Title: The Assistant, part 42
Author: Sweetdoggie (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.
Riley got back to the Initiative in time to hear the screams coming out of the labs. He ran down the corridor and saw the broken bodies of Dr. Walsh and Dr. Angleman, obviously dead. Forest, whom he had left on guard, was either dead or unconscious near them. Standing between the bodies was the most horrific thing he had ever seen. It was man-shaped—mostly. Demon parts had been grafted onto a human frame and somehow…melded with the original body.
“What are you?” Riley spoke before he could think.
The monster tipped its head sideways as it thought. “I am Adam. Mother made me.”
They both turned to look at the battered corpse of the former scientist.
“So you killed her?”
“She was becoming unstable. She was a liability.” The creature looked at him carefully. “My memory banks indicate that you must be Riley Finn. Mother was working on you too. In time, she would have made you to be like me.”
“What?”
“Yes. Would you like to serve me now?”
“No!” Riley was unarmed so he resorted to the oldest ruse in the book. Throwing his hand out in a pointing gesture, he spoke excitedly. “Look, behind you!”
The monster obligingly turned to look at whatever Riley was pointing at. As soon as he turned, Riley ran like his pants were on fire. He got to the elevators and pressed the call buttons but they were moving so slowly, he knew the thing would be on him before they arrived. Quickly reviewing the plans of the facility in his mind, he raced down an empty corridor, turned left, then right till he came to a large metal door. He punched in a combination on the keypad next to it and ducked behind it as it slowly opened. He raced for the stairs and ten minutes later dropped panting at the hidden entrance to the underground facility. He stood and staggered his way to Lowell House hoping that Graham was still there. Finally, he made it to the dormitory and climbed yet one more flight of stairs to Graham’s room.
Pounding on the door, he didn’t wait for a response before thrusting it open. Graham sat up and dropped the textbook he was reading on his bed. “What is it, Ri?”
“Dr. Walsh, Angleman, maybe Forest, dead down below. Something she created. Part demon, part man. We’ve got to get out of here. Grab your gun and let’s go!”
Graham didn’t argue but quickly grabbed his pistol and tossed a spare to Riley. They tore out of the building.
“Where are we going?” Graham panted.
“We’re going to Buffy. When we get there, we can call the military for some extra troops, but she definitely needs to know.”
Buffy and Giles had just finished a short patrol and were cleaning weapons in the kitchen.
“Look at this, damnit! I nicked the edge of my sword!” Buffy was disgusted.
“You must have clipped some bone in that Fyarl demon.”
“I think I hit it on the neck collar he was wearing, actually.” She sighed and took a whetstone from the table. “This is going to take hours of work to fix.”
They both looked up as running feet thundered up onto their front porch and a series of frantic thumps indicated somebody wanted in.
Giles hurried to the front door, sword ready. Buffy stood off to the side, quite willing to hack the heads off of any possible intruder. He thrust open the door and was surprised to see Riley and Graham.
They pushed past him without ceremony.
“We’re in trouble,” Riley told them. “Dr. Walsh and Dr. Angleman are dead. I think Forest is dead too. I need to use your phone.”
Giles nodded to the receiver on the wall, while Buffy looked stunned. She wondered what had killed the two professors. They listened closely when Riley made his verbal report over the phone and learned as much as he knew about Adam and the failed experiment. He mentioned that the monster said that Riley too, had been a lab rat for the professor. After a few more minutes, he hung up the phone and turned to his stunned hosts.
“You heard?”
Buffy nodded for them both. “Yeah. I guess now we know why she wanted all those different demons.”
“I promise you, Buffy, I didn’t have any idea.” Riley’s voice was anguished. He had lost more than just his professor; he had lost a mentor and a friend, as well as some measure of faith in the basic goodness of humanity.
“Do you think Forest was still alive?” Giles asked him.
“Unknown. There was so much blood it was impossible to tell. I couldn’t see his chest move, but he could simply have had low respiration.” He shuddered. “It wanted me to serve it. It asked me. Said I was an experiment as well.” His eyes opened wide as he looked at Giles. “What if I turn into that thing? Please, you’ve got to promise me if I start, start mutating or something that you’ll kill me quick.”
Giles bared his teeth in what, in a less scary person, might have been a grin. “I have no problem with that.”
Riley looked at him. “I didn’t think you would, somehow.”
Buffy rolled her eyes at Graham. “Testosterone poisoning rears it’s ugly head.”
The other soldier nodded with a grin, slapped Riley on the back and told him that he wouldn’t let Giles get too trigger-happy.
Giles smiled a bit more normally. “Oh, I shouldn’t shoot him. It’s really not very effective against the sorts of things we come across…”
“Barring rocket launchers,” Buffy interjected.
“Barring rocket launchers,” he conceded. “Swords are really much more efficient. You take the head, you see.”
Riley looked a bit ill, but nodded. “You guys are the experts.”
“We need to get the gang researching on this thing,” Buffy said abruptly.
Giles nodded. “Yes, give them all a call, would you? I need to get a bit more information from our young military friends.”
The Scooby meeting lasted well into the night. Giles invited Riley and Graham to stay with he and Buffy for the night. “You can’t very well go back to your dormitory. I’m sure this creature knows where you live.”
Riley nodded his thanks. He wasn’t aware of it, but his eyes tracked Buffy when she moved across the room. Giles saw it and his eyes narrowed but he said nothing. He knew his unreasonable jealously irritated Buffy, but he couldn’t help himself. The younger man still wanted her and it made Giles ache to kill him.
The two young men opted to sleep in the same room, Xander and Oz took another and Willow took a third. Cordelia said nothing could make her sleep with Willow and she drove herself home after promising that she would call when she arrived so that they would know she was all right.
Giles stayed up till after Cordelia’s call, then joined Buffy in their room.
“This is looking kinda bad, Giles,” she whispered.
“Indeed. I can’t believe that woman was so foolish as to play about with the forces she has unleashed.”
“Yeah. I mean, we have enough natural monsters, why make up your own?”
“Power, I suppose. Plus the drive to do something first.”
“Huh! She isn’t the first. She isn’t even the first one in Sunnydale to do the old spare parts bit.”
“True,” he acknowledged, “but she didn’t know about Dayrl.”
“Not just him, either. I mean, yeah, body snatching and all, but what about Ted? What about that demon guy from the book that built himself a robot body? All she’s done is combine the chop-shop with a tool shed and come up with a monster that’s basically an evil, mobile computer.”
“True. Well, we shall simply have to think of some way to unplug it. I’ve never liked computers,” he added crossly.