Title: The Assistant, part 46
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 and Graham returned to the Giles household about an hour later. They were deeply shocked to see Hostile 17 perched on the couch sipping a cup of hot chocolate.
“Buffy!” Riley snapped authoritatively. “Come away from there right now. I don’t want to alarm you, but that creature is a vampire.”
She looked over at him. “Yeah, I know. We’ve met before actually. Spike’s going to be working for us.”
At the sight of the Initiative men, Spike set the cup down and stood up. “You bastards! I want to know what you did to me. You took away my bite. Tell me!”
Giles came in from the kitchen carrying the tea tray. “Yes, do tell us all what has been done, if you please.”
Riley’s face got all serious. Buffy noticed that his stance became more erect and his bearing more military. “Hostile 17 was implanted with a neural modifier—a top secret device designed for Sub-T’s as an instant behavior modification reinforcement technique. Every time he tries to hurt a human, he’ll get zapped. Eventually, he will stop such negative behaviors. Good acts cause him to experience pleasure, bad acts cause him to feel extreme pain.”
Spike snarled but he was already learning that the chip was his master. He didn’t attack. “I haven’t felt anything remotely pleasurable since I got out. I think it’s not working right. Take it out!”
Riley shook his head in a satisfied manner. “I can’t. Frankly, I doubt that any qualified personnel exist who can remove it. It was Dr. Angleman’s baby and he’s dead. His notes were destroyed when Adam took over the complex. It would take literally years for another scientist to be able to reproduce the effect and, from what I understand of the procedure, the technique for removal was never perfected. They just assumed that when they wanted the device back, they’d kill you.”
“How does it work?” Giles wondered, intrigued by the concept.
“I don’t know details, but part of the chip’s construction is organic. They implant it at the base of the brain and it grows there. A week after it is deposited, it has grown tendrils that extend deep into the subjects neural pathways. Dr. Angleman speculated that removal would kill the host.”
Buffy looked speculatively at Spike for a moment. “So, if he does something good, he gets a happy, if he does something bad-whammo?”
“Essentially.” Riley shifted his gaze from the Sub-T to Buffy. “It was designed to give our side a military advantage. Imagine a soldier that could infiltrate the enemy and was practically invulnerable.”
Buffy shuddered. “Why does the military always want to build a better weapon? Can’t you guys just be satisfied with having enough fire power to blow up the freakin’ planet?”
“We are defending democracy and your right to live in relative peace and freedom,” Riley said staunchly.
“And I appreciate that. I really do. But that doesn’t include torturing other life forms and chopping them up for spare parts.”
“I don’t understand you. They’re demons, monsters—they’ve murdered humans and deserve to die.”
She shrugged. “Then kill them. Torture is wrong—no matter what your justification, no matter how well intentioned your ultimate goal, it’s a step toward the dark. It doesn’t matter if your victims are monsters or not human. You are human and if you want to stay that way, you don’t use torture. You don’t capture sentient creatures and use them as experiments. In my opinion, you don’t even do that with animals.”
He frowned at her. “You’re a civilian and you don’t understand military necessity.”
“I’m a human and I understand right and wrong,” she countered, looking at him sadly. “Don’t misunderstand, Riley. I’m willing to do what it takes to stop them, to protect my family and other people. It’s my job because I’m the Slayer. Does it bother me that I kill monsters? Sometimes. Not every demon is evil, you know. Some of them are just people who look different. They aren’t bent on world conquest or the total eradication or enslavement of humans. They just want to get by in a tough world. I saw what kind of demons you had in your holding area. There were at least five varieties that aren’t violent or evil.” She paced around the room. “How many widows and orphans did Maggie Walsh create in their families?”
“Oh, come on! Don’t tell me those things were married!”
“Riley, grow up. Three of them were married to humans.”
The expression of disgust and horror on the young soldier’s face could not be mistaken. “Who in their right mind would marry one of those, those things?”
“Apparently, quite a few people. There are a great number and variety of demon/human hybrids in existence,” Giles informed him.
Riley looked at Buffy. “Would you ever consider mating with one of them?”
“No. There is only one man in the world for me and that’s Giles.”
“I might,” Willow told him simply. “I think it’s more important how a person is inside than what’s on the outside. That’s just a shell.”
Riley looked over at Spike then back to Willow. “Tell me you would even consider kissing that thing!”
Willow looked at the blond vampire, head tilted to one side. “He’s handsome enough, but he’s evil.”
Spike puffed his chest up. “Damn right! You think I’m handsome?” He sounded curiously flattered.
Giles rolled his eyes. “We are not here to discuss the attractiveness of creatures of the night and sadly, neither are we here to make moral decisions about the rightness or wrongness of the Initiative’s plans. What we are here for is to find some way to take down Adam. I move that we table these discussions until such time as we have some leisure.”
Buffy nodded and Riley met Graham’s eyes and said that he agreed. Willow murmured her consent and Spike simply shrugged. He sidled closer to Willow. “So, do you really fancy me?”
“I don’t ‘fancy’ you, Spike. I said you were handsome. You are. It’s not something you did or that you earned; it’s just a fact. You’re good looking, so is Giles and even Riley for that matter.”
Spike looked at the soldier with his lip curled into a sneer. “If you like them big and dumb, I suppose.”
Riley started for him but Graham grabbed his arm. “Not worth it, Ri!”
The soldier settled for glowering at the vampire. Spike smirked.
Giles sighed. Why did everything have to be so blasted difficult? “All right, that’s enough for tonight. Spike, start looking for Adam. I’ll expect you to report back each evening. Riley, did you connect with your military allies?”
“Yes. They can only send about forty men.” At Giles disappointed look he added that it wasn’t the manpower that was the problem, it was the debriefing afterwards.
Spike leaned over Willow. “I wouldn’t object to debriefing you, Red.”
She blushed. “Knock it off or you’re going to be the only vampiric toad on the planet, Spike.”
He grinned, feeling suddenly better for no particular reason. “Yeah, but don’t they say you have to kiss a lot of frogs to get to the handsome prince? Would you let me sleep on your pillow and eat off your plate like in the story?”
“Not even if you came with a pot of gold,” she told him dryly. Stepping back from him she motioned to Buffy. “Can I speak with you privately about something?”
Buffy nodded and they went off to her and Giles’ bedroom.
“What’s the what, Will?”
The redhead looked at her shoes before speaking. “Oz is leaving. He needs to get together with his wolfy side and learn to control himself or something. He says it’s for my own good.”
“Oh, Will. I’m so sorry!” Buffy put her arms around her friend and hugged her tightly.
Willow broke down at the gesture and began sobbing. “What am I going to do, Buffy? I love him and he’s leaving me.”
The Slayer had thought about this situation for a long time. Ever since she had found out that Oz was infected she had worried about having to kill him if he lost control. Secretly, she was glad he was leaving town. It let her off the hook from having to potentially destroy one of her friends.
“Maybe…maybe it’s for the best. I know it probably doesn’t seem like it right now, but if you think about it, maybe Oz does need to learn control. What if he got out sometime and I had to go after him as the Slayer? I love Oz like a brother. He’s family. What if he started killing? What if he injured you?”
“He wouldn’t do that!”
“He’s obviously thought about it though. Maybe this will give you guys a real chance for a future.”
Theoretically, Willow knew Buffy was right. The werewolf thing was terrifying and Oz was always contagious. They had done a ton of research and found out that his curse could be spread through contact with his saliva. They couldn’t kiss because he didn’t want Willow to take the chance of infection. If she had so much as bitten her tongue and his saliva touched the open wound, she would be in jeopardy.
She had been working on a spell that acted like a giant prophylactic. It would encase all his body fluids in a binding magic field. Not only would it have prevented the spread of his disease, it would also have acted as birth control. She felt tears threaten to spill for the first time since he had broken the news. They could never have had children, even if he had stayed.
She looked at her friend and the sympathy she found on Buffy’s face was the last straw. Tears poured down her face and her body was wracked with sobs. Buffy held her for a long time.
When her weeping had finally abated, the redhead looked back at her friend. “Can I spend the night here tonight? I just don’t want to go back to the dorm by myself.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Will. Do you want to borrow a T-shirt to sleep in?”
“Yeah. Thanks. And, um, about four aspirin too, if you don’t mind. Crying always gives me a headache.”
“Me too.” She smiled softly. “We have more types of pain killers in this house than you can shake a stick at! Aspirin is no problem at all.”