BUFFY 2029 A.D.: High and Low
by Miles
Leaving Buffy in the hotel restaurant, Xander, Willow and Dawn take the magneto train across the Rhone. A long, sleek bullet with fins, the train is like a miniature of the skytrain, the ship that Willow and Dawn flew from New York to Geneva yesterday afternoon. While taking the magneto-train from the twenty-first-century skyscrapers of the left bank to the low but picturesque nineteenth-century buildings of the right bank, the three are afforded an impressive view of the great fountain that is emblematic of this city. Willow notices the long rows of yachts. She particularly admires a large white one called "The Madeleine." She is about to point it out to Xander and Dawn when they are suddenly past it, and their brief journey comes to an end.

On the other side of the river, they meet a private driver in a shiny black uniform who holds up a sign that reads: “Prof. Rosenberg.” He takes them in a hydrogen-powered car to the site of the ancient Roman bridge only a few blocks away. There they are greeted by several young engineers wearing yellow hardhats, and they hand Willow and Dawn yellow hardhats like their own. Xander puts up his hand to stop them from offering him one. He is carrying his own white hardhat with the name “Harris” printed both in front and back in black block letters. As he approaches the bridge ahead of everyone else, he puts it on.

They can now see the massive, transparent shunt that guides the entire river both around and underneath the level of the now naked river bed, exposing recently excavated chambers under the right bank and freeing them of danger of inundation. Xander is as impressed as anyone else to see that a tube as wide as the river has been kept close enough at the crest of the banks that it is nearly unobtrusive until they get up close to it; casual tourists can still enjoy a traditional view of the city as long as they don’t come too close to the excavation, and tight security consisting of uniformed guards see to that not happening.

Willow, who has teleconferenced with all of the Swiss and Italian principals, introduces everyone, adroitly switching from English to French and back again as needed. The Italians all speak either English or French, as it turns out, making these introductions a little less awkward.

“I am very pleased to meet the distinguished Professor Rosenberg, at last,” says one of the Italians. “I read with greet interest your paper on the connection between pagan sites in Devon and Etruria. Most original and insightful.”

“Thank you, Professor Grillo, it is an honor to meet you, too,” replies Willow. While this festival of flattery takes place, one of the Swiss engineers shakes Xander’s hand.

“Hello, Mr. Harris. My name is Bob Lefcourt.”

“Bob?” asks Xander incredulously.

“Why not, Mr. Harris?” says Bob.

“You’ll get no argument from me, Bob. Call me Xander.”

“Xander?”

“Yes, it’s short for Alexander, but don’t call me Alex. It’s Xander.”

“No problem, Mr. …ah, Xander.” He smiles and Xander smiles back. Then Bob leans in and speaks confidentially. “Want to see down below?” he asks.

“I thought nobody would ever ask,” says Xander.

* * * * * * *

Buffy steps out of the elevator onto the sixtieth floor only a moment after boarding the executive elevator. The city is abuzz about other topics besides KRU’s attempted takeover of one of Switzerland’s biggest banks, and even employees of the bank are talking excitedly about last night’s explosion at the European Center for Nuclear Research, aka, CERN. Conversation comes to stop as someone turns up a radio. Buffy’s French turns out to be adequate to get the gist of what the news reader has to say: “Two security guards are believed to be dead and millions of Euros in damage was done. Authorities maintain that no nuclear radiation was released, but they do not say what kinds of research facilities are damaged, only that the blast area is some distance from the CERN’s world-famous cyclotron, which is reported to be undamaged.”

Buffy is glad that she does not work for CERN—not yet, anyway. She makes a note to herself not to be in any hurry to check her messages. One international crisis at a time, that’s my motto, she thinks.

“Bonjour, Madame Summers.” It is Christian Pinault, director of corporate relations for Credit Suisse.

“Bonjour, Monsieur Pinault.”

“With that,” said Pinault with a smile, “we will dispense with French, if you would feel more comfortable speaking English.”

Buffy thanks him while thinking of saying that she knows enough French to get her face slapped, but she knows that this is not the time or place for unprofessional levity; Buffy gets into character.

She compares her memory of the image of Monsieur Pinault on her deskscreen back in New York to the real article before her. She did not realize that he would be just over six feet tall. And at forty years of age, he is very trim and handsome. His dark wavy hair and liquid brown eyes are for getting lost in. Buffy lets a certain possibility cross her mind but also lets it continue on its way, off into the distance. There will be time for that when their work is—at least midway through.

“Please, call me Buffy—or at least Mademoiselle Summers,” she says as he leads her to a conference room. “‘Madame Summers’ was my mother.”

“As you wish… Buffy.” He smiles as he shows her to a seat at the empty conference table.

She lays her briefcase on the table, thereby claiming a place, but she is drawn immediately to the floor-to-ceiling window behind the table. She stands gazing out at the view of the city and the river. Buffy’s eyes are first drawn to the boats on the river. Then she looks to her right until she sees the transparent shunt going under the Roman bridge.
That is where Xander, Dawn, and Willow must be right now, she thinks.

“Can I get you anything to drink?” asks Pinault.

Buffy looks at the clear pitchers of water on the conference table. Each station around the table has an upside down water glass as well as a small deskscreen and keyboard. “No, thank you,” she says. “Water will be fine.”

With a gallant flourish, Pinault picks up the glass beside Buffy’s briefcase and fills it with the handiest water pitcher. Then he sets the glass in its place and turns his attention to her.

“If you are ready, I’ll summon the others.”

Buffy nods. Pinault moves toward the doorway but stops short of it and quietly speaks French into a wrist-phone. Moments later, executives of various heights, builds, ages, and hues begin filing into the conference room. They are eight in all. Buffy is introduced to two Swiss men, a Swiss woman, two South African women, two American men and a British woman. They represent public relations from various subsidiary and branch offices. Buffy notices that Pinault introduces her to them as Mademoiselle Summers. He wants her to have some authority here, she realizes. These people expect and need someone to be in charge. There is a great deal of pressure on them, and Buffy is beginning to feel it shifting onto her shoulders.

“First off,” says Buffy, after a round of self-introductions, “I don’t want to seem alarmist, but we do not appear to be secure here. The view from this window is magnificent, but if we can see out, someone might be able to see in. I consider this discussion to be potentially sensitive. Is there some way that we could cover the window?”

“Actually,” says a Swiss executive named Muller, “I think that is an excellent idea, Pinault? Could we?”

“Of course,” says Pinault, and he presses a button that causes some previously invisible vertical blinds to turn the window solid black. As sunlight fades, artificial lighting in the room gradually comes up until the room is lit entirely by unobtrusive lamps in the ceiling and walls.

“Thank you,” says Buffy smiling at Christian Pinault, who smiles back at her graciously. “Now I’ve reviewed your campaign and I do have a few suggestions. Did anyone here write the latest press release? The one dated yesterday, if that’s the latest?”

“Guilty,” says Thomason, whose British accent when he introduced himself reminded Buffy of Giles’s.

“Well, let’s not be too quick to cast aspersions on ourselves,” replies Buffy. As if she needs the measurement, the laughter that follows gives Buffy a palpable idea of how much tension there is in the room. “It’s a good press release. My only quibble is that you emphasized what is not going to happen. This has the twin disadvantage of making both investors and customers think about those things—which could give them nightmares about what’s not supposed to happen happening anyways—and it also doesn’t give them anything positive that they can hang their hats on. Um,… that’s a colloquialism. Let me know if I baffle you with my colloquialisms.” Everyone smiles but says nothing; so she moves on.

* * * * * * *

Willow and Dawn walk down the temporary stairs until they are on the river bed beneath the bridge. Xander is already there with Bob. The engineering involved in draining the site of water is impressive. Xander looks at the women and then wordlessly points to the series of humming machines each with long pipes extending up from the site. Willow and Dawn nod. They understand that even with the shunt, water has to be constantly drained.

From above, no one can see how deeply the archeologists have gone into two of the the chambers which have been separated from the river for millennia by double thick walls. Archeologists have carefully removed enough of these walls, brick by brick, so that one person at a time can pass into each of the chambers.

By the electric lights inside one of the chambers, Willow and Dawn watch the ongoing work. The operation is remarkably quiet. Silent machines of different descriptions dig and dredge the soil. Peering in, they can see several similar-looking robots with five legs each. One of these legs is actually a digger-sorter combination; each of them is focused on a small area. Periodically, an attendant in a blue hard hat and white work clothes that are streaked with dirt, stops the robot and digs where it has been digging, only using smaller implements including a brush. Willow and Dawn both try to pass through the opening but they get stuck like Laurel and Hardy. Dawn stops and tries to yield to Willow.

“After you,” says Dawn.

“No, Dawn, you go first,” Willow replies.

“You’re sure?” asked Dawn.

“Completely.” Willow smiles and gives Dawn’s shoulder a gentle nudge. Dawn passes through and Willow follows. Then it is Xander’s turn; then Professor Grillo and two others, but the cut off seems to be six. There is a lot of room in the chamber Willow notices, but it is already pretty full of busy robots and their attendants. The ratio seems to be five robots for each attendant. Willow sees the fellow who was just digging, get up and go to see what another robot has uncovered. The first robot starts digging again as the attendant moves close to the next robot which immediately ceases digging.

Then Willow notices that Dawn is not gazing at the robots but at the exposed wall carvings high up the wall to their right.

“Remarkable,” says Willow, standing beside her. Dawn does not turn her head away from the carvings to look at her.

“Do you see what is there?” asks Dawn.

“Of course,” says Willow.


“We uncovered this inscription a month ago,” says Professor Grillo. “It does not seem Roman, does it?”

“Do you guys know what it is?” asks Xander.

Dawn walks several steps toward the wall, craning her neck up at it. Then she turns to face her audience. The knot of men and women in hard hats look at her expectantly now.

“For those of you who have just met me, my name again is Dawn Summers. I am a Professor of ancient languages.

“The wall we are looking at is covered with three different languages. There is the same proto-Harappan writing that we are more accustomed to finding in the Indus Valley, above that there appears to be Sumerian and then, at the top—as Professor Grillo has confirmed—is a series of pre-Celtic symbols.”

Dawn takes a breath before she goes on. “As some of you may know, I have made some headway in deciphering Harappan but there is more work to do; this wall might help us go further. I am pretty sure that the Harappan and the Sumerian say more or less the same thing. We might be looking at a sort of Rosetta Stone.”

“I don’t suppose there is any chance that the pre-Celtic says the same thing,” offers Grillo doubtfully.

“No, I am afraid not,” replies Dawn. “It isn't likely that these pictures convey actual words because the Druids forbid their deepest secrets to be written down.”

Willow approaches the wall, staring up at fairly prominent cauldron symbol. "Is that what I think it is?" asks Willow.

"If you think it is the symbol for a cauldron, then yes, it's exactly what you think."

"But it's more than that, its the symbol of prescient wisdom," syas Willow.

"If that's a cauldron," asks Xander, "What are all the symbols dancing around it?"

"An excellent question," replies Dawn. "I'd love to start deciphering them as soon as possible."

"But can you?" asks Grillo.

"Don't know until I try," she said.

At that moment, there is a loud and ominous creeking noise. Everyone cranes their neck upward in time to see one of the seams in the shunt open in a great rent.

"Safety pods, everyone!" shouts Grillo, then repeats himself in French as he pulls amorphous packets from a nearby plastic-mesh shelf and throws what is evidently a much collapsed pod at Bob and also at Grillo's assistant. "One for every two of us!" he adds and begins pulling a release cord. The device inflates into a semispherical tent, heavily padded all around. Bob and the assistant follow his action. Bob helps Xander into the pod as the floor fills to their ankles with muddy water. Grillo makes Willow join him in his pod and his assistant takes Dawn. Once they are securely in their pods, the water rapidly lifts them to the top of the now-flooded excavation pit and shoots them down river.

When the pod stops bouncing and rolling in the surging water, Willow looks over at Grillo and asks, “You O.K.?”

Grillo lifts his bushy white eyebrows, suddenly seeming frail, and nods vacantly.

Willow clambers to her feet and leans against the wall. There is a plastic window that affords a view of the river outside, and Willow sees one of the other pods bobbing down the river ahead of them. Desperately she tries to peer beyond the edges of the window, but to no avail. Finally, she begins rocking the pod in order to get it to turn on its axis; unfortunately, she finds, the pod was designed to be super-stable, and it hardly budges.

“What are you doing?” asks Grillo. Willow explains. “Ah!” he replies and suddenly comes to life, standing and approaching her. He puts his hand against the window and begins sliding it around the wall. Willow understands and takes over; they both look out as the window moving rapidly beneath her hand reveals 360 degrees of river and cityscape around them.

Finally Willow stops and looks at Grillo. “Th-there’s something wrong,” she tells him as she tries to suppress panic. He nods again, though this time his wits are about him. Willow goes on. She has to make herself put it in words. “We’re missing the third pod,” she says.

“Yes, but it might just be lodged harmlessly somewhere. These are very sturdy contraptions.”

“But can we tell who is missing, Dawn or Xander? Can you tell the pods apart?”

“Unfortunately, no,” says Grillo spreading his hands helplessly until one of them bumps into the wall of the cramped space.


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