Oh LeatherQueen...you know your dangling storylines VERY well m'dear...
Hang on... we are going for a RIDE...
Chapter 164: The Proverbial BeansThe sun cannot rise on the Hellmouth without the need for a white board and some dry-erase pens. I suppose I will have to suffice with hand motions and finger puppets….that's me...always the mother of invention.
I draw diagrams in the air… even do a small rendition of the event in the center of the room that ends up looking more like an interpretive dance than an explanation of how we are all in some kind of…..
“Cosmic waiting room?” Spike says from his newest spot near the back. He has a cigarette dangling from his pale, disbelieving smirk.
“ A quanta-temporal queue.” I say again. That’s what Pippa called it.
“ And what are we in queue to do?” Spike drawls…acting out his rough and tumble routine…but I’m clued in enough to see through that…the tougher he acts…the more frightened he is…
Right now he’s practically the coolest quivering bowl of Jell-O I’ve ever seen.
“ I don’t know.” I say.
“And why can we see them and they can’t see us?” Buffy asks.
“ Why can’t we see them?” Dawn asks at the same time.
“ What we’ve come up with is that the amulet is used to make copies only…so where do the copies come from? They come from several tiny fractions of time EARLIER…not even big enough to be called a millisecond…let’s just call it a quanta-second…When the amulet broke…it sent us all into different “slots” of time…”
Gosh…it made so much more sense an hour ago.
“ So what I’m not getting is the amulet…I mean…I never had that kind of service problem with MY amulet.” Anya says.
“ The profession of a vengeance is a lot more lucrative than a Gem Demon. Their amulets aren’t made from your top of the line gemstone…” Pru sites.
I repeat what Pru has said to the rest of the group.
“Are you saying that Gem Demons are making copies of themselves on the Cubic Zircona of the amulet world?” Anya says…disgusted and frightened by the thought of such cheapness being exploited in the demon ranks.
“ Right…a class C gem that probably isn’t manufactured to make more that six or so original copies at a time…” I say.
“ Six…that doesn’t sound so bad.” Xander says… “ I mean…how many of them did you say were made this time? Four? So where’s the problem?”
“ The problem is that when Pru and Buffy grabbed the amulet at the same time…it overloaded and probably tried to make another version of each of them…at the same time…that part’s a little shady…what we do know…is that it broke. And so far none of us have been able to pick it up.”
“ Okay…so we are all stuck in mini-groves in time…and you can see all of us…but we can only see a select number of the people in the room….”
“ Right…we think the queue it’s not so much set up in a linear way…as much as a ripple effect…a group of rings and the amulet being the center and some of us are on separate rings while others are on the same ring but a few quanta-seconds apart…which means we can see each other…but the image we are seeing is either a quanta-second ahead…or behind our own…”
Danger is in the corner, sleep mussed and scritching his puppy’s head…I think he wants to scratch his own head in light confusion…
“ So…now we kind of get what’s going on…so I’m sure you guys have talked over ways to FIX this…right?” He asks.
“ We talked.” I say…looking distractedly again in the direction of Willow, who doesn’t seem to want to come around and join the group discussion.
“ And…?” Spike prompts.
“ And we aren’t sure…but we think we’ll have to go to someone who knows about this kind of thing…”
“ A jeweler in Sunnydale who specializes in time altering gems? Good luck.” Xander scoffs.
“ No…someone with a little…MORE…experience than that…” I say…
“ Who?” The Serious ME asks…looking a little wary. In fact they all look particularly aware that I’m warming up to some BAD news…
“ As we see it, we have two choices…” I look from face to face in the room before dropping my gaze. “ Olivia…or…..or….Mother…..”
“ Oh… for the love of Lucy…!!!” Xander swoons, rolling his eyes.
“ There is NO way we are going to EITHER of those two!” Dawn stomps her little Dawnie foot. (At least some things don’t change)
“ I think both of those are decisions made in that thing called Haste…big haste…the kind of haste I don’t like to jump into…” Buffy says.
For some reason…they all seem to be morbidly afraid of the choices given. Not that I blame them.
“ I say we just stay like this…” Spike says reasonably. His cigarette burning brightly as he sucks the life out of it. “ Do I hear any seconds?”
“ Great choices, Tara…The Lion’s Den or the frying pan….just….GREAT…” Anya says…turning away from me so I can’t see how scared she really is…
Mother WAS a monumentally bad idea. But who knows more about Doppelgangers than the Queen of them?
“ You’re right…Mother was a bad idea.” I say out loud. “ We should ask Olivia’s help first.”
“ NO!!!” Everyone in the room seems to shout at the same time…
And then it strikes me…
They are more afraid of Olivia….than Mother…
“ Does anyone want to tell me what’s with the secrets and the unanimous screaming of terror?” I insist.
No one will look directly at me.
“ We…made a deal…” Xander murmurs, his shoulders drooping in guilt.
“ A kind of….not-so-smart deal…” Anya seconds.
“ With Olivia…” Buffy picks up her cue without missing a beat.
“ What were the terms?” I ask.
“ No terms…she just hasn’t come collecting what she wants…. yet..” Xander says.
“ I told them not to.” Danger pipes up.
“ What could she possibly want???” I ask…numbly wondering why they all look like death warmed over…
“ She wants the same thing she’s wanted since the first time we saw her, Tara.” Willow says her first words in an hour and everyone who can hear her…turns to watch as she reaches out to her left, and scoops up the amulet…turning it one way in her palm…and then the other…marveling the crack at its center.
“ She wants YOU.”
TBC…
" I mock you with my Monkey Pants!" - OZ
" You're NOT the source of me" - Buffy
" Tremble!" - Gacknar