[X] Dig into Vanessa's blackmail stash and fight back, trying to threaten the people pressuring Judge Rester into compliance. Without the external pressure on her she'll fall back in line.
-[X] Bring in Travers - bring up the situation to Travers and consult with him on how blatantly and how hard to press on people. This isn't his home turf and he might not know the important people here as well as he knows them in England, but he's still the one with the most experience at this sort of thing. Avoid sharing all the blackmail with him, especially anything that seems really good, but don't hold so much back that it's obvious.
-[5/12] Get Willow to work her magic (literally) and dig up anything she can find on these people. Have her pass along the info right away to CyberWillow so she can focus on grabbing as much as fast as possible while CW sorts it.
-[5/12] If it looks like time is running out, tell Rester to call it off even if we haven't finished covering our bases. Hopefully by the time any of them get alerted and start going back to harass her, we'll have dealt with them.
"It was somewhat predictable they would escalate," Travers said over the radio, after Buffy had explained their fresh new disaster. "And your detainment method is a clear point of vulnerability."
"It was under control. But then-" She stopped herself. What happened to Vanessa had been terrible, what she'd been doing before that was very far from squeaky clean, and she'd kept away from the details as much as she could. But that wasn't a good excuse. It'd still needed doing, and she'd dropped the ball.
"No, you're right. Walsh grabbed at the shiny evil once, obviously she'd go for it again. We still need to do something about it now though."
"Of course," Travers kept an even tone but she knew he liked being told he was right. "But solving these problems takes time. Unless the obvious ending has not occurred to you?"
She cringed. Ethan maybe deserved it, but executing him helpless in a cell didn't sit right with her, especially when it wasn't even his plan to escape. (She told herself that was the real reason, and not the legal stink it would raise covering it up.) "Not an option."
"I should hope you've already done something to delay matters then?" He continued, as if he was testing her.
"We don't exactly have a lawyer on retainer." Maybe that needed to change. "The nearest thing at hand was the Registrar, Ian Banks, we sent him over to the station but he wasn't exactly confident." Not that he ever was very confident, especially after the election.
After realizing this wasn't a problem she could solve directly, Buffy had changed direction to go to City Hall and kick everyone into high gear. Things looked pretty bleak though, so she'd swallowed her pride and called Travers for help. This was dirty, ugly, and worst of all lawyery stuff, and so she expected he'd be pretty good at it.
"I dare hope he's good enough to serve paperwork. The Council does in fact have several lawyers on retainer." She could practically hear the tiny self-satisfied smirk. "Your Watcher's youthful mistake has a not inextensive record in England. We will simply ask for his extradition to face crimes against the Crown."
"Wait! He's our prisoner!" Buffy complained. Of course Travers was going to want something for helping, but she hadn't realized what he'd wanted would be Ethan himself.
"Clearly not for very long," Travers said. "Perhaps you should stick to shepherding Potentials and leave the dangerous criminals to the Council."
The dig stung, all the more because she felt she deserved it, at least a little. And as sketchy as the Council was, it wasn't nearly as irresponsible as Maggie Walsh could be. "Fine," Buffy conceded. "Will it actually work though?"
"Given the magnitude of the charges he already faces from several directions, the legal weight of our challenge will be paltry at best," Travers admitted. "However, it will at least delay matters significantly, and should provide sufficient cover for your disobedient judge to act, once she has been brought back into the fold."
"Alright, let's get it done," she said, still with more than a touch of bitterness.
CyberWillow inserted herself to provide a fax number for the police station, and she heard Travers calling for Nigel, no doubt to delegate the rest of that task away. Despite the benefit of the doubt she'd given him after Mog'tog'og, Travers seemed to be giving him a lot of scutwork.
"I don't suppose you have anything that convenient for Jack?" Buffy continued after.
"He isn't even a true Warlock, is he?" Travers mused. "From what I remember of the report he was just following someone else's formula."
"His brother-in-law," CyberWillow supplied when Buffy didn't.
"Yes, well, if paint-by-numbers could get them anywhere I should hope the US Government is capable of getting their hands on a book or two." The disdain was strong. "I wouldn't worry overmuch about him, though your judge should raise his bail, if only for appearances' sake."
"Those aren't the appearances she's concerned with right now," she grumbled.
"And what will you do to change that?" Travers said, as if she was asking for homework help or something.
"Well, I need to deal with all those people who called her, right?" she said, not sure how this was helping. "I've got the whole team on it."
"But who in particular do you think that you have to deal with? Which one person among them can you affect most, which person do you believe your judge is most afraid of?" he led. "Who can you draw to accounts?"
He was being hinty. Army people and state government might be far away, but- "The House Rep. Umm, Gardner."
"Aaron Gardner has represented Sunnydale's congressional district since 1990," CyberWillow interjected. "His primary residence is in Solvang, 36.2 miles away from you, and Congress is not in session."
"That sounds like a good place to start." Travers confirmed.
"And you think I should go in person?" Buffy asked. "I mean, he's just a normal guy, isn't he?" Not some demon she could just beat half to death. Or all the way to death.
"Politicians rarely are," he said. "You're a resourceful girl. I think you can figure out the rest."
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Twenty minutes on the highway had done a lot to clear her head. It'd been hectic back at City Hall, getting everything sorted out, but the simplicity of the wind racing past her face and through her hair washed her anxiety away. Maybe it was a bad example for her to go helmetless, but she'd take her little pleasures where she could find them.
"Your exit to the left." CyberWillow was giving her directions.
Solvang was a cute little town with cute Danish buildings. She'd heard about it once or twice before, but she'd never been. It was the kind of place she'd like to take Harmony, but the town probably got pretty sleepy at night; the sun was just starting to go down and shops were already closing up as she passed them by.
"Continue down Mission Drive, 0.7 miles further."
She'd learned a lot about Representative Aaron Gardner in the past hour or two. The first thing to know about the relatively milquetoast Democrat was that he'd won his first and only primary with the same dependable smalltown vibes Wilkins liked to broadcast. Their district was basically Sunnydale county plus Obispo to the north, and while it wasn't hick country or anything there wasn't really a city slicker vibe either. Sunnydale managed to be the biggest city, and that said a lot.
"Bear left, onto 1st street."
This place had been the perfect framing device for the congressman's campaign. Touristy enough to seem bustling, and small enough to be homey. He could play the reasonable family man here and not turn off anybody. It'd made him relatively unassailable after his original election, with nobody bothering to primary him and weak Republican challengers mailing in their doomed campaigns.
"Right, onto Oak street."
He had a good thing for himself going on here.
"You have arrived. Your destination is to your left."
She parked her bike by his modest two story home and walked up to the door, hands empty, and knocked twice, a little louder than a normal girl could manage.
CyberWillow's spiderweb didn't extend nearly this far, so she couldn't be sure he'd be home, but at this hour it didn't seem like a bad bet. Calling in advance would've blunted the impact she was trying to make.
There was a slight delay before a middle-aged woman answered the door, a questioning look on her face. Carol Gardner, Buffy knew.
"Is your husband in? There's something we need to talk about," Buffy said.
"Yes, but usually- oh, you're Mayor Summers?" Carol was a little short at first, but then taken aback by the recognition.
Buffy took the opportunity to slip herself around her and through the door. "Call me Buffy. Sorry if this was a little abrupt, but I cleared out some time on my schedule and decided to drop by and introduce myself."
"That's friendly of you," she said, not sounding at all sincere.
The house was more than nice, sporting a lot of the little signs of wealth rich people packed their houses with. The outside might be unassuming, but on the inside it was decked out like one of the mansions ringing Sunnydale. They had the pricey art, expensive hardwood floors, a slim fancy-looking TV, all of it.
"So is he in? I don't mean to be a bother, I just wanted to say hi," Buffy said contritely. "I thought I owed it to our constituents, you know. To make sure we're all on the same page." It was almost disturbing how easily all this political garbage came to her when she called on it these days.
"I was just making dinner," she said, carefully neither inviting her nor uninviting her. "Aaron's in his study. I'll see if he's busy." She left Buffy waiting in the living room as she went deeper into the house. Buffy couldn't quite make out the conversation that followed through the walls, but the snatches she managed to hear were tense.
Both Aaron Gardner and his wife returned looking more composed than they'd sounded half a minute ago. It was the Congressman who spoke this time, coming forward to shake her hand in that too-soft way guys usually do with girls. He was obviously getting up there in years with more grey than black in his hair, but he was still in decent looking shape.
"It's a pleasure to meet you Buffy! And I think I can guess why you're here," he said playfully, sounding much more comfortable than his wife had. A moment later, he popped a blue button adorned with a cartoon donkey out of his pocket like it was a prize from the fair. "Come to join the club?"
It flat-footed her for a second, before she realized that was probably what he was going for. "I'm afraid Sunnydale's not a red and blue colored kind of place."
"Everywhere's gonna be, sooner or later," he wiggled the button between his fingers. "And a fresh young person like you has to see which side she'd rather be on."
"I'm surprised you aren't a Democrat already," Carol added brightly. "You're such a pretty picture."
"Thank you," Buffy acknowledged awkwardly. She was going to need to get him alone for this, and she could sense he was working against that. "Really. I'm flattered. But that's not why I'm here."
"Aww, don't feel bad, we're just giving you the hard sell," he said, putting the button away. "C'mon, we can sit down at the table while we wait for dinner. I'd love to have you chew our ears off about that hot campaign you ran. Maybe I could learn a thing or two!"
"There's something we should talk about first," Buffy evaded. "Business. The sensitive kind."
"Well, if it concerns the people of Sunnydale, it's a concern to me," he nodded his head as if he'd spoken some great truth.
"I'll get out of your way and let you two go plot," Carol's tone made it clear it was a joke, and she headed over to the kitchen.
"Would you like to talk in the study?" Aaron asked.
"That'd be great," Buffy said.
The room they reached was so full of memorabilia from various celebrities and sports stars that it could have been mistaken for a museum. He must have noticed her raised eyebrows, saying, "I might not have the most glamorous post here, but I've made a lot of friends. And you've got a movie coming out soon, if I'm not mistaken! I couldn't get a signed poster off you, could I?"
"I'll put it in the mail," she said.
Appearing to be thrown off a little by her abruptness, he sat down behind his desk pensively, and then waved to one of the richly upholstered chairs. "Have a seat, please. Let's talk. What's bothering you?"
She chose not to sit, framing the top of the chair with her hands instead. "I think you can probably figure that out."
He nodded amicably. "Well, you can't blame me for beating around the bush. That's how the game is played. But the truth is, your PD really managed to attract the worst kind of negative attention."
"Funny how that happens when you do your actual job," she quipped.
He raised his hands in a gesture of innocence, "Look, I myself couldn't care less what they're getting up to in Sunnydale. And I'm certainly not saying any of it is your fault. You're doing a great job, from everything I've heard. But sometimes there's a bigger fish out there who wants to take a bite. When that happens, you've just gotta back off-"
"And think of England?" Buffy was sick of this metaphor. "Do you even know what you're getting into? Who Ethan Rayne is, what he's capable of? Who you're giving him to?"
"I've got no idea, and I don't have to know," his tone got a little less nice. "Fact is, there's a guy on the appropriations committee who I owed a favor to. If I don't keep him nice, you know what's gonna happen to our district? Nothing."
"What?"
"Nothing in a bad way," he explained. "Not so much pork in the budget as a strip of bacon, and it's the people of Sunnydale who'll feel the lack as much as anyone. And then they'll vote me out, and you not long after."
It figured this wasn't even the end of the stupid rabbit hole, but Buffy didn't have time to go a level deeper. She could've argued with him, or even tried to make a big reveal of the supernatural, but Aaron Gardner was convinced his job depended on being in her way. It was hard to make people like that listen in some ways.
But it was easier in others. She just had to convince him his job depended on not being in her way. She sighed, and palmed her radio. "Make it happen."
He frowned. "Not sure that's got the range you're looking for." Then he chuckled. "Unless you've got some-"
He was interrupted by his phone ringing. After a wary glance at her, he picked up.
There was a high-pitched voice on the other end of the line, but before it could do much more than get started, the congressman spoke in a tone much harsher than any he'd used with Buffy, like a hybrid of a whisper and a shout.
"You know not to call here! My wife could've picked up! How did you even get this number?"
The voice on the other end got louder and faster in response.
He cut her off again. "You're being crazy! I can't get a divorce!"
More screaming, to the point it was intelligible to the room at large.
"You knew what this was going in, going public would destroy both of us. Both of us." He repeated the phrase significantly. "Look, how about we do another weekend, there's that beach in Mexico you said you liked, right? With the tortilla place?"
The reply to that had Buffy a little surprised CyberWillow knew how to be that vulgar. She hadn't heard worse either in High School or in the demon district, and that was saying a lot.
"Please, just calm down. We can work this out. Just don't do anything we're both going to… Are you still there? Hello? Cindy? Cindy? Fuck, fuck, fuck." He slammed the phone down in a panic, about to launch himself out of his chair, but Buffy was already at his side, her hand firmly holding his shoulder down.
"What the hell did you do?" He was still doing the scream-whisper thing, probably terrified Carol would hear.
"It's fine," Buffy said reassuringly. He pressed up against her hand, trying to rise, and his chair scooted around a little, but he was too shaken up to really notice. "It's fine."
"Fine? I'm fucked. Totally fucked. You fucked me, Buffy. I swiped your banana and you launched a nuclear weapon, what the hell?"
"Nothing's going to happen," she said.
"The hell it isn't, she's as pissed as I've ever heard her. I don't know what would be worse, if she goes to channel six first or just comes here, Jesus."
"She won't."
"She said-"
"It wasn't her," Buffy told him. "This was just a wake-up call. A test. Like the emergency broadcast system."
He stopped mid-panic, confused. "That was her."
"It wasn't. It could've been."
He looked ill. "Whoever that- some kind of voice actress, or… ?"
"Or." She confirmed. "Computers can do amazing things these days."
"Computers?"
Buffy ignored the question. "I can understand where you were coming from. You didn't know. But you got yourself into something big. Something bad. Call up my judge and undo what you did."
"Sure, sure, consider it done," he stammered. "You didn't have to take ten years off my life, seriously."
"And tell me who it was that got you to do this," she continued.
He hesitated. "I'm not sure that-"
Her hammer was suddenly in the hand not holding down his shoulder, just barely visible from where he was sitting. The spike on the bottom of the shaft made a screech as it dug into the floor.
"What the hell?" He scooted away and the chair almost fell over, but she'd only kept the hammer out for a split second. He looked at her like he was looking at a ghost.
"The name," she demanded. She backed up a step from him, hands empty to her sides.
"Nick Ward."
"It was a pleasure meeting you," Buffy said brightly, turning her demeanor on a dime. She looked significantly at the gouge in the wooden floorboard. "I can't stay for dinner though; I'll say goodbye to Carol on the way out.
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Metavote: Buffy may be in the driver's seat again now, but Maggie Walsh isn't going to take this lying down. What will her immediate response be to having Ethan slip through her fingers?
[] Faith has been unable to meaningfully contest Buffy so far; she needs serious gear.
[] Her spy hasn't been accomplishing much; that needs to change now.
[] Buffy can't be allowed to run so free politically; the government needs to get more involved in reining her in.
[] None of this will do enough. Project 314 has to be rushed into operation.
