Title: The Assistant, part 32
Author: Sweetdoggie
Email: (stirling_summer@yahoo.com)
Pairing: B/G
Rating: R
Summary: More about the Initiative
Spoilers: season 4
Disclaimer: No permission has been granted to use the characters. They are owned by their creator, Joss Whedon, Twentieth Century Fox, UPN, WB, and Mutant Enemy. This story is non-profit and is intended solely as entertainment. No copyright infringement is intended.
They maintained their silence till they reached Giles’ car. After they climbed in Giles quickly performed a minor detection spell. Sure enough, the car had been bugged and had a tracking device attached. He disabled them and tossed them into the sewer. When it was safe to speak, he turned to her.
“It must stop, Buffy.”
“Giles, that was the worst thing I’ve ever seen. It’s wrong and evil and it is so going to stop. We need a plan.”
He nodded. “And soon, I think.”
“We need allies.” She frowned in thought. “Let’s go to Willie’s.”
He nodded and drove them to the decrepit bar that catered to demons. They walked into the darkened interior and watched the few demons sitting around scatter at Willie’s normal warning of “Slayer in the House.”
Buffy walked up to the bar. “Willy, we need your expertise.”
Two hours later they left the bar with a list of demonic contacts. Willy would spread the word among the denizens of the underworld that the Slayer was going to help. He had greeted her request with first skepticism then amazement as he realized that she was serious. A Slayer working with and for demons was truly unprecedented.
Giles and Buffy drove back to the house. Giles did the magic thingy again and little spots of blue fire sprang up in almost every room in the house. The Initiative had been extremely busy planting bugs. They spent a good half hour disposing of all of them.
“We don’t have a lot of time, Rupert.”
“I know, dear.”
“Do you think Willow could hack into their database and get us floor plans? They must exist someplace. And by the way, how do you build a huge underground lab and stuff under a busy university and nobody notices?”
He thought about it. “I don’t really know. I don’t recall there being a lot of construction on campus since we’ve been in Sunnydale, but then, I wouldn’t have paid a great deal of attention to such a thing anyway.”
“Me neither. I guess once they had put up the building over it, underground construction could have been carried out secretly. But I don’t really understand how. I mean, what happened to all the dirt, for example?”
“Dirt?” He sounded quizzical.
“Yeah, that’s a huge complex. If you took out that much dirt, wouldn’t you have to find a place to put it?”
“Dirt.” Giles rolled the idea across his mind. “Not if there wasn’t any dirt to begin with. What if there were caves under Sunnydale? It would be a relatively simple thing to finish them into the labs and cells.”
Buffy liked his idea and ran with it. “And maybe if it’s a natural system of caves, there’s more than one entrance. Let’s call Willow.”
Twenty minutes later, the Scooby team had been assembled. Willow found maps dating back to the 19th century that showed extensive caves under the town but all the modern maps had expunged this information.
“It looks to me like they must have built this complex in the 1930’s at the very earliest.” Willow remarked. “I bet they’ve refurbished it and added all the high tech stuff within the last year or two. >From what you’ve told me, that stuff is very cutting edge.”
“How long has Maggie Walsh been at UC Sunnydale?” Giles wanted to know.
Willow did some typing looking intently at the monitor of her computer. “Three years. But it looks like they didn’t start the Initiative till at least a year later.”
“Why’s that, Will?” Buffy asked.
“Lowell house was in ruins. It needed major work. The University received a large influx of cash,” she typed again, “yeah, two years ago. The place was refurbished and an entire dorm of graduate students transferred in.” She shook her head. “Nobody notices anything in this town.”
“So that couldn’t have been much before Riley became my “mentor,” right?” Buffy asked.
“Less than a month, it looks like.”
Buffy paced around the room. “Do you think he suspected I was the Slayer?”
Giles looked intrigued, then shook his head. “He might have been investigating some of the strange happenings at Sunnydale High, but I doubt seriously that he had any idea about your identity. Probably, the mentor program was designed to seek out students with unusual backgrounds and keep an eye on them.”
Buffy grinned quickly. “I guess I qualify.”
Xander looked up from the map of the cavern system. “Will, can you find a schematic of the compound?”
She typed for ten minutes before sighing. “This is tough. I finally got in by using Riley’s password and his computer. If anybody looks at the records, Riley will have been logged in checking stuff out.” She finally got a map showing the layout of the base. “Now what?”
“Can you overlay it with this old map of the caves under the town?” Xander asked, bent over her shoulder.
Another five minutes of typing revealed a working overlay.
They gathered around him while he traced out a route from a tiny tunnel starting down at the beach. “Look at this! It looks like some sort of service shaft.”
“Wouldn’t that be heavily guarded?” Giles asked.
“Only guessing, but I doubt it. These guys are so confident that they are superior, they probably don’t bother. My guess would be they are depending on some sort of electronic watchdog.” Buffy said.
“We can easily disable any electronics they have with a tiny bit of magic.” Willow noted.
“So getting in won’t be a problem,” Buffy still sounded grim.
Giles nodded. “It’s getting out again that could be problematic. If even one of us is captured, we are all compromised. The Initiative will come for us and we will be virtually helpless against them.”
“We need a plan,” Buffy told them. “We need an army.”
“We can’t attack the compound,” Giles protested. “However horrible, these Initiative chaps are human. If we organized a demon brigade, their blood would be on our hands.”
Buffy rubbed her hands tiredly against her face. “Yeah. You’re right. Damn, we are in so much trouble.”
Willow, her chin resting on her hand, looked up. “How about a prison break? Could we do something like that? It wouldn’t be impossible to shut the power down, especially if it were done magically. If we could get rid of the electromagnetic fields around each cell, the prisoners could easily break through the glass.”
“Once again we are blocked by the fact that the demons would undoubtedly kill some of the soldiers.” Giles wouldn’t meet Buffy’s angry and frustrated gaze.
“How is it right that the monsters should just be let free?” Xander asked. “I mean, sure, what’s happening to them is bad, but they do kill humans. It’s kinda their thing.”
Buffy sighed. “I know! Do you think I don’t know? This isn’t an easy situation where the monsters are the bad guys and the humans are the good guys. This time, the humans are doing wrong, big time wrong! Nothing deserves to be cut up in creepy experiments, not even monsters.”
They argued the moral ins and outs of the issue for another hour. Nobody was satisfied and Giles had raised the possibility that the demons would go on a killing spree if freed. They were no closer to a real plan and tempers were rising.
“Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way,” Buffy growled.
“What do you mean?” Giles asked her.
“Well, we keep thinking of breaking the monsters out, but is there another way? How about we get rid of the Initiative, which should be our goal anyhow? After all, they can always capture more demons so breaking them out would just be a temporary fix. How can we permanently stop the government from doing this?”
Willow thought about it. “The only way you ever get the government or any big program stopped is to cut off the money. A project like the Initiative must go through money like it was water.”
“Can you investigate the source of their funding, Willow?” Giles wondered.
She shrugged. “Yeah, but even if I could find it, there is no way I would have enough skill to cut it off.”
“I bet the Council would have that kind of power though,” Xander said thoughtfully.
As one, they turned to look at the boy.
“Xander! That’s brilliant!” Buffy leaped up and kissed him soundly. Giles pounded him on his back and Willow hugged him.
Giles had already picked up the phone and dialed Merrick quite forgetting the nine hour time difference. A very sleepy Watcher answered the phone.
“Yes?”
“John? It’s Rupert. We have a plan…” He spent half an hour outlining the problem and the dilemma faced by the Scoobies.
“I’ll get the Council on it, Rupert, but it won’t be overnight by any means.”
“I realize that, John, but we need to feel that we are accomplishing something.”
“Keep on as you have been. Don’t do anything to make them suspicious of you. You’re job is going to be keeping the children under control. I’m sure Buffy will want to do something drastic. You must prevent that by all means.”
Giles sighed. “It isn’t going to be easy, John. Especially since I would like to do something rather drastic myself.”
The elder Watcher chuckled. “I understand, dear boy, but you must all stay on a tight leash until the Council is ready. Are you still coming over for Thanksgiving? Joyce and Anna have been looking forward to it.”
“I couldn’t keep Buffy away with less than an apocalypse, John. How is the baby doing, by the way?”
“He’s a fine strapping lad, Rupert. He shall make a fine Watcher.”
Rupert secretly wondered at whether or not the boy would want to be a Watcher, but held his tongue. “Well, he certainly has the best teacher available.”
John laughed. “You flatter this old man.”
“Huh! You’re old like an oak is old, John. It just gets stronger every year.”
“I might concede to getting more stubborn every year. You might ask Joyce about that!”
They shared a laugh and John promised to be in touch as soon as he had information from the Council. Hanging up the phone, Rupert turned to see Buffy standing with her hands on her hips. “You talked to Merrick and didn’t even tell me!”
He looked guilty. “I’m sorry, love. It never occurred to me what with all this Initiative business. Forgive me?”
She tapped her foot. “Rupert Giles!”
He came up and put his hands on her shoulders. “I love you, sweetheart. Please don’t be mad at me.”
She sighed deeply. “Then quit doing dumb stuff! You knew I would want to talk to my Watcher.”
He dropped a string of kisses on her throat. “Can’t I be your Watcher for now, love?”
She leaned against him breathing in his distinctive scent of leather, old books, and weapons. “Giles when you kiss me there, you can be whatever you want.”