As soon as we know about the Initiative in character it might be worth actually testing this line out. Have Willow and Cyberwillow take a look around the Pentagon, find out who authorized the program, what sort of resources were dedicated to it and what its objectives actually are. Then when things inevitably end in fire and blood we know who to get on that phone to chastise/blackmail.
Successor (BTVS)
- Thread starter DeAnno
- Start date
- Mature
Temes1066
To Defy Gravity you must Let It Go
- Location
- Coleraine
How many dice rolls have their actually been in this quest so far?
Or is this quest purely based around narrative?
- Location
- Tarn-Vedra
[X] Have Willow and CyberWillow start the cyberwarfare. There are too many things that are too dangerous not to know.
Temes1066
To Defy Gravity you must Let It Go
- Location
- Coleraine
What exactly is his congressional seat and What party is he a member of?
DeAnno
Sometimes words have two meanings
He's a democrat in one of the LA districts. Also, unrelatedly, sorry the update is taking long, kind of hosed on multiple angles right now.
S3.5E12: Talking Points II
DeAnno
Sometimes words have two meanings
[X] Have Willow and CyberWillow start the cyberwarfare. There are too many things that are too dangerous not to know.
"Why do you keep telling me to treat her with kid gloves? Drug dealing thugs like Buffy are a dime a dozen, all you have to do is show them you aren't afraid and then they start respecting you." Carl Gervais' voice was scratchy coming through the laptop's speakers, but his words could be clearly understood.
There was a pause in the conversation before Lindsey answered, sounding a little aggravated. "The drug dealing thugs you dealt with before didn't look like they belonged on fashion magazines. Even with the evidence we have, if you make any accusations against her directly you'll come off looking like a rotten villain slandering a feminist icon."
They'd been listening in on Carl's place for a while already, and it was way easier than Buffy had expected. It was kind of scary, really.
Carl Gervais did have a landline, but he wasn't using it, so that had been a dead end. Lindsey McDonald was inside, and he wasn't making many interesting calls on his cellphone either, but unlike a normal phone, a cellphone had computer chips in it, or something. Maybe. Buffy wasn't really sure. Willow explained something about firmware and rebooting and disabling the speaker as CyberWillow busily began coding on the screen and the rest of the room had nodded along. Buffy didn't think Ian or Gold had understood it any better than she did though.
The long and short of it was that they could listen in on them unawares, even with the phone seemingly sitting unused in Lindsey's pocket. Apparently CyberWillow was doing some real time magic to make it more intelligible too, but the error rate was pretty low.
"Isn't what I have you people for? We could just hand this to the LA times and they'd do the job for us!" It'd been obvious for a while now Wolfram and Hart had some of the blackmail they'd been worried about, but it wasn't clear exactly how much yet.
"There's a time and place for these things," Lindsey said. "And it isn't now. We'd give her a month to lie her way out of it, to wallpaper over it, to spin enough news cycles for everyone to forget about it. You know she owns the police, do you think they'd take it lying down? She'll have the whole lot of them swearing on a stack of bibles that she's a saint!"
"And why should that matter?" Gervais' frustrated rant had almost progressed into screaming now. "I've dealt with the mob before, they own all the cops back East. Anyone with three brain cells oughta know the cops in this town are crooked too. That old witch Waters even put her nephew in charge!"
"That's a difficult accusation to make when violent crime statistics have dropped as much as they have. And attacking the police isn't going to make you look any better than attacking a teenage supermodel is," Lindsey seemed conciliatory, but the audio quality made it a little hard to catch his tone.
"Well if I can't attack anyone, what the fuck am I supposed to do, Lindsey? I'm underwater in the polls and we're going in the wrong direction! If we just sit here with our thumbs up our asses we're going to lose!"
"I'm not saying you should do nothing tomorrow," Lindsey said. "It's a great opportunity to ask some tough questions about all those foreign visitors her administration loves so much."
There was another drawn out pause. "You mean the … Muslims? From, uh, one of the 'stans, was it?" Gervais seemed a little leery now.
"Tajikistan," Lindsey supplied. "They're supposedly reaching out economically after their period of internal strife."
"Well, I can't say I'm that comfortable around them," Gervais said. "Whatever it is they're speaking practically sounds unnatural, and they never show their faces. But do we really want to be attacking foreign peoples like that? I thought you were worried about bad press."
Lindsey sounded like he had his answer already prepared. "People may huff and puff on the news about multiculturalism, but in the ballot box nobody actually wants somewhere they can't even pronounce to be our sister city. It's not the same as attacking someone they actually like, or 'good people' like the police."
The speaker had a more extreme burst of static before Carl could be heard again. "But isn't the usual line to link them to increasing slime rites? We definitely can't do that."
"The Cold War is still fresh enough in everyone's memories that we can work with something like that instead, don't worry so much," Lindsey said.
"Slime rites?" Buffy asked, confused.
"Oh, that was probably 'crime rates', sorry," said CyberWillow. "There are 11 references to slime rites used by immigrants from the Seas of Rearnho in my database, but in hindsight that's probably not very relevant."
"Don't worry about it," Buffy said hesitantly. "It could've been slime rites. We'll never really know."
Lindsey and Gervais kept arguing about whether they were going to attack Buffy over the Rat Nobles visiting the city, and the longer it went on the clearer it was that Gervais didn't actually know they were extradimensional demons. He really thought she was some kind of crime lord, and Lindsey didn't seem to have any interest in clueing him into what was really going on. It was a vexing situation, because people who didn't know anything about the supernatural were just who Buffy was supposed to defend.
Her annoyed thoughts were interrupted by real Willow. "So this is great and all, but we're recording it, and we can just scan through it for anything more useful later. I think we should get more ambitious."
"You don't think this is exciting enough?" Gold asked. "Back when I was winning my seat for the first time I would've killed for something like this. What else could we even do?"
"Wolfram and Hart itself probably has databases full of plans and intelligence on us," Willow argued. "We already know they have some of Buffy's history! We need to find out what it is and what else they're going to do. They could even have some other stuff we haven't thought of, some crazy misunderstanding from all the demon trouble we've had in the past three years."
Other stuff. Demon trouble. Yeah, that was definitely a concern, even if Buffy told herself it was impossible. "If you think you can do it Willow, go for it. Big debate tomorrow, might as well throw all our chips on the table."
"Oh, have you been studying poker too Buffy?" CyberWillow said. "A book was scanned into my database and I found several flaws in the conventional strategy."
"You've been teaching her about gambling?" Buffy said, playfully shaking her finger at Willow. "What a bad influence."
"It was before the whole game show thing, money was getting pretty short and I was examining all our options," she said defensively. "Anyway, I'm going to set up some virtual proxies and then start hacking in."
"You can't just do the thing where you make a copy of it, like you did with the police database before?" Buffy asked. It was a little unreliable, but it seemed pretty safe. "And you don't need the big computer at the university for something like that?"
"I've done some looking into this already," Willow said. At Buffy's open-eyed glance, she amended, "Very cautious looking! I don't think Wolfram and Hart has any actual cybermantic defenses, but some of their more general magical protections overlap their servers. We'll have to go in for real. And I'm using the supercomputer already, did you think I did all this stuff on my little laptop?"
"Yes?" Buffy answered.
"Isn't there a waiting list for time on that machine?" Ian asked. He was pretty quiet around his sort-of-uncle, probably because of deferential lizard people reasons, but bureaucratic questions tended to bring him out of his shell (or his scales?)
"There is, but I use the extra cycles all the time through a quantum pipeline, it's the only way I can get everything done, especially with CyberWillow," she replied.
"Willow says I'm a growing girl," CyberWillow agreed.
"There's extra?" Buffy asked. "Wouldn't people want to use it and make it not-extra?"
"Extra beyond what it should have," Willow explained. "When I cleaned up its operating system for the University I set it up so that I could cycle away more of the waste heat with magic and then overclock the processor for my own use. It's all in the background, nobody else using it would even notice."
"I hope the big computer will be OK?" Buffy said worriedly. Overclocking sounded a little worrying.
"Its operational wear and tear does increase by 7% but its efficiency for other users increases by an average of 16%, so Willow says that we're helping overall." CyberWillow chipped in. That logic did sound pretty firm, and Buffy guessed Willow would be pretty good at fixing the thing even if it broke.
"Alright, I'm set up," Willow said. "It's a good thing Wilkins had that book on crossdisiciplinary counterscrying. I'm sounding their intranet for defenses now." The laptop made a deep pinging noise, like sonar, and Willow made a scrunchy face as she listened to the echoing. More spiky frequency graphs appeared and she started paging through them. "So they have some active scanning of their own, but it doesn't seem to focus on cyberspace. There's also a ward for standard magic detection, I think, and that's some kind of triggered precognitive ward based on… gold?"
"Maybe Protectionism, or Economics as a whole," CyberWillow suggested. "Those are some alternate uses of the same runic signature."
"Yeah, that makes more sense," Willow said. "Maybe something to do with stealing customers? Or employees? Shouldn't be a problem for us, but I'll avoid any banking information, just in case."
"Don't banks use the internet now?" Gold asked. "Are they safe from this kind of thing?" He sounded concerned.
"I already have an intent cipher linked to the city's account numbers," Willow said. "But in general, kind of not. You don't have something set up for that?"
"I'd need to check with someone about the specifics, I'll get in touch with you about it after the debate. Have to stay with the times, I guess," Gold said.
Willow worked for a while longer before declaring, "I'm sort of in. The active scans are going to tip them off eventually, but we should be able to copy a bunch of their files before then. I'll have to keep moving around though." Pings kept sounding from the laptop as folders flicked past the screen in fast forward, the occasional file being highlighted and presumably stolen. Buffy didn't think hacking usually involved fast reflexes but it seemed like this was the exception.
"What are we getting?" Buffy asked.
Willow seemed to be busy driving for now, but CyberWillow had enough attention spare to answer. "They have files on most of the people on our payroll. Most of them aren't very filled out, but there are longer ones for you and Anya."
Apparently a vengeance demon was the kind of person Wolfram and Hart knew about. "Do they have records of the arson? And the other hazards of slaying without a license?"
"You mean your temporary institutionalization and the dropped murder charge? Yep, the paperwork is right here, for all of it."
"So we could just delete it?" Buffy asked hopefully.
"They'd definitely have the physical copies too," Gold said with a frown. "Those are probably just for the record."
"Do any of the other files have anything compromising?" Ian asked.
"Not that I can determine," CyberWillow answered. "They're limited, but detailed in certain ways. For example, there's a complete floor plan of Daniel Osbourne's house with all the rooms labeled, but there isn't even any mention of Dingoes Ate My Baby in the file."
Willow seemed to be between maneuvers and took a moment to speak up. "Apparently this whole electioneering effort is under the aegis of something they call their Special Projects Division. I'm going to take a second pass over it as a whole and see if we can get anything useful.
"We're getting more personnel files, I'm attempting to cross-reference." CyberWillow narrated. Willow was once again too focused in on what she was doing to talk. "Apparently Allen Lloyd is a warlock who specializes in emotional compulsion. It's 83% likely he was the Allen Lindsay referred to when they brought up the sensitivity training earlier."
"I was wondering why they seemed so focused on planning that line into the debate," Gold said. "Seemed like an easy enough attack to disarm by just agreeing to it, but-"
"We can still agree," Buffy said. "We'll just be prepared. I haven't met a spellcaster yet who likes being punched in the face."
"Shoot, I think we're made," Willow was still distracted, frantically making gestures with her mouse. "I grabbed the folder they had on the Reptilians but it triggered something off, maybe there were financials inside or something."
"I believe they're watching their investment portfolios," CyberWillow said. "I apologize for not warning you in time."
"Can they trace it back?" Ian asked.
"No, they still don't really know what they're doing," Willow said. "I just have to dodge around the scanners now, I'll go a little farther afield and see if I can lose them."
"A lot of this other information might possibly be relevant someday," CyberWillow continued chippily. "Did you know that Lindsey McDonald grew up in an impoverished family? Or that Xenosect the Assassin usually sneaks around by clinging to ceilings?"
"This division has assassins working for it? Suddenly having Oz's floor plan on file is illuminated in a new, terrible, light," Buffy said.
"They're going to send an assassin at my boyfriend?" Willow said angrily. "OK, that is totally not chill. The gloves are off now, time to send a message."
"There are quite a lot of assassins in fact," CyberWillow commented. "Enough for more than just Daniel. So far we've recovered the files of 15 employed or frequently contracted by Wolfram and Hart, and some preliminary statistics suggest there might be dozens more."
"How prepared of them. Do you think they pick with a dartboard? Or maybe they have one of those one-a-day calendars." Despite her joke, it was a serious problem. She couldn't protect everybody at once.
CyberWillow started, "Willow gave me access to some of the security feeds…" and then trailed off, apparently thinking or processing or whatever it was she did, "They're going for the server room, I think they want to perform a physical trace. I was able to override their clearances though, and the doors are sealed for now."
"Good work, just give me a few more minutes," Willow said. "I'm really getting the feel of this system now, I think I might be able to get into their kernel soon. Then the real fun can start."
"The IT staff can't even break down the door," CyberWillow commented, seeming confused. "They don't seem to be very good at their jobs."
"Hopefully not," Buffy said. "Willow, what happens if you get to the colonel thing? Do you just promote yourself to major, or something?"
Willow didn't answer, too absorbed in what she was doing, and Buffy traded looks with Ian and Gold again. The mission goals had apparently crept forward a little bit, but with Wolfram and Hart maybe actively planning to assassinate them it was fair to say all bets were off. She didn't know what kind of terrible attack Willow was planning, but they'd gone beyond annoying lawyer tricks now; they definitely deserved it.
CyberWillow's commentary started again. "The alarms are disabled, but the staff is spreading a panic in the building which I am unable to contain. Too few of the doors are electronically locked. I could disable the lights, but I believe that would only worsen the problem."
A quiet hiss of static rose again from the speakers, but it didn't seem to be interference this time. The screen was darkening eerily along with the real Willow's hair, and her mouse movements were more deliberate now, decisive linear strokes that looked like they were tracing out a weird fancy pentagram thing. Buffy was really tempted to ask what she was doing now, but this wasn't the kind of thing that seemed like a good idea to interrupt. Willow started chanting:
"System corrupted,
Order undone,
Access denied,
Sixteen bits of the-"
There was a flash and a twisting sensation, and then the screen was back in a normal state and Willow was once again a redhead. A very angry redhead. "I almost had it, but the whole system is just gone! I don't get it. What did they do?" She was still working frantically, trying to figure out what happened.
CyberWillow explained. "One of them made a cellphone call and appeared to get into some kind of argument. Before I could initiate any countermeasures, we lost all connection with Wolfram and Hart. My preliminary analysis suggests a 79% chance they cut power to the building. I'll continue to investigate."
"Oh," Willow said. "Well, I guess that would work."
"So. Now that all the chanting and darkness and troubling dye choices are done, what were you trying to do?" Buffy asked.
"I was going to curse their intranet," Willow said. "Not just like, this one, but the idea that Wolfram and Hart's LA branch could ever have useful computers. It was something I adapted from one of Wilkins' books where you could curse a position in an organization to hire useless people again and again forever. This version isn't nearly as dark though, I mean, it's just on technology, not people. And it would've only lasted for a hundred and eighty years or so."
"Well. That sounds pleasant," Buffy said.
"Are you sure that curse isn't in general circulation already?" Gold asked, trying to lighten the mood. "I'm pretty sure the Capitol Building has never had a useful computer in it."
"It's too bad I couldn't finish it in time," Willow sighed. "But we still have all the data, and my wiretap on Lindsey's phone is still recording." She switched it back on, and they listened to some more of Gervais' complaints in the background as they planned their next move.
Vote: The debate is tomorrow, and things with Wolfram and Hart are escalating out of control. Does Buffy make a move immediately to try to rein in the situation, or even to shake it up?
[] They gathered a ton of useful info for the debate, and they know none of the damaging blackmail is going to come out immediately. Better to prepare to win it decisively and deal with this emotion warlock before doing anything else. If nothing else, it'll improve your negotiating position.
[] Carl Gervais doesn't seem like the nicest person, but he clearly doesn't know what Lindsey's getting him involved in. Show up politely at his house with plenty of evidence of Sunnydale's underworld and ask him if this is really a problem he wants to inherit. If Lindsey gets in the way, get him out of the way.
[] This feud with Wolfram and Hart seems ready to explode into violence, but Willow got the contact information for Lindsey's boss, Holland Manners. Call him up and have a frank discussion of where this is going and how it's poised to end. The curse residue on his servers should be enough proof of your intent.
"Why do you keep telling me to treat her with kid gloves? Drug dealing thugs like Buffy are a dime a dozen, all you have to do is show them you aren't afraid and then they start respecting you." Carl Gervais' voice was scratchy coming through the laptop's speakers, but his words could be clearly understood.
There was a pause in the conversation before Lindsey answered, sounding a little aggravated. "The drug dealing thugs you dealt with before didn't look like they belonged on fashion magazines. Even with the evidence we have, if you make any accusations against her directly you'll come off looking like a rotten villain slandering a feminist icon."
They'd been listening in on Carl's place for a while already, and it was way easier than Buffy had expected. It was kind of scary, really.
Carl Gervais did have a landline, but he wasn't using it, so that had been a dead end. Lindsey McDonald was inside, and he wasn't making many interesting calls on his cellphone either, but unlike a normal phone, a cellphone had computer chips in it, or something. Maybe. Buffy wasn't really sure. Willow explained something about firmware and rebooting and disabling the speaker as CyberWillow busily began coding on the screen and the rest of the room had nodded along. Buffy didn't think Ian or Gold had understood it any better than she did though.
The long and short of it was that they could listen in on them unawares, even with the phone seemingly sitting unused in Lindsey's pocket. Apparently CyberWillow was doing some real time magic to make it more intelligible too, but the error rate was pretty low.
"Isn't what I have you people for? We could just hand this to the LA times and they'd do the job for us!" It'd been obvious for a while now Wolfram and Hart had some of the blackmail they'd been worried about, but it wasn't clear exactly how much yet.
"There's a time and place for these things," Lindsey said. "And it isn't now. We'd give her a month to lie her way out of it, to wallpaper over it, to spin enough news cycles for everyone to forget about it. You know she owns the police, do you think they'd take it lying down? She'll have the whole lot of them swearing on a stack of bibles that she's a saint!"
"And why should that matter?" Gervais' frustrated rant had almost progressed into screaming now. "I've dealt with the mob before, they own all the cops back East. Anyone with three brain cells oughta know the cops in this town are crooked too. That old witch Waters even put her nephew in charge!"
"That's a difficult accusation to make when violent crime statistics have dropped as much as they have. And attacking the police isn't going to make you look any better than attacking a teenage supermodel is," Lindsey seemed conciliatory, but the audio quality made it a little hard to catch his tone.
"Well if I can't attack anyone, what the fuck am I supposed to do, Lindsey? I'm underwater in the polls and we're going in the wrong direction! If we just sit here with our thumbs up our asses we're going to lose!"
"I'm not saying you should do nothing tomorrow," Lindsey said. "It's a great opportunity to ask some tough questions about all those foreign visitors her administration loves so much."
There was another drawn out pause. "You mean the … Muslims? From, uh, one of the 'stans, was it?" Gervais seemed a little leery now.
"Tajikistan," Lindsey supplied. "They're supposedly reaching out economically after their period of internal strife."
"Well, I can't say I'm that comfortable around them," Gervais said. "Whatever it is they're speaking practically sounds unnatural, and they never show their faces. But do we really want to be attacking foreign peoples like that? I thought you were worried about bad press."
Lindsey sounded like he had his answer already prepared. "People may huff and puff on the news about multiculturalism, but in the ballot box nobody actually wants somewhere they can't even pronounce to be our sister city. It's not the same as attacking someone they actually like, or 'good people' like the police."
The speaker had a more extreme burst of static before Carl could be heard again. "But isn't the usual line to link them to increasing slime rites? We definitely can't do that."
"The Cold War is still fresh enough in everyone's memories that we can work with something like that instead, don't worry so much," Lindsey said.
"Slime rites?" Buffy asked, confused.
"Oh, that was probably 'crime rates', sorry," said CyberWillow. "There are 11 references to slime rites used by immigrants from the Seas of Rearnho in my database, but in hindsight that's probably not very relevant."
"Don't worry about it," Buffy said hesitantly. "It could've been slime rites. We'll never really know."
Lindsey and Gervais kept arguing about whether they were going to attack Buffy over the Rat Nobles visiting the city, and the longer it went on the clearer it was that Gervais didn't actually know they were extradimensional demons. He really thought she was some kind of crime lord, and Lindsey didn't seem to have any interest in clueing him into what was really going on. It was a vexing situation, because people who didn't know anything about the supernatural were just who Buffy was supposed to defend.
Her annoyed thoughts were interrupted by real Willow. "So this is great and all, but we're recording it, and we can just scan through it for anything more useful later. I think we should get more ambitious."
"You don't think this is exciting enough?" Gold asked. "Back when I was winning my seat for the first time I would've killed for something like this. What else could we even do?"
"Wolfram and Hart itself probably has databases full of plans and intelligence on us," Willow argued. "We already know they have some of Buffy's history! We need to find out what it is and what else they're going to do. They could even have some other stuff we haven't thought of, some crazy misunderstanding from all the demon trouble we've had in the past three years."
Other stuff. Demon trouble. Yeah, that was definitely a concern, even if Buffy told herself it was impossible. "If you think you can do it Willow, go for it. Big debate tomorrow, might as well throw all our chips on the table."
"Oh, have you been studying poker too Buffy?" CyberWillow said. "A book was scanned into my database and I found several flaws in the conventional strategy."
"You've been teaching her about gambling?" Buffy said, playfully shaking her finger at Willow. "What a bad influence."
"It was before the whole game show thing, money was getting pretty short and I was examining all our options," she said defensively. "Anyway, I'm going to set up some virtual proxies and then start hacking in."
"You can't just do the thing where you make a copy of it, like you did with the police database before?" Buffy asked. It was a little unreliable, but it seemed pretty safe. "And you don't need the big computer at the university for something like that?"
"I've done some looking into this already," Willow said. At Buffy's open-eyed glance, she amended, "Very cautious looking! I don't think Wolfram and Hart has any actual cybermantic defenses, but some of their more general magical protections overlap their servers. We'll have to go in for real. And I'm using the supercomputer already, did you think I did all this stuff on my little laptop?"
"Yes?" Buffy answered.
"Isn't there a waiting list for time on that machine?" Ian asked. He was pretty quiet around his sort-of-uncle, probably because of deferential lizard people reasons, but bureaucratic questions tended to bring him out of his shell (or his scales?)
"There is, but I use the extra cycles all the time through a quantum pipeline, it's the only way I can get everything done, especially with CyberWillow," she replied.
"Willow says I'm a growing girl," CyberWillow agreed.
"There's extra?" Buffy asked. "Wouldn't people want to use it and make it not-extra?"
"Extra beyond what it should have," Willow explained. "When I cleaned up its operating system for the University I set it up so that I could cycle away more of the waste heat with magic and then overclock the processor for my own use. It's all in the background, nobody else using it would even notice."
"I hope the big computer will be OK?" Buffy said worriedly. Overclocking sounded a little worrying.
"Its operational wear and tear does increase by 7% but its efficiency for other users increases by an average of 16%, so Willow says that we're helping overall." CyberWillow chipped in. That logic did sound pretty firm, and Buffy guessed Willow would be pretty good at fixing the thing even if it broke.
"Alright, I'm set up," Willow said. "It's a good thing Wilkins had that book on crossdisiciplinary counterscrying. I'm sounding their intranet for defenses now." The laptop made a deep pinging noise, like sonar, and Willow made a scrunchy face as she listened to the echoing. More spiky frequency graphs appeared and she started paging through them. "So they have some active scanning of their own, but it doesn't seem to focus on cyberspace. There's also a ward for standard magic detection, I think, and that's some kind of triggered precognitive ward based on… gold?"
"Maybe Protectionism, or Economics as a whole," CyberWillow suggested. "Those are some alternate uses of the same runic signature."
"Yeah, that makes more sense," Willow said. "Maybe something to do with stealing customers? Or employees? Shouldn't be a problem for us, but I'll avoid any banking information, just in case."
"Don't banks use the internet now?" Gold asked. "Are they safe from this kind of thing?" He sounded concerned.
"I already have an intent cipher linked to the city's account numbers," Willow said. "But in general, kind of not. You don't have something set up for that?"
"I'd need to check with someone about the specifics, I'll get in touch with you about it after the debate. Have to stay with the times, I guess," Gold said.
Willow worked for a while longer before declaring, "I'm sort of in. The active scans are going to tip them off eventually, but we should be able to copy a bunch of their files before then. I'll have to keep moving around though." Pings kept sounding from the laptop as folders flicked past the screen in fast forward, the occasional file being highlighted and presumably stolen. Buffy didn't think hacking usually involved fast reflexes but it seemed like this was the exception.
"What are we getting?" Buffy asked.
Willow seemed to be busy driving for now, but CyberWillow had enough attention spare to answer. "They have files on most of the people on our payroll. Most of them aren't very filled out, but there are longer ones for you and Anya."
Apparently a vengeance demon was the kind of person Wolfram and Hart knew about. "Do they have records of the arson? And the other hazards of slaying without a license?"
"You mean your temporary institutionalization and the dropped murder charge? Yep, the paperwork is right here, for all of it."
"So we could just delete it?" Buffy asked hopefully.
"They'd definitely have the physical copies too," Gold said with a frown. "Those are probably just for the record."
"Do any of the other files have anything compromising?" Ian asked.
"Not that I can determine," CyberWillow answered. "They're limited, but detailed in certain ways. For example, there's a complete floor plan of Daniel Osbourne's house with all the rooms labeled, but there isn't even any mention of Dingoes Ate My Baby in the file."
Willow seemed to be between maneuvers and took a moment to speak up. "Apparently this whole electioneering effort is under the aegis of something they call their Special Projects Division. I'm going to take a second pass over it as a whole and see if we can get anything useful.
"We're getting more personnel files, I'm attempting to cross-reference." CyberWillow narrated. Willow was once again too focused in on what she was doing to talk. "Apparently Allen Lloyd is a warlock who specializes in emotional compulsion. It's 83% likely he was the Allen Lindsay referred to when they brought up the sensitivity training earlier."
"I was wondering why they seemed so focused on planning that line into the debate," Gold said. "Seemed like an easy enough attack to disarm by just agreeing to it, but-"
"We can still agree," Buffy said. "We'll just be prepared. I haven't met a spellcaster yet who likes being punched in the face."
"Shoot, I think we're made," Willow was still distracted, frantically making gestures with her mouse. "I grabbed the folder they had on the Reptilians but it triggered something off, maybe there were financials inside or something."
"I believe they're watching their investment portfolios," CyberWillow said. "I apologize for not warning you in time."
"Can they trace it back?" Ian asked.
"No, they still don't really know what they're doing," Willow said. "I just have to dodge around the scanners now, I'll go a little farther afield and see if I can lose them."
"A lot of this other information might possibly be relevant someday," CyberWillow continued chippily. "Did you know that Lindsey McDonald grew up in an impoverished family? Or that Xenosect the Assassin usually sneaks around by clinging to ceilings?"
"This division has assassins working for it? Suddenly having Oz's floor plan on file is illuminated in a new, terrible, light," Buffy said.
"They're going to send an assassin at my boyfriend?" Willow said angrily. "OK, that is totally not chill. The gloves are off now, time to send a message."
"There are quite a lot of assassins in fact," CyberWillow commented. "Enough for more than just Daniel. So far we've recovered the files of 15 employed or frequently contracted by Wolfram and Hart, and some preliminary statistics suggest there might be dozens more."
"How prepared of them. Do you think they pick with a dartboard? Or maybe they have one of those one-a-day calendars." Despite her joke, it was a serious problem. She couldn't protect everybody at once.
CyberWillow started, "Willow gave me access to some of the security feeds…" and then trailed off, apparently thinking or processing or whatever it was she did, "They're going for the server room, I think they want to perform a physical trace. I was able to override their clearances though, and the doors are sealed for now."
"Good work, just give me a few more minutes," Willow said. "I'm really getting the feel of this system now, I think I might be able to get into their kernel soon. Then the real fun can start."
"The IT staff can't even break down the door," CyberWillow commented, seeming confused. "They don't seem to be very good at their jobs."
"Hopefully not," Buffy said. "Willow, what happens if you get to the colonel thing? Do you just promote yourself to major, or something?"
Willow didn't answer, too absorbed in what she was doing, and Buffy traded looks with Ian and Gold again. The mission goals had apparently crept forward a little bit, but with Wolfram and Hart maybe actively planning to assassinate them it was fair to say all bets were off. She didn't know what kind of terrible attack Willow was planning, but they'd gone beyond annoying lawyer tricks now; they definitely deserved it.
CyberWillow's commentary started again. "The alarms are disabled, but the staff is spreading a panic in the building which I am unable to contain. Too few of the doors are electronically locked. I could disable the lights, but I believe that would only worsen the problem."
A quiet hiss of static rose again from the speakers, but it didn't seem to be interference this time. The screen was darkening eerily along with the real Willow's hair, and her mouse movements were more deliberate now, decisive linear strokes that looked like they were tracing out a weird fancy pentagram thing. Buffy was really tempted to ask what she was doing now, but this wasn't the kind of thing that seemed like a good idea to interrupt. Willow started chanting:
"System corrupted,
Order undone,
Access denied,
Sixteen bits of the-"
There was a flash and a twisting sensation, and then the screen was back in a normal state and Willow was once again a redhead. A very angry redhead. "I almost had it, but the whole system is just gone! I don't get it. What did they do?" She was still working frantically, trying to figure out what happened.
CyberWillow explained. "One of them made a cellphone call and appeared to get into some kind of argument. Before I could initiate any countermeasures, we lost all connection with Wolfram and Hart. My preliminary analysis suggests a 79% chance they cut power to the building. I'll continue to investigate."
"Oh," Willow said. "Well, I guess that would work."
"So. Now that all the chanting and darkness and troubling dye choices are done, what were you trying to do?" Buffy asked.
"I was going to curse their intranet," Willow said. "Not just like, this one, but the idea that Wolfram and Hart's LA branch could ever have useful computers. It was something I adapted from one of Wilkins' books where you could curse a position in an organization to hire useless people again and again forever. This version isn't nearly as dark though, I mean, it's just on technology, not people. And it would've only lasted for a hundred and eighty years or so."
"Well. That sounds pleasant," Buffy said.
"Are you sure that curse isn't in general circulation already?" Gold asked, trying to lighten the mood. "I'm pretty sure the Capitol Building has never had a useful computer in it."
"It's too bad I couldn't finish it in time," Willow sighed. "But we still have all the data, and my wiretap on Lindsey's phone is still recording." She switched it back on, and they listened to some more of Gervais' complaints in the background as they planned their next move.
Vote: The debate is tomorrow, and things with Wolfram and Hart are escalating out of control. Does Buffy make a move immediately to try to rein in the situation, or even to shake it up?
[] They gathered a ton of useful info for the debate, and they know none of the damaging blackmail is going to come out immediately. Better to prepare to win it decisively and deal with this emotion warlock before doing anything else. If nothing else, it'll improve your negotiating position.
[] Carl Gervais doesn't seem like the nicest person, but he clearly doesn't know what Lindsey's getting him involved in. Show up politely at his house with plenty of evidence of Sunnydale's underworld and ask him if this is really a problem he wants to inherit. If Lindsey gets in the way, get him out of the way.
[] This feud with Wolfram and Hart seems ready to explode into violence, but Willow got the contact information for Lindsey's boss, Holland Manners. Call him up and have a frank discussion of where this is going and how it's poised to end. The curse residue on his servers should be enough proof of your intent.
Last edited:
So I am very inclined to vote for the debate option, entirely so that the next vote can be "Grab the gang, drive to Los Angeles, and kill every single person on the assassin list" Maybe toss the biggest or weirdest head through the front door of the LA branch. Really double down on the idea that just because you aren't in Sunnydale it doesn't make you safe. I am sure Willow would be delighted to come along, threatening Oz was clearly a bad call on WRH's part.
[X] They gathered a ton of useful info for the debate, and they know none of the damaging blackmail is going to come out immediately. Better to prepare to win it decisively and deal with this emotion warlock before doing anything else. If nothing else, it'll improve your negotiating position.
[x] This feud with Wolfram and Hart seems ready to explode into violence, but Willow got the contact information for Lindsey's boss, Holland Manners. Call him up and have a frank discussion of where this is going and how it's poised to end. The curse residue on his servers should be enough proof of your intent.
Buffy needs to protect her people and She needs to get wolf ram and hart to back off. They have information and assassins to attack buffy's People. So she needs to let Lindsay boss know that she is willing do do what it takes to win and she knows who to blame if something happens.
Buffy needs to protect her people and She needs to get wolf ram and hart to back off. They have information and assassins to attack buffy's People. So she needs to let Lindsay boss know that she is willing do do what it takes to win and she knows who to blame if something happens.
- Location
- United States
[X] Carl Gervais doesn't seem like the nicest person, but he clearly doesn't know what Lindsey's getting him involved in. Show up politely at his house with plenty of evidence of Sunnydale's underworld and ask him if this is really a problem he wants to inherit. If Lindsey gets in the way, get him out of the way.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
Please do not turn this into a full feud with WRH; they can escalate far more ruthlessly than we can. Currently it's Lindsey's pet project, and the LA office got attacked over it; we probably don't need to switch the attention of his boss from his potential failure (which would eventually see WRH's support for him withdrawn) to our rising threat (which would in all likelihood see them doubling down to remove it).
We could probably win the debate with the info we've got, but I am curious what Lindsey's move would be if we reveal the existence of the supernatural to our opponent. But then his actions would likely depend on the candidate's reaction to the news, which would be hard to predict and could inconvenience everyone involved. It would not look good for our chances if anything were to happen to our rival right after we paid him a visit...
[X] Carl Gervais doesn't seem like the nicest person, but he clearly doesn't know what Lindsey's getting him involved in. Show up politely at his house with plenty of evidence of Sunnydale's underworld and ask him if this is really a problem he wants to inherit. If Lindsey gets in the way, get him out of the way.
We could probably win the debate with the info we've got, but I am curious what Lindsey's move would be if we reveal the existence of the supernatural to our opponent. But then his actions would likely depend on the candidate's reaction to the news, which would be hard to predict and could inconvenience everyone involved. It would not look good for our chances if anything were to happen to our rival right after we paid him a visit...
[X] Carl Gervais doesn't seem like the nicest person, but he clearly doesn't know what Lindsey's getting him involved in. Show up politely at his house with plenty of evidence of Sunnydale's underworld and ask him if this is really a problem he wants to inherit. If Lindsey gets in the way, get him out of the way.
Last edited:
WolfRam and Hart is a business. If it costs too much to fight Buffy head on they will attack in other ways. But the thing is that we need to make them back off.
One major thing to take away from these is that they have the schedule, floor plans, and assassins on call. They have already escalated things to a unacceptable amount.
Ok just in cannon they had a habit of contracting assassins and doing anything they could for their clients. Or if they did not like a person. Or someone going off the rails and trying to kill the hero's just because. I can go on but the thing is Buffy needs them to back off from her and protect her people.
Another point I would like to make is that I can not see Gervias believing Buffy at all. It literally goes against his word view and when you do that too people they will always deny. Buffy talked about it in the first episode to Willow and Xander. People just seem to ignore anything supernatural. Also in real life people ignore things that hinder them or they don't want. Look at Trump voter, Brexiters , anyone who support Rupert Murdoc, in real life.
- Location
- Canada
[X] They gathered a ton of useful info for the debate, and they know none of the damaging blackmail is going to come out immediately. Better to prepare to win it decisively and deal with this emotion warlock before doing anything else. If nothing else, it'll improve your negotiating position.
- Location
- my house
I'm really torn on this one.
Winning the debate is the safest choice. We can almost certainly win and the warlock isnt a threat since we know about them. On the other hand they know about our attack so they might change their tactics. Worse than some new scheme, they might decide to beat us in the debate
The second seems like a really good choice, assuming Gervais acts the way we want him to. He's a patsy so if he's angry enough about being lied to or cares enough about the right thing we might be able to flip him. On the other hand, he might not believe us (he almost certainly knows about the institution) or decide to double down with the wolf the ram and the hart since they can offer magic once he's in the know
The last one isnt as risky as it appears at first glance. Yes, calling the wolf the ram and the hart to threaten them is effectively handing them more ammo for the debates, but we've just shown a willingness to hit hard and deal damage, and quite frankly a lot of our power isn't tied up in the mayor's office, and what is could still be used to deal a lot of damage during the transition. More than making them back off, this will force the wolf the ram and the hart to the negotiating table by showing them we can and will hurt them before they take us out
But I don't think we're ready for the negotiating table yet, we should meet after securing our power, when they offer us incentives instead of threats
With that in mind
[X] Carl Gervais doesn't seem like the nicest person, but he clearly doesn't know what Lindsey's getting him involved in. Show up politely at his house with plenty of evidence of Sunnydale's underworld and ask him if this is really a problem he wants to inherit. If Lindsey gets in the way, get him out of the way.
-[X] Send Ian and a few of sunnydales more supernatural residents to meet him. Maybe a few rat nobles too. He might think Buffy is insane, but he should believe his own eyes
-[X] Meanehile Buffy can prepare for the debate while Willow and Xander plan for any surprises
Winning the debate is the safest choice. We can almost certainly win and the warlock isnt a threat since we know about them. On the other hand they know about our attack so they might change their tactics. Worse than some new scheme, they might decide to beat us in the debate
The second seems like a really good choice, assuming Gervais acts the way we want him to. He's a patsy so if he's angry enough about being lied to or cares enough about the right thing we might be able to flip him. On the other hand, he might not believe us (he almost certainly knows about the institution) or decide to double down with the wolf the ram and the hart since they can offer magic once he's in the know
The last one isnt as risky as it appears at first glance. Yes, calling the wolf the ram and the hart to threaten them is effectively handing them more ammo for the debates, but we've just shown a willingness to hit hard and deal damage, and quite frankly a lot of our power isn't tied up in the mayor's office, and what is could still be used to deal a lot of damage during the transition. More than making them back off, this will force the wolf the ram and the hart to the negotiating table by showing them we can and will hurt them before they take us out
But I don't think we're ready for the negotiating table yet, we should meet after securing our power, when they offer us incentives instead of threats
With that in mind
[X] Carl Gervais doesn't seem like the nicest person, but he clearly doesn't know what Lindsey's getting him involved in. Show up politely at his house with plenty of evidence of Sunnydale's underworld and ask him if this is really a problem he wants to inherit. If Lindsey gets in the way, get him out of the way.
-[X] Send Ian and a few of sunnydales more supernatural residents to meet him. Maybe a few rat nobles too. He might think Buffy is insane, but he should believe his own eyes
-[X] Meanehile Buffy can prepare for the debate while Willow and Xander plan for any surprises
[X] They gathered a ton of useful info for the debate, and they know none of the damaging blackmail is going to come out immediately. Better to prepare to win it decisively and deal with this emotion warlock before doing anything else. If nothing else, it'll improve your negotiating position.
Ok since people don't want to confront Wol ram hart let just let Buffy win the debate instead of looking like a crazy person to a civilian. It never works out in cannon people just ignore it call Buffy crazy or put her in a asylum.
Ok since people don't want to confront Wol ram hart let just let Buffy win the debate instead of looking like a crazy person to a civilian. It never works out in cannon people just ignore it call Buffy crazy or put her in a asylum.
Temes1066
To Defy Gravity you must Let It Go
- Location
- Coleraine
[X] They gathered a ton of useful info for the debate, and they know none of the damaging blackmail is going to come out immediately. Better to prepare to win it decisively and deal with this emotion warlock before doing anything else. If nothing else, it'll improve your negotiating position.
Do W&H know, we were behind the hacking of their systems?
Do W&H know, we were behind the hacking of their systems?
Hmm that is a good point we should go with the debate than and keep any suspicion off Buffy. Nice catch!
Temes1066
To Defy Gravity you must Let It Go
- Location
- Coleraine
Those poor chaps in the W&H IT department and maybe some of the people working in Special Projects are doomed, either way.
Yes they will most likely be used for body parts or killed. But you appear to be right that it looks like WolfRam hart does not know who did it. So let's just go win the debate and not do anything too suspicious.
Temes1066
To Defy Gravity you must Let It Go
- Location
- Coleraine
I was thinking that they may get sent to one of Wolfram & Hart's nastier punishment dimensions.
They usually do those for people who really screw over the senior partners. You have to not mess up but literally go out of your way to screw over the senior partners. Lindsay did it in the show. Angel and co did it in the comics. Both instances the perpetrator did something that set back the partners in major ways.
They are planning to kill our employees, why shouldn't we head on over to L.A. and kill a bunch of their assassins? It both removes their ability to kill ours, shows that this fight is going to be too expensive for them to want to go all in on, and is an appropriate response to getting ready to murder everyone Buffy knows.
I assume they will figure it out in relatively short order. They have a bunch of files on our organization, and there must be some mention of Willow getting more and more invested in computer magic. By the time the debate is over I am willing to bet that they know who to blame, or at least have eliminated enough other options that Willow is the primary choice. Considering who we are dealing with someone being the assumed threat to them is definitely going to be enough to get assassins sent.
I do think that is the big issue here, we just smacked them with a stick, but not enough of one to make them go away. WRH's default response to being hit with a stick is to send a bunch of assassins out to kill anyone they don't like. I have full confidence in Buffy's ability to kill basically anyone WRH hires, because if Angel could do it in canon Successor Buffy should go through them like a blender, but it would be better to not have to constantly keep an eye out. In order to avoid that I think we either have to force them to the bargaining table now by calling Holland, or win the debate and then go massacre their assassin list.
The only option that I don't think is acceptable is to win the debate and then just sit on the information and do nothing with it. It would only embolden them and give them time to hide assets and targets, while building up a head of steam to begin the assassin spam.
[X] They gathered a ton of useful info for the debate, and they know none of the damaging blackmail is going to come out immediately. Better to prepare to win it decisively and deal with this emotion warlock before doing anything else. If nothing else, it'll improve your negotiating position.
[X] This feud with Wolfram and Hart seems ready to explode into violence, but Willow got the contact information for Lindsey's boss, Holland Manners. Call him up and have a frank discussion of where this is going and how it's poised to end. The curse residue on his servers should be enough proof of your intent.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
Where exactly does this come from? Maybe I am blind, but I do not see anything that would point at it.
Yes, they have assassins on hand. They have a lot of stuff, and most of it is applied elsewhere. What makes us think this is different, and they intend to go after us?
The world does not revolve around us, much as we are important for keeping it apocalypse-free.