Author's Note: This story is currently syndicated on two sites: FanFiction -dot- net (/s/11338629) and tthfanfic -dot- org (/Story–31145). End Author's Note.

Chapter 2: Interpolation.

Buffy and Xander slowly stood up from the floor of the back room in Ethan's Costume Shoppe. Willow followed suit.

"Well that wasn't so bad," said Xander

"There's something different. I can't quite put my finger on it," said Buffy.

Willow was busy staring off into space and grinning madly.

"Hmm," said Xander. "Could it be that we're speaking in Marain?"

"No," said Buffy, "that doesn't feel different at all. I feel more… mature, I guess?"

"Well, Culture-us were older. Except for Ship. Willow, are you okay?"

"Oh yes," said Willow. "Wow. Absolutely." Her grin broadened.

"Um, Willow?" asked Buffy.

"This is so cool," said Willow. Her face turned serious again. "Don't be confused by my enthusiasm. I'm still here 100%. I've learned so much. It took me seconds to process everything, finish unifying myself, and be satisfied that I had passed various safety checks I had set. Seconds!" This, of course, was a sweeping generalization. One of the many details that Willow did not bring up, for example, was that her ability to kill with her effectors had been unblocked. This was a promising sign — maybe the spell had already passed for the ship and she wouldn't be destroyed after all — but mentioning it would have struck the wrong tone. She continued, "Over the next few days and years, you can expect to come to understand things about yourself that you never did in either life. I certainly did."

"On second thought, I have a headache," said Xander. "Why do I have a headache?"

"Except for your cognitive architecture, you've mostly gone back to your pre-spell biology, and there's obviously some strain. Don't worry. We can get that fixed real quick. In the meanwhile, have this!" A silvery sphere snapped into existence above Willow's hand only to vanish, leaving behind two vials, which Willow deftly caught. She handed one to Xander, who was blinking and looked mildly startled.

"That was a Displacement? I barely saw a flash. Wow, these eyes are terrible," he said. "Thanks."

Willow handed the other vial to Buffy, who gratefully quaffed it.

"Okay, now what?" asked Buffy.

Willow responded, "I think we should return to the ship. Everyone okay with Displacing?"

The group appeared in the forward observation lounge. The ship had left everything where it had been when it was brought into the universe. Pillows and cushions were strewn about, as though people had just vacated them for a moment and would be returning soon. Unfinished drinks sat on tables, countertops, and floating trays. Some lay where they had fallen to the floor, intact but with contents spilled; the ship had not caught them. Empty clothes littered the furniture and the floor. The space was completely silent.

The view showed Earth. The glowing planet and its environs took up the entire forward wall, which acted as a perfect window. Its presence made things somewhat better.

Willow made her way to her customary chair near the forward starboard corner. It was a big comfy red armchair that looked back towards the center of the space, with some other furniture conveniently nearby. The crew had jokingly called it her 'throne.' Her single avatar usually hung out there; if you wanted to chat with Willo rather than a disembodied voice, that's where you'd look first. Various members of the crew had a tradition of sitting in the armchair when Willo wasn't using it, and humorously pretending to be the ship.

Buffy and Xander recognized the clothes currently on the chair as belonging to Revlann, a good friend and sometimes lover to both. Rev had had red hair of a shade similar to Willo's, and most of the crew had agreed that Rev's impression of the Secretly Awesome was the best. Willow stood to the right of the chair, softly petting Rev's remains.

Buffy spoke quietly. "Ethan Rayne will pay for this." She knew intellectually that Ethan didn't kill her shipmates per se, but it was very hard to accept that fully and move forward. Rev's scent was still there. Buffy knew she would likely never smell it again.

Willow, on the other hand, was a Mind. Calmly, she responded with a precise question whose meaning eludes idiomatic English translation, but which roughly means, "Why?" The literal meaning went something like, "Please honorable-friend: Motivated-by what-aspect of this?" It was a traditional form, an invitation to thoughtful discourse, warm and elegant in the Marain.

Willow's thoughtful and earnest demeanor in that moment brought Buffy back to her days as Willo's student at Grelal. She saw her shy friend from Sunnydale in the tutorial room of her memory, her teacher, smiling, deeply alive. It was uncanny. Her anger broke, and Buffy started sobbing.

"Shh, shh. I'm here. It's going to be okay," murmured Willow, now holding her.

Xander, feeling out of place, had walked over to the viewing wall and leaned into it, looking out at the planet below.

In the library of Sunnydale High School, Rupert Giles was peering closely at an illustration in one of the Watchers' Diaries. There had been some faint noise earlier in the evening, but Giles had dismissed it as Halloween buffoonery.

"Giles?" said Angel.

"Gyyahh!" shouted Giles, knocking over his chair as he stood up, then tripping and falling over with it as it clattered to the ground. He picked himself, his chair, and his book off the floor, then belatedly adopted a fighting stance. It took him a few moments of aggressive readiness-fu before he realized that he was facing Angel. "Oh, hello," said Giles awkwardly. He straightened his glasses and brushed himself off with embarrassment.

"Hi," said Angel.

Giles waited for Angel to continue.

Angel stood there patiently, serious but with a very faint smile.

Eventually Giles squinted. "Can I help you?"

"The town's been overrun with monsters and fictional characters. I can't find Buffy."

"Alright, I'm sure that — did you say fictional characters?"

"Darth Vader's all over the place, keeps on attacking me. Ran into Captain Picard right outside the school. Cool guy, had a real phaser. Wonder if my lightsaber would have blocked it."

"Your lightsaber."

"Yeah," said Angel, drawing it from inside his coat and pressing the button to light it. A telescoping red plastic tube extended from the hilt. Not looking at the toy, Angel raised an eyebrow at Giles.

"Well," said Giles, trying to smile politely, "it's, it's a nice color. Matches your shirt."

"I picked it up from my second Darth Vader. It's much quieter than in the movies." Angel gave the sword a few demonstrative swings, then frowned and looked it. The balance was way off, and each swing had caused a speaker in the hilt to crackle out a loud, cheesy sound effect.

"Huh," said Angel, after a pause.

"Yes, quite."

Angel's frown grew deeper. After a moment of thought, he retracted the plastic blade, turned around, and walked out the door.

"Where are you going?" asked Giles, hurrying to follow.

"To test a theory."

As Willow comforted her, Buffy's thoughts turned to the past. Buffy (or rather, Buffi, though this distinction was beginning to wear thin on her) had had an unusual childhood in the Culture. Her mother, Jois Telre, was a noted art critic and curator of the Brohn gallery (which doubled as her home) in Estuary City, Silf Plate, Gdem Orbital. Buffy had loved her mother very much, but had had little interest in the fine arts, which were the focus of her extended community, so at the age of eight, she left Brohn and took an underside transit car to the center of Grelal University. (This course of action was not as absurd in the Culture as it would have been in more primitive civilizations. Among other things, even a child of eight would know there was nothing worth being afraid of on a Culture Orbital, and a Culture 'university' was responsible, in some form, for much more than the final stages of education.)

Grelal was on the farside of the Orbital, on University Plate, which had the distinction of hosting not one, but two Saged universities. Grelal and its friendly rival Durn had existed in various forms for thousands of years. Each was among the earliest academic communities to receive a Sage, a Mind of its own. Durn and Grelal Sages were deeply respected, if slightly quirky. Both were known for their superb administration and mentorship, and for their offspring Minds, who were often influential in their own right.

Before her departure, Buffy would spend nights looking up at the glowing arc of the farside of the Orbital, imagining all the people she would meet there, and negotiating her 'emancipation' with the Orbital's Hub Mind. The Hub eventually acquiesced when it "fully appreciated" her determination, agreeing to convince Jois not to follow Buffy. And so Buffy had found herself standing alone on the famous glass mosaic floor of Grelal's University Hall.

University Hall was like an airlock, but without doors. You entered from the spin-left (so that the system's star was never directly in your eyes), passing through a long and wide but relatively low-ceilinged leafy arcade. To the right of the colonnade (that is, antispinward of it along the Orbital's rotation) was the edge of a cliff, then below a pristine beach and tropical waters. To the left (spinward) was a lush forest. Streams of water, technically distributaries of the Natural Sciences River, rushed past you on either side and converged at the end of the walk in a waterfall passing beneath the arch of a simple, fragrant wooden bridge, which took you into the Hall proper. The Hall itself was a single magnificent room. The floor was glass in two colors, scarlet and unstained, and through it you could see the clear blue pool of Lightswirl Lagoon, which the waterfall fed into and which the Hall's floor almost completely covered. The design of the glass floor (which was actually diamond, like most glass) followed an aperiodic tiling of simple shapes. Grelal had contrived this tiling so that the portion displayed in the Hall, when viewed from above (perhaps through the domed glass ceiling above), looked remarkably like the Milky Way Galaxy. Traditionally, you introduced yourself to the University on that floor, then exited through the opposite side of the building and took the path down to the central campus.

Buffy had stood in the center of University Hall's red transparent galaxy. Swallowing her anxiety, she had spoken to the empty room. "O great and noble Sage of Grelal," she had intoned, remembering the phrasing from her research, "I am curious and wish to learn."

Silence. Just as Buffy was beginning to feel foolish…

"Hah! You've been reading too much academic fantasy," the Sage had replied, its not-so-deep voice echoing through the vast, bright space, coming from everywhere at once. "Most people just say hi and walk right through. I haven't officially used the Rite of Matriculation in over a millennium. Too much gravitas. Did you know I came up with it only because some alien visiting scholars insisted they weren't students unless they underwent some ceremony?"

Buffy had been devastated. "But… but…"

"Hey, don't pout. We can still do it. Ready?" The voice had then cleared its 'throat' and adopted a suitably dramatic tone. "Grelal hears your plea. Who comes before me in search of knowledge and wisdom? Okay, how was that?"

Relieved that things were back on track, Buffy had drawn herself up proudly and ignored the question, for she was about to reveal her Chosen Name. "I am Gdem-Silfsa Buffi Tsal Telre dam Brohn."

The Sage had paused as if surprised, but Buffy, who had considered herself very clever, had known this was likely to be a mere gesture. Eight was a very young age to Choose one's Name, and though the Rite did not require the petitioner to reveal a Chosen Name, Buffy had boldly gone with "Tsal" — the Strong.

Grelal's eventual response had sounded slightly pleased. "You who call yourself 'Tsal,'" it had asked, creatively modifying the ritual's phrasing to acknowledge Buffy's personal milestone, "what would you study?"

Buffy had noted Grelal's alteration to the program with satisfaction, but, of course, had shown no sign because this was a serious, adult matter. As for her 'major,' Buffy had decided to go Undecided and spoke the traditional form for her choice: "I am ignorant as to what I do not know. I would submit to your wisdom for a time."

"Very well," the Sage had said. "Grelal accepts Gdem-Silfsa Buffi Tsal Telre dam Brohn as a student at large and admits her to all the rights and responsibilities thereto accorded. So noted on this fifty-ninth day in the year of this University the three-thousand thirty-seventh." A faint gong had sounded. The air had seemed to sparkle, and Buffy had felt a tingle down her spine. She was a student now. Deep breath.

Buffy had just begun to make for the second archway when Grelal had abruptly spoken again. "Hey, welcome! By the way, you should know that there aren't really any 'rights and responsibilities'; I just added that phrase because it sounded cool. It's like saying, 'You can ride all the purple behemothaurs in this room.'"

Frozen mid-step, Buffy had obligingly looked around. "But there aren't any purple behemothaurs in the room."

"Exactly. 'Vacuous truth,' it's called. I thought it served those pesky visiting scholars right." The University had chosen this moment to manifest its avatar, a poised older woman of medium height with chin-length grayish blond hair and a slightly goofy air. "Well, you're on your way to becoming a true scholar," the avatar had continued. "Congratulations! Come, there's someone I'd like you to meet." This had surprised Buffy, since she had thought Grelal's preference was to introduce people through the traditional Random University Encounter. The avatar had led Buffy to the steps outside and introduced her to Willow (or more properly, Willo, as she had been back then), who had appeared as an older redheaded girl. While Buffy was distracted, the University's avatar had snuck away.

"So Grelal says you're going to be my tutor. You look a bit young to be a professor. Are you really only, what, twelve years old?" Buffy had asked Willow.

"Want to hear a secret? I'm actually only one year old. My hull won't be finished for another five years or so. Grelal's been dawdling."

Buffy had been so startled by the first part of this response that, for a moment, she had failed to parse the implications of the second. But only for a moment. "You're a Mind?"

"Yep! Tell no one. I'm undercover." Willow had winked. "We can visit my berth in the University Shipyards if you don't believe me."

"Grelal wouldn't have set me up with you if you were a liar. I think."

"Minds don't lie."

"But you could be a lying human."

"I suppose I could be. What'cha going to do about that?"

"Shipyard!"

"You're on!" And with that, Buffy had found herself in the completed forward lounge of what would become the General Contact Unit Secretly Awesome, her plans to explore Grelal City completely forgotten. The space had been totally empty except for a pretty red armchair which Willow had promptly sunk into. Willow had looked comically small in that chair, her poise undermined by her cheerfully swinging legs. The view behind Willow had shown the underside of University Plate, complete with transit lines and stations, far denser than the usual Plate, and hundreds of other ships under construction. Willow had grinned at Buffy, and another armchair had appeared, this one a rich dark blue, along with a table full of delicious-looking snacks.

Buffy had started to smile. "I like you, Ship."

"Thank you! I like myself too. Stare at the view all you like, but don't forget to eat. Also, please call me Willo; I'm not a ship yet."

"Okay, Willo. Am I going to live here?"

"Maybe some day."

"Cool!"

"However, right now, this is the only finished room. Want to see the estate School has picked out for you on topside? I can bring the food."

"Sure!"

They had then Displaced to the grand sitting room of Felektr, Buffy's new home. Felektr was built into the side of a mountain which formed one of the walls of a great forested canyon — part of the Mathematics Canyons, Buffy would later learn. Much of the floor of the sitting room was transparent. It looked down on steep lush slopes and a white river far below.

Buffy had looked appreciatively around the richly appointed, cavernous room, then turned back to Willow. "So what are we going to study?"

"University thought we should start off with some basic philosophy, psychology, economics, mathematics, and computing. Which do you want to go with first?"

"Can we study wars? They're interesting."

"Yes, we can study war. But if you want to understand it, you'll need to learn some ground material. Psychology and economics to start?"

"Okay. But first, food!"

The food had reappeared.

Buffy had not realized at the time that her interest in (and, as it soon became apparent, intuitive grasp of) violent conflict was unusual for a citizen of the hedonistic, peace-loving Culture: some citizens might play at violence, in games and simulations with no consequences and little pain, but the real thing would horrify and disgust them. She had realized it was unusual for her to be a part of the maiden voyage of the GCU five years later, but most of the ship's crew had been unusually young, if not as young as she.

Although it eschewed almost all recognizable forms of structured, centralized government, the Culture did maintain an official diplomatic corps (and in time of war, an official military), which went by the name of 'Contact.' Contact's philosophy was to intervene in other civilizations to maximize good whenever statistically justified. Being in Contact was very prestigious. Admittance was one of the few scarcities left in the Culture. Spots on General Contact Units like the Secretly Awesome (which were among the Culture's smaller ships and served as scouts, surveyors, and intervention-implementors), for example, were very coveted. Contact took only the best, and it made most of them wait for many decades.

Buffy's thrill at apparently joining Contact had blinded her to several details (no one had actually referred to her as a member of Contact until much later, her involvement in missions had been negligible until shortly before then, and thereafter, the missions the ship did were suspiciously lightweight). She had assumed her spot on board was merely part and parcel of being the ship's student. Why she was the ship's student was a question she had never thought to ask when she was little. By the time she was old enough to be suspicious, she had gotten used to it.

Buffy's memories from her other life now disrupted this steady-state. As the Slayer, Sunnydale-Buffy had learned to be wary. After her calling at the age of fourteen, authority figures, unable or unwilling to acknowledge paranormal forces no matter the evidence, would blame her for the very things she was working to prevent. Her adversity was invisible to them, so they were unable to adjust their expectations for her in her normal life. Why did she fail that math test? Why was she out all night? Was that a black eye? Why did she burn down that gym? Her frustration and cynicism were clearly the mark of a troubled child. She got into fights too much (especially for a girl, it went unsaid). Once, Buffy had tried to come clean to her mother, whom she loved deeply, about her responsibilities as Slayer. Joyce had her committed to a mental institution.

Culture-Buffy, though analytical and fascinated by violence, had not been cynical. Her mother had understood and accepted her (partly because of the Minds, she now suspected), and they had kept a friendly correspondence. Her society had not failed her. It had seen her strengths: that she was resolute, that the suffering of others moved but did not paralyze her, that she could triumph under heavy pressure. It had set out to strengthen her further, gently and affirmatively, over the span of many decades.

Buffy was both of her selves now. Neither of her past selves had been as fully her, as fully real. The clothes of most of her friends surrounded her, but she was whole. It hurt. It felt right.

Having finished her rumination, Buffy turned to Willow. "Ship?" she asked. It was a form of address she had rarely used with the Secretly Awesome before — her habit of calling the ship by its avatar's name dated back to Willo's request that she do so at their first meeting, long before the ship had chosen the name "Secretly Awesome" — so it was especially odd for her to use it now. "Ship" wasn't normally a formal style of address, but in this moment, it became one.

Willow gave no indication that she noticed this formality. Softly, she responded, "Hey. Are you feeling better?"

"Ship, why was I your student? I mean, you had only one avatar, and you spent so much of its time teaching me. Why was I so young when I was admitted to Contact? I wasn't an esteemed professor like Xander was."

"You're selling yourself short. Your work might not have been popular with the general public, but you had many admirers in high places."

"Like Special Circumstances?" asked Buffy contemptuously.

"Like me."

Special Circumstances was the intelligence and special operations division of Contact. Most of its human agents were drawn from other civilizations. They joined for various reasons: perhaps because they enjoyed it, perhaps because they were being paid, but most commonly because they had come to believe in the Culture and wanted to do good.

On the one hand, SCers were swashbuckling heroes, celebrated throughout (most of) the Culture as James Bond-like figures. On the other hand, the job sometimes required them to perform atrocities. Only occasionally did a person born to the Culture have the right disposition for the job.

Buffy was surprisingly calm. "Were you always an SC Mind?"

"I participated in SC discussions from a young age, yeah. I was all shy about it at first, posting messages like 'it would be really neat if this happened' or 'check out this statistical analysis' to various Contact discussion groups. Grelal caught on pretty quickly and introduced me to some of its SC think-tanks. After a few years, I was reasonably respected in the larger community despite my age and shorter list of accomplishments." Willow paused. "Hey, I even put 'secret' in my name. I thought it was pretty obvious."

"Your obvious is not my obvious. I thought the name was just a statement about your personality — shy and nerdy, but deep inside really cool and wonderful? — not a tacit admission of some sort of alter ego," said Buffy, "Was your personality just a cover?"

Willow frowned. "No. This is who I am."

Minds never utter falsehoods.

"I feel like a jerk now," said Buffy, genuinely ashamed.

"Well — you should!" responded Willow. Her exaggeratedly indignant tone (a Willow classic) was probably mocking.

"I'm sorry."

"…hug?" asked Willow.

"Hug."

They hugged.

"Wils, what are we going to do with Ethan?" asked Buffy.

"Let's worry about that after we've secured ourselves a new home, okay?"

"Alright. I can do that. Shall we call Xander back?"

Angel and Giles exited through the school's front doors. On the sidewalk in front of them was a high-school-age boy dressed in a shabby TNG-era Starfleet captain's uniform, rubbing his temples. Angel looked at his lightsaber, then looked back at the boy. This must have been the Captain Picard he had spoken to earlier.

"Hey kid," said Angel.

The kid peered at him dazedly. "Uh, it's Angel, right?"

Well that was disturbing. "Have we met?" tried Angel.

"Yeah, back when I was Captain Picard a few minutes ago. You do remember that, right? Don't go claiming this is yet another gas leak, like everyone else in the town does when something crazy happens."

Angel said nothing.

"Mr. Angel, I remember Picard's whole life. I can also now speak French. You'll need to think of a better cover story."

Apparently Giles thought this was a good moment to stammer. "Yes, er, that's… what happened was —"

"Disturbing and deeply unethical," said the kid. "I'm Jonathan Levinson, by the way. Mr. Giles, I'm glad you're here. You'll be looking for the culprit then? I don't know how much help I can be. I'm still somewhat out of sorts."

"Well, as a naturally curious gentleman, I of course —"

"Don't worry, Mr. Giles. I'm familiar with some of the work your 'library group' has done, and I'm very grateful. I wish I'd had that kind of courage in the past. Thank you."

"Er, you're very welcome, and… how did you…?"

"We appreciate it," said Angel. "Jonathan, do you remember where you got your costume from?"

"A friendly British fellow named Ethan Rayne," said Jon, causing Giles to go completely still. "He opened a new costume shop in town recently. Here's the address."

Giles ran off as soon as Jon had finished, with Angel sedately trailing along.

"Glad to have been of assistance," called Jonathan after them.

Buffy and Willow both turned to look at Xander, who was staring blankly at the viewscreen.

"He's been doing research on his neural lace — yeah, apparently the laces counted as 'cognitive architecture,' so they stayed after the spell ended. I'll signal him," said Willow.

~ Xander?

Xander blinked and walked back to Buffy and Willow, who were still standing awkwardly next to the furniture and the empty clothes.

"All done?" asked Xander aloud.

"Yep," said Buffy, popping the 'p.' "Find anything interesting?"

"Yeah, I was exploring Ship's data on the differences between this Earth and the other one. Some weird stuff is going on here."

"Let me guess," said Buffy. "Demons? Magic? Slayer?"

"Actually, those things have had surprisingly little effect on Earth's history and development, which makes no sense whatsoever. But I'm not a philosopher, so I'll have to leave that to you guys to figure out."

"So what's different?" asked Buffy. (Willow was content to lean against her armchair and listen, since she had already conducted this analysis.)

"My first focus was on economics and publicly known history. No change, except for some minor stuff involving the city of Sunnydale, which was there known as 'Santa Barbara' and was a much nicer place."

"Weird."

"Then I moved on to Earth's media output. Very little change. Iain Banks did exist as a writer in the Culture universe but his Culture novels, and only his Culture novels, did not. This is deeply weird, since everyone here agrees that creating the Culture was critical to the development of his worldview, and that worldview informed many of his other novels, which existed without change in the Culture universe. Ship even noted his sympathy to our ideals and marked him as a possible point of Contact.

"Yeah, so — again, totally not a philosopher," continued Xander " — but it seems pretty intuitive to me from these data that the Culture universe is unlikely to have 'existed' 'for real.' Once we know details from here, their absence from the other universe begins to look like a shoddy editing job. I think the spell simply invented our backstories and this ship and stuff, making as few changes to Earth's history as possible. Not sure why our physics still seems to work. How am I doing?"

Buffy nodded. "Pretty well. Great emotional control. You get a perfect 3."

"Uh, let me just say you have no idea what my emotions are like right now. At all. (No, not you, Ship, I know you can guess.) I was asking about my interpretation of the data."

"Oh, that," Buffy responded. "Yeah, I'd say that's a valid inference. Sound too, if Willow's data is to be trusted, and I think it is. Unless you subscribe to mathematical realism. Do you subscribe to mathematical realism?"

"Uh… I'm going to go with 'no'? I can't say I've thought about it that much."

"Good answer." (Willow tsk'd at this.) "Do go on."

"The other change involves this guy called 'Daniel Jackson.' He's in his early thirties right now. In the other world, he's a respected archeologist, linguist, and anthropologist with tenure at Yale in all three fields. He teaches a very popular course entitled The History of the World's Peoples."

"Impressive. And here?"

"Here, in 1992, he publishes a book named The Truth about the Pyramids. What is 'The Truth about the Pyramids,' you ask? Apparently, according to Mr. Jackson, the Pyramids were landing sites for alien spaceships. The book sells many copies and makes Mr. Jackson rich. The academic community dismisses Mr. Jackson as a charlatan. He drops off the public radar, but according to Ship's data, currently receives a rather large paycheck from the U.S. Air Force, where he works as a social scientist for a 'deep space radar telemetry' project. Gosh, I wonder what that could mean."

"It's a great cover story," said Buffy sagely. "Nobody would ever believe that a social scientist who is known for his work on aliens could possibly be doing work on aliens, especially not when his supposed project has to do with 'deep space.' I'll have to keep it in mind for my first Special Circumstances mission. Yay."

"Good idea. By the way, guess what? This 'deep space radar telemetry' operates out of a military installation under Cheyenne Mountain where Ship has detected a hyperspace signature."

"No! You don't mean… Daniel Jackson is doing magic?"

"Uh, no. Daniel Jackson is doing wormholes."

"Ew."

"Huh? He's… oh. Um. I mean, he's traveling though wormholes. Created by this big ancient ring-shaped device they call 'the Stargate'" — Xander pronounced the phrase in English and used air-quotes — "made out of a heretofore unseen material. The very best and most interesting kind of material, wouldn't you agree? I wonder what we can learn."

Buffy frowned. "Maybe. As long as the heretofore unseen material doesn't blow up on us or turn out to contain the mind of an evil ancient god. Willow, do we have to worry about evil ancient gods today?"

"Probably not today," said Willow cheerily. "Unless it's the God of Wormhole-Related Transportation Delays or something."

Xander tried to act out a shudder, but failed.

"So," said Buffy. "I noticed we haven't said anything about what's on the other side of those wormholes."

"That's right," said Willow.

"Why?" asked Buffy.

"Eh," said Willow. "I had hoped to discuss it after you got some sleep. It would also be good for you to get your biological enhancements. Not a big deal, and probably not a threat to us, but you won't like it. We can't fix the galaxy if we're not in top shape ourselves."

"Really."

"Fine. I've given you access to my findings. If you don't agree with me, go ahead and read them. But I'd advise against it. It's something we should discuss together."

Xander decided to break the awkward silence. "Hey guys? Who named it 'the Stargate' anyway? A civilian? Because I'm noticing a serious lack of acronymage. Get it? Because the US Military, they like acronyms, and, uh, yeah."

"You know, I'm so very glad I didn't go to Durn," said Buffy. "Just look at its 'most promising young scholar.'"

"Geez, sorry. I was just trying to cheer everyone up!"

The mood in Giles' clunky old car was grim as the car sped through deserted streets towards Ethan's Costume Shoppe.

"He's probably long fled by now," said Giles. "But we can hope. I'd really like to smash his face in."

"History?" asked Angel.

"We were friends during our rebellious youth. Ethan never grew up. Started worshiping Janus."

Angel had done bad in his past too, so he wasn't very perturbed by Giles' admission. "Janus," he prompted.

"Roman god. Time and change. At best an ambiguous figure. The other gods tended to view him as a potential troublemaker or loose cannon."

"You don't think…?"

"Tonight? It would make sense."

They drove in silence for a bit longer.

"Hey," asked Angel, "Why do you think the spell ended when it did?"

"I'm not sure."

"Wouldn't midnight or dawn be a more typical time?"

"You're right. I think someone may have gotten there first."

"Buffy?" asked Angel.

"Well if it was she, she was successful. That's good. Don't worry, she has to be fine. I don't know what I'd do if I lost her."

Angel was stoically silent for a time. Then, "Drive faster."

"Alright." said Xander. "Whatever. What about Sunnydale?"

"Sunnydale is seriously messed up," said Buffy. "How many conspiracies are there to prevent people from realizing it?"

"Several," said Willow. "The Watcher's Council is running one, though to their credit it's mostly about ensuring the Slayer can operate without interference. Then there's the federal government, which is working to maintain an information quarantine around the town. They want to prevent a nationwide panic, which is understandable. They're also sponsoring some moderately questionable research under the campus of UC Sunnydale since they really hate being powerless. The municipal government is running a third conspiracy, this one to keep the population and the federal government complacent without changing much. The mayor is almost certainly evil. Evidence suggests that he was responsible for organizing several spells to enhance the Hellmouth over the past century, making the town more attractive to vampires and demons and the populace more forgetful."

"The mayor? But he was so friendly and likable and I had a crush on him in seventh grade," said Buffy, pouting. "Wow, he must be very talented."

"Buffy," said Xander, "you weren't in Sunnydale in seventh grade."

"My old town hosted a statewide Mayors' Conference. We each had to interview one of the mayors for a school project. He was mine."

"Weird," said Xander. "Anyway, he must be a skilled actor to put on such a credible performance."

"Actually, I think his commitment to civic responsibility and family values and so on is genuine," explained Willow. "He's focused on that stuff far more than he had to. His evil comes solely from a place of self-interest, not also from a place of enjoying the suffering of others, weird as that may be for a Sunnydale villain."

"Can we abduct him and replace him with an identical dead body?" asked Buffy. "Maybe I'll teach him a lesson or two."

"I want to secure our position before we do anything like that," said Willow. "We already have to contend with the threat of Ethan somehow waking up and causing trouble for us. Another 'guest' would be even more risk. I'd like us to think of the mayor as more of a long-term problem."

"Why not just kill him?" asked Xander. "I know it's not preferable, but we — I mean Contact — do that if necessary, right?"

Contact's usual policy for dealing with bad guys in civilizations that were not aware of the greater Galactic community (so-called "uncontacted civilizations") was to fake their death and abduct them. An abductee would live out their life in comfort on a Culture Orbital, under watch and unable to harm anyone further. If you did this to someone in a contacted civilization, the civilization would find out eventually, so the viability of the technique depended on the predicted response. Sometimes, to send the right message, especially to those who thought they could mess with the Culture, you simply had to kill. Also, in very rare cases involving uncontacted civilizations, death-faking, abduction, or containment was unfeasible. Death was an option there too.

"If we do kill the mayor, I'm concerned his soul will go to the forces of evil he bargained with. Infinite torture… is not something I'm very willing to be complicit in," said Willow.

"Just playing the devil's advocate here:" said Xander (the idiomatic Marain phrase, of course, did not make reference to a 'devil,' but Xander chose to use a direct translation of the English), "is that our problem?"

"Xander, everything is our problem," chided Willow, ignoring the joke.

"I know," said Xander. "But the mayor, if what you said is true, has probably sent multiple people to infinite torture over the years. No, I'm not talking about retributive justice here," Xander preempted. "I'm talking about commitment strategy. On our Earth, a Big Bad knows by way of cultural norms that they're fair game for the Forces of Good. When he made his deals with Evil, Mayor Wilkins would have had a reasonable expectation that he could be killed at any time by the good guys, whoever they might be. We have a responsibility to follow through on that expectation. If the good guys don't doggedly and brutally pursue the defeat of the bad, the bad guys will start to think, 'Gee, those good guys aren't really serious about the whole stopping-evil thing,' and they'll be emboldened. That's bad."

"Well, the ethical calculus is more nuanced than that," said Willow (here Buffy was nodding), "but your argument describes an aspect of it." (Buffy nodded again, more firmly.)

"What about Spike and Drusilla? They don't have souls," said Xander. "Supposedly."

"Ideally, we'd find some way to restore their souls," said Buffy. "If not, Willow can just Displace some wood into their hearts."

"I like that plan," said Xander. "It's a good plan. Now what about Giles?"

"I feel kind of guilty, but I don't know if we can safely include him," responded Buffy. "I mean, he's done nothing but good by us in the past year, but how much do we really know about his history, or about that 'Watcher's Council' of his?"

"Apparently he was once friends with Ethan Rayne," said Willow. "During their 'rebellious youth.'"

"Really," said Xander. "What did they do, drink coffee and contemplate going to Cambridge?"

"He didn't say, and Angel didn't ask," explained Willow. "This was about five minutes ago. They're in a car, on their way to Ethan's. I started tracking them shortly after the spell ended." Willow gestured and a street map of Sunnydale appeared in the giant window (which was actually a holographic display), covering the part of the orbital view closest to them. The map was flat and 'positioned' depthwise so that it appeared to be in the plane of the window, as though someone had lumenescently painted it onto the wall. A glowing red dot showed the position of the vehicle, with a red line showing its route so far. Ethan's Costume Shoppe was outlined in metallic blue.

"They're almost there," said Buffy.

"You take the back," said Giles "I'll wait 30 seconds."

"Make it 15," said Angel.

"Very well." Giles looked at his watch.

Behind the glass door, a handwritten "Sorry, we're closed" sign hung. "Be back soon," it promised, before stating store hours. The sign was neat, orderly, and disturbingly friendly. Giles contemplated using force against the door, but eventually, he just picked the lock and went in.

"He can pick locks?" asked Buffy.

"Apparently so," said Xander.

"He never told me he could pick locks," grumbled Buffy.

The map from before had been replaced by an in-holo'd display. Willow was artfully switching camera angles and manipulating the view, showing Giles striding angrily through the store and pulling aside the back curtain to reveal… an empty room.

"Damn," said Giles.

Willow cut to Angel, who had been patiently waiting outside the back door. He must have heard Giles' exclamation with his keen vampire senses, but the back door was locked.

"Well," said Xander, "it seems not everyone can be as skilled as our Watcher friend."

Angel kicked down the door.

Buffy smirked.

Angel entered the back room, brushing some plaster flakes off his leather jacket with quiet dignity.

"Come on!" complained Xander. "How does he always manage to look so deep and brooding? He just kicked down a door! Can't he look macho and intense?"

"But he does look macho and intense," said Buffy primly.

Xander scowled.

"Anything?" asked Giles.

"No. Door was locked. No tracks."

"If he did a ritual in here, he must have cleaned up meticulously. I mean, there's no sand or wax on the floor or any other sign."

Angel sniffed, then stiffened. "I smell blood. Recent."

"What?" said Willow. "I purged the whole area of incriminating evidence."

"Maybe it's a mystical vampire thing that has nothing to do with actual smell," said Buffy. "Wait, haven't you read all of Giles' books by now?"

"No," replied Willow. "I'm worried about information hazard. The knowledge I do have strongly suggests that reading too much of the wrong texts can corrupt you. Also, remember Moloch from last year?"

"I thought we agreed never to discuss that again," reminded Xander.

Angel tensely followed the scent to the wall, then along the wall down to the ground. "It's very strong. It should be right there." Angel touched his fingers to the wall then sniffed them. Nothing.

"Well, there are, er, spells, to clean up blood," said Giles, slightly unnerved. Maybe it was the blood, or maybe it was the change in Angel's body language caused by the blood.

"No. That would have gotten rid of the scent."

Angel started pacing. Then he stopped. "Technology."

"What?"

(Buffy unconsciously licked her lips and leaned towards the display.)

"Technology. If my lightsaber worked…"

"…then one or more of the people under the spell might have been able to clean up the blood with their own gizmos," finished Giles. "But that's absurd! You're suggesting that a fictional character realized he or she was fictional and was able to calmly deduce from that that Ethan was responsible? How does that…? And then our hypothetical character acted not to preserve him- or herself but to relinquish his or her body to its original inhabitant?"

"Buffy. What did she dress up as?"

Giles took a few breaths to calm himself down. "Angel, look, I know you care about Buffy, and I want to see her safe as much as you do. But there's no logical reason —"

"I know. What did she dress up as?"

Giles sighed. "She didn't. Jenny said she and her friends were wearing their normal clothes and claiming to be undercover operatives of some sort from something called 'the Civilization.' No, maybe 'the Culture,' I think. Some science fiction thing."

"The Culture?" Angel raised his eyebrows very high.

("Angel knows about the Culture?" asked Xander, incredulous.)

"Yes, that was it; she wouldn't stop talking about it. It was their excuse to Snyder for not having dressed up. I thought it was outrageously cheeky and well done."

"Then they could have done this."

"They weren't even in costume."

"Maybe they were."

"Under their clothes? Why would they do that?"

"No. Their clothes were the costumes."

"Yes, that's what they told Snyder, but —"

"Was that their first plan?" asked Angel.

"I would think not. Presumably, they… I see. Could Ethan have…? The enchantment… No… unless it was a simple marking spell. That's it. He had to process everything in the store, so he would have made the procedure for each item very fast. And he had practice. Good lord. A bunch of kids come in a few hours before the big event — he wouldn't have been able to resist including them in his fun," reasoned Giles.

"With a Culture ship, they could have surveilled the entire town."

("Ooh, he's good," said Buffy. "I want to keep him. Willow, can I keep him?"

"Who am I to say no to such yumminess?" said Willow. "I may have to go down there myself if he keeps this up."

Xander was so not having this. "What, all a guy needs to do to get into your pants is succumb to the Conjunction Fallacy? How very sexy of Angel."

"Xander. Shut up.")

"I'll have to take your word for it. But why would they have a… spaceship?"

"I'm not sure." Angel glanced a the plastic lightsaber hilt he was still holding, then shook his head. He stopped to think.

("I took scans of all the tech in the town. You can make him a new lightsaber," said Willow to Buffy quietly.

Buffy grinned.

"Oh god," said Xander. "He doesn't need another phallus."

Buffy and Willow looked at him, appalled.

"Okay, forget I said anything.")

"Well," said Giles, "Jenny said that Willow was going as 'the Brain' of a spaceship, I think. I'm not quite sure what she meant precisely. Some sort of computer? More her kind of thing, I'm afraid."

"Willow, a Mind. That makes some sense… oh." Angel took a deep breath. "So. Why did the spell last so long?"

Giles wasn't sure what to make of that question. He felt a slight tingle of unease as Angel casually pivoted on his feet.

"It was mostly talking," answered Willow. "I wanted to make sure my friends were okay. Then I interrogated Ethan Rayne. Charming fellow."

Giles slowly turned around to face the same direction as Angel.

Willow grinned and waved energetically. "Hi!"