The Journal of Buffy Summers
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AtS/BtVS Crossovers › General
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
16
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4,552
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Currently Reading:
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Category:
AtS/BtVS Crossovers › General
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
16
Views:
4,552
Reviews:
74
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
1
Disclaimer:
I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BtVS) or Angel, the Series (AtS); nor any of the characters from them. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Page 9 – Big Brother Is Watching
Click on the following link to view my album for this story
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********** OR **********
Take a Peek at my live journal at:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/vel_vette/
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JOURNAL NOTE: Andrew, remember when you were following me around with a camera because you wanted to document what I did as a slayer, to keep for future prosperity? NOT A PROBLEM! You shouldn’t have worried about that, because I’m very well documented by our loving Uncle Sam!
Giles, we are so going to have to negotiate to retrieve every bit of footage, pictures, records, etc of whatever they have on file on me, Angel and Spike before we walk away and agree to any treaties. Okay onto the story.
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Page 9 – Big Brother Is Watching
“Harmony?” Great, could my day get any weirder? I thought scrunching my face up. “Where were you when I was on an insane killing spree?” I sarcastically mumbled, my voice oozing venom.
Almost knocking me off my feet, Harmony bodily threw herself against me, embracing me in a tight hug.
“Buffeeee! It is so good to see you again!”
That irritating, nasally, high pitched, whiny voice was like hearing fingernails slowly scratching against a chalk board. It was enough to make my ears bleed and she was practically hanging onto me with her mouth next to my ear. Her shrilled screeches of false delight at seeing me again snapped me out of my stunned, “deer caught in headlights” paralysis.
Gripping her around the shoulders, I gave her a hard shove away from me. Then, I shot a confused and an extremely annoyed look in Riley and Willow’s direction. I noticed that their lips were twitching with barely contained amusement at my reaction to seeing Harmony again.
“Hey! Is that any way to treat someone who is happy to see you?” Harmony whined putting her hands on her hips. Assuming her trademark “diva” stance as her eyes began to slowly move up and down my body. “I see that you are still a fashion victim and dressing like the loser freak you’ve always been!”
Then she made the biggest mistake by saying the following.
“No wonder blondie bear didn’t look you up to let you know he was back if that is how you would’ve treated him. That explains why I was the one he wanted to have sex with, in the first ten minutes of becoming all solid again.”
A triumphant look washed over her face at my stunned and shocked reaction. Like salt poured over an open wound, she relished the pain she inflicted, as she greedily drank in my misery. I could feel all the blood draining away from my face, as my mouth started opening and closing like a fish out of water. I was rendered incapable of speech, as I ridiculously stood frozen in place, just gaping at her.
Spurred on by my reaction to her little revelation, she continued on, donning her most condescending voice.
“Why, he was so horny for me, that he threw some dork out of his office and fucked me hard on top of his desk as soon as the doors closed. He was like the friggin’ energizer bunny humping away like a rabid rabbit!”
“Enough!” I yelled. God! I desperately wanted to erase the mental images of the two of them furiously fucking each other out of my head. The mental pictures she painted were painful and hurtful and I just wanted her to shut the hell up.
Moving before either Riley or Willow could intercept me I held Harmony up in the air by the throat, ready to rip her wriggling tongue out of her empty head.
Instinctively, she vamped out and with a feral growl tried to rake my face with her long fingernails. Before her fingers could make contact with my face, she pulled back her hands and clutched her head as she shrieked out a choked agonized yell.
She’d been implanted with a government chip! Things were looking up all of a sudden! COOL!
Grinning wickedly, I let go of her throat. She crumbled to the floor, where she cradled her head between the palms of her hands. I then turned to Riley and gave him the sweetest smile I could muster that was sure to be cavity inducing from the sugary sweetness of it.
Riley lowered and shook his head trying to hide the ear-to-ear smile plastered on his face and stifle the laughter threatening to come out of his throat. Once the mask dropped his boyish looks came through and it was really nice to see him smile for a change. It fondly reminded me of the young man I once knew and loved in another lifetime.
In the meantime Willow stayed in the background sensing that this was some sort of needed closure after my wiggin’ out earlier and also because it was pay back for all the humiliations and torments suffered at Harmony’s hands during our high school years. Plus she still had a nasty scar on her neck from the time that Harmony bit her and she unconsciously raised her hand to touch that area in case she started feeling sorry for the vamp air head.
Re-gaining his professional composure, Riley cleared his throat and said “let’s all have a seat so that we may begin our conference.”
Feeling better already, I sat down next to Willow while Harmony sat at the other side of the table looking at me with a mixture of fear, pain, respect and loathing as she gingerly rubbed her bruised neck.
My stomach growled at that moment in the silent room and Riley took that as his cue to order food and beverages to be brought in for the humans and blood for Harmony before we began our meeting.
Riley averted another brawl between Harmony and myself when I innocently stated “Rat blood for the rat fink ho, please!” Damn I was ready to wail on her sorry ass. Stupid Riley for interfering.
As soon as the soldier left the room and the food was on the table, Riley looked at Willow and said “Time to put up the cloaking spell, Willow.” At my raised eyebrow he added, “So that no one will know what is being discussed here.”
Nodding her head in agreement, Willow began chanting and then a visible force could be seen emanating from her, as it began to flow and rippled out to all corners of the room. It kind of tickled as it passed through my body I mused as I waited for it to take effect.
Satisfied that the cloaking spell was in place and working fine, Willow looked at Riley and said “It’s done.”
Not waiting for Riley to take control of the meeting, I immediately broke in with “Can someone please explain to me why Harmony is here?”
“First things first Buffy”, Riley replied, annoyed at my impatient outburst. “We need to go over background that will explain events that happened before the fight in the alley and why we held back.”
“Okay, fine, have it your way,” I conceded as I started eating my food with my lower lip stuck out in protest. I hadn’t realized just how hungry I was until I took my first bite of the assorted spread laid out before me. So I dug in heartily, because I needed to remain sharp and focused for what looked to be a very long dry meeting. I just hoped to hell that he wouldn’t start pulling out any pie charts or diagrams cause then I was going to have to take over.
Harmony started making snorting “pig” sounds from her end of the table taunting me as she sipped her blood in game face. I shot a deadly glare her way as I continued eating heartily, glad to show her that she couldn’t get a rise out of me now that she was all neutered.
“Pig!” she grumbled childishly.
“Neutered cow!” I retorted, grinning wickedly.
“LADIES!” Riley shouted making us both jump, breaking off our staring contest as we both turned to look at him.
“Buffy, I don’t know if Angel or Spike ever told you but they’ve both been captured by the United States Government before Sunnydale.” Riley studied my face as he said this and could see by the shocked look on my face that this was the first I’ve heard of this up until now.
“It was back during World War II that a branch called “The Demon Research Initiative” recruited Angel to help our U.S. Navy recover a captured German submarine with American soldiers on board. The Nazi’s had captured a trio of vampires and were forcing them to help in the war. Spike was one of those vampires in the captured German sub. Long story short, Angel was successful in that mission and even though he managed to elude us, we have kept him under constant surveillance ever since then.”
As I started to open my mouth to ask the question obviously written on my face, Riley intercepted by stating, “The reason we have had a *hands off* attitude toward Angelus is because it is the natural order of balance to leave hunter and prey alone without any interference on our part. The law of nature is survival of the fittest and we also knew through prophecies that you would defeat him when he tried to end the world by means of Acathla. Okay, so now moving on.
His voice faded away as the words “constant surveillance” rattled around in my brain as I thought back to all the times when Angel and I got hot and heavy in the cemeteries thinking that we were alone. I let out a stifled groan, as I felt a burning sensation creeping up my cheeks as I began blushing at the thought that my ex-boyfriend was now privy to some rather steamy moments of us together.
Oh God! They also had Spike under surveillance, that would mean that I unknowingly starred in my own government sponsored porno! All of sudden my appetite waned and I started squirming in my chair as Willow, sensing my discomfort placed a soothing hand on my back to steady me.
By this time Harmony was snickering from her corner of the room and I couldn’t even muster enough dignity to make her stop. Though, I did notice that Willow shifted in her chair and raised her other hand, abruptly ended her snickering by magically making an apple fly into her mouth, stuffing it comically closed.
By now, knowing what was going through my mind, Riley slid a folder across the surface of the table towards me breaking into my muddled thoughts. Thoughts of how many times Spike and I did the “deed” out in public. By the time the folder slid in front of me, I had run out of fingers and toes counting how many times we coupled out in the open and was glad for the welcomed interruption.
I then wondered if my time with Riley had also been surveyed and somewhere he had memories of our own steamy times together filed away. “Thoughts bad, bad thoughts!” I mentally chanted as I moved to open up the folder.
Inside I came across pictures of Angel dressed all in black, inside of what appeared to be a naval ship. Well, at least he was wearing his favorite color, I randomly mused. My finger started to lovingly trace his face, as my mind continued to absently wander. I was trying to distract myself and keep my mind from drifting back to the forbidden zone of being Buffy “The Sunnydale Porn Queen.” I distract vampires from biting and sucking other girls! Ask me how!
Shaking my head to clear it, I then noticed pictures of Spike with dark hair wearing a Nazi German uniform. That bleached moron, as handsome as he looked in that uniform, he better not have been a Nazi! Being British, I would have thought that he would at least have been a patriotic vampire and not played nice with the enemy. Seeing Angel and Spike’s picture snapped me out of my self-imposed pity zone and brought me back to business.
“This is all informational Riley, but what does this have to do with what happen at Wolfram and Hart and Angel’s crew?” I asked wondering where all of this was leading to.
“Simple Buffy, our government is filled with attorneys. Wolfram and Hart have some powerful politicians deeply imbedded within our government. The technology for the behavior modification chip is a project directly linked to research provided by Wolfram and Hart.”
“You remember Professor Walsh? She may have worked as a scientist employed by the U.S. Government but her funding was provided by Wolfram and Hart for the patent and legal rights to the product.”
“That research was started back during World War II and Wolfram and Hart didn’t care who developed the technology, American or German, as long as they just got it started.”
“That’s silly, why would Wolfram and Hart want to help develop technology to help control demons?” I asked. “It just doesn’t make sense?”
“To help maintain a balance between humans and demons, that way a conflict triggering the final apocalypse would never come to pass. If you think about it, if both sides do not have a greater advantage over the other, then balance and order is kept.”
“Initially, the behavior modification chip would have helped to keep that delicate balance. We have been automatically implanting all of our soldiers with this chip and if they are killed and turned then the chip automatically activates and then we have control over a more powerful weapon.”
“The data collected from hostile 17…” At the murderous look I shot in Riley’s direction, he cleared his throat and began again.
“Spike’s chip was an invaluable source of information. Upon my promotion to this position, I gained the knowledge that Spike had been allowed to escape, contrary to appearances, making it look as though we were trying to retrieve him. It was all a carefully thought out plan to release him into his environment and observe him outside the laboratory with the implant.”
“Oh puh-lease, you expect me to believe that Spike was ALLOWED to escape? You could’ve fooled me judging by the numerous attempts your little band of merry men went through to try to recapture him.”
“His chip was working when he attacked our HUMAN scientists at the lab, Buffy. They were just orderlies of no significant value who Professor Walsh ordered to be used as acceptable losses. She just kept the chip from firing off when he was fighting with those technicians.”
“It was all staged to make Spike believe that his escape for freedom was for real. During the scuffle, Spike had managed to unexpectedly release another vampire, but we didn’t allow that subject to escape containment.”
“Orders, at the time were to help maneuver Spike to the planned route of escape to the surface as quickly as possible without raising any of his suspicions. Professor Walsh was at the control panels shutting down doors between him and our soldiers, maneuvering him like a mouse in a maze.”
An apologetic look graced Riley’s face during his explanation and I could tell that he was not happy at being deceived himself with the recent knowledge made privy to him. He explained that they were all kept in “need to know” fragmented clusters where none knew what the others were doing.
“Pfffttt,” I snorted. “Right! So if Spike was so damn important to be release back into the wild like some tagged animal for study, how do you explain your orders to terminate him for being the infamous Doc, huh? Are you trying to tell me that it was all some elaborate setup to retrieve the chip he was implanted with? That you fabricated that *lie* just for my benefit?”
I was strongly starting to suspect that Spike was unjustly set up by the initiative to be a scape goat, so that he could fall out of my good graces. The whole “Doc - trafficker of demon eggs” scenario was beginning to look staged, in order to separate him from my protective wing. Looking at it now, it just seemed too damn convenient and coincidental.
Almost as if he knew what I was thinking, a look of contrition washed over Riley’s face as he confirmed that the demon they were tracking was being controlled to make it appear like they were chasing it.
Apparently, Spike was hiding the eggs in his crypt to pay off a gambling debt he owed in a game of kitten poker. Probably a fixed game set up by the initiative. It was all one great big elaborate set up to hide the fact that they were back in town with some hidden agenda. My head was swimming with this information overload and all the tightly wound web’s of lies and deceits.
My only consolation as my mind wandered off topic again, was the eyeful Riley got when he busted in on us inside the crypt. Spike made sure he *saw* why there was another reason he was called *Spike*. Can we say size definitely matters! The man fell way short in comparison to my vamp! Damn no more chocolate cake for me, the sugar is making me loopy, as once again Riley started up with the explanations.
“We would have left ashes to make it look like he was killed,” Riley continued. “But we would have extracted him to our facilities to study him further. When you decided to let him live then we decided to go to plan “B”.
“There was a plan “B”? Wait, are you telling me that the chip was working just fine when it was removed?”
“Yes, plan “B” was to make the chip look like it was degrading after a certain amount of time had passed. The initiative recalibrated the frequency to the chip to make it appear like it was malfunctioning. This was all done, so as to not raise any suspicions that we wanted to retrieve the chip, while still making it appear as though it was retrieved at your request.”
“Hey!” Willow piped up as a sudden thought hit her. “So you both knew I couldn’t do any magic and perform a tracking spell? Both you and Sam walked into the house, knowing our situation the whole time and still you both asked! Didn’t you? Oh, but of course, it is not your fault! You both were following orders and damn who gets their feelings hurt as long as your mission get accomplished!”
Willow’s face reflected her disbelief at their tactics and her wounded \ accusatory look made Riley swallow hard, before he mumbled some belated lame apology. It was too little, too late in my opinion. Trust had been severely broken and could never be repaired again, even if he was now secretly fighting on our side. Somehow I had a niggling feeling in my belly that there were other things he was not telling us before he interrupted my contemplative train of thoughts.
Riley continued, as if never interrupted by Willow’s outburst, he didn’t skip a beat. He was focused on progressing beyond his past comprehensible behavior and move on to business as usual.
“From the information we got from Spike’s chip, we can now do more than just inhibit behavior, we can control and manipulate it as well. We can now stimulate the creature’s brain to make it obey and behave as we see fit. It would also be incapable of telling a lie once it has been implanted with the new chip. The exception being, if for example, circumstances require for our implanted subject to lie in order to complete its assigned task, then it will not experience any modification from the chip.
“Oh gee, thanks so much Spikey!” Harmony bitterly grumbled, but then visibly cowered when Riley shot a stern look in her direction and threatened to push a button on a remote he pulled out of his shirt pocket.
I could tell that the remote was a device that was used to either discipline or control a “chipped” subject. For the very first time I was starting to feel sorry for Harmony but as soon as that thought hit my brain it left immediately.
I returned my attention back to Riley as he continued on with his tedious and long explanations. Blah, blah, blah, Giles no offense, but I didn’t think anyone could beat you at dry and boring meetings. I was so wrong! No wonder Spike used to call him pet names like “Captain Cardboard” and “White Bread” – Bland! Very bland…blech!
“The mind and behavior control technology would have helped in maintaining a critical balance. But now that all the potentials are slayers and one of the most notorious hellmouths on this planet has been permanently closed, our government has since been in negotiations with Wolfram and Hart to provide a new location for another hell mouth to be opened to assuage the dissident demonic clans that are afraid of losing further ground to the human population.”
“Detente would have been kept without Angel’s interference, but now with small factions of demonic groups itching to up the notch into full scale war against humans, Wolfram and Hart is having a hard time keeping them suppressed. So a temporary truce has been called to let both sides cool off and negotiations begin that will be satisfactory to both sides.”
“Starting negotiations is critical, now that we cannot undo what you and Willow have done by empowering all the potentials into slayers. When you have time within the week, we can have the new liaison to Wolfram and Hart meet with you and Giles to discuss terms for a new treaty.”
“All concerned parties are very anxious to begin negotiations. Demands have come in to keep slayers away from all the hell mouths around the globe and concentrated on less populated cities. They want one slayer assigned to each hell mouth to safeguard and keep them from being opened. We are hoping that this will be enough to help maintain equal balance on both sides and keep dissident factions from revolting and triggering the final Armageddon.”
“Okay, I’m getting a headache now, my turn to ask a few questions. Like why in the hell didn’t you call me ahead of time to let me know what was about to happen?”
“Buffy,” Riley exclaimed with an exasperated tone. “There is a very good reason as to why we didn’t contact you before the fighting began. Primarily because we couldn’t tip our hand that we knew what was about to go down ahead of time.”
“Just think if I had contacted you then my superiors would’ve known that I knew about the rebellion Angel was planning and then “The Black Thorn” would’ve been alerted through their spies. Once they knew what Angel had planned, since his attack depended on the element of surprise then they probably would’ve stopped Angel before he even had a chance to kill any of them and they would have died for nothing.”
“Plus, when Angel had his man Gunn kill Senator Buckner, our hands became tied to help Angel in any way whatsoever by politicians who are in league with Wolfram and Hart. We were instructed that whatever direction the battle went that all we had to do was to help contain the demonic horde and keep them from devastating the civilian population.”
“The destruction of Angel and his group would have restored balance, but not knowing what has happened to either Angel or Spike has left things up in the air and a temporary truce has been called pending negotiations from all concerned parties.
“Okay, now explain to me why weren’t you using weapons against those demons I killed earlier?”
“Wolfram and Hart had some containment levels below their building and some pretty nasty cellar dwellers were being permanently warehoused in them. We are to contain and hold them for re-location to another Wolfram and Hart facility until they can again rebuild on this site.”
“Destroying those that escape containment is forbidden and may break the fragile truce between both sides since some of the demons stored are considered religious entities to some demonic groups.”
At my hard gulp and worried look, Riley then added.
“Fortunate for you, those demons were not in that category. So in the future refrain from your kill first and then ask questions later…Okay?”
“Affirmative!” I responded with a mock salute. What the hell else could I say? It seemed that all I kept saying to Riley since I showed up unexpectedly at his doorstep was sorry. And that was the last thing I felt at this moment so I decided to get to the next item on the agenda.
“Again, I repeat myself, just what the hell is Harmony doing here?”
“Hey!” Harmony yelled indignantly. “I was really trying to be nice to you before you got all shove-y, but if you continue treating me bad then I’m not sharing what I know!”
“Yeah,” I raised my eyebrow skeptically and crossed my arms across my chest. “Just what could you possibly know in that air head of yours that I would even care to listen to? Hmmm?”
Standing up and crossing her arms over her chest, pushing her hips off to one side and stomping her foot, Harmony screeched, “Do you care about what might have happened to Angel and Spike? How’s that for caring about what I happen to know, dorkus!”
That was the last thing I expected to hear from her as I felt my heart sink down to my stomach and the room start spinning around me. Willow placed her hand on my shoulder as I visibly looked shocked that this vamp bimbo would have any information on them!
“HARMONY!” Riley yelled. “Tell her what you know, NOW!”
Tbc…
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To my reviewers, I had a hard time with this chapter because I was struggling with how much to reveal but trudged through anyway. I tried not to make it to blah and boring and I hope I didn’t bore anyone to tears.
As for Spuffy, well I need to put some sort of story in with the lovin’ so I will try to squeeze some here and there without taking away from the direction I’m heading.
Thanks so much for reviewing and upping my star ratings even though it doesn't seem to change, cause have to say that I was starting to wonder!
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/vettehayden/album?.dir=/8325&.src=ph
********** OR **********
Take a Peek at my live journal at:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/vel_vette/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
JOURNAL NOTE: Andrew, remember when you were following me around with a camera because you wanted to document what I did as a slayer, to keep for future prosperity? NOT A PROBLEM! You shouldn’t have worried about that, because I’m very well documented by our loving Uncle Sam!
Giles, we are so going to have to negotiate to retrieve every bit of footage, pictures, records, etc of whatever they have on file on me, Angel and Spike before we walk away and agree to any treaties. Okay onto the story.
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Page 9 – Big Brother Is Watching
“Harmony?” Great, could my day get any weirder? I thought scrunching my face up. “Where were you when I was on an insane killing spree?” I sarcastically mumbled, my voice oozing venom.
Almost knocking me off my feet, Harmony bodily threw herself against me, embracing me in a tight hug.
“Buffeeee! It is so good to see you again!”
That irritating, nasally, high pitched, whiny voice was like hearing fingernails slowly scratching against a chalk board. It was enough to make my ears bleed and she was practically hanging onto me with her mouth next to my ear. Her shrilled screeches of false delight at seeing me again snapped me out of my stunned, “deer caught in headlights” paralysis.
Gripping her around the shoulders, I gave her a hard shove away from me. Then, I shot a confused and an extremely annoyed look in Riley and Willow’s direction. I noticed that their lips were twitching with barely contained amusement at my reaction to seeing Harmony again.
“Hey! Is that any way to treat someone who is happy to see you?” Harmony whined putting her hands on her hips. Assuming her trademark “diva” stance as her eyes began to slowly move up and down my body. “I see that you are still a fashion victim and dressing like the loser freak you’ve always been!”
Then she made the biggest mistake by saying the following.
“No wonder blondie bear didn’t look you up to let you know he was back if that is how you would’ve treated him. That explains why I was the one he wanted to have sex with, in the first ten minutes of becoming all solid again.”
A triumphant look washed over her face at my stunned and shocked reaction. Like salt poured over an open wound, she relished the pain she inflicted, as she greedily drank in my misery. I could feel all the blood draining away from my face, as my mouth started opening and closing like a fish out of water. I was rendered incapable of speech, as I ridiculously stood frozen in place, just gaping at her.
Spurred on by my reaction to her little revelation, she continued on, donning her most condescending voice.
“Why, he was so horny for me, that he threw some dork out of his office and fucked me hard on top of his desk as soon as the doors closed. He was like the friggin’ energizer bunny humping away like a rabid rabbit!”
“Enough!” I yelled. God! I desperately wanted to erase the mental images of the two of them furiously fucking each other out of my head. The mental pictures she painted were painful and hurtful and I just wanted her to shut the hell up.
Moving before either Riley or Willow could intercept me I held Harmony up in the air by the throat, ready to rip her wriggling tongue out of her empty head.
Instinctively, she vamped out and with a feral growl tried to rake my face with her long fingernails. Before her fingers could make contact with my face, she pulled back her hands and clutched her head as she shrieked out a choked agonized yell.
She’d been implanted with a government chip! Things were looking up all of a sudden! COOL!
Grinning wickedly, I let go of her throat. She crumbled to the floor, where she cradled her head between the palms of her hands. I then turned to Riley and gave him the sweetest smile I could muster that was sure to be cavity inducing from the sugary sweetness of it.
Riley lowered and shook his head trying to hide the ear-to-ear smile plastered on his face and stifle the laughter threatening to come out of his throat. Once the mask dropped his boyish looks came through and it was really nice to see him smile for a change. It fondly reminded me of the young man I once knew and loved in another lifetime.
In the meantime Willow stayed in the background sensing that this was some sort of needed closure after my wiggin’ out earlier and also because it was pay back for all the humiliations and torments suffered at Harmony’s hands during our high school years. Plus she still had a nasty scar on her neck from the time that Harmony bit her and she unconsciously raised her hand to touch that area in case she started feeling sorry for the vamp air head.
Re-gaining his professional composure, Riley cleared his throat and said “let’s all have a seat so that we may begin our conference.”
Feeling better already, I sat down next to Willow while Harmony sat at the other side of the table looking at me with a mixture of fear, pain, respect and loathing as she gingerly rubbed her bruised neck.
My stomach growled at that moment in the silent room and Riley took that as his cue to order food and beverages to be brought in for the humans and blood for Harmony before we began our meeting.
Riley averted another brawl between Harmony and myself when I innocently stated “Rat blood for the rat fink ho, please!” Damn I was ready to wail on her sorry ass. Stupid Riley for interfering.
As soon as the soldier left the room and the food was on the table, Riley looked at Willow and said “Time to put up the cloaking spell, Willow.” At my raised eyebrow he added, “So that no one will know what is being discussed here.”
Nodding her head in agreement, Willow began chanting and then a visible force could be seen emanating from her, as it began to flow and rippled out to all corners of the room. It kind of tickled as it passed through my body I mused as I waited for it to take effect.
Satisfied that the cloaking spell was in place and working fine, Willow looked at Riley and said “It’s done.”
Not waiting for Riley to take control of the meeting, I immediately broke in with “Can someone please explain to me why Harmony is here?”
“First things first Buffy”, Riley replied, annoyed at my impatient outburst. “We need to go over background that will explain events that happened before the fight in the alley and why we held back.”
“Okay, fine, have it your way,” I conceded as I started eating my food with my lower lip stuck out in protest. I hadn’t realized just how hungry I was until I took my first bite of the assorted spread laid out before me. So I dug in heartily, because I needed to remain sharp and focused for what looked to be a very long dry meeting. I just hoped to hell that he wouldn’t start pulling out any pie charts or diagrams cause then I was going to have to take over.
Harmony started making snorting “pig” sounds from her end of the table taunting me as she sipped her blood in game face. I shot a deadly glare her way as I continued eating heartily, glad to show her that she couldn’t get a rise out of me now that she was all neutered.
“Pig!” she grumbled childishly.
“Neutered cow!” I retorted, grinning wickedly.
“LADIES!” Riley shouted making us both jump, breaking off our staring contest as we both turned to look at him.
“Buffy, I don’t know if Angel or Spike ever told you but they’ve both been captured by the United States Government before Sunnydale.” Riley studied my face as he said this and could see by the shocked look on my face that this was the first I’ve heard of this up until now.
“It was back during World War II that a branch called “The Demon Research Initiative” recruited Angel to help our U.S. Navy recover a captured German submarine with American soldiers on board. The Nazi’s had captured a trio of vampires and were forcing them to help in the war. Spike was one of those vampires in the captured German sub. Long story short, Angel was successful in that mission and even though he managed to elude us, we have kept him under constant surveillance ever since then.”
As I started to open my mouth to ask the question obviously written on my face, Riley intercepted by stating, “The reason we have had a *hands off* attitude toward Angelus is because it is the natural order of balance to leave hunter and prey alone without any interference on our part. The law of nature is survival of the fittest and we also knew through prophecies that you would defeat him when he tried to end the world by means of Acathla. Okay, so now moving on.
His voice faded away as the words “constant surveillance” rattled around in my brain as I thought back to all the times when Angel and I got hot and heavy in the cemeteries thinking that we were alone. I let out a stifled groan, as I felt a burning sensation creeping up my cheeks as I began blushing at the thought that my ex-boyfriend was now privy to some rather steamy moments of us together.
Oh God! They also had Spike under surveillance, that would mean that I unknowingly starred in my own government sponsored porno! All of sudden my appetite waned and I started squirming in my chair as Willow, sensing my discomfort placed a soothing hand on my back to steady me.
By this time Harmony was snickering from her corner of the room and I couldn’t even muster enough dignity to make her stop. Though, I did notice that Willow shifted in her chair and raised her other hand, abruptly ended her snickering by magically making an apple fly into her mouth, stuffing it comically closed.
By now, knowing what was going through my mind, Riley slid a folder across the surface of the table towards me breaking into my muddled thoughts. Thoughts of how many times Spike and I did the “deed” out in public. By the time the folder slid in front of me, I had run out of fingers and toes counting how many times we coupled out in the open and was glad for the welcomed interruption.
I then wondered if my time with Riley had also been surveyed and somewhere he had memories of our own steamy times together filed away. “Thoughts bad, bad thoughts!” I mentally chanted as I moved to open up the folder.
Inside I came across pictures of Angel dressed all in black, inside of what appeared to be a naval ship. Well, at least he was wearing his favorite color, I randomly mused. My finger started to lovingly trace his face, as my mind continued to absently wander. I was trying to distract myself and keep my mind from drifting back to the forbidden zone of being Buffy “The Sunnydale Porn Queen.” I distract vampires from biting and sucking other girls! Ask me how!
Shaking my head to clear it, I then noticed pictures of Spike with dark hair wearing a Nazi German uniform. That bleached moron, as handsome as he looked in that uniform, he better not have been a Nazi! Being British, I would have thought that he would at least have been a patriotic vampire and not played nice with the enemy. Seeing Angel and Spike’s picture snapped me out of my self-imposed pity zone and brought me back to business.
“This is all informational Riley, but what does this have to do with what happen at Wolfram and Hart and Angel’s crew?” I asked wondering where all of this was leading to.
“Simple Buffy, our government is filled with attorneys. Wolfram and Hart have some powerful politicians deeply imbedded within our government. The technology for the behavior modification chip is a project directly linked to research provided by Wolfram and Hart.”
“You remember Professor Walsh? She may have worked as a scientist employed by the U.S. Government but her funding was provided by Wolfram and Hart for the patent and legal rights to the product.”
“That research was started back during World War II and Wolfram and Hart didn’t care who developed the technology, American or German, as long as they just got it started.”
“That’s silly, why would Wolfram and Hart want to help develop technology to help control demons?” I asked. “It just doesn’t make sense?”
“To help maintain a balance between humans and demons, that way a conflict triggering the final apocalypse would never come to pass. If you think about it, if both sides do not have a greater advantage over the other, then balance and order is kept.”
“Initially, the behavior modification chip would have helped to keep that delicate balance. We have been automatically implanting all of our soldiers with this chip and if they are killed and turned then the chip automatically activates and then we have control over a more powerful weapon.”
“The data collected from hostile 17…” At the murderous look I shot in Riley’s direction, he cleared his throat and began again.
“Spike’s chip was an invaluable source of information. Upon my promotion to this position, I gained the knowledge that Spike had been allowed to escape, contrary to appearances, making it look as though we were trying to retrieve him. It was all a carefully thought out plan to release him into his environment and observe him outside the laboratory with the implant.”
“Oh puh-lease, you expect me to believe that Spike was ALLOWED to escape? You could’ve fooled me judging by the numerous attempts your little band of merry men went through to try to recapture him.”
“His chip was working when he attacked our HUMAN scientists at the lab, Buffy. They were just orderlies of no significant value who Professor Walsh ordered to be used as acceptable losses. She just kept the chip from firing off when he was fighting with those technicians.”
“It was all staged to make Spike believe that his escape for freedom was for real. During the scuffle, Spike had managed to unexpectedly release another vampire, but we didn’t allow that subject to escape containment.”
“Orders, at the time were to help maneuver Spike to the planned route of escape to the surface as quickly as possible without raising any of his suspicions. Professor Walsh was at the control panels shutting down doors between him and our soldiers, maneuvering him like a mouse in a maze.”
An apologetic look graced Riley’s face during his explanation and I could tell that he was not happy at being deceived himself with the recent knowledge made privy to him. He explained that they were all kept in “need to know” fragmented clusters where none knew what the others were doing.
“Pfffttt,” I snorted. “Right! So if Spike was so damn important to be release back into the wild like some tagged animal for study, how do you explain your orders to terminate him for being the infamous Doc, huh? Are you trying to tell me that it was all some elaborate setup to retrieve the chip he was implanted with? That you fabricated that *lie* just for my benefit?”
I was strongly starting to suspect that Spike was unjustly set up by the initiative to be a scape goat, so that he could fall out of my good graces. The whole “Doc - trafficker of demon eggs” scenario was beginning to look staged, in order to separate him from my protective wing. Looking at it now, it just seemed too damn convenient and coincidental.
Almost as if he knew what I was thinking, a look of contrition washed over Riley’s face as he confirmed that the demon they were tracking was being controlled to make it appear like they were chasing it.
Apparently, Spike was hiding the eggs in his crypt to pay off a gambling debt he owed in a game of kitten poker. Probably a fixed game set up by the initiative. It was all one great big elaborate set up to hide the fact that they were back in town with some hidden agenda. My head was swimming with this information overload and all the tightly wound web’s of lies and deceits.
My only consolation as my mind wandered off topic again, was the eyeful Riley got when he busted in on us inside the crypt. Spike made sure he *saw* why there was another reason he was called *Spike*. Can we say size definitely matters! The man fell way short in comparison to my vamp! Damn no more chocolate cake for me, the sugar is making me loopy, as once again Riley started up with the explanations.
“We would have left ashes to make it look like he was killed,” Riley continued. “But we would have extracted him to our facilities to study him further. When you decided to let him live then we decided to go to plan “B”.
“There was a plan “B”? Wait, are you telling me that the chip was working just fine when it was removed?”
“Yes, plan “B” was to make the chip look like it was degrading after a certain amount of time had passed. The initiative recalibrated the frequency to the chip to make it appear like it was malfunctioning. This was all done, so as to not raise any suspicions that we wanted to retrieve the chip, while still making it appear as though it was retrieved at your request.”
“Hey!” Willow piped up as a sudden thought hit her. “So you both knew I couldn’t do any magic and perform a tracking spell? Both you and Sam walked into the house, knowing our situation the whole time and still you both asked! Didn’t you? Oh, but of course, it is not your fault! You both were following orders and damn who gets their feelings hurt as long as your mission get accomplished!”
Willow’s face reflected her disbelief at their tactics and her wounded \ accusatory look made Riley swallow hard, before he mumbled some belated lame apology. It was too little, too late in my opinion. Trust had been severely broken and could never be repaired again, even if he was now secretly fighting on our side. Somehow I had a niggling feeling in my belly that there were other things he was not telling us before he interrupted my contemplative train of thoughts.
Riley continued, as if never interrupted by Willow’s outburst, he didn’t skip a beat. He was focused on progressing beyond his past comprehensible behavior and move on to business as usual.
“From the information we got from Spike’s chip, we can now do more than just inhibit behavior, we can control and manipulate it as well. We can now stimulate the creature’s brain to make it obey and behave as we see fit. It would also be incapable of telling a lie once it has been implanted with the new chip. The exception being, if for example, circumstances require for our implanted subject to lie in order to complete its assigned task, then it will not experience any modification from the chip.
“Oh gee, thanks so much Spikey!” Harmony bitterly grumbled, but then visibly cowered when Riley shot a stern look in her direction and threatened to push a button on a remote he pulled out of his shirt pocket.
I could tell that the remote was a device that was used to either discipline or control a “chipped” subject. For the very first time I was starting to feel sorry for Harmony but as soon as that thought hit my brain it left immediately.
I returned my attention back to Riley as he continued on with his tedious and long explanations. Blah, blah, blah, Giles no offense, but I didn’t think anyone could beat you at dry and boring meetings. I was so wrong! No wonder Spike used to call him pet names like “Captain Cardboard” and “White Bread” – Bland! Very bland…blech!
“The mind and behavior control technology would have helped in maintaining a critical balance. But now that all the potentials are slayers and one of the most notorious hellmouths on this planet has been permanently closed, our government has since been in negotiations with Wolfram and Hart to provide a new location for another hell mouth to be opened to assuage the dissident demonic clans that are afraid of losing further ground to the human population.”
“Detente would have been kept without Angel’s interference, but now with small factions of demonic groups itching to up the notch into full scale war against humans, Wolfram and Hart is having a hard time keeping them suppressed. So a temporary truce has been called to let both sides cool off and negotiations begin that will be satisfactory to both sides.”
“Starting negotiations is critical, now that we cannot undo what you and Willow have done by empowering all the potentials into slayers. When you have time within the week, we can have the new liaison to Wolfram and Hart meet with you and Giles to discuss terms for a new treaty.”
“All concerned parties are very anxious to begin negotiations. Demands have come in to keep slayers away from all the hell mouths around the globe and concentrated on less populated cities. They want one slayer assigned to each hell mouth to safeguard and keep them from being opened. We are hoping that this will be enough to help maintain equal balance on both sides and keep dissident factions from revolting and triggering the final Armageddon.”
“Okay, I’m getting a headache now, my turn to ask a few questions. Like why in the hell didn’t you call me ahead of time to let me know what was about to happen?”
“Buffy,” Riley exclaimed with an exasperated tone. “There is a very good reason as to why we didn’t contact you before the fighting began. Primarily because we couldn’t tip our hand that we knew what was about to go down ahead of time.”
“Just think if I had contacted you then my superiors would’ve known that I knew about the rebellion Angel was planning and then “The Black Thorn” would’ve been alerted through their spies. Once they knew what Angel had planned, since his attack depended on the element of surprise then they probably would’ve stopped Angel before he even had a chance to kill any of them and they would have died for nothing.”
“Plus, when Angel had his man Gunn kill Senator Buckner, our hands became tied to help Angel in any way whatsoever by politicians who are in league with Wolfram and Hart. We were instructed that whatever direction the battle went that all we had to do was to help contain the demonic horde and keep them from devastating the civilian population.”
“The destruction of Angel and his group would have restored balance, but not knowing what has happened to either Angel or Spike has left things up in the air and a temporary truce has been called pending negotiations from all concerned parties.
“Okay, now explain to me why weren’t you using weapons against those demons I killed earlier?”
“Wolfram and Hart had some containment levels below their building and some pretty nasty cellar dwellers were being permanently warehoused in them. We are to contain and hold them for re-location to another Wolfram and Hart facility until they can again rebuild on this site.”
“Destroying those that escape containment is forbidden and may break the fragile truce between both sides since some of the demons stored are considered religious entities to some demonic groups.”
At my hard gulp and worried look, Riley then added.
“Fortunate for you, those demons were not in that category. So in the future refrain from your kill first and then ask questions later…Okay?”
“Affirmative!” I responded with a mock salute. What the hell else could I say? It seemed that all I kept saying to Riley since I showed up unexpectedly at his doorstep was sorry. And that was the last thing I felt at this moment so I decided to get to the next item on the agenda.
“Again, I repeat myself, just what the hell is Harmony doing here?”
“Hey!” Harmony yelled indignantly. “I was really trying to be nice to you before you got all shove-y, but if you continue treating me bad then I’m not sharing what I know!”
“Yeah,” I raised my eyebrow skeptically and crossed my arms across my chest. “Just what could you possibly know in that air head of yours that I would even care to listen to? Hmmm?”
Standing up and crossing her arms over her chest, pushing her hips off to one side and stomping her foot, Harmony screeched, “Do you care about what might have happened to Angel and Spike? How’s that for caring about what I happen to know, dorkus!”
That was the last thing I expected to hear from her as I felt my heart sink down to my stomach and the room start spinning around me. Willow placed her hand on my shoulder as I visibly looked shocked that this vamp bimbo would have any information on them!
“HARMONY!” Riley yelled. “Tell her what you know, NOW!”
Tbc…
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To my reviewers, I had a hard time with this chapter because I was struggling with how much to reveal but trudged through anyway. I tried not to make it to blah and boring and I hope I didn’t bore anyone to tears.
As for Spuffy, well I need to put some sort of story in with the lovin’ so I will try to squeeze some here and there without taking away from the direction I’m heading.
Thanks so much for reviewing and upping my star ratings even though it doesn't seem to change, cause have to say that I was starting to wonder!