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Chapter 3
Say “Hi” to Yourself For Me
Buffy stood in the entranceway to Flynn’s and blinked as if trying to dispel an illusion. But no, the pub wouldn’t go away. It was still there. Dark wood tables and chairs, cozy booths, a long teak bar topped with marble, pool tables …It was a bar and grill all right. And it was swinging. A small swing band was belting out a song about gin and bad mojo and fancy jaspers in their fancy threads; a small group of men and women were tossing darts with lethal accuracy at a dart board; a waitress threaded through the throng to deliver a tray of dark, frothy beer and a basket of hot wings; and two women were playing pool at one of the three tables for a not inconsiderable sum of money that a guy in a forties-period hat and suit appeared to be holding for them.
Buffy knew the women.
But it couldn’t be. Faith and Elisa McKenna, here? Of course. This was, after all, Flynn’s Cross Dimensional Bar and Grill, and seventy-five years in a parallel universe did not leave her unprepared for the likelihood of any number of alternate variations of people she knew.
She looked a question at Flynn and he shrugged, “You’re not the only one I’ve picked for this project. Just the best.”
“Well, you ladies can stand here until your proverbial cows come home, but I could go for a pint,” said Spike, making his way through the room toward the bar.
“Wait …” Buffy started to say but it was too late. She turned to Flynn, only to find him gone. She looked at Cordelia and shrugged. “I guess we might as well mingle and try to find out what’s going on here.”
“Life never gets boring with you, that’s for sure,” said Cordelia as they made their way over to the pool table.
As they crossed the pub, Buffy recognized other people: one Kendra, a second Faith, even to her surprise another Cordelia dressed in black leather and carrying a large revolver in a shoulder holster and a sword across her back. Almost everyone was armed, as a matter of fact. She didn’t recognize everyone, but one thing was clear: they all looked like they could take care of themselves.
The Faith playing pool with Elisa turned to look at them as they approached the table.
“Hey, it’s another B. An old one, too,” she said, a sly smile on her lips. She shared a conspiratorial glance with Elisa McKenna, who looked about thirty herself and none-too pleased with the young Slayer’s oblique jibe.
“We’re kind of new here,” said Buffy, letting Faith’s attitude pass. Faith’s people skills, apparently, were a fairly constant thing from reality to reality. “Is there something we should be doing?”
“Not interrupting our game would be a good start,” said Faith.
“Don’t let her get a rise out of you,” said Elisa. “She’s this way with all the new ones.”
“Girl’s gotta have some fun. Nothing else to do around here during the down time,” said Faith.
Elisa extended her hand, her impossibly blue eyes fixing Buffy with the same intense gaze that she remembered from her own universe’s Elisa Hunter / McKenna.
“Nice to meet you. Name’s Elisa. Elisa …”
“… McKenna,” finished Buffy, returning the handshake. “Or is it Hunter?”
“McKenna these days. I see we’ve met before.”
“A long time ago. In fact, part of me is you, courtesy of the Dark Hunter’s host engrams. I even named my daughter after you. But that was a long time ago.”
“A Dark Hunter and a Slayer? I’ve heard rumors that it’s happened in one or two realities, but this is the first time I’ve ever met an actual Dark Slayer. You’ll have to tell me all about myself sometime,” said Elisa, smiling the brilliant smile she showed to so very few.
“And we’ve added another Cordelia Chase to the roster, I see,” said Elisa, turning to Cordy.
“I’m kind of just along for the ride. I don’t do the whole killing bad guys thing,” said Cordelia.
“Oh, a normal Cordelia for a change,” said Faith. She cocked a thumb toward the leather-clad Cordy with the weaponry. “I thought maybe you were another one of her. I tell you, the Master gets lucky on some of these worlds and you never know what’s going to come of it.”
“What’s with Spike?” asked Elisa. “First time he’s ever been through these doors.”
“It’s complicated,” said Buffy. “Was Angel ensouled in your reality?”
Elisa nodded.
“He was a good lay, too,” said Faith.
Elisa nudged her hard with an elbow.
“What? He was,” protested an indignant Faith.
Buffy suppressed the urge to strangle the nymphomaniacal Slayer and continued with her explanation. “Well, in the world I just came from, Spike’s the same. In fact, due to some genetic and magical alterations, he’s probably more human being than vampire at this point. Except for that demon thing, of course.”
“Yeah, it sucks the way a demon ruins a perfectly good vampire,” said Faith. Buffy assumed it was meant sarcastically, but it was hard to tell with Faith — with any Faith, apparently.
Cordelia gave Buffy a relieved look that she hadn’t outed her.
“No, I mean it. He’s jake. At least I think he is. If he’s not, I’ll yank his leash so hard he’ll get whiplash,” said Buffy.
Faith shrugged. “Hey, whatever turns Flynn’s crank.”
“You won’t try to kill him, I hope. In my world you were a little … aggressive … when it came to your job. And when I say aggressive, I mean ‘borderline psychotic’.” said Buffy.
“No borderline about it in this case,” said Elisa, smirking.
Faith pantomimed a kiss in the direction of the former Dark Hunter and turned back to Buffy.
“Rule one,” said Faith, “is that Pubspace is a no-Slaying zone. You don’t get here without a written invitation from the Flynn-meister, so if it’s okay with him, none of us have a problem with it. We check old animosities at the door and save the aggression and attitude for the bad guys.”
“The aggression, anyway,” Elisa jabbed. “Asking Faith to suspend her sunny disposition is a little like expecting a straight answer from a politician: it’s always a mathematical possibility, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.”
Faith smiled at the former Dark Hunter with all the innocence of a pit viper. “Bite me.”
Somehow, the swing band had been replaced by four pale men in dark suits playing something very insistently industrial. Elisa frowned as vibration from the overamped bass caused a couple of the balls on the table to wander slightly across the green felt surface.
“Game called on account of bass,” said Faith just before her attention was taken by a new arrival.
“This should be interesting,” she said, leaning on her pool cue and nodding in the direction of the entrance.
The door was swinging closed behind another Buffy Summers, this one looking to be somewhere in her early twenties. As her double’s gaze swept the room, Buffy saw that her younger self was a bit worse for wear. A scar ran vertically from above her left eyebrow downward several inches, crossing the milky white orb of a long-useless eye. Her hair was cut short, and if there was an effort at styling involved, it was too subtle to detect. She wore jeans, a tee-shirt with the words “Mess with the best, die like the rest” printed on it, and a worn green fatigue jacket that hung open. A large sword in a scabbard was sheathed across her back, and a pump-action twelve gauge shotgun was slung from one shoulder.
“Buff, meet Buff,” said Faith. “Reigning bitch queen of the dead-pool.”
“Dead-pool?” asked Buffy over the music. Then the band’s pounding selection came to a percussive end and normal conversation once more became possible.
“Buffy Three Echo Foxtrot. Highest body count and successful mission rate of anyone here,” said Faith, nodding toward a slate tally board near the bar. It contained a list of names written in chalk, along with a score. At the top of the list was “Summers-3EF”. “That lady is one badass Slayer. Unless you’ve got some serious chops, don’t get in her face.”
Buffy watched as her alter-ego made her way across to the scoreboard and incremented her number. The bartender slid her a glass of what looked like whiskey while several patrons congratulated her and slapped her on the back.
“Read ’em and weep, boys,” Buffy could hear her tough-as-nails counterpart announce just before knocking back the entire glass of alcohol.
“Yo, blondie!” yelled Faith across the room.
The other Buffy turned her disturbingly mangled gaze on the four women at the pool table. She caught sight of her parallel reality self and started across to them, a fresh drink in hand.
Faith just smiled.
“Oh, I just gotta see this go down,” she said.
* * *
“Three, two, one … power to Fusion One,” announced Cade’s lead tech as he turned a key on the reactor control board.
Despite himself, Cade held his breath. He caught the lapse and forced himself to breathe more naturally. But there was no denying the importance of this test. If they couldn’t bring at least one of the facility’s fusion reactors on-line, there would be no way to get enough power to the wormhole generator to form the Einstein-Rosen bridge. Then everything would have been for naught, key or no key.
Everyone else in the large fusion plant control room also seemed to understand the gravity of the event, even if none of them knew Cade’s ultimate purpose.
“Magnetic confinement nominal,” said the tech. “Plasma temperature coming up on profile.”
An agonizing several minutes of silence followed, during which Cade did his level best to remain impassive, his hands clasped behind his back, his posture relaxed but far from casual. He was never casual.
The tech cleared his throat and said, “Coming up on ninety-five percent of breakeven temperature. Ninety seven …ninety nine … breakeven point. Colonel, we have fusion, sir. Fusion One is on-line.”
“Good job, son,” said Cade. Then he addressed the other technicians. “All of you, good job. Now we’ll see if the generator boys have their shit together so we can run a little test on our new wormhole toy.”
The smiles that greeted his statement were exactly what he was hoping for. Most people responded favorably to a little praise delivered in a congenial manner. It was good for morale. And what was good for morale was good for the mission, as long as it didn’t compromise discipline. Dealing with the fragile and petty egos of human beings was just another set of tactics that had to be learned, like logistics or battlefield maneuvers.
He didn’t have to enjoy it. He just had to know how to use it to his advantage.
* * *
“So, you’re the one, huh?” asked the younger Buffy, her hands planted on her hips. Her sightless eye was disconcerting in its vacant intensity.
“The one what?” asked Buffy with a defensive edge in her voice.
“The rumor mill had it you’d be along eventually. Going by the advance press, I thought we were getting Xena, Warrior Princess. You don’t look so tough.”
Buffy’s old streak of contrariness got the better of her, “You want to try me, little girl, be my guest.”
She certainly wasn’t about to be bullied by herself!
Her alternate self smiled broadly. “Ha! I like you. You remind me of me.”
Buffy relaxed. “What did you mean by my ‘advance press’?”
“Word has it you killed an avatar of the Elemental Abstract in a sword duel. That so?”
Buffy nodded.
“Well, just so happens that you and I are the only two people to ever pull that off in a one-on-one, steel-to-steel fight. Round here, that makes you instant elite. I did it fifteen years before you did, but hey, who’s counting? Yours had more sacrifices under his belt than mine anyway, so that evens things up in my book,” said the one-eyed Slayer. Then she winked her good eye at Faith and said, “It’ll be good to have some real competition in the dead-pool for a change.”
“Yeah, I got your competition right here, blondie,” said Faith to the accompaniment of a rather obscene, Madonna-esque gesture. But there was no rancor in her voice and everyone else seemed to take it as just friendly banter.
“Really, Faith. Green just isn’t your color,” said the younger Buffy. She turned back to her older counterpart. “Anyone show you ops yet?”
“We just got here,” said Buffy.
Buffy Three Echo Foxtrot downed her drink in one swallow and set the glass down on the pool table.
“C’mon then,” she said. “I’ve got to head over there and report in. You might as well see what it is we do here.”