Slayer Lost

Series departure point: What if Time in our dimension had moved faster, instead of slower, than Time in the demon dimension of the episode �Anne�?

The chirping of the cell phone on the desk was loud in the late-night quiet of the room. The sole occupant of the office looked at the offending machine over the top of the file folder she was holding. When the phone refused to melt under her ice-blue, slightly blood-shot glare, she sighed, took off her old-fashioned glasses, tiredly pinched the bridge of her nose and picked it up.

�This better be fuckin� good!,� she barked into the phone. She grinned in spite of herself. Whoever had called her, this late and on her private line, had probably expected the blast and was holding their phone well away from their ear. She had a well-earned reputation for being �the� baddest bad-ass of an infamously bad-assed police department and she intended to keep it.

�Chief, this is Branson,� responded the caller. Hearing the slight sputtering sound that indicated the beginning of one of her infamous rants, Branson hurried on before she could cut him off. �I�ve got a �Mulder� for you, ma�am.�

�Don�t call me �ma�am�, damn it!,� the Chief responded automatically. �Alright, Muffin,� she continued, grinning bigger now, �what�s the case?�

Branson groaned to himself. God, but he hated that nickname! The Chief was the only one who could still get away with using it. At least she never used it in front of other cops.

�OK, Chief, we have a 17 year-old Caucasian female, brown hair, green eyes, 5� 2� tall, 75 pounds, found unconscious and badly injured on Hollywood Boulevard last night. She�s currently being treated at UCLA Medical Center.�

�75 pounds, you say?,� said the Chief, her eyes widening and her voice tinged with disbelief.

�Yeah, Chief, I questioned it, too. I�ve seen her myself. The girl looks like they just let her out of Auschwitz. It�s unbelievable, but true. And it gets worse.�

�Go on, Branson,� said the woman, �command voice� now coloring her words. The time for levity was gone.

�Right,� Branson answered. He heard the change in the boss�s voice and his own took on the clipped, professional tones of the veteran investigator he was. �Besides extreme malnourishment and dehydration, she has two skull fractures, concussion, smashed right cheekbone, internal bleeding in the right eye, broken jaw, two cracked cervical vertebrae, broken right collarbone, seven broken ribs, punctured right lung, dislocated right shoulder, broken right arm, and a badly sprained right ankle.� His voice grew grimmer as he continued. �When found, she was nearly naked. Her only clothing was filthy rags. Her hair looked liked it had been hacked off with garden shears. She had welded steel shackles on her wrists with short lengths of chain still attached. Most of the skin on her back was gone �,� Branson paused to swallow the bile trying to rise into his throat, then almost shouted, �Jesus Christ, Kate, someone beat, raped and whipped this girl almost to death! Brutally, repeatedly, and, the doctors say, probably for months!�

�Calm down, Tom,� the Chief interjected. �This is LaLaLand � we both know this kind of shit happens. The girl�s still alive, then?�

�Yes, Chief,� Branson replied, his voice quieter. �Although the doctors say she should be dead from blood loss alone. They don�t know why she�s not.�

�Is she still unconscious? Have you identified her yet?�

�Boss, we took her prints as soon as the ER doctors got her halfway stabilized. They didn�t want to let us, but one of my men has a daughter the girl�s age and he threatened to arrest the lot of them if they didn�t back off and let us help her, too.� Branson grinned slightly as he recalled the scene. �We took some pictures, but the girl�s face is so battered I don�t think her own mother would recognize her.�

�Did you find out who she is?�

�Yeah, Chief,� Branson answered. �As soon as I saw the girl�s file, I called you. You always said you wanted to know about the real �Mulders� when they showed up.�

�Quit teasing and get on with it, Branson,� the Chief answered, her voice taking on a hint of her famous growl. �I�m too tired for much foreplay.�

Branson picked up the pace, knowing the Chief�s impatience with bullshit. �The girl was born here in LA. Her parents had her printed when she was a child, as part of the �National Missing and Kidnapped Children Campaign�. She was printed again when she was 15. Part of an arson investigation.�

�Arson?,� injected the Chief.

�Yeah. Someone torched a building at her high school here. No one was ever charged�

�Go on,� said the woman.

�Right. After the arson thing, her parents split up and the girl and her mother moved to Sunnydale. She built up quite a rep as a �tough girl� at her new school, had lots of run-ins with the school authorities and a few with the local cops. No arrests, though, until she was found in the school library, crouched over the body of a girl with a cut throat. She escaped custody before the local idiots even got her to their squad car.�

�OK, Tom,� the chief interrupted, all sympathy for the girl vanishing. �If the girl was wanted for suspicion of murder and fleeing arrest, there�s a warrant out on her. Put a guard on her until she�s released from the ICU, assuming she lives, then move her to the prison ward. And when she�s released by the doctors, get her in our lock-up so fast her head swims. No screw-ups, hear me? Have you gotten the warrant from Sunnydale yet?�

�No, Chief, we haven�t. She was cleared of the murder charge, which made the fleeing charge sort of a moot point. I doubt there�d be an open murder warrant, anyway, after all this time.� He paused, then rushed on, hardly believing himself what he was about to say.

�Chief, I told you this was a �Mulder� and here�s why. This 17 year-old girl�s name is Elizabeth Anne �Buffy� Summers and she hasn�t been seen since she fled custody . . . 35 years ago.�

She welcomed the darkness when it swallowed her. _ _ _ _

�Get back, please,� shouted the ICU nurse as the cardiac monitor wailed again.

Lockley and Branson backed up against the wall of the small room and watched the doctors and nurses swarm over the still, small body in the bed. The girl had flat lined twice in the short time since the Chief and her deputy had met here to discuss the strange case and for Lockley to see the girl for herself.

Branson had actually felt sorry for the officious little ICU doctor who had tried to stop them when they had first arrived at the girls room. Seemingly unimpressed when they had flashed their badges, he had started to lecture them about proper ICU procedures and rules. Lockley had actually let him get out two whole sentences before she exploded. And the rant was impressive, even by the Chief�s standards. Now the personnel in the ICU almost stumbled over themselves to help when the chief asked a question.

After two shocks with the paddles and a shot of adrenaline straight into the heart, the crash team got the girl back and the cardiac monitor was again beeping with the rhythm of a normal heart beat.

Lockley motioned to the lead physician as he stepped away from the girl�s bedside and the doctor followed her and Branson out into the hall.

�Will she make it, doctor?� Kate asked the tired, sweating man. �I mean, this can�t be normal, can it? How many times can she die and be brought back?�

�Chief,� the doctor replied, wiping his hands down the front of his smock, �I wish I could tell you. I would have wagered a year�s salary and the virtue of my wife that she wouldn�t have survived the night.� Kate grinned wolfishly at this. The doctor went on, �I treated her when she arrived. I�ve never seen someone so grievously injured that has even lived, much less lasted like her. It�s unprecedented. I�ve never seen anything like her blood workups. Absolutely amazing. She�s healing at an astounding rate. We�ve started taking pictures and full-body scans of her to help document it. For example, we tried to start plasti-skin grafts on her back, but her body rejected them because her own was growing so fast.� Realizing that he was starting to yammer, the doctor paused for a moment, then looked the chief in the eye. �Now, I�m no psychiatrist, but what all this boils down to, as I see it, is that the girl�s body wants to live, but the girl herself wants to die.�

�Thank you, doctor,� Lockley said. �One more question, if you have a minute.� At the doctor�s nod, she continued. �How old is she?�

The doctor chuckled slightly to himself before answering. �Your deputy here told me last night that police records say she was born in 1981, making her 52 years old. That is patent nonsense. Your records are wrong, Chief.� He waved his hand toward the girl in the bed behind them. �Her skin condition, muscle tone, pelvic girdle width, the fact that her wisdom teeth haven�t erupted, hell, the fact that she still �has� all her teeth, with no evidence of dental repair, means she can�t be 52.� He reflected a moment. �Nineteen, maybe. Probably less.�

Lockley thanked the doctor and she and Branson stepped back into the girl�s room. There Branson watched, amazed, as his Chief knelt on the floor beside the bed and laid her hand gently on the girl�s un-bandaged cheek.

�Stick around, Tiger,� whispered Kate. �You�re too tough to die. And you and I need to talk.�

Branson stopped in the doorway to the girl�s room and let out a small sigh. Kate was still in the chair beside the girl�s bed and seemed not to have moved since he had left hours before to take care of the errands she had given him.

He walked in quietly and stood beside the chief. Kate was asleep, bent forward with her head resting on the bed beside the girl. Her arm still lay lightly across the girl�s abdomen, rising and falling with the girl�s gentle breathing.

The girl. He had to stop thinking of her as just �the girl�. She �had� a name. After his exhaustive computer records searches of the last 24 hours, there was no doubt that she �was� Buffy Summers. Impossible as it seemed, this tiny, fragile, horribly emaciated, terribly injured, obviously teen-aged girl had been born 52 years ago.

Kate had not left Buffy�s bed side in over 36 hours, except for necessary trips to the restroom down the hall. If Kate had eaten in that time, Tom hadn�t noticed. And he was starting to worry about his chief. This was not the Kate Lockley he knew. This wasn�t �The Lock�, acknowledged by even her enemies as the toughest police chief in the history of LA. Branson was seeing a side of his chief that he hadn�t dreamed existed.

Kate had taken charge of Buffy like a tigress protecting her cub. And she was letting nothing get in her way.

Branson looked down at Buffy�s hand where it peeked out from under Kate�s hair. The welded steel shackles she�d been wearing when she was found were gone. Kate had been adamant about getting the shackles off as soon as possible and had personally ordered in a police armorer for the task shortly after they had first arrived.

This had provoked another confrontation with the ICU staff, who insisted the shackles did not hinder treatment and that their removal could wait until later, when the patient was stabilized and had been moved to a regular room.

He was glad then that they were already in the ICU, because he was sure either Kate would have a coronary or she would strangle someone. Instead, Kate was icy calm. Deadly calm. She backed the doctor into a corner, stood nose-to-nose with him, and explained in a near-whisper that, after all she had obviously been through, Buffy was �not� going to wake up with those �obscene things� on her.

The armorer had arrived half an hour later. After he finished carefully lasing off the shackles, a nurse came in and, with brisk efficiency, cleaned and bandaged the near-bone-deep lacerations the manacles had left on Buffy�s wrists, re-inserted the whole blood and plasma IV lines that had been removed to allow the armorer room to work, checked the feeding tube and oxygen line, and recorded the readings from the various monitoring devices onto Buffy�s chart. The nurse�s normal professional detachment had faltered, though, as she gently straightened the blankets around the small form that was so nearly lost in the large bed. She had paused on her way out and, tears brimming in her eyes, murmured a quiet �thank you� to Kate.

The nurse re-appeared in the room a moment later and set a small, but comfortably padded, chair near the bed She flashed Kate a brief smile as she left again. And Kate had begun her vigil with Buffy.

That had been only the beginning of the strange things happening around Buffy Summers. The doctors were now in a turmoil about her. The lead physician, Dr. Scott, had had several consultations with specialists. Special scans were being made and holos taken on a regular basis. When Branson had quizzed him about this, the doctor had pulled him over to Buffy�s bedside. Kate had risen from the chair and joined them.

�Look at her, Mr. Branson, Chief.� Dr. Scott waved his arm over Buffy. �You saw her right after she was found, right?� At Branson�s nod, the doctor went on. �What you are seeing is no less than a miracle!�

�When Ms. Summers was first admitted, she had numerous broken bones. Ever have a broken bone?� He didn�t wait for an answer. �When a bone heals, it leaves a large lump around the healed break. The body sort of goes overboard and puts more than is needed on the break. It takes longer, of course, and it�s never as strong as the original, unbroken bone. Never. The defense and healing mechanisms of the human body all do that. They react massively, but somewhat inefficiently. A cut to the skin becomes the focal point of white blood cells rushing in to kill invading bacteria. There are always too many, though, so we end up with swelling, �proud flesh�, and even pus. The scavenging systems of the body are inefficient, too. When we get bruised, the hematomae caused by bleeding under the skin takes a long time to fade, primarily because the body doesn�t recognize its own cells as a possible danger. We tire relatively easily because of the toxins that build up in our blood and aren�t removed as quickly as needed to prevent fatigue.� He ran his hand through his hair as he paused and looked down at Buffy. �In fact, the main focal point of modern medicine for well over a hundred years has been to find ways to help keep the human body from killing itself as it heals. To heal quickly and efficiently and without danger to itself to its condition prior to the injury.� He paused, putting his hand on Buffy�s arm and looking directly at Branson and the Chief.

�I thought I was going to have a fist fight with one of the specialists I called in to look at Buffy.� He winked at Kate. �You�re a bad influence, Chief.� Kate rewarded him with one of her wolfish grins. �He almost flat out called me a liar when I detailed Buffy�s injuries to him and told him they were only 48 hours old. He insisted no one could heal to that extent in less than two �months�, much less the two days it�s been. He said the scans of her fractures must have been faulty, since they show only faint lines where the fractures were.�

Scott reached down and began gently removing the bandage covering the right side of Buffy�s face. �Ms. Summers had a depressed fracture of the right cheek bone. An extreme one, certain to need cosmetic surgery to repair. Plus, she had a broken jaw. Both injuries were caused by the blow of some sort of weapon that left a long, jagged laceration that should have scarred badly. The sclera, the �white�, of her right eye was solid red from internal bleeding� He finished removing the bandage.

�Maybe I was too harsh with my colleague,� Scott remarked as he enjoyed the looks on Lockley�s and Branson�s faces when they saw the smooth, unblemished skin on Buffy�s face where there should have been angry, swollen, barely-healed wounds. The doctor gently peeled open the lid of Buffy�s eye to show them the clear, faintly blue-tinged white of a healthy child�s eye.

�If I hadn�t seen it myself, I probably wouldn�t have believed it. Buffy Summers heals the way we doctors wish all humans would.� His expression became serious again. �But it is a wish, still,� he continued. �Human beings don�t heal this fast, this well, this completely.�

Kate looked up from her examination of Buffy�s un-marred face and fixed the doctor with a glare. �Just what the hell are going on about, doctor? Are you saying she�s not human?�

�Oh, she�s human, all right, Chief,� he interjected, raising his hands to forestall a tirade from Lockley. �We�ve tested her DNA, thoroughly. No doubt about that, at all.� He looked down at his patient again.

�The problem is she�s something else, as well.�

Buffy had never been so terrified before in her short life, not even during the many months she had fought evil as the Slayer. The inevitability of the Codex� prophecy had finally overwhelmed her, though. She had no choice. She �was� the Chosen One. There was no one else to do this. Still, it had taken every bit of courage she could muster to put on her discarded cross and pick up the crossbow in the library after knocking out Giles. Her attempt at wit with Miss Calendar had sounded feeble even to her own ears. As she had followed the child vampire through the sewers, her knees had grown weaker with each step and her stomach had churned with fear, threatening to double her over with the roiling pain. As she and the Master stalked one another through the cold, damp, candle-lit darkness of the earthquake-buried church, her mind had kept babbling at her. �This is the creature that was prophesied to kill you tonight! He plucked your crossbow bolt out of the air right in front of his chest! Your Slayer-sense isn�t even tingling! You can�t see him! You can�t hear him! You�re going to die in your prom dress!�

Then he was behind her! When she turned, he knocked the crossbow from her hands. His claws dug into her throat as he seized her. And she couldn�t escape! She tried, but was suddenly petrified by an even greater wash of fear through her body. Nauseated and dizzy, she stood helpless as the vampire slowly stripped the leather jacket from her and took her by the shoulders. When he bent and whispered in her ear, she had to swallow the gorge that rose in her throat as she smelled the miasma of rotten blood that was his breath. Hot, shameful tears ran down her cheeks as he taunted her for the mistake that was going to kill her. Then the searing pain of his bite lanced through her and she was done. As she fell to her knees and toppled forward into the icy water, the last thing she heard was the victorious demon crowing about �the power�. The last thing she thought was �it did hurt�!

And then she was choking. Spewing the brackish water from her suddenly-aching lungs. Feeling the cold, hard rock under her back. Looking up into the suddenly joyous faces of her best friend and her first love. Xander is gently stroking her forehead. She is confused, her mind struggling to understand what is happening. �Xander?� she whispers. �Welcome back, Buffy,� he grins. Angel is silent, but the look on his face is one of equal happiness.

They help her to her feet, hands under her arms. �Easy, easy,� cautions Xander as she wobbles for a moment, but her dizziness, weakness and confusion are rapidly being replaced by something else. Something she has never consciously felt before. Her whole body flushes hot and her limbs tingle. Strength returns. Confidence. Power. She straightens up.

�The Master?� she asks. �He�s gone up,� says Angel. She gently eases from their hands and starts forward. �No, you�re still weak,� cautions Xander. She stops and an almost feral gleam lights her eyes as she bares her teeth in not-quite a smile. �No,� she says. Another surge of strength rushes powerfully through her. The light in her eyes brightens and her smile widens. �No, I feel strong. I feel different.� She turns back to look at them, the resolve apparent in her calmly determined face.

�Let�s go,� orders the Slayer.

_ _ _ _ _

�OK, Doc,� said Kate. She straightened up beside Buffy�s bed. �Now, don�t get me wrong, because I like a good puzzle as well as the next detective, but I really want to know just �exactly� what the hell you�re talking about. What do you mean �she�s something else as well�?� Kate�s voice rose only slightly in emphasis as she spoke, but Doctor Scott had learned his lessons well during the Chief�s stay at the ICU. She wanted an answer, sans bullshit, and immediately, if not sooner.

�Look,� the doctor said, pointing to Kate�s hand where it still rested on Buffy�s arm. �Mr. Branson has told me that you�re fond of strange cases, but would you say that your reaction to Ms. Summers� situation is normal for you? Haven�t you gotten more involved than you planned to before you actually saw her? You haven�t left her side for a day and a half.� Kate looked down at her hand, but did not move it.� �Well, yes, I suppose,� she grudgingly admitted.

�Everyone who has been around this girl is acting a bit different,� Dr. Scott continued. �The staff all looks in on her first thing when they come to work, usually before they even clock in! They talk about her during breaks, sometimes to the exclusion of all else. Nurses are pulling seniority or calling in favors to be assigned to her. Doctors I usually only see at department meetings are seeking me out to discuss her. And it�s more than just professional curiosity about an unusual case - they seem genuinely concerned for Buffy herself.� Scott paused momentarily, then went on. �Chief, I finally couldn�t stand it. I used every spare dime I could find in the ICU monthly budget and had a battery of extra tests done on her. What we�ve discovered is strange, to say the least.�

The doctor moved to the computer monitor on the scanner suspended on a pivoting arm near the bed and turned it on, then typed in a command. He pointed to the display on the screen. �First. This is a Kirilian scan of another female patient, about Buffy�s size and age. It shows the electrical field or �aura�, if you will, around her body. It�s an unremarkable scan, showing the expected intensity and size. It�s the normal �electric-blue� color, except for the areas around her injuries, which are slightly dimmer and darker, as they should be.� Scott typed in another command, then indicated the display again. �This is the first scan we made of Miss Summers.� The computer display was washed out in a coruscating red glare that was almost blinding in its brightness. �There was nothing wrong with the scanner, either � it had just been checked and calibrated. So, we stepped down the exposure rate and kept trying until we finally got something.� The doctor typed another command into the computer and motioned for Branson and Lockley to step away from the bed. The scanner moved over Buffy. On the screen, the bright blue glow of Buffy�s aura was now visible. It was at least three times brighter and much larger than the aura of the other girl.

And it was surrounded by another aura � a huge field of reddish-colored energy that moved, shifted and pulsed like a living thing. From it extended long, wispy arms of light that danced and intertwined with one another. They seemed to fill the room and beyond. And at least one tendril touched each of the occupants of the room.

�What the hell is that?� exclaimed Branson. He took an involuntary step away from the bed and saw on the display that the energy tendril still touched him. It had followed his movements.

Lockley was silent, but continued to look first at the monitor, then down the front of her own body, where the display showed the weaving arm of light to be touching her, then over at Buffy, sleeping quietly in the bed and oblivious to the sudden furor around her.

Scott spoke quietly. �I would say that qualifies as the �something else� I mentioned, Mr. Branson. Buffy seems to have a very powerful friend. I only wish I knew what it is.�

# # # # # Chapter 5 � Enemies

The sunrise was just breaking through the trees as she strode up the road to the darkly-shadowed, dismal-looking mansion. She was finally going to face the demon. Angelus. The demon who looked like her lover. Angelus. The demon her tender and innocent act of love had released. Angelus. The demon who had inflicted months of gut-wrenching misery on her life and on the lives of her Watcher and her friends. Angelus. Miss Calendar was dead by his hand � murdered and laid out as a cruel joke in Giles� bed. Angelus. And now Kendra was murdered as well, at his instigation, and the blame fallen on her.

Angelus. It was over. She was done with being selfish and weak, foolish and hesitant. She had shirked her duty long enough. She would stop the vampire from using Acathla to open the portal to the demon dimension and sucking the rest of the world into his Hell. Her face was a stern warrior�s mask, her walk feline-graceful, strong and confident. The sword in her hand felt curiously light - power and strength was surging through her in wave after continuing wave. The air around her almost seemed to crackle with electricity. �The Slayer is coming, Angelus,� she exulted silently to herself. �Coming to kill you, �lover�.�

But as the Vampire Slayer prepared for battle, in one small corner of her heart-of-hearts a seventeen year-old girl named Buffy railed against a harsh, un-forgiving destiny and wept bitter tears for a cruelly-lost love.

_ _ _ _ _

�Well, now,� said Kate, looking first at Branson and Doctor Scott, then back at the strange energy glowing on the comp display. �I am convinced. All we need now is the theme from �The Twilight Zone� playing in the background and this will officially be the strangest goddamned case I�ve ever seen.� She moved from her place at Buffy�s side to the doctor�s and took him by the arm. �Is there somewhere we can talk quietly?� At his assent, she and Branson followed the doctor out of Buffy�s room and down the hall to an empty staff lounge. Lockley and Doctor Scott sat down at a table and Branson fixed coffee for all of them, busying his hands to get his mind off what he�d just seen.

�Chief Lockley,� Doctor Scott began, not giving Kate a chance to get started, �I freely admit I first showed you the unusual energy aura we discovered around Miss Summers to impress you and make you more receptive when I explain what else we�ve discovered about her from the extra tests I�ve ordered during the last 24 hours.� He took the coffee Branson offered to him and spooned in creamer and sugar. �If you�ll listen without interruption, I�ll explain as quickly as I can, in laymen�s terms, and then answer any questions you have, at length. Deal?� Branson set a cup in front of Kate, then turned quickly away so that she wouldn�t see the sudden grin cross his face. Doctor Scott was learning the finer points of getting along with �The Lock�, all right.

He turned around to sit down himself in time to see the first genuine smile on Kate�s face since they had come to the hospital and become immersed in the unusual case of Buffy Summers. �Agreed, Doctor,� she said, taking a cautious sip of her own drink and setting it on the table before her. �We have information to share with you, as well. Equally strange, I imagine, as what you�ve discovered.� She smiled again, knowing the doctor would expedite his own explanations in order to hear theirs.

�Well, then, I�ll get started,� said the doctor, opening a palm comp and turning it on. Glancing at his notes on the screen, he began. �Miss Summers is unusual, or even unique, in several different ways besides what I�ve all ready shown you. When she was found and brought in, we estimated her body weight at 75 pounds, based on her size and physical condition. She was not actually weighed until several hours later, when we discovered she weighed 95 pounds, not 75, or about 25 per cent more than average. This is primarily because her muscle tissue is denser than normal. Much denser. I would hazard a guess that when she is in full health she is incredibly strong. I have no way of knowing exactly how strong, but I wouldn�t want to fight her.�

He smiled briefly at Branson and Lockley, then went on. �Her body chemistry is also highly unusual. She has increased levels of several different hormones and also produces some unique pheromones.� At Branson�s quizzical look, Scott interrupted his lecture. �Pheromones are chemicals secreted by the body. In most species, including humans, they are primarily used as attractants to the opposite sex and are produced with the skin�s perspiration and with the fluids produced by the female genitalia during sexual arousal. Musk is a pheromone. They affect the sense of smell - one of the most misunderstood of the human senses and also one of the most powerful in triggering so-called �primitive� responses. We have no idea what these �extra� pheromones of Miss Summers do, since that would have to be determined by experiment.�

�I mentioned that I wouldn�t want to fight Miss Summers, because of her increased strength. She is also probably incredibly fast. Her automatic reflexes are extraordinary! Off the charts, literally. Her nerves apparently carry signals from her brain to her body�s muscles at a much faster rate than normal.� Scott paused to sip his coffee, then continued. �All of her nerves except the ones that carry pain signals back to her brain, however. Signals along those nerves are attenuated somehow, lessened. Miss Summers must have an extraordinary resistance to pain.�

�I�ve all ready shown you how fast Buffy is healing. Healing at that rate requires a huge amount of the body�s energy. In the same 48 hours that she has healed to such an incredible extent, though, she has also added about another 10 pounds of body mass � almost all of it muscle. All on IV-administered sucrose/saline solution and what we can get into her by the feeding tube directly into her stomach. That should really be just enough to keep her alive and healing, but not to grow at that rate as well. Her body is using �everything� we can put into her at an efficiency that borders on impossible! In fact, the waste coming out of her through the catheter has just enough fluid in it to be excreted.�

�But she is human, isn�t she?� Branson was remembering the pictures of the heartbreakingly beautiful young girl he had seen while investigating Buffy�s past. The mane of long, tawny gold hair, the bright green eyes, the slim and strong cheerleader body. �You said her DNA tested as human, didn�t you? How is all of what you�re telling us possible?�

Doctor Scott looked thoughtfully at Tom for a moment before answering. �Mr. Branson, before I treated Miss Summers I would have said what we are seeing with her �is� impossible. Well, not impossible, maybe. Her body�s abilities are certainly well within the range of possibilities contained in every human being�s genetic structure. Highly improbable, certainly, though. I emphasize �highly.� Virtually impossible, let�s say.� He took another swallow of his now cold coffee. �If the punishments mandated by Federal and United Nations� law for genetic manipulations of humans weren�t so strict, I would say someone engineered her in a lab. Created the closest to a perfect human body I�ve ever seen. For what, I don�t know.�

_ _ _ _ _

Alone for the first time since her escape from Hell, the Slayer opened her eyes. �Get out!�, her mind screamed. �You have to get out!� The flickering, bright red light still showing on the scanner display flared to fill the entire room as she sat up in bed and glanced quickly around. It was the work of mere seconds to strip the IV tubes and monitor leads from her body. She didn�t even blink as she first yanked out the GI feeding tube going into her stomach through her nose and then pulled the catheter from her groin. Monitor alarms wailed. The stainless steel safety-railing along the side of the bed groaned and bent under the blows as she hammered the cast from her right arm with it.

The first orderly through the door stopped, stunned, at the sight of the just comatose girl standing beside her bed, naked but for the bandages swathing her torso and the splint on her ankle. The Slayer didn�t hesitate. Warrior instincts in full control, she launched herself across the room at him.

The shriek of primal fury she voiced echoed through the entire floor.

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