Joel Morton
2006-06-07 22:59:54 UTC
The only thing I can take credit for is the idea. And maybe the grammar.
Comments, etc., are greatly appreciated.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2: Briefing
They were gathered in a well-appointed conference room, Buffy
sitting halfway down one side of the long table, Giles to her right, Willow
on her left. Kennedy sat next to Willow. Xander sat across from Buffy, to
his left was another young woman, in her early twenties, very dark skinned,
her hair cropped close to her scalp, and to her left was a distinguished,
elderly black man, whose eyes glinted shrewdly above a bright, open smile. A
few jelly donuts rested on a large platter in the center of the table, rings
of sugar in the empty spaces between them evidence the conference had been
going for some time.
"Well, Xander," Giles said, "Now that you're reasonably caught
up on happenings outside your responsibility, why don't you discuss the
situation that brings you back to us."
"Yeah, OK." Xander opened up a stained leather portfolio that
had crumpled papers sticking out the side and pulled out a crinkled stack of
papers. "First, we picked up some initial rumors about sixteen months ago.
One of our contacts had been asked about maps of old tombs and mines in the
Sahara by some dealer he knew, which turned out to be the first hint of this
that we had."
"Was the contact reliable?" the older black man asked in a very
British accent.
"In Africa?" He asked incredulously. "Anyway, I wrote it down
and that was it for a few months, until we ran into a couple vamps in Ndélé.
They had some letters, we couldn't tell who from, telling them to grab some
refugee in Chad. We figured that, since we caught them trying to find
someone to help them find the guy, they hadn't done it yet."
"What on Earth were you doing in Ndélé? I'm sure there weren't
any Slayers to find there," Giles asked.
"We were trying to get from Mali, where we picked up Binta, back
to Nairobi."
"You couldn't fly?" Buffy asked.
"Nah. I lost my cape and tights in Luanda."
Buffy rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean."
"You were in Luanda? I told you not to go to Angola," Willow
said at the same time as Buffy.
Xander grinned at Buffy, then glanced over to Willow. "The war
was over. It was safe-ish by the time we got there, Will. Really. I wasn't
doing anything stupid."
Willow nodded, but didn't look satisfied.
"Anyway, we thought about dealing with this guy the vamps were
going after, but we didn't really have enough to find him, and we needed to
get Binta back to the plantation, so we talked to MSF to keep their eyes out
for the guy, and went on our way."
"Still wondering why you didn't just fly back to Nairobi. It's
not like we couldn't afford it."
"Buff, we pretty much stole her out of her owner's house. They
had enough clout to get the authorities-"
"Wait - owners?" Buffy asked, outraged.
"Well, not technically I suppose. It's pretty common for poor
parents to sell, or, I guess, 'arrange employment for' their younger girls.
Binta was one of those girls before, you know, Willow did her uber-mojo, and
afterward her owners, or 'employers' or whatever used her for heavy labor."
"Why didn't she try to get away?" Buffy demanded.
"They'd have just gone after her family for repayment or maybe a
sister or something. And anyway, from what I could tell, they weren't
treating her too badly."
"Badly! They owned her! How can you be so calm about this!"
Buffy stood as she spoke, glaring at Xander, arms folded.
"Please, Mademoiselle Summers." The black girl spoke. "It is the
way of things en l'Afrique. Monsieur Harris simply says how it is." Her
accent was an odd mix of French and the long, open vowels common to native
Africans. She glanced at him before continuing. "He is not 'appy with it,
but he does as he must."
"What she said, Buff. And can I just point out that I got her
out of there? Safely?"
Buffy continued glaring at him, until she finally huffed and sat
down. "So you couldn't fly out of Mali. Why not hop on a plane once you were
out of the country."
"Second guessing much, Buff? There were reasons, all right? Read
the reports if you're really that curious, but I'd like to get back to the
point, OK?"
"Yes, please Buffy, do let him continue. I'll vouch for his
reasons, if that helps," Giles said soothingly.
"Thanks, Giles," Xander grinned at the older man.
"Don't be too grateful, Xander, he's got a hot lunch date. He
just wants out of here so he can primp up," Kennedy interjected, earning an
eye-roll from Giles.
"Yes, I'm rushing through a vital discussion of urgent mystical
happenings so I can get in a nooner with a hot momma. Thank you, Kennedy,
for your faith in my professionalism."
Everyone in the room stared at him, Xander with his mouth open
dumbly.
"Oh Lord, can we pretend that was left unsaid?" Giles pleaded
once he realized the reaction to what he'd said.
"Amen, buster," Willow was the first to agree, followed by the
simultaneous concurrence of the rest.
"Where were you, Xander?" Giles prompted, somewhat desperately.
"Um, Ndélé, right?"
Willow and the slayers nodded encouragingly at him.
"OK, so we got back to Kenya and got Binta settled in, and
rested a bit."
"Monsieur Harris, you 'ad the fever then for two weeks, no?"
Xander blinked, then stared at the black girl, his mouth working
silently.
"And you were, you say, resting for another month," she
continued happily, apparently immune to his strengthening glare.
"Xander?" Willow asked.
"OK, look, I got sick a couple times in Africa. Like I said, big
ol' Mall o' Sick down there, and I got a nasty a couple times. I'm fine.
Completely. Except for the horrible burning skin pain whenever I touch
anything, but that'll clear up in no time. I promise."
"Please, Xander, spare us the details and continue with what the
matter at hand."
"Hey, not my fault. Monifa started it."
Giles sighed deeply. "Yes, Xander, we know. Now, if you would,
please, get to the point."
"All right, pointy is me." Xander paused and blinked, but
continued before anyone could react. "To make a long story quick, we got
lots of little clues, and eventually figured out that someone was looking
for something hocus-pocus-y in central Libya. Given the way things work in
our lives, we figured that letting whoever it was get whatever it was would
be bad, so we went in and got whatever it was for ourselves before whoever
it was could get whatever it was."
The table was silent as everyone tried to make sense of that.
Finally, the black man asked, "I'm sorry, Mister Harris, but I'm afraid that
wasn't terribly clear."
"Oh. Right. Um, well, we found the mystic things before the bad
guys and shipped them to Giles."
"Shipped?"
"Well, yeah. It was all too heavy to fly out, and have you ever
tried to get a flight from Tripoli to London anyway?"
"Too heavy?" Kennedy asked.
"Yeah. Pretty much a tomb full of stuff, like a big
sar-coga-thingy, scrolls, statues and all that. It all looked kind of
Egyptian, not like the kind of stuff you'd expect from the people native to
there. We think it was moved from Egypt to keep it from grave robbers, not
that that stopped us."
"It was all worth bringing back here?" Kennedy asked.
"No idea. We knew we hit the right tomb, with the Egypt-y stuff
in the middle of Libya, but didn't have any idea what exactly the big deal
was. So we basically hauled everything out, tossed it in the Land Rovers
and drove back to Sabha. We ended up shuttling back and forth a couple
times, but we got pretty much everything out of there, onto a semi, and then
drove to Egypt and got it on a ship. Monifa and Jimiyu here baby-sat it on
the boat until you guys got it."
"It's all here? Why didn't I know that? Giles, aren't you
supposed to tell me these things?"
"Yes, Buffy, I'm certain I was woefully derelict." Giles pulled
off his glasses and pointed at her with them. "You may recall my asking to
meet with you Thursday morning, when you chose to visit Harrod's, and Friday
afternoon, shortly before you left with Dawn to see the Blue Man Group. And
then yesterday, I tried to catch you before you went to pick up Xander at
Heathrow, but you felt the, I believe it was a 'hair crisis,' as you put it,
was rather more of an immediate concern."
"Right. So you admit you should have told me," Buffy pouted at
her Watcher.
Xander laughed. "I've missed you, Buff."
She shot him a brilliant smile. "Me too, Xand." She looked
around the table. "So now what? We beat the bad guys to the whatever it is,
so why the big meeting? Or is this just an excuse to get the gang back
together for Scrabble?"
Xander leaned back in his chair and looked grimly at Giles. "You
want to do the honors?"
"Oh, by no means. You are, after all, the honored guest today."
Xander rolled his eye. "Yeah, thanks so much." Taking a deep
breath, Xander continued, "All right. The smart people have looked at all of
the stuff we've accumulated, and we think we know what the whole deal was
about. Unfortunately, it wasn't anything in the tomb that we brought back.
It was the tomb itself, or rather a cave system behind the tomb."
"Ooooh-kay. What's with the caves?" Buffy asked.
This time, Giles was the one to respond. "Well, we're not
entirely sure, but we suspect the space can be used to-"
"No, wait. I know this one: End the world?" she interrupted.
"Well, err, no, surprisingly enough, though a remarkably good
guess."
"So, then what's the big?"
Xander leaned forward, glancing around the table. "We had some
arky-people with us when we went all Lara Croft. They took some notes,
talked to some of Giles' people. They think they've figured out something
about the place." He looked at Giles and twitched his head at Buffy. "You
sure you don't want to tell her?"
"I wouldn't dream of it."
"Great." Xander took a deep breath. "We're pretty sure that the
cave system leads to a bunch of different hell dimensions. Sounds bad, yeah,
but right now they're all strictly one-way, from here to there. If they
weren't, there would've been all sorts of nasties when we scouted the place,
and there weren't, so, yeah, going from here to Hell but not back."
"You're not sure?" The black man asked.
"Well, no. At least part of the structure of the tomb isn't dug
out of the wall, and the satellite imagery shows the cave system goes a lot
deeper than the tomb, but we didn't want to do anything permanent to the
walls of the tomb. We were afraid, you know, that'd just be
problem-causing."
"Still not seeing the bad, here, really," Buffy commented. "So
you can send people to Hell, if you turn into Indiana Jones and drive them
to the middle of the Sahara and then break through a no-longer
long-lost-tomb. Why the crisis-having?"
"Well, Buff, the thing is, see, we, um, think that someone is
going to try to turn the one-way into a two-way."
"Which would, of course, be a terrible danger," Giles added.
"A new Hellmouth," said Buffy, leaning back in her chair and
closing her eyes. "Just what we need."
"Well, no, Buffy, not quite. The area lacks the, the mystical,
well, power of the hellmouths we're familiar with. We don't believe the area
would attract demons, or, or the kinds of oddities that plagued Sunnydale or
occur in Cleveland," Giles tried to sound reassuring. "Unfortunately, unlike
the hellmouths, which as you're too well aware don't typically allow free
passage between dimensions, there would be relatively easy movement between
wherever these caverns lead and our world."
"I don't suppose they all go to worlds without shrimp."
"Thinking a big old 'no' on that one, Buff. There's all sorts of
doom and gloom pronouncements of badness happening if the caverns are opened
up to universal travel. There might even be a prophecy."
"Prophecy? I really hate prophecies."
"We know," Xander, Giles, and Willow replied together.
"Jinx," added Xander quickly, with a smug grin. Willow stuck her
tongue out in reply.
Buffy turned to Willow. "You're all quiet girl this morning, Will. Did you
know anything about this?"
Giles answered before Willow could: "Willow and I spoke just
before we came in to meet with you."
Willow glared past Buffy at Giles before answering for herself.
"I've been thinking."
"Ooh, that can't mean anything good."
"I thought that was when I was thinking," quipped Xander, who
then quailed at Giles' and Willow's combined glares.
"Don't say that, Xander," Willow said, before continuing. "I've
been trying to figure out how someone would do this."
"Any ideas?" Xander asked.
"I can see a bunch of ways to do it. You'd really have to know
exactly what you were doing or you'd just get sucked into whatever hell you
were trying to open, but it's possible."
"You're certain of this?"
"Darn tootin'. At least, I'm sure I could, if I was there."
"Do you think you could figure something out that would stop
someone else from doing that?" Xander asked, leaning forward in his chair.
Willow scrunched her face in thought. "Maybe. I don't think so,
though. I could set something up to keep people away, or, or maybe an alarm
or something, but I'm not sure about just stopping someone from opening
something like this forever. I'd have to go there to know for sure."
"Maybe we should make that happen," Xander responded. "Giles?"
"I concur. Willow should examine the scene in person. Xander,
you'll plan a return expedition? Monifa, Jimiyu, you'll escort them, as
before?"
"I'm on it, boss-man," Xander agreed, nodding.
"Certainement, Monseiur," Monifa added, Jimiyu rumbling
agreement as well.
"What about me?" Buffy whined. "You brought me in and got me all
involved and what am I supposed to do?"
Giles leant over, rubbing his brow with his left hand,
concealing the wink he sent to Xander. "You did ask, Buffy, to have more
direct participation in deciding the course of our operations. I thought
this an excellent opportunity to begin your involvement."
"Yeah, Buff, we just wanted you in the loop."
"That's it? I sit here through a boring review of stuff I
already knew, then find out that Xander has a disaster and Willow's going to
Africa to help and I'm supposed to just sit here some more and wait for a
phone call?"
"Nah, we send in our reports by air mail, Buff."
"Ooh!, Or, or email! We can send in our reports by email with
the new satellite phones! With pictures and stuff!"
Willow's enthusiasm did not appear to mollify the slayer. Buffy was rapidly
moving from annoyed to a full-blown pout. "I so do not want to read reports,
Giles, even if they have pictures." She turned to Willow. "No offense,
Will."
"It's all right, Buffy. I'm used to your attention-span."
Buffy gently smacked Willow's shoulder.
"See? That's why I'm on the other side of the table," Xander commented, only
to have his shoulder pounded by the girl next to her.
"We must stick together, must we not, Mademoiselle Summers?"
Buffy grinned at Xander. "Always."
"Despite this abuse of me, Buff, you're welcome to come along. Get out in
the field, see the sights-"
"Slay the bads," she interrupted dryly.
"That, too." Xander was smiling broadly. "Hey. We're getting the band back
together. Think we can find an orphanage to save?"
"Doofus," Willow said, rolling her eyes.
Comments, etc., are greatly appreciated.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2: Briefing
They were gathered in a well-appointed conference room, Buffy
sitting halfway down one side of the long table, Giles to her right, Willow
on her left. Kennedy sat next to Willow. Xander sat across from Buffy, to
his left was another young woman, in her early twenties, very dark skinned,
her hair cropped close to her scalp, and to her left was a distinguished,
elderly black man, whose eyes glinted shrewdly above a bright, open smile. A
few jelly donuts rested on a large platter in the center of the table, rings
of sugar in the empty spaces between them evidence the conference had been
going for some time.
"Well, Xander," Giles said, "Now that you're reasonably caught
up on happenings outside your responsibility, why don't you discuss the
situation that brings you back to us."
"Yeah, OK." Xander opened up a stained leather portfolio that
had crumpled papers sticking out the side and pulled out a crinkled stack of
papers. "First, we picked up some initial rumors about sixteen months ago.
One of our contacts had been asked about maps of old tombs and mines in the
Sahara by some dealer he knew, which turned out to be the first hint of this
that we had."
"Was the contact reliable?" the older black man asked in a very
British accent.
"In Africa?" He asked incredulously. "Anyway, I wrote it down
and that was it for a few months, until we ran into a couple vamps in Ndélé.
They had some letters, we couldn't tell who from, telling them to grab some
refugee in Chad. We figured that, since we caught them trying to find
someone to help them find the guy, they hadn't done it yet."
"What on Earth were you doing in Ndélé? I'm sure there weren't
any Slayers to find there," Giles asked.
"We were trying to get from Mali, where we picked up Binta, back
to Nairobi."
"You couldn't fly?" Buffy asked.
"Nah. I lost my cape and tights in Luanda."
Buffy rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean."
"You were in Luanda? I told you not to go to Angola," Willow
said at the same time as Buffy.
Xander grinned at Buffy, then glanced over to Willow. "The war
was over. It was safe-ish by the time we got there, Will. Really. I wasn't
doing anything stupid."
Willow nodded, but didn't look satisfied.
"Anyway, we thought about dealing with this guy the vamps were
going after, but we didn't really have enough to find him, and we needed to
get Binta back to the plantation, so we talked to MSF to keep their eyes out
for the guy, and went on our way."
"Still wondering why you didn't just fly back to Nairobi. It's
not like we couldn't afford it."
"Buff, we pretty much stole her out of her owner's house. They
had enough clout to get the authorities-"
"Wait - owners?" Buffy asked, outraged.
"Well, not technically I suppose. It's pretty common for poor
parents to sell, or, I guess, 'arrange employment for' their younger girls.
Binta was one of those girls before, you know, Willow did her uber-mojo, and
afterward her owners, or 'employers' or whatever used her for heavy labor."
"Why didn't she try to get away?" Buffy demanded.
"They'd have just gone after her family for repayment or maybe a
sister or something. And anyway, from what I could tell, they weren't
treating her too badly."
"Badly! They owned her! How can you be so calm about this!"
Buffy stood as she spoke, glaring at Xander, arms folded.
"Please, Mademoiselle Summers." The black girl spoke. "It is the
way of things en l'Afrique. Monsieur Harris simply says how it is." Her
accent was an odd mix of French and the long, open vowels common to native
Africans. She glanced at him before continuing. "He is not 'appy with it,
but he does as he must."
"What she said, Buff. And can I just point out that I got her
out of there? Safely?"
Buffy continued glaring at him, until she finally huffed and sat
down. "So you couldn't fly out of Mali. Why not hop on a plane once you were
out of the country."
"Second guessing much, Buff? There were reasons, all right? Read
the reports if you're really that curious, but I'd like to get back to the
point, OK?"
"Yes, please Buffy, do let him continue. I'll vouch for his
reasons, if that helps," Giles said soothingly.
"Thanks, Giles," Xander grinned at the older man.
"Don't be too grateful, Xander, he's got a hot lunch date. He
just wants out of here so he can primp up," Kennedy interjected, earning an
eye-roll from Giles.
"Yes, I'm rushing through a vital discussion of urgent mystical
happenings so I can get in a nooner with a hot momma. Thank you, Kennedy,
for your faith in my professionalism."
Everyone in the room stared at him, Xander with his mouth open
dumbly.
"Oh Lord, can we pretend that was left unsaid?" Giles pleaded
once he realized the reaction to what he'd said.
"Amen, buster," Willow was the first to agree, followed by the
simultaneous concurrence of the rest.
"Where were you, Xander?" Giles prompted, somewhat desperately.
"Um, Ndélé, right?"
Willow and the slayers nodded encouragingly at him.
"OK, so we got back to Kenya and got Binta settled in, and
rested a bit."
"Monsieur Harris, you 'ad the fever then for two weeks, no?"
Xander blinked, then stared at the black girl, his mouth working
silently.
"And you were, you say, resting for another month," she
continued happily, apparently immune to his strengthening glare.
"Xander?" Willow asked.
"OK, look, I got sick a couple times in Africa. Like I said, big
ol' Mall o' Sick down there, and I got a nasty a couple times. I'm fine.
Completely. Except for the horrible burning skin pain whenever I touch
anything, but that'll clear up in no time. I promise."
"Please, Xander, spare us the details and continue with what the
matter at hand."
"Hey, not my fault. Monifa started it."
Giles sighed deeply. "Yes, Xander, we know. Now, if you would,
please, get to the point."
"All right, pointy is me." Xander paused and blinked, but
continued before anyone could react. "To make a long story quick, we got
lots of little clues, and eventually figured out that someone was looking
for something hocus-pocus-y in central Libya. Given the way things work in
our lives, we figured that letting whoever it was get whatever it was would
be bad, so we went in and got whatever it was for ourselves before whoever
it was could get whatever it was."
The table was silent as everyone tried to make sense of that.
Finally, the black man asked, "I'm sorry, Mister Harris, but I'm afraid that
wasn't terribly clear."
"Oh. Right. Um, well, we found the mystic things before the bad
guys and shipped them to Giles."
"Shipped?"
"Well, yeah. It was all too heavy to fly out, and have you ever
tried to get a flight from Tripoli to London anyway?"
"Too heavy?" Kennedy asked.
"Yeah. Pretty much a tomb full of stuff, like a big
sar-coga-thingy, scrolls, statues and all that. It all looked kind of
Egyptian, not like the kind of stuff you'd expect from the people native to
there. We think it was moved from Egypt to keep it from grave robbers, not
that that stopped us."
"It was all worth bringing back here?" Kennedy asked.
"No idea. We knew we hit the right tomb, with the Egypt-y stuff
in the middle of Libya, but didn't have any idea what exactly the big deal
was. So we basically hauled everything out, tossed it in the Land Rovers
and drove back to Sabha. We ended up shuttling back and forth a couple
times, but we got pretty much everything out of there, onto a semi, and then
drove to Egypt and got it on a ship. Monifa and Jimiyu here baby-sat it on
the boat until you guys got it."
"It's all here? Why didn't I know that? Giles, aren't you
supposed to tell me these things?"
"Yes, Buffy, I'm certain I was woefully derelict." Giles pulled
off his glasses and pointed at her with them. "You may recall my asking to
meet with you Thursday morning, when you chose to visit Harrod's, and Friday
afternoon, shortly before you left with Dawn to see the Blue Man Group. And
then yesterday, I tried to catch you before you went to pick up Xander at
Heathrow, but you felt the, I believe it was a 'hair crisis,' as you put it,
was rather more of an immediate concern."
"Right. So you admit you should have told me," Buffy pouted at
her Watcher.
Xander laughed. "I've missed you, Buff."
She shot him a brilliant smile. "Me too, Xand." She looked
around the table. "So now what? We beat the bad guys to the whatever it is,
so why the big meeting? Or is this just an excuse to get the gang back
together for Scrabble?"
Xander leaned back in his chair and looked grimly at Giles. "You
want to do the honors?"
"Oh, by no means. You are, after all, the honored guest today."
Xander rolled his eye. "Yeah, thanks so much." Taking a deep
breath, Xander continued, "All right. The smart people have looked at all of
the stuff we've accumulated, and we think we know what the whole deal was
about. Unfortunately, it wasn't anything in the tomb that we brought back.
It was the tomb itself, or rather a cave system behind the tomb."
"Ooooh-kay. What's with the caves?" Buffy asked.
This time, Giles was the one to respond. "Well, we're not
entirely sure, but we suspect the space can be used to-"
"No, wait. I know this one: End the world?" she interrupted.
"Well, err, no, surprisingly enough, though a remarkably good
guess."
"So, then what's the big?"
Xander leaned forward, glancing around the table. "We had some
arky-people with us when we went all Lara Croft. They took some notes,
talked to some of Giles' people. They think they've figured out something
about the place." He looked at Giles and twitched his head at Buffy. "You
sure you don't want to tell her?"
"I wouldn't dream of it."
"Great." Xander took a deep breath. "We're pretty sure that the
cave system leads to a bunch of different hell dimensions. Sounds bad, yeah,
but right now they're all strictly one-way, from here to there. If they
weren't, there would've been all sorts of nasties when we scouted the place,
and there weren't, so, yeah, going from here to Hell but not back."
"You're not sure?" The black man asked.
"Well, no. At least part of the structure of the tomb isn't dug
out of the wall, and the satellite imagery shows the cave system goes a lot
deeper than the tomb, but we didn't want to do anything permanent to the
walls of the tomb. We were afraid, you know, that'd just be
problem-causing."
"Still not seeing the bad, here, really," Buffy commented. "So
you can send people to Hell, if you turn into Indiana Jones and drive them
to the middle of the Sahara and then break through a no-longer
long-lost-tomb. Why the crisis-having?"
"Well, Buff, the thing is, see, we, um, think that someone is
going to try to turn the one-way into a two-way."
"Which would, of course, be a terrible danger," Giles added.
"A new Hellmouth," said Buffy, leaning back in her chair and
closing her eyes. "Just what we need."
"Well, no, Buffy, not quite. The area lacks the, the mystical,
well, power of the hellmouths we're familiar with. We don't believe the area
would attract demons, or, or the kinds of oddities that plagued Sunnydale or
occur in Cleveland," Giles tried to sound reassuring. "Unfortunately, unlike
the hellmouths, which as you're too well aware don't typically allow free
passage between dimensions, there would be relatively easy movement between
wherever these caverns lead and our world."
"I don't suppose they all go to worlds without shrimp."
"Thinking a big old 'no' on that one, Buff. There's all sorts of
doom and gloom pronouncements of badness happening if the caverns are opened
up to universal travel. There might even be a prophecy."
"Prophecy? I really hate prophecies."
"We know," Xander, Giles, and Willow replied together.
"Jinx," added Xander quickly, with a smug grin. Willow stuck her
tongue out in reply.
Buffy turned to Willow. "You're all quiet girl this morning, Will. Did you
know anything about this?"
Giles answered before Willow could: "Willow and I spoke just
before we came in to meet with you."
Willow glared past Buffy at Giles before answering for herself.
"I've been thinking."
"Ooh, that can't mean anything good."
"I thought that was when I was thinking," quipped Xander, who
then quailed at Giles' and Willow's combined glares.
"Don't say that, Xander," Willow said, before continuing. "I've
been trying to figure out how someone would do this."
"Any ideas?" Xander asked.
"I can see a bunch of ways to do it. You'd really have to know
exactly what you were doing or you'd just get sucked into whatever hell you
were trying to open, but it's possible."
"You're certain of this?"
"Darn tootin'. At least, I'm sure I could, if I was there."
"Do you think you could figure something out that would stop
someone else from doing that?" Xander asked, leaning forward in his chair.
Willow scrunched her face in thought. "Maybe. I don't think so,
though. I could set something up to keep people away, or, or maybe an alarm
or something, but I'm not sure about just stopping someone from opening
something like this forever. I'd have to go there to know for sure."
"Maybe we should make that happen," Xander responded. "Giles?"
"I concur. Willow should examine the scene in person. Xander,
you'll plan a return expedition? Monifa, Jimiyu, you'll escort them, as
before?"
"I'm on it, boss-man," Xander agreed, nodding.
"Certainement, Monseiur," Monifa added, Jimiyu rumbling
agreement as well.
"What about me?" Buffy whined. "You brought me in and got me all
involved and what am I supposed to do?"
Giles leant over, rubbing his brow with his left hand,
concealing the wink he sent to Xander. "You did ask, Buffy, to have more
direct participation in deciding the course of our operations. I thought
this an excellent opportunity to begin your involvement."
"Yeah, Buff, we just wanted you in the loop."
"That's it? I sit here through a boring review of stuff I
already knew, then find out that Xander has a disaster and Willow's going to
Africa to help and I'm supposed to just sit here some more and wait for a
phone call?"
"Nah, we send in our reports by air mail, Buff."
"Ooh!, Or, or email! We can send in our reports by email with
the new satellite phones! With pictures and stuff!"
Willow's enthusiasm did not appear to mollify the slayer. Buffy was rapidly
moving from annoyed to a full-blown pout. "I so do not want to read reports,
Giles, even if they have pictures." She turned to Willow. "No offense,
Will."
"It's all right, Buffy. I'm used to your attention-span."
Buffy gently smacked Willow's shoulder.
"See? That's why I'm on the other side of the table," Xander commented, only
to have his shoulder pounded by the girl next to her.
"We must stick together, must we not, Mademoiselle Summers?"
Buffy grinned at Xander. "Always."
"Despite this abuse of me, Buff, you're welcome to come along. Get out in
the field, see the sights-"
"Slay the bads," she interrupted dryly.
"That, too." Xander was smiling broadly. "Hey. We're getting the band back
together. Think we can find an orphanage to save?"
"Doofus," Willow said, rolling her eyes.