[X] Buffy goes high. The girl in the audience was an activist Willow had met at UC Sunnydale. "Ms. Summers' administration already has several women in prominent positions, and she's supporting Juan Cortez for city council, one of our nation's many successful immigrants. Will you show the same commitment to inclusivity and multiculturalism?"
Gervais seemed poleaxed for a second to Buffy, but his recovery was quick enough, "While I can only applaud Ms. Summers' success in courting a man of Mr. Cortez's reputation, not all of us can be so lucky. I would personally have been happy to support his attempts to bring the movie industry back to Sunnydale myself, but alas, I wasn't born with the good looks to catch his eye as a movie star." This drew some laughs from the audience, not least because in actuality he was easily handsome enough to star in a movie.
"But I won't let that stop me from having a commitment to diversity. While my city councilors aren't quite as fresh faced a cast as hers, this is, after all, a debate on who gets elected mayor, and not on the city council. If elected I promise to not only follow the good example she's already set, but furthermore the women I hire won't all be friends of mine from high school." He cracked an annoying smile and got some more predictable laughs, letting them trail off and condescendingly gesturing that Buffy could respond.
She was tempted to snap at him, but that obviously wouldn't play very well. "The extreme circumstances of Mayor Wilkins' disappearance did force me to act, and even though a lot of the people who acted with me were friends of mine, isn't that part what Sunnydale has always been about? Friends you grew up with. Friends you can trust." She was pretty sure Sunnydale hadn't ever really been about that, but it was the kind of thing people liked to believe.
"And now that the emergency's passed, my administration and I have made all sorts of new friends in Sunnydale, and friends for Sunnydale, from town institutions like Larry Truman to the Tajikistani visitors we've met from across the world. And that's diversity isn't it? Making friends between the old and the new. I'm sure that Mr. Gervais agrees, what with his uncle running for city council too." This got some chuckles too; her opponent really shouldn't throw cronyism stones from his own glass house, or whatever that metaphor was.
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"That stunt you pulled on Mr. Decker yesterday was pretty impressive. You must have found out you'd need something on him when you requisitioned that tape on Thursday, but how did you know there was anything to find?" Chief Matthew Waters said.
It wasn't any surprise that the "sensitivity training" had materialized the very next day, and Buffy and Willow were going to attend the first of the two classes given to members of the police force and the SDCW. He'd need a bit of dealing with beforehand to make sure things didn't fly off the rails into crazytown. For now though, the two of them were having an impromptu conversation in Chief Matt's office about how they'd scared up some video evidence pretty much on demand.
"Wolfram and Hart's operational security is getting a little dated," Willow said. "And as for knowing about the tape, I just drove around the neighborhood scrying for security footage, and then CyberWillow searched through everything that was there. Once we found the … incident, and really, that was totally gross, I just had to get the right tape officially, just in case we had to use it."
"There are a lot of stores and a lot of cameras around there." Matt was keeping the neutral tone he rarely wavered out of, but he seemed a little more keen than usual to Buffy.
"Didn't even take me an hour," Willow bragged. They'd initially been pretty worried about Lindsey's plan to attack the Rat Nobles through Mr. Decker, but Willow had come through in the clutch.
"That's a pretty impressive turnaround," he answered. "I've done enough detective work to know how many man hours that kind of thing usually takes, between the forms, collecting up the tapes, all that footage. It's a lot. I wouldn't want to impose all the time, but..."
"I could do a repeat performance if you needed me to, don't worry about it," Willow said. "Really, I should automate the whole process more, then you'd just be able to access whatever you needed on your own computer system. I'd need a little bit of extra oomph to get it going, but I've got a couple ideas."
"Wilkins had leftover magic ingredients good for hacking into security footage?" Buffy asked.
"Something like that," Willow said. "I'll need to do some research first, to make sure I'm not barking up the wrong tree."
"That'd be real useful," Matt said. After a pause, he continued. "So this sensitivity training thing, we had something like that in San Francisco. I'm not sure how well it's going to go over."
"Don't worry about taking it too seriously," Buffy said. "This guy has a real degree but he's probably used to just running his scam, who knows if he even remembers how to do the normal version."
"And you've got a way to stop him making whatever trouble he usually gets up to?" Matt asked.
"We've got it under control. Just handle it like we talked about before and it should go smooth." Buffy idly twirled her hammer around. And just when she was thinking he should be arriving any minute, there was the soft electric chime alerting them to the front door to the station opening. They could see through Matt's raised office blinds that Allen Lloyd had arrived, looking just like they expected him to from his file. He was a goofy-looking nerdy guy carrying a wooden stick as long as his forearm.
Before he could even reach the front desk, Buffy, Willow, and Chief Matt were all out of the office and striding towards him. Meanwhile, he seemed a little taken aback by the high-security layout of the station, with the desks arranged radially around the entrance and most of the windows covered.
Chief Matt had the first thing to say. "Nothing personal sir, but we've had a rough couple months at this station and we'll need to do a weapons check. Arms out to the side please."
He nodded amicably, holding his little stick out in one of his hands, but his attention was more on Buffy than Matt, "Miss Mayor, I was excited to hear you'll be attending. I find that having younger people around can really help others get in touch with their feelings."
"That'll be of the good," Buffy drawled. "Since you might find your job a little more difficult than usual today." As she finished, Willow telekinetically yoinked the stick out of his hand.
He was momentarily shocked by such a brazen use of magic, but fell back on his old lies quick enough, "That's not a weapon! It's just my talking stick, I use it in my class. It's no more dangerous than your prop hammer!"
There was a storm of clicking from over by Willow, where she'd dropped the stick in a crate that had been left behind the front desk. "That's probably true, honestly, but it's dangerous enough." She was waving her radio over it like a geiger counter. "The magic seems demonic from what I can tell. I guess we'll see if Andrew can make anything of it later."
"You might want to search him for anything else," Chief Matt said. "Types like that carry backups sometimes."
Willow amenably went over to run her Geiger radio over Allen himself, and was a little surprised when she got more clicks around his head. "Your glasses? Really?"
"Those don't even do anything! I need them to see!" Allen said, his arms still stretched to the side.
"Then if you ever come back you can invest in some bifocals," Buffy said. "You can have those back after, I guess, but put them in the box for now."
"You'll be hearing from the Sensitivity Awareness Institute about this," he grumbled, but he didn't put up a fight. His glasses went into a case and inside the crate. "The effect isn't even active, it just helps me judge people's emotions."
"Then we can all learn about doing things the normal way together," Buffy said brightly. "Won't that be fun?"
Chief Matt led the group to a briefing room downstairs where a number of officers and SDCW were already congregating for the class under the glare of the fluorescent lights, putting on some of the name tags that had been sent over (and checked for magic) in advance. Xander, Oz, and a number of others were scheduled for the second class, but Harmony was here now, lounging at a desk in one of her guilelessly seductive poses. If accused of looking at her chest, Buffy would steadfastly claim she was fascinated by the pretty handwriting on her name tag.
"So this is really happening?" she asked, looking at Buffy kind of half sideways and half upside down. "Wasn't the whole point just to cast a spell on us or something?"
"Well, we already paid for it, and I'll be darned if I'll waste taxpayer money." Buffy slid into a seat next to her.
"I'm sure that everyone's work will improve after getting in touch with their feelings," Allen said, still sounding put upon. "But these working conditions are atrocious. Aside from everything else, couldn't we have met somewhere with some natural light?"
"I'd think a shrink like you would be way more conscious of people with disabilities," Harmony said with faux seriousness. "I have a very sensitive skin condition, you know."
"Just one stray ray of sunlight, and poof, right up in flames," Willow chimed in. She wasn't exactly cushy with Harmony, but they'd mostly been getting along, and apparently she wasn't above using her as a prop to dunk on Allen with. Buffy hoped it was a sign of better things to come.
Meanwhile, Allen had definitely gotten the implication and grimaced, retreating a little from the conversation and drifting up to the front of the room. Looking around at the unruly group, he reached for the tone teachers take everywhere and said, "Alright everybody, let's settle down and start." Conversations didn't end immediately, but once people noticed that the notables in the room were at least pretending to be respectful things quieted down.
He seemed a little at a loss, and Buffy could notice his right hand twitching a little nervously, but he moved forward quick enough, "I'm guessing not too many of you want to be here right now. You've likely already heard some nasty things about me, and you're probably right if you think your bosses don't take this seriously. But today can be more than just a political stunt. If you open your minds to learning, you won't just become better people, but you'll become better at your jobs.
He looked around now, a little annoyed, and picked up a marker from the whiteboard in the back. "Now, a certain someone decided she had to confiscate my talking stick, but there's no reason we can't still follow the same principle without it. This can be the talking marker. Whoever holds this marker has the right to express themselves without judgement. It's a very effective way for us to get used to sharing our feelings."
"I have to admit, it lacks a certain gravitas," Willow commented.
Allen raised his eyebrow and gave a little smile. "All the same, I think it's the thought that counts. How about you start? Do you have some feelings you want to talk about?" He walked over to her and offered the marker.
Willow cautiously waved her radio over it, but it didn't get any beeps. She was still a little hesitant.
"You could use my hammer if you wanted instead Will. I'm sure it's got plenty of gravity." Buffy said, a little mischievously. Between how busy she'd been with work and how busy she'd been getting lately with Harmony there hadn't been much goofing off with Willow this summer, and this was as good a time for it as any.
Allen looked intrigued by the notion, but before he could respond, Willow rolled her eyes, "I like my arms unsprained, thanks," she grabbed the marker before taking in Allen's expression and addressing him again. "You know that thing weighs more than fifty pounds right? You probably couldn't even drag it across the room."
"Let's focus more on how her offer made you feel," Allen said. "Does the mayor lord her physical strength over other people often? Is she considerate of the limitations of others?"
"No!," Willow disagreed, shaking the marker. "Buffy's really nice, don't try to twist everyone around against her like that. I mean, sometimes maybe she's a little forgetful about things like walking speed, but she helps people move stuff around, and umm, she even carried my bags once, when I had way too many books!" Buffy was happy that her friend was defending her, but she did notice a bit of a look on Harmony's face at the same time. Maybe she could contrive to carry some bags for her soon.
"I'm happy to hear that she's so nice to her friends," Allen said, taking back the marker. "But does that apply to everyone? Percy, how was Buffy in high school outside her inner circle?" Suddenly in the crosshairs, Percy was looking poleaxed as Allen approached his position at the back of the room. A couple of the football players turned SDCW members sitting around him snickered at his predicament.
"We didn't umm, talk much or anything. She was probably pretty busy? With like, all the demons and stuff," he said uncertainly.
"A charismatic girl like that, totally withdrawn?" Allen asked. "Surely she must have had some kind of reputation."
Percy gave her a questioning look past Allen's back and she shrugged and gestured for him to go on. She was sort of curious, really.
"I mean, even before everyone knew everything, she had this reputation of being kind of tough and umm," he stopped, swallowing the rest of whatever that sentence had been, then continued again. "Anyway, sometimes people on the team would get dared to mess with her a little, but nobody but Larry was ever brave enough to accept. He was always kind of expecting her to smack him down when he did it, but he just like, wanted to climb the mountain you know?"
"Larry?" Allen asked. "He isn't here today is he? Maybe in the other class?"
"He died man," Percy said, a little forlorn now. "He fought at Graduation. It was a crazy scene."
"That must be very traumatizing, to lose a friend at your age," Allen continued.
"Sunnydale's always been kind of like that. He wasn't the first friend any of us had that died, and he wasn't the only one to die at graduation either," at that, Percy gestured at Harmony, who nodded her head and pointed a thumb back at herself. "But like, it was really in my face after that. I used to practice against that guy, and I just saw a giant snake whip its tail and break him like he was nothing. Larry was tougher than me and braver than me. Makes you think. I knew, but I didn't really know."
"I understand a lot of the city watch is going to go on to college out of town after this summer. Are you? Do you think it'll be the same after an experience like this?" Allen asked.
"I got a football scholarship at USC, all the ink was dry before I even got swept up into any of this. It was all I really cared about for a long time; I even mostly ignored school until Willow over there lit a fire under my ass about it." This got a little smirk from Willow, despite the seriousness of the conversation. "And now it's just like, Larry was going to USC too. Now he's dead. Maybe it isn't really the be-all end-all."
"And you're reconsidering it? Maybe seeing the advantages of a life of policing instead?"
"No, I'm still going, but I talked with a couple other guys that might end up in LA, and we'll keep our eyes open. It's not Sunnydale, but rumor in the watch is things can get a little crazy down there too," Percy said.
"He should know, his bosses are probably behind most of it," Willow sniped.
"Hey now, there's no call for that!" Allen argued. "Maybe I had some ulterior designs coming in, but I take the core tenets of my job very seriously. This is a privileged conversation, and I'm just a contractor for Wolfram and Hart anyways. Now Percy, lets go further with this. Have you considered how your own experiences might be similar to those of the victims you meet in the line of service? How can you use that to make a connection?"
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Later that night, the conference room was pretty full, and even though the supposed 'inner circle' felt a little unmanageable at this point Buffy felt like they all should have some input on the big decision about what to do. After all, with those assassins in the offing all of them were at risk.
The people Buffy still thought of as the original Scoobies were all there of course, but they were a little dispersed amongst those that had glommed onto the group at graduation and over the summer. Giles and Vanessa had gotten tea from somewhere, and Jonathan and Willow were absorbed what looked like the cross-referencing of an ancient book with her laptop. Oz was on Willow's other side, but talking with Harmony of all people. Anya and Xander were exchanging whispers about something X-rated that Buffy was sad to overhear, and Ian had gravitated towards her of all people, though he seemed happy enough to be quiet in the meeting-chaos. Finally, Cynthia came in with donuts, and Buffy decided it was time to call things to order as she sat down.
"So a lot of you have already heard, but we hacked into Wolfram and Hart's servers on Thursday and we discovered a lot of trouble. Not just the plan with the emotions warlock we foiled today, but the sneaky murderous kind. They have floor plans of people's houses. They have professional assassins both in house and in their filing cabinets. It's a serious risk, and I think we have to take some kind of action."
"Are you sure the information is accurate?" Giles started. "It certainly wouldn't shock me, but you did gain access to it with untested magic, and I'm unsure an organization like that would entrust everything to a computer."
"I keep telling people, this isn't like the procedure I used with the police database," Willow said. "I had real access."
"That her intelligence proved good for both the debate and the saboteur today says enough, I think," Cynthia spoke up. "And I would believe they put far more on their computers than they should have, people make all kinds of inane decisions to look more efficient and modern. That's how they get promoted, half the time."
"I for one am less concerned with making sure the tees are crossed than making sure our throats don't get cut!" Anya derailed the argument. "Waves of assassinations are a real risk once you start ruling over territory, take it from me, I've caused some of them. And not everyone here has superpowers to just beat them into paste when they show up, some of us will just die pathetically."
"Ahn," Xander started, "You're going to be OK, you don't need to-"
"But I do!" Anya said. "This is serious! You're very good at fair fights Xander, but assassins don't have to fight fair. They could pick us off when we're alone, or asleep, or preoccupied with sex! Nobody ever expects to die in the middle of their orgasm until it happens!"
That statement left a bit of a silence, but unexpectedly it was Oz that filled it. "So, we know they have all these assassins, but none of them have made with the assassinating yet."
"And you're wondering: why not already?" Xander asked.
"Pretty much," Oz confirmed.
"And if something has stayed their hand for all these weeks, does it still do so now?" Giles said. "Understanding their motivations is essential here."
"Duh, they want to take over the Hellmouth," Harmony answered.
Giles rubbed his glasses in his British schoolteacher put upon way, "But how? Why? We have the notes from their machines, but does anyone remember something this Lindsey fellow might have done in person to indicate their greater objectives?"
"They were trying to make us cave and join up, back during the Rat King situation," Buffy said. "I kind of assumed they just wanted easy access to the Hellmouth without the inconvenient electoral process."
"But now you think they might be interested in like, us?" Xander said. "Little old us?"
"You aren't so little anymore," Vanessa said dryly.
"Thanks but no thanks?" Xander replied, while Anya cuddled into his arm a little more possessively than before.
Cynthia ignored everyone's byplay and spelled things out where Vanessa had been pithy, "The scale of this immediate operation is already larger than anything Wilkins attempted to maintain, and the diversity and quality of your various talents is hard to deny, perhaps especially after the events of this week. You are not just one powerful sorcerer and a collection of lackeys, but a well-rounded group capable of both direct and covert action on multiple fronts. Subverting you could be as much a coup for their organization as control of the city would be."
"I mean, we are pretty great," Willow said. "But how can we know when they're going to cut their losses and just attack? Their network's been totally dark ever since I hacked them, and Lindsey threw his cellphone in a dumpster today. It's like we're knife-fighting blind!"
"If Carl Gervais' campaign was an attempt to exert soft pressure, there's reason to believe they might lose confidence in it," Ian said, taking Willow's side in as much as he ever was proactive about anything. "They were down five points already last week, and the post-debate polling is showing signs of being even more positive for us. Even the television analysts mostly called the debate for you."
"So great, isn't winning what we want?" Harmony said cheerily. "Gogo Mayor Buffy?"
"Sure, until Wolfram and Hart flips the board game we're playing and the roads run red with blood!" Anya said, still in the midst of her panic. Buffy didn't want to go all Allen Lloyd on her, but Anya definitely had some issues with her newfound mortality.
"Oh, yeah, I guess that makes sense," Harmony admitted. "But I mean, in the abstract, a popularity contest with bonus violence at the end, sounds pretty fun."
"Says the baby master vampire," Anya complained.
"Maybe we should start focusing on what we do about it," Xander said.
"Well, we wanted to deal with the debate and the sensitivity guy first, and here we are," Buffy said. "I could make the phone call to this Manor guy."
"But then he'll know we know!" Anya kept going. "He wants us working with Wolfram and Hart, and we aren't going to do that. Calling him just lets him act first."
"Now wait," Giles said. "I won't ascertain any sort of pure motive to people of this stripe, but they aren't just mindlessly destructive beasts. I don't think it's unlikely we could work out some kind of peace treaty. It's not as if they're right in our backyard."
"Demons generally negotiate violently, it'll just make us look weak." Anya said.
"I'm not sure that's completely true in this situation," Ian said hesitantly. "At least at this level, the data we have suggests Wolfram and Hart is a primarily human organization. Holland Manners himself is a human."
"I'm not sure I like the direction this is going in," Xander said, taking over the conversation from Ian. "These Wolfram and Hart guys might be humans, but we know they're seriously evil. Like, well beyond Snyder and into the Wilkins tier. Do we want to be the kind of people that make deals with them?"
Vanessa had something to say about that. "Politics can be very unpleasant sometimes, but policing the entire world just isn't practical. The Hellmouth is quiet for the summer, but you can bet there'll be more trouble come fall, and do you want to fight wars on two fronts? If we can just get them to keep their noses out of our town, why not let the people of Los Angeles deal with their own problems?"
"It's like Anya said though," Harmony leaned forward. "You need to make them respect you first. People are worried about fair fights, but why not flip it the other way? We know where a lot of these guys live. We could just waltz into LA and kill them all before they know what's happening. Then they'll be the ones worrying if they can get peace, not us."
This idea provoked a huge cacophony of discussion and objections until Buffy talked over everyone to get them quiet, "Can we? Giles, Willow gave you a good look at the assassins, right? Is there anything in there I can't beat?"
"If you were an ordinary slayer, working alone, I would prevaricate," he said. "But considering your current level of skill and the support available, I don't think any of them would individually pose a large threat. There are the concerns of operating on enemy ground though, the possibility they might realize the danger and band together, even the chance of intervention by the authorities in Los Angeles-"
"I don't think you would have to worry about that, at least," Ian seemed a little shocked with himself that he'd had the courage to interrupt, but he continued. "The Congressman was very appreciative of your help the other day. He's indicated to me that he could pull strings with the police in Los Angeles should it be necessary for our smooth operations."
"So we could," Buffy said. "That's an option then, go to LA and make some more noise, splat some more demons. Any other suggestions on how to handle this?"
Nobody responded for a beat and Buffy was about to resign herself to choosing between two dangerous options, but then she heard Willow's voice. It wasn't Willow speaking though.
"It would not be impossible for us to effectively defend ourselves from covert attacks in Sunnydale. Willow Rosenberg's spiderweb project could provide the needed level of surveillance to track any incursions," CyberWillow's voice surprised the group by coming out of the open laptop unprovoked.
"Is this that thing you wanted to do to help the police?" Buffy asked. "Why didn't you mention it?"
Willow and Jonathan shared a wary look before she answered. "Well, the ritual I'd need to use to get it working is still in the development phase, and there's kind of a snag with it right now."
"Is this like, the sort of snag you work the kinks out of after a night of cramming or the kind of snag where you have to sacrifice seven virgins?" Xander asked.
"It's a little in between?" Willow said cautiously. "I mean, we're pretty sure the spell would work, as it is now, but it needs a lot of power, since most of the cameras are airgapped from the internet, and CyberWillow doesn't natively have the processing cycles to watch everything effectively at once either."
"So it's an electric bill thing?" Buffy joked. "The budget crisis isn't that bad anymore, Will."
"Not that kind of power," she said. "We'd need to use the Box of Gavrok. The demon spiders from it have an enormous amount of magical energy, and the frequency is close enough to what we need to almost be an exact match."
The Box had still been in City Hall when they'd taken it months ago, and there had been discussions on whether to destroy it, but with the danger past it had been put off instead. Just in case. Buffy knew they had it locked down in the secure vault at Crawford Street now, with a lot of the other legacy items Wilkins had left behind.
Giles gave Willow a troubled look, and seemed to choose his words carefully. "When you asked me about the Sundering, I was not aware that you were investigating the usage of Lachrymal artifacts."
"I wasn't! Then," Willow said defensively. "I was just curious, like I said. But knowing how old the Box was, I just wanted to check what kind of effect I could get if I used the spiders. It was like, a thought experiment. Except with computer simulations."
"This is the same evil box that almost got you killed, and helped the old mayor turn into a giant snake, right?" Oz asked dubiously. "I'm thinking maybe that box isn't our friend."
"Using its … produce in any ritual could constitute the darkest of magicks, Willow," Giles continued. "Even if properly channeled, such a spell could be very difficult to control, and that's discounting the obvious dangers of collecting the spiders in the first place."
"Willow's really powerful though," Anya said. "She's like a savant. And this wouldn't be some old ritual she's casting that she barely even understands, you built this from the ground up, right?"
"It was a collaborative exercise," CyberWillow answered.
"She's really good at calculating energy folds," Willow said. "But yeah, we think we understand it pretty well."
"'Pretty well' is hardly adequate for rituals using components over ten thousand years old," Giles said, his frustration starting to show.
"And the defenses we have now are hardly adequate for an army of demon assassins!" Anya said.
"As currently envisioned, the spell would allow me to process data from all video cameras in Sunnydale, parallelized in virtual universes for optimal computation efficiency," CyberWillow said, interjecting herself into the conversation again. "While even then, I could not effectively pay attention to everything at once, using proper algorithms for border prioritization and facial recognition it would be unlikely that the assassins we already have on file could escape my notice within the city."
"See, that!" Anya said. "That's the kind of security I want for my orgasms!"
"Are you sure?" Xander asked. "Being watched all the time like that feels a little creepy."
"I think the word you're looking for is Orwellian," Oz said, seeming troubled.
"Yeah, I mean, what about our privacy and stuff?" Harmony said. Buffy could guess what she was worried about, but it wasn't like there were security cameras out in the woods. They'd just have to be more careful.
"Willow," Buffy said seriously, cutting through the chatter, "I don't want you to feel pressured. Do you think you can do this? Without bad, webbing-filled consequences?"
"I think so," Willow said. "I'm not like, 100% sure, or I would've brought it up myself. But it should work. I mean, if we want to."
Vote: What do the Scoobies decide to do to defend themselves from Wolfram and Hart?
[] Buffy calls Holland Manners and starts negotiations. She's in a strong position with her polling lead and the threat of Willow's hacking, maybe she can convince him to leave well enough alone.
[] Buffy plans an all out assault on Wolfram and Hart's assassins in LA. If this war's escalation is inevitable, better to strike first, and Congressman Gold should at least be able to keep the LA authorities out of it.
[] Buffy OKs the Spiderweb Project and tells Willow and CyberWillow to cast the spell. With eyes on all of Sunnydale they should be able to take out any assassins as they filter in, and sacrificing an ancient demon spider every week to keep it going couldn't be too big a deal, right?
