated sometime within the next few days."

"How? Do we have an ident on who she is?" Riley asked, using the Government's language for "identification".

One scientist nodded, saying, "We don't know who is pulling the strings behind her actions, but we have been following the activities of several girls around the world who fit the criteria of the data we've been collecting. One thing is certain: one of the girls is in Sunnydale. The FBI's External Services Department's records indicate that she is the Premiere Slayer."

Riley looked at the list of names, which was considerable. It was the name on the sixteenth page which jumped out at him. It was the only bolded one, and it was highlighted. His eyes widened as he considered the possibility.

**No, it can't be!** His mind screamed.

But the more the Commander thought about Buffy's strength, her prowess with weapons and her fighting ability when they sparred, and her ability to heal at a fantastic rate, the more it seemed to be the only explanation.

He looked at his prisoner who still seemed to be trying to fetter out where he was. Perhaps, Riley decided, he could put the experiment to better use. He knew that his contacts in Europe and Saudi Arabia might pay handsomely for a Slayer as well as a Master Vampire so long as they weren't damaged too badly.

There was also the satisfaction of teaching the girl a lesson for even thinking kindly toward the vampire and rejecting Riley, to say nothing of wiping the arrogance right out of Hostile 18.

Seeing Spike slip into a troubled sleep, Riley thought **now, to handle my other problem.** The commander took out his communicator and punched in Buffy's cell number.

"Sweetheart? Beth Anne?" he asked, his voice tender.

"Riley?" Buffy's voice came over the line. "What is it?"

"I was thinking: I don't want you to hate me!" he said. "If you come to the base, I promise I'll explain everything!"

"But you've captured Spike," her voice accused him. Riley banked down his anger at the woman he had wanted to give his name to. He'd suspected she had feelings for the hostile, and Riley'd been right, apparently.

**Maybe she lied to you the whole time about this Slayer business,** his thoughts told him. **Maybe she and the vampire played you from the start!**

His brain presenting the wisest course of action he should take, Riley said, "I was ORDERED to! I didn't want to take part in any of this! Enslaving any creature is wrong, very wrong. I know that! But when you were at the warehouse, my soldiers were too, and one of them would have told my superiors! I captured him in order to save him from them! If I hadn't, they would have captured him and killed him, or sold him. This way, I can buy him some time until he's rescued!"

XXXXXXXXXXX

Inside the car, Buffy thought about what her former fiancé had just told her. On the one hand, he could be lying, but on the other, maybe he was being forced to participate in this ugly mess. If that was the case, she had to get both Riley and Spike out of there before further harm was done.

Before she could utter a single word, Riley said over the phone, "If YOU come, you could convince my employers. You're the Premiere Slayer! No one would doubt you!"

He paused for a moment. Buffy felt herself caving when he went on, his voice soft, "I don't know what Spike means to you, but he means something. I get that, and I'm not angry. If you add your voice to mine, together we can convince my superiors that he's—" Riley tried not to gag as he uttered his next few words—"good, and he should be freed!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

In her mother's car, the Slayer got her bag with her weapons, her mind made up.

"I'll come," she said simply, ending the call.

Buffy got out of the car and started toward the base. Giles' voice called out of its open window to her before she got far. The petite blonde turned back toward her Advisor.

"What is it?" she yelled.

"Buffy, what's going on?" Giles wanted to know.

"Riley wants me to see the base for myself," she answered. "He said he was forced to capture Spike. I've gotta see what I can do to help both of them!"

Sitting behind Joyce in the back seat, Cordelia put in her two cents. "Pull the other one!" She said. "What if this is a trap? You can't do that! Even if you're this...all powerful Supergirl, you can't go in there by yourself!"

"She's right, honey!" Joyce shouted out from the front. "At least let us come with you: after all, there's safety in numbers!"

"I can't do that, Mom!" Buffy protested, willing them to try to understand. "I can't look after you guys and go in to face Riley! If we all go in together, he'll smell a rat! I have to do this alone. I promise I'll be careful!"

Giles started to leave the car, but Buffy put her hand against the door on his side so that he couldn't open it.

"Giles, stay here!" she ordered. "Look out for my family, okay?"

"Buffy...it is pure suicide to do this!" Giles shouted. Buffy's eyes pleaded with the older man.

"Give me 20 minutes," she said. "I'll sneak in and see what's going on; I'll be Stealthy Girl! If I don't come out by then, come in however you can without getting caught."

The doctor and White One frowned, but he knew she was right. As the Slayer, it was Buffy's duty to go in and fight; and he, Joyce and Cordelia were so much baggage that diminished her effectiveness. Giles withdrew a bracelet from his pocket and handed it to her. Buffy turned the golden arm band over in her hands. In its center rested an amber colored stone.

"What's this for?" she asked, puzzled. She released the door and looked into Giles' intense eyes.

"It's an Ankya stone. It's to protect you," he clarified. Buffy put on the bracelet, not entirely sure how it worked.

Giles cautioned her, "only 20 minutes." Buffy nodded, going toward a side entrance.

"Riley's expecting me," the Chosen One said, giving one of the two guards by the entrance an I. D. The private nodded.

"Come this way, Miss Summers," he said, leading her in.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

C. G. drove toward what he hoped was the Army base, the squad car following close behind. He knew that he would have a battle on his hands, but he also reasoned that if he could collect solid evidence that the Government was up to something illegal, the cop could spin the wheels in motion that would shut down the operations for good.

He parked the Trans-Am a block away, instructing the uniformed officers to wait for his signal.

"Roger that," an Officer said. C. G. withdrew his sack and pulled a map out of it. He kept walking until he spotted a loose looking tuft of grass.

**Trap door?** The Deputy Chief mentally mused. He pulled back the grass to reveal just that.

**Pay dirt!** C. G. thought, trying to scan the lock with his dark eyes.

The blond cop started to see just how the mechanism worked when he became aware of a shadow looming in front of him. An officer in Army fatigues looked at the policeman, his face giving nothing away.

"What are you doing here?" the private asked.

C. G. shrugged, saying, "I saw that piece of grass and it looked strange, so I was just curious as to what it was." He showed his badge and an I. D. The soldier looked at both, then handed them back to C. G.

"It belongs to a top secret facility," the man responded. "You need a special pass to get in here."

"Really?" C. G. asked. "What kind of pass?"

"One from the Judge Advocate General's office or a search warrant," the private said in a voice that told the Deputy Chief he was not welcome there. C. G. backed off.

"Sorry for the trouble," he apologized, holding up his hands.

The soldier resumed his standing-at-attention mode. When C. G. was out of sight of the solder, the cop opened his knapsack and put on some Army fatigues. He combed his curly hair back so that it didn't stick up and put it under a military hat.

The trap door opened suddenly. Two uniformed officers emerged, saluting the soldier C. G. had spoken with. The policeman fell in behind them. Keeping his face partially hidden, the Welsh Deputy Chief saluted the soldier and walked calmly down the stairs. The door closed with a violent hiss behind him.

**Into the lions' den...** C. G. thought wryly. He walked ahead, inwardly cursing himself for the mess he was getting into.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"What are you doing here?" the private asked Anya adding, "this is an Army hospital, and it's restricted." The former vengeance demon shrugged, trying to affect a look of nonchalance.

"Just waiting for my friends," she told the man. "They are with the military."

He grimaced at her, ordering, "Let's see your driver's license." Her brown eyes strayed slightly toward a door where Wesley and Willow were exiting. So far, they didn't seem to be in any danger; however, the soldiers could corner them at any time. Her only hope was to create a diversion. Anya's look was one of pure indignation just then.

"Why would you need to see that?" she asked. "You are not a policeman, and I was just sitting here."

"Now, look, Miss, are you trying to cause trouble?" the private asked.

"No," she said, finally handing her license to him. "It's just...I look like 'Night of the Living Dead' on mine."

The officer chuckled. He handed it back to Anya, but she dropped it. While he bent to retrieve the license, Anya made out Wesley and Willow slowly going toward an entrance on the building's left side.

"You don't look so bad, Miss," the soldier told Anya, while he handed it back to her. "You should see mine."

He showed her his I. D. badge that the Army photographer had taken. Anya glanced at it and made a face.

"You look like a creature from a black lagoon!" she teased. A memory surfaced of the glory days when she'd turned a man much like this into a Black Lagoon creature.

Anya perused him, saying in a casual voice, "I think you look okay."

"Thanks," he said, unaware of the redheaded girl and the British young man making their way toward the vehicle just behind Anya.


The soldier smiled as he told her, "All right, you can go."

After the soldier went back to his post, Wesley and Willow snuck into Anya's back seat when they were sure the coast was clear. Together, the pair breathed a sigh of relief as Anya pulled off.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Buffy walked through various white walled corridors, her eyes looking for Spike. When she didn't see anything out of the ordinary, the Slayer used the sense she had utilized to find the vampire when he'd been in his greenhouse. She could feel him, she knew that, but he seemed distant to her.

Riley came up just then, his arms extended. "Buffy!"

he exclaimed, capturing her hands in his. The girl realized just then how moist and unattractive his sweaty hands were. She longed for the touch of her vampire's cool, elegant fingers. Buffy also discovered that the more she thought about the physically unattractive platinum haired revenant, the more she wanted him to be hers and only hers. But Buffy decided that she would justify that feeling later, since she couldn't deal with that now.

"I'm so glad you could make it," Riley was telling her. Buffy concentrated on what he was saying, her hearing alert for any news concerning Spike.

"So," she said in a voice she hoped was unaffected, "you wanted to show me what the what is on this place. Is Spike the only vampire you have?"

Riley shook his head, responding, "No, there are others. Some of them are no longer here. I couldn't stop their deportation, but as I said, if anyone can convince my higher ups about vampires being good, you can."

They continued walking on until they reached some lab doors. The doors were painted grey as were the walls. Buffy saw some chains on tables in front of the doors, and she saw some devices with indicators going up and down.

"Those chains…" she started, not sure what she should ask.

"Well," Riley explained sheepishly, "in the past, we used to use them to restrain violent demons. But now, we just use our chips." The Slayer fought down the bile gathering in her throat as she remembered Cordelia's reading the printout which explained the chipping process in no small detail.

"Isn't that just as bad?" Buffy asked, trying to keep her voice level. Inside, the Slayer felt her anger rising. "Is it painful?"

"Oh, no," Riley lied. "It's just to keep them relaxed. It doesn't hurt. We've refined the process."

He led the Slayer to some cells just then. The girl's green eyes flew to a cell marked "Hostile 15". Inside was a young female vampire in full game face. Her glowing eyes were terrified as she saw Buffy and Riley. She wore a dress that was two sizes too large, and her hair was matted. Her complexion was a pale yellow, as though she didn't have enough to eat.

"What about her?" Buffy asked. "And, what's with calling them 'hostiles'?"

"They are hostile until they are rehabilitated. We have to keep our guests on a simple regimen," Riley said. "If we feed our charges too much, they could overpower us."

"So, you starve them?" Buffy asked, unable to contain her fury any longer. Her eyes never left the prisoner.

Riley stared at Buffy, wondering what he had seen in her! To think, he'd actually bought a house for them to start a new life in, and she betrayed him this way! But he knew he couldn't give anything away, not until he had what he wanted. He gave the Chosen One an apologetic look.

"You're right," he said, his voice laced with guilt. "One of my doctors must have forgotten to feed her. I'll make sure she's given some blood." Riley's eyes found the prisoner's just then. They looked at her sternly, telling her that if she so much as cried "boo", her next word would be her last.

"You don't mind if I go over and ask her something…alone?" Buffy queried. Riley backed away.

"Of course," he said, "I don't mind. Be my guest. I'll be nearby." Buffy waited until he left, then she faced the girl.

"Is it true?" Buffy wanted to know. "Do they treat you okay, or are they lying?"

The girl bit her lip so that blood rushed out. She licked it, drinking her own hemoglobin to make up for the hunger gnawing at her. The vampiress glared at the Slayer, the young revenant's senses telling her that an unwelcome presence was in front of her.

Buffy could tell, though, that she was having trouble focusing. She seemed to be drifting in and out, as though the girl was having trouble seeing the Slayer, or sensing her.

"Can you hear me?" Buffy wanted to know. "What's your name?"

The girl reacted to that. Her yellow eyes looked at Buffy as she responded, "Remmie."

"Pleased to meet you, Remmie," Buffy said honestly. The girl relaxed a little.

"How old are you?" the Slayer asked. Her eyes told her that the vampire was young, not older than her age, if that.

"59," Remmie said. Buffy came closer to the cage.

"Oh," she told the girl. "I'm nineteen, myself. I'm gonna be twenty soon…next week. When's your birthday?"

The girl concentrated, but she couldn't suddenly hear what the Slayer was saying. Her eyes blinked rapidly, as though she was trying to see through her
transparency.

"What's wrong?" Buffy wondered aloud.

"DON'T trust him!" Remmie shouted. "The Commander is bad, evil! He's worse than we ever were! He hates our kind! You trust him, you'll end up DEAD!" Riley came in just then before Buffy could question the girl further.

"All set to see more?" he asked. Buffy shook her head.

"I want to talk to this one a little longer," Buffy responded.

Riley said, "Sorry. Can't do that. My employers believe limited contact with the people who would be victims of our charges is the best way for now to rehabilitate the vamps and other Supernaturals. The demons and vampires tend to get agitated whenever they have too much contact with humans. Makes them long too much to be free before they are trained not to harm people."

**Don't you mean broken into submission?** Buffy thought, wanting to accuse Riley. She knew something was off about Remmie, and if the girl was out of sorts, what about Spike?

"She looked as though she couldn't sense me at times," Buffy mused. Riley looked proud just then.

"Yes, well, they are put into a sensory deprivation tank, or SDT" he said. "It's just a precaution. Once they prove they can fit into society, they're put into a much nicer facility where they are taught to integrate themselves amongst people."

"'Sensory deprivation tank?'" Buffy repeated. "You mean, like the ones the military uses on enemy soldiers when they're captured so that they can't see or hear the ones who locked them up?"

"Nothing quite as bad as all that…" Riley told her. He snapped open a can of coke and started drinking some. He handed it to Buffy, who took a sip then gave it back to him.

"I told you: it doesn't last long. After all, if they can't sense anything, how would they be able to survive out there amongst us?" he asked.

"You tell me!" Buffy said hotly.

Riley took another swig of cola, offering Buffy some more. The Slayer declined, not wanting to accept anything from her former honey.

"You render them deaf, dumb and blind, even for a moment so they don't know which way is up, then you say it's NOTHING?!" Buffy cried. Riley came up behind her.

"Relax, Buffy," he said, "if it really bothers you, then I think it's time that we get this over with." The Commander took out his cell phone and pressed a button, turning on a device which looked like a security camera.

"Riley," Buffy asked, yawning a little. "What…gives?"

She yawned again. She then realized a couple of things, the most glaring being that she had never told Riley about being the "Premiere Slayer". The second was that somehow, someway, her former boyfriend had drugged her.

"Sorry honey, I DID lie," he said a little smugly.

Buffy found to her horror that her muscles had stiffened up and she couldn't move. Riley grabbed her arm, steering her to the main cell block as he told her, "it's really amazing what they put into soda these days! Good thing the Army innoculates its soldiers against many forms of chemical warefare! Too bad they didn't do that for you, Sweetie!"

Buffy saw all of the prisoners in the block, including the one she had been looking for, blinking his orange eyes slowly as though in a haze.

**Spike!** Her mind supplied. She would have tried to get to him if she were able, but she was still paralyzed and unable to walk without Riley's assistance.

"Wakey-wakey!" Riley commanded Spike. The vampire saw Buffy outside of his cell. He tried to escape his confines, but a second later, he couldn't see anything.

Riley's voice sounded softly in her ear, "See, SLAYER," he said with disdain, "I promised my bosses a big surprise by two tomorrow: you. Can the sense of a Slayer overcome our patented Sensory Deprivation Tank, to say nothing of the other device I'm planning to use on you? How long will the whole proceedure take? My superiors are dying to know!"

With all the courage she could muster, Buffy whispered, "I'm so gonna bust your ass, Riley! I'm gonna get all of your captives out of here, and you're gonna pay, big time!"

Riley dumped her into the cage across from Spike's marked, "Hostile 19". It was the same cell that recently-deported Hostile 10 had occupied.

"Uh, huh…" Riley said coldly, her threats not registering. "I'm going to enjoy this!" He heard Spike growling all of a sudden and faced the vampire.

"What is it, Hostile?" the Commander asked tiredly. Spike channeled all of his remaining strength so that his orbs found his enemy's.

"When I get out o' here, I'll rip your fucking heart from your chest," Spike promised, "that is, assumin' you have one! You let her go, I might show mercy."

"Do you even know the meaning of the word, you putrid thing?" the military man sneered.

Spike said coldly, "do you?"

Riley willed himself not to be angry as he regarded Buffy. He pressed another button on his cell, and some gas hissed in her cell. Buffy collapsed into unconsciousness. When the Commander was satisfied she would be no threat, at least for the moment, he turned back to Spike and fixed him with a deadly stare.

"Wha' will you do with her?" the vampire asked, banking down his fear. "Don' harm her."

"'Don't harm her'?" Riley echoed. He punctuated all of his next words, saying, "That all depends, vampire, on how well you perform."





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