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Chapter Thirteen

It had been a couple hours since Xander and Anya had returned with the uniform. Angel had looked at it with distaste, but he tried it on without too much complaint. “I am not wearing those pants,” he said.

Willow agreed that the pants wouldn’t cut it. Too short. He’d have to wear his own. “It’s a good thing everything you own is black. At least it still looks uniform-y.”

“It’s a better thing that Xander got some muscles.” Angel hadn’t been entirely happy that the shirt fit. He zipped up the jacket. “So what do I do?”

Willow had been on the Web for almost an hour before she finally found what she was looking for: streaming video of a UPS deliveryman bringing a package up to someone’s front door. Of course, she had found it on UPS Australia’s website and the Sydney Opera House was off in the distance, but she’d be replacing the background with the one from the VR program so it didn’t matter. The hard part would be getting Angel to stick to the script. “Watch.”

They watched as the man approached the front door with two packages, rang the doorbell, made some small talk, and handed over a clipboard to sign. He took it back, checked in the next package, made some more small talk, and got one more signature. Then he handed over the boxes, said “Have a nice day,” turned and walked away.

“Memorize it,” said Willow. “You’re going to need to do exactly the same things he’s doing.” She got up. “I’m getting some pizza before it’s all gone.”

Graham had tried sleeping but he was too worked up. He had spent the last two hours watching Willow surf the Web and trying to ignore Angel’s presence. The second part had been easy since Angel seemed to be ignoring him right back. Who was he kidding? The first part was pretty easy, too; Willow was kind of cute. He followed her to the counter and sat on the stool next to her. “You really think this will work?”

“Darn tootin.’”

“You’re actually sending him into the program? He’ll really be in there? In the computer?” Graham couldn’t really believe that that was what they intended to do.

“Think Star Trek. Beam me up, Scotty. Or down. In?” She cocked her head. “Hmph.”

“Earth to Uhura. So why the video? Where does that come in?”

“Angel will be in there, but it would be better if they don’t see him and figure out who he is. I’ll superimpose the guy from the video over Angel’s image. As long as Angel follows the same movements, we should be o.k.”

“The tech guys have been doing this for four months and they’re still working out the kinks; this is your first try. You think you’re ready for this?” Graham’s tone was softer than the one he had used with Angel, but the challenge was still there.

Willow was thinking that the ability to switch to a vampire face had its moments, but she could see Graham was about to jump off the cliff of desperation. She put her hand on his. “I know what it’s like to see a friend die. We’re not going to let that happen. We’re going to make this work.” She took her hand away and pretended she didn’t see the tears in Graham’s eyes. “Besides, you saw my transcripts. I got an A in advanced graphic design. I can do video. I’m ready.”

Willow sounded more confident than she felt. But she really did think they had a shot at making this work. The military may have gotten far with what they could do inside the VR program, but the external view wasn’t exactly HDTV. And hopefully they’d be too busy trying to i.d. the UPS guy and wouldn’t pay too much attention to any fuzzy edges.

“Hey – who ate the last piece?” Xander had just come downstairs. He had tried sleeping too, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Buffy and Riley and bad endings. And he wasn’t thrilled about Willow being alone with Angel and Graham. “Did ‘ya figure out how to email Angel? FTP him into Fort Dixonville? I’m thinking that’ll be worth seeing.” He put on his innocent face as Angel glared at him. “What?”

Graham looked at Xander. “You actually understand what she’s trying to do?”

Xander put his hand on Graham’s shoulder and replied, “Absolutely no clue. But you will soon learn that it’s much easier to just play along. Anything else gets you into trouble.”

Graham turned back to Willow. “How will Angel be able to talk to them without the Army hearing it? Everything they say is being recorded.”

“Got it covered,” Willow said as she crumpled up her napkin and got up to throw it away. She went over to the table and sat down next to Angel. “When you get in there, you need to do exactly what that guy’s doing.” She pointed at the UPS man on the screen. “Walk to the door, ring the doorbell, get the signatures…”

“I get it,” Angel snapped. “But how do you know they’ll go along with this? They’re going to want an explanation.”

“I’m writing them one; we’ll tape it to the boxes.”

“Wait,” said Graham, “the boxes are real too? Are you sure you can mix it up like that? The Riley and Buffy in the program are computerized images. I don’t think it works that way.”

Willow tried to keep the exasperation out of her voice. “Angel – and whatever he’s wearing, carrying – goes digital when we send him in. This isn’t computers, it’s magic. It does things like that. I know it’s hard if you’re not used to it, but we don’t have time for the tutorial. You have to trust us.”

Graham reminded himself that these were the people who took down Adam; the ones Riley had trusted. He had to believe that they could do this. “O.k., o.k. I trust you,” Graham said. “What goes in the boxes?”

“Notebooks. So they can talk to each other without the Army listening in. My note will tell them what’s happening, but they’ll need to talk to each other too. And us.” She turned to Angel. “We’re counting on them being surprised. They’ve each seen enough weird things to be cautious when they see you. That’s when you hand the clipboard over and tell them to read the note. You have a second chance when you have them sign for the second box. But that’s all you get.”

“You’re sure they’ll be able to see me?” Angel asked.

“As sure as I can be. But if it makes you happier, you can ask them. Just not out loud; write it on the clipboard.” Angel nodded as Willow continued, “You’ll need to say as little as possible, I’ll mask what I can – but that will be hard enough. And stick to the motions on the video – no improv. That will be harder to cover up.”

=====================================================================

By the time light began to filter through the windows, they were as ready as they could possibly be. After seeing the Scoobies work through the night, Graham actually thought there was a chance this might work. This was the exact opposite of everything he was used to, but it was as smoothly run as any military operation he had been part of.

Willow took a deep breath. There, she thought as the image of the basement came up on the computer at Giles’ desk. They were going to need both his computer and her laptop to make it all work. She was so glad he hadn’t disconnected his phone lines yet. She had also been really happy he hadn’t packed up his computer until he reminded her that she had said she would do it and send it to him. Oops. “Xander, Giles – it’s ready.” They would sit at the computer and monitor the same image that the Army guys would be watching. She had split the screen so that one half would follow Riley and Buffy, and one would show what Riley wrote on the laptop. At least that’s what she hoped it would do. She had come across that part of the program at about 4:15 a.m. and wasn’t positive she had read the files right. “Anya?”

“Ready.” Anya would do the teleportation spell and would be the anchor connecting Angel back to the world outside the computer.

Even with over 1300 years experience between the two of them, Angel wasn’t feeling confident. “Are you sure this is the only way? Maybe we should try getting to them through Riley’s laptop…”

“That would actually be really easy, but way too obvious; the Army guys would know immediately that something was wrong. They’ll probably figure out there’s a hacker pretty soon after we do it, but at least this way we buy some time,” said Willow.

Anything that would buy time was a good thing in Graham’s book. Right now they were concentrating on getting this message through. It had taken all night to figure out, but it wasn’t even the overall concern. That was to get Riley and Buffy out. And if figuring out how to send them a lousy note had taken all night, then making a plan to set them free was going to take a hell of a lot longer.

But first things first. At this point Graham was mostly just an observer. He’d be on the lookout for any red flags from the Army perspective and he’d be monitoring the medical readings that were linked to the VR program, but there wasn’t much else he could do. It was all up to Willow, Angel, and Anya. Maybe whatever Ripley planted would have some effect, but the Army guys didn’t know how unpredictable Riley and Buffy could be. Green and Ellis wanted to keep Riley alive, but they could only react. There was no margin for error here. Willow and Angel knew Buffy better than anyone. He hated to admit it, but they probably knew Riley better too, understood him more than even Graham did. They’d make sure the message got through; they were Riley’s best chance at survival. And right now, that was all Graham was asking for.

~~ End of Chapter 13 ~~

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