Earlier that day, Buffy had gone to do a little digging of her own. Standing outside the door, she tried her hardest to wipe the amused smile off her face at the unmistakable sounds coming from within the next room. She straightened her Hearst Security uniform, cleared her throat, and put on her best ‘Serious Face’ before knocking. The sounds paused, and there was a lingering silence. She knocked again. She could hear scrambling coming from inside.
“Who – Who is it?” was shouted toward the door.
“Security, would you open the door please.” She barked. A boy walking down the hall paused to watch so she sent him a glare and waved him on. Leaning in closer to the door she could hear the two people whispering frantically.
“Why is security knocking on my door?”
“I dunno, could it have something to do with –”
“No – I took care of that!”
“Maybe another one heard about it and is looking for a hand out?”
“I don’t have enough cash on me to get rid of them!”
“Well do something! Answer the door!”
“Where are my pants?”
“Under your desk!”
“Sir, could you open up please?” She could hear the boy shushing her as he tripped across his room to open the door.
“Uhm, does there a problem -” He sputtered then paused when he really took in what was standing outside his bedroom. Clearing his throat and shaking his head Max tried to clarify. “Uh, w-what seems to be, uh,” he stammered.
“Sir, we got a few complaint calls from your neighbors about the noise.” She drawled, doing her best impression of that pompous sheriff Lamb guy. Max turned bright red.
“Oh. R-really? Huh… well, okay, I’ll just uhm – people could hear me?” he asked suddenly. Buffy nodded curtly.
“Yes sir, they asked me to tell you that the volume at which you watch your pornography was interrupting their ability to study,” Max’s eyes bugged.
“My what?”
“Sir, are you twenty one?” she asked suspiciously, hearing someone else moving around behind the door now. “Because the state of California has very strict laws as to the control of certain materials. If we could just step inside and verify both you age and the type of content you were viewing –”
“Max,” Mac cut in, wearing only a pair of boxers and a men’s shirt as she pulled the door open wider. “It’s okay. She’s a friend of Buffy’s.” He glanced between the two women, still kind of jarred and in shock. Buffy gave a sedentary wave, her grin pure sadistic satisfaction. “Porn?” Mac accused, Buffy shrugged.
“Can I talk to you for a second?” She asked the brunette. She nodded and opened the door wider.
“Uh!” Max cut in, blocking her entrance, “I don’t think, this isn’t such a good idea. I’d really -”
“You know, for a kid running an unethical yet blossoming cheating business – you’d think he’d know his student handbook a little better.” Buffy pulled a copy from the pocket of her coat and tossed it to him. “Why don’t you refresh on chapter seven while I talk to Mac for a bit.”
“Uhh,” he mumbled, not sure if he should be placated or worried – she did admit to knowing.
“I’m just gonna talk to her… Clearly states I can’t investigate the room unless given cause, and if I had been called here on a noise complaint – which I wasn’t, by the way – then anything I found in relation to any other illegal or unethical activity would be inprofferable.” She said reciting the section verbatim. Max flipped through the pages as he warily stepped out into the hall, trying to get to chapter seven.
“I kind of just wanted to ambush your girlfriend. I’m not gonna dig through your stuff – I don’t even have jurisdiction to open the mini-fridge, let alone your file cabinets.” She said walking past Mac into the room, “I’m just going to sit here on the be- ” She glanced down at the rumpled sheets and cut herself off before sitting against the edge of his desk. “Uh, here… and ask her some girly stuff. Alright?” He nodded, pecked Mac on the cheek, and wondered down the hall, nose-deep in the handbook. She closed the door.
“Girly stuff?” Mac clarified, sitting on the bed herself. Now it was Buffy’s turn to blush. She folded her arms a little tightly over her chest and nodded. “Veronica.” Mac stated, realizing. The older girl nodded again. “She hasn’t called.” Buffy looked up, a combination of worry and sheepishness. Then nodded again.
“I know you know,” she started out, “When she found out you were the one she ran to, the first person she would have told. You’re her Willow.” For some reason this made both of them smile a little bit. “So I assume that she told you what happened on Sunday?” she guessed, though there was hesitation. This was a test – she was waiting for the right answer.
Mac smirked. “Are you talking about the fact that you kissed her, or the incident in the alley and the bandage on her neck?” she asked smugly. Buffy just nodded her head and smiled.
“Okay.” She muttered.
“What about them?” Buffy’s expression became serious at this question, her smile fading.
“Mac, what do you know? How much do you know?” The younger girl pulled her legs up under her and sighed.
“Being smarter than most people? It's like Veronica's curse. 'Cause then she finds out whatever they're lying about really easy. Too easy. It's kind of what she does best, and it's great for when she's doing her P.I. thing, but she can't...turn it off. So eventually, everyone lets her down, 'cause she digs for stuff 'til they do. I don't think she can help it." Buffy had the barest smile.
“I meant more like, what do you know about what Ido…” though Her voice had a hint of gratitude. Mac thought and shrugged.
“She asked me to look into it; search engines and message-boards. She has better access to things like police reports, medical records, stuff like that. I found a lot of crap, Ann Rice LARPers, fetishists, even found an entire dating site for ‘OtherKin’ – but besides that? Not a whole lot.” Mac sighed.
“Found some stuff about that town not too far from here, the one that had a massive cave-in; a bunch of the survivors were talking about weird stuff that went on there, urban legends from before the disaster. But sadly, those seemed to be the most congruent.” Mac gave a derisive snort at this.
“I told Veronica all this, but she still went out looking for them anyway.”
“They are, Mac. They’re here, in town.” Buffy tried to stress as calmly as she could. Mac nodded,
“I know, I saw –” she stopped herself, realizing Buffy didn’t know about the picture Veronica had taken, “I saw her bite, Buffy. It was… realer than real. Not like, someone who’s watched too many movies real. This isn’t at all like in the movies.” She took a deep breath. “I just didn’t want her going out without something in her arsenal. But she was…” she looked kind of pointedly at Buffy and the older girl blushed. “She needed to know. So she went.”
“That’s why I followed.” Buffy continued for her. “I thought maybe, if she got a little bit of a scare in her she wouldn’t feel tempted to dig any deeper – that she’d just trust me… But I think I know Veronica too well to still think that now.” Buffy and Mac shared a brief smile.
“Willow’s the master of this searching realm, as I’m sure you know,” Buffy added. Mac nodded. “She’s been B.P.R.D almost as long as I’ve been doing this and she’s the best. But Mac,” Buffy paused here, pulling off from the desk to stand a bit above the brunette girl, “The world isn’t ready to take the red pill. And I don’t want Veronica to get any deeper into this than she already has.”
“You know she can’t just drop something.” Mac stated. “You have to give her a good reason to.” Buffy sighed, running a hand over her hair.
“I’m not trying to hide things from her, Mac. I’m trying to hide her from the things. I don’t want her to do this.”
“Then come up with a way to convince her. And Buffy?” She warned, “Two bits of advice about Veronica?” Buffy nodded, listening. “Always assume she knows twice as much as you’ve told her, and secondly; if you really haven’t lied so far – then keep it up. If you’re being honest and hurt her, it’s still better than lying to her. If you have nothing else, she’ll know you respected her at least that much.” Buffy nodded, and turned to leave.
She stopped her, calling “Do you need any help finding her?” The older girl gave her a small smile, turning the knob.
“I’ll know where to look.”