Parking...

Air Date: 22/01/2001

Richard and Cam stuff.
Rose calls Jonathan and babbles excitedly about her experiances with her new camera. She wants to meet him again and get his opinion on her photographs and some lessons on how to use her new toy. She offers to drop round to his place, but Jonathan remembers his mother will probably be home and fuss about 'her little boy actually having a friend' so he decides to goto Rose's home.

Arriving at her house, he notices that inside, it is just like all those home magazines that his mother subscribes to. It is a large house, but only Rose seems to live there. It is very neat with hardly any clutter and everything seems to be neat and designer purchased.

Rose pulls out a large set of photgraphs and she and Jonathan sort through the set and divide it into 'good', 'junk' and 'arty'. Rose raves on, maybe even more than Jonathan this time, about how amazing all this photography stuff is and she comments that she is unwilling to go anywhere without the camera incase she misses an opportunity to snap that 'once in a lifetime' picture. Once they have finished sorting through the pictures, Jonathan offers comments on exactly what went wrong with some of the pictures and how Rose can get better performance out of her camera. Rose comments that some of the pictures don't match what she snapped and Jonathan starts to explain about the limitations of camera work and comments about how he is working with digital images these days so that he can edit the images. Rose states that editing images doesn't seem right to her, but Jonathan convinces her by saying that you can return images to their origional condition and get around the limits of the camera.

The two of them chat late into the night.

23 Aug 2000, Wednesday

The group discuss the possibility that the 20 people were ghosts and what their likely destination would be. Areas of particular supernatural activity in the area are mostly graveyards and parks – in fact the People’s Park is rather close by, just off on an angle to the direction the ghosts were headed. Given that lots of stuff seems to have happened there lately everyone heads in that direction.

In the park Jayde scouts on up ahead, Conrad close behind her. The others stay in a tight group except for Mary who takes a look behind some nearby bushes and finds a young grubby looking couple, not more than 17 years old, sleeping on the ground. They wake as she moves the shrubs, she apologises and goes back to the group. Jayde spots a group of three people up ahead, two guys and a girl that seem totally our of place around here – not looking like drug dealers and too well dressed to be homeless. She watches them for a while and points them out to Conrad who agrees that they are probably vampires and goes to get Jonathan and his camera for a confirmation. Indeed they have no body heat and are dressed a little too warmly for the weather. Everyone watches them from behind the trees as no-one is sure if Jayde can take on 3 vamps at once. The vamps look like they are here for a reason, talk for a while and wander on over to the volleyball courts. One of the males, who seems to be the leader, pulls out a mobile phone and pushes a few buttons. The other two seem to be very bored and fiddle with the chain on the court gate for a while before ripping it in two and going in to muck around on the courts. The leader looks at his watch then makes a short phonecall while the other two start vandalising bits of the court. Most of the scoobys are horrified at this wilful destruction of university property and are discussing how to deal with the situation when an old homeless man comes up behind them and asks what they are all looking at. Thinking quickly about what a good distraction it’d make, Jonathan tells him that the man over there with the phone is giving away free drugs. The man looks impressed and heads on over and Gemma points out that now the old guy is gonna point back at us and we’ll be busted. They decide to scatter around while Jayde goes up and pretends to try and score drugs. She puts her hair up in pigtails, pulls out a chuppa chup and puts on a scary impression of a raver. As she approaches the old man reaches the leader vamp.

"Hey man, someone said you had something to drink? Um?"

"Yeah. See that guy in there? Go talk to him."

"Oh, OK."

The homeless man heads inside the volleyball court. Jayde shrugs. Homeless are expendable and a nuisance anyway. In the bushes, Mary’s eyes go wide and she starts to panic. The vampire sees Jayde jiggling up to him.

"And you were after?"

"Have you got any stuff?"

"Go talk to her."

Jayde makes to head in, turns as she gets close to him and lunges with her stake. The vamp blocks. He’s fast. Too fast as it turns out because as his arm comes up he looks down and sees the stake as it goes into his heart. Jayde giggles and twirls her hair around her finger.

Inside the courts the two other vamps have turned toward the homeless guy and have both seen their leader get dusted through the fence. The male lunges at the homeless man and the female starts running over from the other side of the nets. Jayde runs in as well and is lunged at by the female while the male bites into the neck of the homeless man. The female vamp’s punch misses wildly and Jayde stakes her but misses her heart. The female turns to the male, yells "Nate! This one’s got a stake!" and he drops the homeless guy to the ground and starts to head toward them. The rest of the group take this as their cue and run in. Jayde kicks the female in the chest and she falls to the ground. Jayde goes to stake but the vamp grabs her hand and they tousle for a while. Mary and Jonathan reach the male and hold him off with crosses. Gemma reaches them not long after and sprays him in the eyes with her ventolin puffer. He is terrified, thinking its possibly holy water, and falls back onto the ground. Jonathan sits on his legs, Gemma on one arm, Alex arrives and pins the other and Mary starts battering a stake into his chest with her cross like a tent peg. Jayde and the female are still having a slap fight and the vamp is trying to shake the stake out of Jayde’s hand. Mary finally gets the stake through. It hits the floor of the court but the vampire is still in one piece. She’s got the wrong side! Gemma hands her a sharpened crucifix and she tries again. The vamp has been struggling a lot but this time he manages to free his arms by throwing Gemma and Alex off and reaches for Mary’s neck. He gets her by her collar and she presses the cross into his face. He tries to brush it away and Gemma grabs his arm again. Jayde goes to headbutt the female and misses but Conrad has arrived and unsheathed a knife in his cane. He stabs the female with it, she goes to pull it out and while she is distracted Jayde stakes her. Conrad resheathes his knife and Jayde goes over to where the others are still struggling with the remaining vampire and stakes him as well. Everyone is very dusty.

Mary goes to check on the homeless man while the others stand around with expressions ranging from disinterest (Conrad and Alex) to caution (Jonathan) to distaste (the twins). The man is unconscious and bleeding heavily. Mary begs for someone to call an ambulance and eventually Alex does. Conrad and Jayde head off to continue patrol, Gemma and Jonathan decide to head home and Mary and Alex do what they can for the homeless man while waiting for the paramedics to arrive.

Jonathan and Gemma spot two men heading toward them but a little way off. Neither looks like they belong here. One looks large and brutal while the other is small and weedy. Two more men join them from just out of sight. Gemma and Jonathan duck down behind some shrubs and Jonathan checks them with his specs. All four have body heat. One of the second pair pulls out a number of notes from his pocket and the weedy man pulls out a variety of little packets and there seems to be some discussion going on over pricing. Phew! Its just a drug deal and not more vampires. They decide to wait until the group moves on before continuing on their way back to the car.

Alex sends Mary to meet the paramedics and as she is approaching the road she hears the sound of fighting off to one side. Thinking perhaps it may be Jonathan or Jayde she goes and takes a look and sees two well dressed college guys beating up a young homeless guy outside a toilet complex. Mary bursts into the clearing.

"Stop it!"

"He attacked us. Piss off."

"Then let him go!"

"OK, fine."

They drop him to the ground and Mary runs over to his side.

"Its not safe here at night you know. Especially not for a girl."

"Yeah. Maybe we can walk you home."

Mary tries to help the homeless guy up but the two jocks pick her up by one arm each and start dragging her toward the road.

"Let me go!"

"Come on."

"We’re walking you home."

"Let me go!"

Mary manages to struggle out of their grip, grabs a stake out of her jacket and waves it at them menacingly.

"Oh look Troy, she’s got a stick."

"Ooh scary Brad. I’m just so scared I might shit my pants."

They walk off laughing and Mary goes back to the beaten up guy. He’s pretty badly hurt but Mary tells him there are paramedics on their way and helps him over to the road where the ambulance has just pulled up. She shows them to the beaten up guy and tells them about the old man on the volleyball courts as well. One of the paramedics stays with the beaten guy and the other accompanies her back to Alex. As they are leaving a police car pulls up. The paramedic tends to the old man and the second paramedic and two policemen join them shortly after asking for statements. Mary tells the police that she didn’t see what happened to the old man but the young guy was beaten up by jocks from the uni and gives their descriptions. The police ask what she was doing here at this time of night and she tells them that she and Alex were looking at bats. The police don’t really seem to care about catching the jocks and tell her that it really isn’t safe here at night and there are other parks around with fewer undesirables. They tell Mary that "Oh yeah, sure we’ll look for two college guys, heading for the uni…" with such an edge of "Oh please" in their voices that even Mary can’t miss the sarcasm, and they wander off.

Jayde bumping into Faith stuff. Cam gets to write this.
Jayde is patroling in the graveyard when she hears the sounds of fighting ahead. She ducks behind the grave stones and sneaks up to see what the noise is. Popping her head up, Jayde sees Faith fighting violently with three vampires. The vampires crowd in round Faith as she stabs one vampire in the heart with her knife and the vamp immediatly explodes into dust. She lunges around and punches another in viciously to the face, sending him back against the gravestones, stunned. The final vampire leaps and grabs her around the neck, but she quickly reverse headbutts with a cracking sound into the face of the vampire. Stunned, he releases his grasp slightly, alowing Faith to slip free. She slashes out with the knife and clashes through his throat. His hands grab to protect his throat, but it is too late and he explodes into dust. Faith turns to the vampire she knocked down earlier and delivers a spinning kick to his head as he tries to stand. The vampire is thrown back against a gravestone by the force of the blow, Faith doesn't hesitate and starts punching and pounding on the vampire, raining blow after blow down onto him until there is no resistance left in the vampire other than the odd twitch from the bloody body. Eventually, seeming to tire of the effort, Faith plunges her knife into the vampire and it explodes into dust. Jayde stands up and walks over.

Faith seems less mopey than Jayde has seen her in days. "Oh, hey, Jayde! Cool. Patroling, huh? Hey, want me to come along??".

Jayde looks uncomfortable for a second and then explains "Err, no. Thanks. I just finished my patrol."

Faith looks dissapointed before asking "Oh, ok. Um, do you know any cool places to hang? Im all pumped after the fight."

Jayde provides the location of some nightclubs and stuff, naturally editing out any places that her social circle would attend.

Faith's mood darkens and she seems to have second thoughts. "Thanks. Thanks anyway, but I might just do some more patroling."

The two part company and move off in their different directions.

The drug deal seems to be taking an interminably long time and both Gemma and Jonathan are pretty outraged by the sheer criminality of it all when they spot two policeman wandering along the path a couple of hundred meters away. They sneak over and Jonathan can’t help noticing that one of the policemen is not registering any body heat. He freaks out and shows Gemma but she says it must just be his equipment malfunctioning and police are police and therefore good. She goes up to them with no regard for whether Jonathan is with her or not, tells them that she and her friend were taking a shortcut through here and spotted a drug deal in progress just over there. The cops thank her and go running off to where she directs them and she and Jonathan run for their cars and go home.

The paramedics take the old man away and Alex and Mary head home.

24 Aug 2000, Thursday

Mary does a bit of vigilante work looking for the two jocks on campus before meeting up with Casey in a lab class. She starts to tell him about the two jocks and Casey seems to know about it already from "reading it in the paper or hearing it on the radio or something". He also comments that they were probably cops’ kids out hassling the homeless for something to do and that their rich white upper class pig fathers probably put them up to it. Mary is really not dealing with the attack and them invading her personal space and expresses a desire to make the parks safe for people and get involved somehow. At lunchtime Mary tells Casey she’s got to go and talk to a lecturer and will meet up with him later, and heads off to meet with the rest of the scoobys.

Damien and Cam do talkie things in the kitchen.
Casey wonders where Mary is spending all these lunch times. It seems a bit of strange behaviour for Mary. Maybe something is wrong with her? :)

In the meeting, everyone recaps on the rest of their evening and Jonathan tells everyone about the cold policeman. It is his theory that he was a vampire pretending to be a cop while Gemma defends him, saying that you wouldn’t get only one vamp in a situation like that. Perhaps it was a ghost policeman who couldn’t let go of his partner or maybe a cold-blooded half demon or something else entirely. Or Jonathan’s equipment was buggy. Alex agrees that it is indeed odd, and normally vampires don’t hold with keeping normal jobs. Jonathan gets shitty that his theory is being torn apart by Gemma and storms off in a huff. As he leaves the building he sees 5 cops, some campus security and some Berkeley police, running into the university. Jonathan follows them at a brisk walk.

Mary and Gemma meet up with Casey for lunch. Given their earlier discussion, Casey hands Mary a poster for "Copwatch" that he found pinned up near the library. There is a meeting coming up on Saturday afternoon. Gemma and Casey get into a big argument over the events of last night, the role of cops to care about the people they are meant to be protecting, and whether they are good for society or fascist scum Eventually when it starts getting personal Gemma storms off. Casey and Mary continue to talk for a while, Casey suggesting that they get Glitch and Neo onside and showing Mary a book on Marxism he found and they head off to lunch.

Lawyers take note: Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and Angel and all characters related belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy and fox.