Buffybot Behind Bars
PAIRING: None
RATING: PG-13
FEEDBACK: Very welcome, to [email protected]
BETA: Miss Murchison - thanks!
SETTING: The summer before the start of season 6. Buffy is gone, Buffybot is doing her best to fill the gap.
DISCLAIMER: The only characters who belong to me are the ones you’ve never heard of before. Otherwise, I’m borrowing, and I promise to put them all back in good condition, and only slightly used...
Chapter 11: Plan X Takes Shape
Buffybot scraped her spoon around her pudding plate enthusiastically to catch the last drops of chocolate custard. She put the spoon in her mouth and sucked noisily.
“Well, well,” said Trixie. “Someone who likes prison food!”
Buffybot grinned at her, a big chocolatey smile painted around her lips, “this is fun!” she said happily.
Trixie looked down at Buffybot’s shirt, which was liberally splattered with gravy and custard. “Perhaps you ought to tuck your napkin into your shirt next time?” she said, “you seem to be a kinda messy eater.”
“Oh, I just need more practice,” said Buffybot, “Can I have more pudding?” She looked around hopefully.
“That’s it ‘til dinner I’m afraid,” said Trixie. Buffybot’s face fell.
“Here,” said Sal, pushing her plate across. “You can have mine - I’m not a big fan of the Sunnydale Women’s Penitentiary Chocolate Surprise. Especially not after I worked in the kitchens, and saw what the surprise was.”
“Ooh, thank you, Sal!” said Buffybot, and she dug in.
Trixie and Sal watched Buffybot happily inhaling chocolate custard. Trixie looked across at Sal, “I always thought you quite liked chocolate pudding, Sal? Sunnydale Women’s Penitentiary Surprise and all.”
Sal shrugged, a little sheepishly. “The kid likes eating...”
“Yeah, said Trixie pointedly, “and maybe you’re wondering what else she likes eating, hmm?”
“A girl can always wonder,” said Sal, “but I’m not playing any cards here - for one thing, she’s a sweetie, but she’s not operating with a full deck. She just needs someone to look out for her.”
“Well, well,” said Trixie after a pause, “you got a caring side. Who’d a thunk?” She laughed suddenly, and punched Sal’s arm. “Hey, Thumper - you gonna look after little orphan Bambi, huh?”
Buffybot lifted her dish and licked it out enthusiastically.
Trixie smiled wickedly at Sal and wiggled her tongue. She called across at Buffybot, “Say, honey, did some one drop you on your head when you were a baby?”
Buffybot looked up from her bowl, which was now disappointingly empty. There was a smudge of chocolate custard on her nose.
“No, I was never a baby,” she said, and then, oops! she remembered Willow’s phoned instructions. “That is, of course I was a baby, but I don’t remember it - because I was a baby and babies don’t remember things! I read that in a book.” Ooh, she thought proudly, I think I saved that one!
................
Xander and Willow had their heads together over the plan of Sunnydale Women’s Penitentiary and surrounding area. Tara and Anya perched on the desk beside them. Xander pointed with his extendible light pen at a grid reference in the top left hand corner.
“That’s the nearest we can get, without violating the perimeter. Do you think the signal will reach?”
Willow shrugged. “Sure. Theoretically, it should be able to reach from here, but the problem is her other systems tend to interfere with the signal, so I couldn’t make it reliable enough. Still, if we sent her a boosted signal directly phone to phone, we might just get through. I’m going to have to make an adaptation to our cell phone.”
“Whose cell phone?” said Tara, raising an eyebrow.
Willow looked up and caught Tara’s stern eye. “Your cell phone,” she said hurriedly. She tapped her fingers on the desk, her eyes drifting back to the screen. “But I'm just hoping it doesn’t jam up any of her other programs - the first time I tried it she started walking around in circles and bouncing off the furniture, singing ‘You're not the boss of me now, you're not the boss of me now, you're not the boss of me now, and you're not so big’ - endlessly, for hours.” Willow’s face took on a brooding look as she remembered the pain of it.
“Huh,” said Xander, distracted from the map for a moment. “Why They Might Be Giants? I’d expect her to like East 17 or some other bullshit boyband thing.”
“Warren,” said Willow darkly. “I’ve been trying my witchy utmost to root all the jerk related stuff out of her program, but she still knows all the words to Triangle Man and she still thinks baseball caps worn backwards are cool - he seems to have programed that one in right at the beginning. Of course, she also loves Steps - but that’s all her own lousy taste. I’ve been playing her some cool stuff, but the only one she really likes is Tori Amos going on about cheese and onion sandwiches - I guess that struck a chord with her.”
Tara grinned at Anya. “It’s kinda cute,” she said. “Bottie sings it in the morning when she’s packing Dawn’s lunch. She’s making up her own list of the things that she likes.” Anya stared stonily back - anyone who sang pop songs before breakfast was very far from cute in her opinion.
“Ugh! Tori Amos!“ said Xander. “Couldn’t you program her to like the good stuff?”
“I have enough trouble programing her to talk in complete sentences,” said Willow. “I’ve just pointed her at our CD and book collections, and hoped for the best. Right now she’s totally fixated on Tara’s girls boarding school stories, and the theme from Star Wars - don’t ask me why.” She switched back over to the official website, and started flicking aimlessly through the options again.
“I do hope she doesn’t start humming the Star Wars theme in there,” worried Tara. “It does get kinda annoying the third or fourth time through - especially when she’s doing all the sound effects - Zip! zap! you know.” She waved her arm vaguely.
“Yes I do know,” said Anya. “Only too well. Remind me why we’re trying to save her again?”
“To keep Dawn out of foster care - oh, and to fight evil.” said Xander. “Now, if this is going to work, we’ll need to know exactly where she is. It’s a mighty big desert out there.”
“We do know exactly where she is,” said Willow absently, “she has GPS - our gal’s never going to get lost in the dark.” She was still scrolling back and forth through the official website. “Whoah!” she said suddenly. She pushed back in her seat a little, and looked at the screen sideways. “Look at the baseball team coach, how scary is that? I think we solved the mystery of all that Sunnydale baseball team overachievement.” They crowded around the screen. There was a long reverent silence.
“That is not someone I would want to explain my failure to catch a sinking line drive to.” said Xander.
“Oh, phooey, said Anya impatiently, “You should’ve seen some of the demons I've met coaching school games over the years - real demons. It’s a popular profession for them. They’d eat her for breakfast, and anyone who hits below .250 for lunch. So, what’s GPS?”
“Global Positioning Software,” said Xander importantly. “It means we can track Buffybot to the nearest inch.” He looked suddenly doubtful, “or at least I think it does, anyway.”
“You can if you take the laptop,” said Willow. She shut the website reluctantly, and pressed a few more keys. A grid map materialised on the screen, with a little red dot just off centre.
They all looked in silence at the red dot, blinking gently in a sea of white and blue grid lines.
"Poor Buffybot," said Tara, “she looks awfully lonely there.”
Chapter 12: Mrs Danvers and Miss Camermeyer
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