Buffy and Cassandra at the End of Days
Cassandra Alone
Cassandra had never left the base before. She was never permitted to do so.
The Defense Department didn't like their secret projects to become public.
Cassandra had begun as an attempt to apply some of the knowledge gained from 'unintended extraterrestrial contact' in 1947 to practical purposes.
She didn't have alien components in her construction but as the engineers and software experts explored what they had found at the crash site; they learned how to make the inanimate pieces of silicon behave as if it could think. Cassandra behaved as if she could think and reason and she could speak and interact with people albeit imperfectly and with some constraints on her behavior for the safety of her fellow humans.
Her engineers had learned from the alien crash relics how to build mechanical bodies almost perfectly matching the real biological model. They had modeled Cassandra after a fourteen year old animation character for no other reason than they enjoyed the animated show and these nerds had the budget.
This particular girl sat at the doorway to a single story flat roofed building – which had no address or name and looked out over a deserted parking lot toward a guard tower looking over the single entrance on the base. She couldn't see the chain link fence beyond that, nor the electric fence in the middle of the 'moat' made of loose sand. They had blinking red lights on posts as a final warning to those intent on breeching it and the lights had stopped blinking.
She wandered across a dark parking lot in the middle of an arid pine forest that had seen better days and wondered why the power had been cut. Even the air base had no power and it had generators. She had never walked beyond the guard tower in her year and a half long 'life': her minders told her she couldn't leave and the guards had automatic weapons.
The steel barriers remained down but she agilely jumped over them: they were for keeping out vehicles. They were built to withstand terrorist suicide bombers in a heavy truck and were well guarded. Anyone driving a vehicle too close to the base would get gunned down long before they could do any significant damage. She saw no guards and no lights remained on so she made a quick decision.
She faced the real barrier. The chain link fence had a four meter high gate and razor wire topping it. The electric fence had strands running horizontally along posts and it stood three meters tall. Beyond that a second equally high chain link gate.
She gathered up a half dozen knapsacks and went to her quarters and began to fill them with her clothing and other personal items she required for extended leave.
She walked calmly to the motor pool where she found an old Jeep Safari done in a nice tan and brown desert camouflage which suited her needs. She pulled on the door (the vehicles were left unlocked to reduce response time) and heaved the first two of six full military backpacks into the back of the thing.
She sat in the driver's seat for a few moments. She had the master key to all the jeeps as she had the job of ferrying parcels and cargo to the far flung parts of the base. She stuck the key in and listened to the seat belt warning beep, did up her seat belt and gripped the wheel. She had many questions and no answers. The people had simply walked away and she saw no signs of a struggle or any battle. The base remained intact and had its full complement of supplies and equipment but the people had left. The base had its own small power station operating off a deep geothermal source and they had bothered to shut that down – yet they had left her behind in her storage container. An automatic mechanism in her brain revived her after twenty four hours of inactivity and she had no idea why they had given her that.
She had no answers and so focused on how to leave and where to go. With that decision made in a nanosecond, she aimed for a part of the fence she knew to be the weakest and pushed the pedal down, engaged four wheel drive and shifted down.
"The problem with freedom is not knowing what to do with it." Cassandra had programing for driving the military jeeps and trucks around the base when personnel in the distant buildings needed office supplies – the main task she had performed. She shifted down as she entered the town of Sunnydale and saw a few people nervously wandering around as evening set in.
The sun had set and she adjusted her headlights to low as she slowly drove along one of the tree lined streets in a residential area of the city.
She fidgeted with the radio and found the local FM station blaring loud pop music a she pressed the buttons. She spend much of her working life in these jeeps listening to the radio but the local station broke up if she went to the more remote parts of the base but National Public Radio always came in clear.
Something ran unbelievably fast across the road. Cassandra thought she had hit it because it flew past her headlight beams at reckless speed. She parked on the side of the street, turned off the ignition and reached inside the glove box for the military issue LED weatherproof flashlight they placed in each vehicle. Cassandra pulled the driver side sliding door open and slipped a small military knapsack over her shoulders and made it her mission to have a look around. She believed she had hit a cat or dog but as she walked past that spot beneath a streetlight; she saw nothing.
The jeep made a 'gloop gloop' noise as she pressed the button on the key fob to lock the door.
Cassandra could hear the comforting hums of the GPS satellites as they reported her location to her. She looked to a large construction site on the southern side of the street. She walked toward the site, between a gap in the chain link partitioning toward the bright lights on the far side of the site.
Cassandra paced the construction site with no sense of danger. She had a keen sense of curiosity given to her by her software and she thought it best to investigate the area in case she had hit and injured a small animal or a child which might have wandered off the road. The site had concrete with rebar sticking up out of it and walls in various stages of construction but she couldn't see any sign of an injured animal. She found a few smashed cinder blocks, a few broken pieces of wood and looked down to shine her torch and take a closer look.
"Who are you!?" A young girl pointed a crossbow at her.
Cassandra had seen much of the military and judged the crossbow and the girl to be a credible threat.
"The Department of Defense and NASA spent two billion or more dollars making me." Cassandra thought of reasons why an armed mob might have assembled to greet her and some kind of protest over an unpopular public works project was the only reason she could think up. "I leave it up to you to decide to kill me or spare me but your the one who'll have to explain to a senate committee what happened to their investment." Cassandra didn't move but she watched the crossbow. "Most of them are Republicans."
The girl standing in the middle of the large 'arena' had dark brown hair held in a tight bun by a spear shaped gold hairpin, was dainty and thin and on the short side of average height for a girl in her teens; but had amber eyes with an unblinking stare and wore what looked like royal robes with gold trim on black. Her pants and the shirt beneath her regal looking robe was brick red and she had matching sneakers. Very few demons wore matching outfits.
She didn't look like she belonged on a construction site.
"Who are you!?" Another girl demanded.
She squinted through the glare of the floods.
"I'm someone you're pointing weapons at. The senate committee might wish to know this too." She said calmly with her flashlight in her upraised arms. "I was driving along the street and thought I hit something. I have no weapons."
"She's not alive!" A red haired girl exclaimed as she stepped forward cautiously.
"I would like to know how you knew this about me." Cassandra stood still. "Still that depends on how you define 'alive'. I'm an artificially autonomous cybernetic organism designed by the military to test the limits of computer technology. I'm also confused. Why do I have a crossbow aimed at my chest?"
She didn't look like a human to the girls looking at her with suspicion. She didn't look like a demon – the demons threatening them had confidence. The funny girl in the odd Asian themed uniform looked confused, out of place and uncertain.
"A day ago, we received orders to evacuate immediately." The girl explained as she watched the tip of the arrow aimed at her eye. "They placed me into my storage container and ordered me to enter sleep mode – I assumed for transport to another facility." She held up her hands as a way to avoid being shot in the head. "I remember being placed inside and then waking up twenty four hours later."
"It's a trick!" The girl with the crossbow shouted. "Remember how we were all fooled by the First Evil?"
"I don't think so." Willow approached the girl. The girl looked like an animation character brought to life – this stood out and made for a thin disguise with no purpose Willow could fathom. Willow could see the 'girl' had no life force, no aura. The First Evil had the power to fake this. "How old are you?"
"I came online six months ago." The girl offered. "My outward appearance looks unconventional because the engineering department took some 'liberties'."
"Why did they build you?" Willow stood just out of reach of the girl.
The odd girl stared at Willow. "They wished to investigate the nature of artificial intelligence in a benign vehicle. A stable artificial intelligence has many useful purposes which are not benign."
"Can I see your hand?" Willow asked. "Please?"
The girl held out her hand. "Living tissue on a composite skeleton."
Willow felt her hand. She had warm hands that felt human and gentle. Her skin was living, everything below it was machine and for Willow this was a revelation.
"Do you have a name?"
"Cassandra."
Cassandra peered through the gap between the two plywood boards nailed up to cover the busted window.
"I should go back and get my jeep." Cassandra turned around and faced the crowd of unfamiliar faces.
"Buffy defeated some bad ass vampire," Xander simplified the situation quite a bit as he didn't trust Cassandra, "but that stirred the flock – there are bound to be some baddies out there so we'll hang here."
"Which one is Buffy?"
Xander pointed her out. "Meet Buffy The Vampire Slayer."
"I checked all my systems and they check out which means the system check program had gone south." Cassandra cupped her hands behind her back. "Have I somehow become 'unhinged'? Did you say vampire several times as if they exist?"
"They exist and we're in the middle of a war." Buffy answered seriously. "If we fail, the First Evil will overrun the Earth and destroy humanity." She approached Cassandra. "The First Evil wants to do nothing but destroy and rule this realm. Sunnydale sits on a Hellmouth which is the gateway between our world and hers."
"If you could look as if you didn't believe her, would you?" Xander asked as he stood next to Cassandra and watched her carefully.
"I know nothing of vampires." Cassandra admitted with some candor. "I remember driving down that street on the north side of the construction site and something jumped out at me. I thought I had hit someone's pet and when I found nothing, I went to look for an injured animal. I nearly got shot in the head with a crossbow. I didn't see a vampire so what should I think?"
The sound of a small servo motor whirring away gave away Cassandra's nature as a machine. Xander heard a whirring and a series of soft clicks like those made by a camera as she studied the group.
"Do we look insane?" Xander asked and motioned around the group.
"I can't make that judgment," Cassandra admitted, "I'm not able to read humans very well."
"Lets turn the questions around." Buffy looked at Cassandra but found it hard to stare into those lifeless eyes. "You said you were a military android. How did you come to be here?"
Cassandra paused for a moment. "I don't know. I come from the base about an hour's drive from here. We received an evacuation order yesterday morning. I remember my superior gave me the command to enter my storage container and go into sleep mode for twenty four hours. I woke up this morning and everyone had left and the base had no power. They simply left. The base had no damage, no signs of a conflict or anything. I decided to leave and try to figure out what had happened. I have no answers." Cassandra then decided to correct a misunderstanding. "I didn't wish to be here. This was the first populated area I drove to and I came to see if there were still people."
"Are you dead?" Buffy asked impatiently.
Cassandra took a longer time to answer. "My skin consists of living human skin but I'm not a living being like you. I can't give a more direct answer."
"We've been fooled by The First Evil." Buffy almost threatened her. "She is the most powerful demon ever known. She can imitate any human provided they have died."
Willow stood on the other side of Cassandra with her arms crossed. Willow had her doubts: Cassandra looked human but was a machine – as lifeless as any car or fridge – but exceedingly complex.
"Why pick this facade?" Willow countered. "She is dead. The First Evil can fool me into thinking something is alive. She isn't alive or undead. She looks to me much like a car or fridge – I see a machine."
Cassandra looked to Willow in confusion. "I haven't died." Cassandra had common sense on her side. "I've never been alive. I will admit to great confusion right now but you said this evil can imitate anyone who has died – that implies the deceased once lived. If she could fake common machines – she could quietly imitate cars or buses or any of a hundred and one common machines that kill when misused or abused. The demon has been killing by faking the dead not by faking an elevator." Cassandra offered her speculations on the matter.
"We have to be very careful." Xander explained in a serious manner. "All these girls have come here to seek training from Buffy and protection from us. Several have died already." Xander had faith in Willow's intuition and so Cassandra wasn't alive in any way useful to The First Evil. Cassandra didn't look quite human and her Asian like uniform and dignified and fussy manner didn't fit in at all with teenage girls.
"Are you another slayer?" A dignified looking man in a dark green tweed suit asked Cassandra as she examined him. "I heard we had a new member of our group."
"She's an artificial person." Xander tried to explain.
"I'm Giles." The man pushed his glasses up his face and offered his hand in greeting.
"Cassandra." Cassandra answered back and shook his hand.
Giles understood instantly that he looked at a 'fake' human – a very clever fake but a fake.
"This could be useful." Giles moved and let Anya step past him. "I don't know much about technology but rumors have persisted for a few years the military had a secret project to develop 'artificial intelligences'. The name of that project was Cassandra and the aim was to develop computers able to anticipate human behavior and even political events in the world like weather forecasters track hurricanes. I had no idea it took this form."
"Neither did I." Cassandra answered back.
Buffy felt skeptical
Spike found himself confused.
Cassandra had no idea why the bleach blond man stared at her. He had a problem dealing with her lack of odor, blood and utter lack of any hint of life. He clearly saw an 'intelligence' working but saw her much as he saw a realistic looking garden gnome.
"Yes?" Cassandra sat on the couch and looked a the peroxide blond man staring at her.
"You don't smell human." He sneered. "You have no scent of blood, nothing I can see tells me you're alive."
"I keep explaining that I'm a machine." Cassandra leafed through a magazine then put it down. "I'm your garden variety thinking robot."
"A garden variety thinking robot? That makes my day!" The man sneered. "What will they think of next?"
Buffy stood at the kitchen door and watched Spike try to make sense of Cassandra.
"You told me she could prove useful." Buffy reminded Giles in a tired voice.
"She's already – kind of – dead." Giles began tactfully as if he worried about hurting Cassandra's feelings if she overheard him. "Demons can't easily see her. They'd have trouble tracking her – she has no human smell or life force to give her away." Giles scratched his head and thought for a moment. "I have a few questions for her. Excuse me."
"Yes?" Cassandra was too calm.
Giles sat in the large stuffed chair across from the sofa Cassandra sat on.
"Do you have any idea what happened at the base?" Giles leaned forward.
"They established the base long before they understood plate tectonics or volcanism. Had they understood these matters in 1941, they would not have built the base in its current location but I digress." Cassandra answered carefully. "The base sits on part of the Mammoth Lakes volcanic system and when they discovered this, they set up seismographs and sensors to warn of any impending activity. Over the last few days, that system gave indications of renewed activity and I guess they decided to evacuate the base as a precaution. I have no idea why they left me behind." Cassandra's eyes betrayed no emotion. "When I woke up a day later, I saw no damage and decided to leave in case there was an eruption under the base."
"No signs of violence?" Giles reiterated.
"None." Cassandra answered back with certainty. "Except for the power outage; the base was exactly as it had always been."
Giles nodded. "What mission do you currently have?"
"I have no 'mission' yet." Cassandra brushed her clothes. "Since my incept date half a year ago; I've acted as a clerk for the base." She looked around the room. "I suspected the engineers and programmers had intended to use this time to train me to interact with humans and to test my faculties. I don't understand some aspects of my design but you guessed at my purpose – modeling the future. Much of my software consists of statistical and modeling software; much of my programming works to model the future." Cassandra looked down at the hands and made fists with them. "They gave me a human form to allow me to interact with the environment and acquire more data for better forecasting."
"Will they come back for you?"
Cassandra gave that idea some thought. "They abandoned me in place. I have no idea."
"What do you think?" Buffy asked Willow. "Living person with mental problems or machine?"
"Nothing has changed - a machine – she has no aura at all." Willow answered back. "A computer of such skillful design she looks human. She has no 'soul' yet I hate to call her a machine. She has a personality and a sort of awkward charming way to her."
"She's a very powerful machine." Giles sat down at the breakfast table. "She has none of the strength of the slayer – she's not strong or fast but unlike us, she can dimly see the future. I think they evacuated the base but didn't wish her to see the reasons behind the evacuation so they hid her away and left." Giles picked up the teapot and poured tea.
"How?" Willow scowled, "How do you make a psychic android?"
"You don't, but her name betrays her intended function," Giles placed a deck of playing cards on the table with a thump. "You make a powerful computer that can crunch numbers so fast it can figure out the likely outcome of a hand of cards, the weather or a battle. Cassandra finds playing cards trivial – don't play Blackjack with her – that's my advice. Cassandra of ancient Greek mythology had a curse placed on her by Apollo – she could see the future but no one believed her." Giles stopped as Cassandra entered the kitchen.
"I don't mean to pry but what could you tell us if we gave you access to all the information we have on The First Evil?" Giles asked as Cassandra looked out the window. "I know all of this is new but we have texts and books containing demon lore."
Cassandra turned around with a look that seemed almost to contain pride. "I can have a look." She crossed her arms and prepared to lecture. "The more data I have, the more accurate my predictions become. I have no problem predicting phenomena which follow patterns rules and trends. I can predict cards and chess with almost perfect accuracy. As I have to try to predict further in the future; the predictions become less reliable. I have a full knowledge of games theory and military strategy so that also helps me predict the best method to achieve victory. It helps to have all of the knowledge I can in this matter because I'm so new to this."
"Is your defeat of Giles all software?" Buffy held up the deck of cards.
"I do have the capacity to learn so I can study my opponent and also take advantage of weaknesses I see but that's fast processing and complex software." Cassandra turned the question around. "I'm a computer – crunching numbers is what I do – I 'see' all of you but you're digits flowing through my silicon wafers. I have to do a huge number of calculations to do something that simple. I don't think, I use brute force mathematics to decide how to act, solve problems and recognize you." Cassandra turned over her hands and looked down. "All of this makes me easier to interact with than a laptop."
"A few of the girls want to meet you." Willow motioned to Cassandra to follow her.
"Is this part of Xander's 'bring your robot to work day?'" Xander asked as lookout as Cassandra unlocked her jeep door. "Most of the bad things come out at night – most of the time."
The jeep replied with a 'gloop' as it unlocked.
"We should be safe." Cassandra assured Xander. "We have hours of daylight left."
"I anticipated trouble and brought what I thought I might need." Cassandra unlocked the back of the jeep and pulled up the large tinted back window. The back had the seat down and was filled with large duffel bags. "We can expect injuries and so the red bag contains a field kit." Cassandra pulled on the red bag. "This is a field medical kit – we have two in here. Everything from bandages to a heart defibrillator."
"Emergency food rations for fourteen for a week." Cassandra said as she pointed to a blue bag "You add water and eat – enjoyment may not come so easily." She rummaged around. "We'll take the water purifier and the satellite phone."
"I normally carry no gun and the jeeps have no guns but we always have the roadside kit." Cassandra pointed to a large orange bag with yellow reflective tape. "I can't school you in their use, but we have trenching shovels."
"Shovels?" Xander wondered about the need for shovels but he had the wooden handled hardware store gardening shovel in mind.
"When we get back and unpack, I'll show them to you. A dual purpose tool – you can dig with it to free your jeep and you can brain a demon. The handle is light aluminum, the shovel is hard steel. It folds up and you can carry one or two on you. Unfold it and you have the best of sword and baseball bat all in one. We should take them." Cassandra stood up and handed them off.
"If you need guns, I think you lot could break into a gun shop if you need to. The soldiers in this vehicle didn't carry anything you can't get in a well stocked gun shop." Cassandra tapped a camouflaged green bag. "We have knives and army tomahawks in this bag.
Cassandra carefully closed the tailgate and then motioned Xander to ride shotgun.
"I have a few bags of personal items – replacement parts and clothing." She said as she opened the door and adjusted her seat belt. "I may need repairs and my clothing is made to fit me. I'm not sure I could find anything that suits me in a Gap."
"Are your clothes special?" Xander did up his seat belt as Cassandra started the jeep and put it in gear.
"My clothes come in several color themes like you see in this red outfit." Cassandra tugged her gold bordered collar. "I have blue and green and yellow, gray and teal as well. The color doesn't matter." As Cassandra drove down the street she pointed at her back with her free right hand. "The clothes are made to fit me – you could say."
Buffy had no idea how a merely human intelligence could make something as exceedingly complex as Cassandra. Over the past day, everyone had met the all too human Cassandra but concluded the odd machine wasn't quite 'right' but she was oddly likeable. She made for pleasant company but had no concept of 'human emotions' or at least had a problem comprehending them.
Her 'gifts' embodied in her ability to predict and her ability as a strategist made her welcome at the Sommer's home. She also had endurance: she needed little and her fuel cells used nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere to extract power. She could operate indefinitely. Once she had read enough to have a good idea what to look look out for; she could stay up all night and quietly stand guard. She gave the household a chance to rest, recover and recuperate. The denizens of the Sommer's house slept better knowing a very intelligent computer stood guard.
Cassandra made no noise as she went from window to window in a cycle only a machine could perform so precisely.
Buffy turned on the kitchen light which made Cassandra wince for a split second.
"I didn't hear you come down the stairs." Cassandra announced. "Did I do something wrong?"
"You have done your duty very well."
Cassandra could wiggle her ears and did so as she turned to speak to Buffy. "I have no sense of smell." Cassandra looked down at the floor for a moment as if to gather her thoughts and then looked to Buffy again. "People say 'it doesn't smell right' when something seems out of place or doesn't make sense."
"I can't sleep." Buffy explained to Cassandra. "I'll leave you your work."
"I didn't hear you come down the stairs." Cassandra said again. "I double checked my memory and replayed everything and I find no sound."
"I can be very quiet." Buffy smiled. "Stealthy." She whispered coyly.
"You had no reason to be stealthy." Cassandra looked at Buffy and her eyes whirred quietly. "I think I should warn the others."
"Don't worry, you're tired." Buffy told Cassandra.
Cassandra looked oddly preoccupied. "I can't grow tired. Buffy makes the steps creak and so I can tell its her. She has a certain signature in her step I recognize and so I know I can continue to work."
She also had a deeply engrained need to indulge her curiosity. "What is the purpose of this illusion? I have nothing to offer." Cassandra watched and waited.
"I know you're dead." Buffy said slyly but had her doubts as she studied the precise and pedantic Cassandra. "I can take your form, destroy you and use the their trust in you to infiltrate the group."
"I've already been briefs on your tactics and I wouldn't try making me a doppelganger. I have been told you need to take on the identity of a once living person. I never had a life or soul and my mind consists of software running on a very fast computer. I doubt you could duplicate the kind of brute force algorithms making me 'appear to think'. You have nothing to imitate." Cassandra replied in a tone of utter logic mixed with pride. "I find your words an empty threat. I'm unable to self terminate and you're unable to terminate me."
"I should simply have you destroyed." Buffy slyly smiled. "Have one of my legion leave you smashed and unable to function."
"As an all powerful being I find myself underwhelmed by your intelligence." Cassandra stood in the dim light of the microwave oven display. "You have shown me just how little you understand my nature. You use deception because a human mind can be fooled or manipulated. This explains the illusion of Buffy. I have no mind. I use a set of rules to evaluate the data and seek the most self consistent answer. I have a directive to accurately process information and relay the results."
The fake Buffy walked up to Cassandra. The humans had crafted her well but she lacked a 'smell' an aura and the only thing at all she could see to show Cassandra was functioning was a green glow in the robot's eyes and the low whirring of her eyes focusing in on her. The First Evil had vast knowledge of humans and supernatural creatures yet had Cassandra thought it almost a certain bet she had no knowledge of machines – nothing like Cassandra had existed in the human realm.
Cassandra said three words: "The Cassandra Project works."
Cassandra flew back as a flash overwhelmed her night vision.
"Buffy!?" Cassandra had a piercing voice. "Willow!?"
The First Evil had met the original Cassandra and computer capable of predicting the future could be a huge advantage to the humans if they believed and trusted its advice.
She had not had to use her direct influence to force the humans to leave. The base holding Cassandra lay above a geothermal hotspot – a dormant volcano. They had tapped this magma chamber for the supply of almost unlimited power it provided but the caldera had begun to show disturbing signs of activity. The engineers and technicians at the base had endured weeks of small quakes directly beneath them which began to grow in intensity. The power plant had a series of steam explosions and toxic gasses had begun to build up near the facility. They decided to evacuate the base but had not taken their equipment.
The affairs of the military had not concerned her although the location of the base was not secret even if the military hid much of what took place behind the fences. The recent increase in geological activity didn't concern her. She had come to California to open the Hellhole not study geology. Given that California had great quakes, volcanoes, landslides, forest fires and floods; she regarded the pending eruption of a volcano an hour's drive away as merely the catastrophe of the day.
The First Evil wondered if she had she had a narrow escape? She used illusions to fool humans but Cassandra came as a sharp warning not to overextend herself or make assumptions about weakness. Human minds had motives, emotional drives, hopes, fears and desires; knowledge of the past of a person helped reveal a way to dupe others into accepting her.
At this moment, she had bigger fish to fry than dealing with an escaped military experiment.
Cassandra had no life force and no mind but was not a fake. Whatever worked behind those amber eyes had a complex intellect and extremely fine reasoning but while she looked human; her makers had not given her a human mind but endowed her with the ability to fake enough of human behavior to work with people. Her humanity was nothing more than an interface to allow her to do useful work.
She had not expected Cassandra to be in the slayer house. She had mistaken her for a new potential and had made a mistake.
"Why don't we destroy that machine?" Caleb asked – he wished to demand but had to hold his temper – after all he had a calling to aid the First Evil. "If she can see your true nature then she poses threat!"
"Do you know the story of her namesake?" She answered back edgily. "Cassandra was the name of a woman cursed by Apollo to predict the future but be forever doubted." She knew the myth well, yet decided not to bother retelling the story to Caleb. "Our little droid takes that name because the humans have somehow built the ability to forecast the future into her. I admit I'm surprised: I had no idea human technology had advanced this far."
"Why don't you try to kill her?" She said sarcastically as she paced the oak barrels of the old winery cave. "You could torture her and feed off her dark emotions – except she doesn't have any. You could take sadistic joy in her pain – except a machine doesn't feel pain!" Caleb had the cruelty she needed to accomplish her goals but he had a very simple view of the world.
Caleb had no concept of a thinking machine.
"Could I kill her easily?" Caleb asked submissively.
"You could crush her like a doll," she answered back. "but you wouldn't enjoy it at all." Caleb didn't understand the knot of the problem. Cassandra made forecasts bases on mathematics and could predict Caleb's actions and evade them. "She'd likely predict your moves and take the proper actions to evade you. You have nothing of interest to a machine. You pray on the emotional weakness of young women, she has none."
Caleb digested this information as he gave thought to finding this android.
She looked back at Caleb. "I'd like to know more about her capabilities. She had great confidence and proved quite intelligence for a machine – even for a person but I couldn't read her. Very well...see what you can discover about her but you are not to harm her just yet."
Caleb loosened his collar. "May I ask why?"
"I don't know how." The First Evil walked around Caleb. "She has no slayer powers but she does have the ability to predict the moves of her adversaries – we don't want her to figure out all of our moves in advance. We will recover our powers, then proceed as planned."
Caleb stood in the darkness afforded him under the shade of the large Douglas Fir tree in the back yard of a tree several houses down from the 'Slayer House' as he had come to call it. He had staked this spot because he could hide in the dark and go unnoticed.
Cassandra tilted her head.
"You're wanted by the authorities." She spoke loudly but calmly as she stared into the night. "Your chosen alias is 'Caleb' and you're wanted for at least two killings. The FBI database may need updating."
"Now just how did you know I was here?" Caleb walked out from behind the tree. "You have some of them fancy night vision goggles?"
"Very few defrocked priests have stood under that tree." Cassandra leaned on the railing of the porch. "I didn't know with certainty until you told me."
"How did you see me?" Caleb asked with subdued anger.
Cassandra pointed at her eyes. "As you pointed out, I have an elaborate night vision system capable of easily distinguishing you from the tree." She crossed her arms. "I suspect you'll have a sermon for me otherwise you wouldn't be still wearing your priest's collar? I warn you I have no soul and no interest in things religious or spiritual."
Caleb wondered how this dainty little robot knew so much about his criminal history and realized she had begun to bait him.
"Do you not know how powerful I am?" Caleb replied.
"Neither you or the First Evil - your boss – have taken time to ask some very important questions." Cassandra never let Caleb leave her green glowing glare. "Why did the humans create a thinking machine? What makes me special? Why did the First Evil left me alone? Why did she warn you that you best leave me alone?"
"I came to meet you." Caleb lied. "You are unique."
"You came to cut me down." Cassandra corrected him. "I came out of a military project called 'Project Cassandra' – to call it a secret military project sounds like a cliche." Cassandra's expression didn't change.
"You can see the future?" Caleb laughed quietly and sarcastically.
"I see the world, you, that tree, the house as streams of data – numbers – flowing in my brain." Cassandra heard someone come out the front door. "With those numbers I can perform complicated mathematics and with the results I can model the odds of things happening and make solid predictions. My creators designed me with such abilities. Your boss understood this and realized the longer I observed her, the more data I acquired and the more reliable my predictions of her future moves."
"Who are you talking to?" Willow asked as she looked out into the darkness.
"Caleb." Cassandra told Willow. "He came to kill me but he won't succeed."
"I'll get everyone." Willow patted Cassandra's shoulder.
"He took off his shoes and ran off down the street toward the school." Cassandra told Willow. "I said he wouldn't succeed. He didn't expect to have his shoes stuck in a pool of Five Minute Epoxy.
Caleb found his boss smirking in the cavern in the guise of Cassandra.
"I warned you but you have to learn by experience." His boss explained as she walked up to him. "If I had merely ordered you to leave her alone, you'd never understand how powerful she could be."
"She has an odd sense of humor." Caleb growled and hissed as he tore a sharp rock from the ball of his foot. "Such a little girl to be given such powers."
"I had heard of Cassandra but only as rumors of a secret endeavor to build a special kind of computer. My minions told me long ago of this project but technical things bore me. Until last night, I had no idea of the true form of 'Cassandra'." The First Evil advised Caleb. "Until I went to see for myself, I didn't understand that it had taken the form of a teenage girl."
"She cost me a pair of expensive shoes." Caleb asked pensively.
His boss circled around him. "She could have killed you."
"That little girl?" Caleb bellowed. "That little girl humiliated me."
"Is that worse than killing you?" The First Evil paced around an oak wine aging barrel. "She sent you a message: she can see your future. Lucky for you, she has no knowledge of your weaknesses. If she knew you could die once your body was destroyed then she'd set those events up."
"You can appear to her – break her mind." Caleb rubbed his bare feet.
"I can appear like her because she's dead but I can't read a mind that doesn't exist." His boss looked down at her hands. "The humans poured much of their craftsmanship into her. Not beautiful as a woman, not attractive but cute and delicate." She felt the gold trim of the robe. "I know you want to choke the life out of her but that won't work – she doesn't breathe."
"How do we destroy her?" Caleb asked earnestly.
"We don't." She answered back. "She was right. She is too alien."
"She poses a risk to you."
"One such robot doesn't pose much of a risk - yet." His boss said with a wag of her finger. "The military left her behind and that makes me think they have a copy, a backup, a prototype. She's a computer and so you could take a rock and pound her skull to glass dust and still not 'kill' her. She exists as software – the body merely allows her to operate in the world. Computers have backups and the humans connect them together. She must have flagged you as a serial killer by tapping one of the human computer networks. You'd try to kill her and she'd simply have to find a computer host to escape into and wait. I imagine such a machine has a backup already. Once in the 'net she'd find some way to blow you into dust." She turned to Caleb slowly and gave the command. "We understand humans, not computers. Study her, but leave her unharmed for now."
"See if you can find out more about what makes her function." She advised dismissively. "I find myself curious now."
"The man I saw goes by the alias Caleb." Cassandra said confidently. "He's a defrocked priest wanted by the FBI for the murder of at least two women."
Willow had her laptop sitting on the coffee table. She sat next to Cassandra as she leaned over and entered commands into it.
"How do you know?" Xander asked Cassandra.
"The church doesn't often vet the candidates for the priesthood." Cassandra could see Xander looking at her – people did that to her a lot. "A shortage of young men who wish to work for them given the lack of benefits and human contact."
"How did you find out about Caleb?" Xander asked again with emphasis.
"When I first saw him, once I had enough data, I queried law enforcement databases and they all agreed on his identity." Cassandra put her hands on her thighs and then leaned forward with her head in her hands. "Willow has set up the wireless so I can stream the video."
"Ready." Willow announced.
"I can't promise you'll see much: night vision systems are often devoid of much detail." Cassandra blinked three times. "You're going to see a recording of the raw data which may prove confusing."
'Negotiating with host...' The text flowed through a command window and then the media player came up.
The monochromatic green video made Buffy wonder about how Cassandra could possibly make sense of the world through such a limited set of colors. The image bounced up and down and a set of cross-hairs locked in on a green blur under the outline of a tree. The conversation had much more fidelity than the video and went exactly as Cassandra had reported. A green pie chart like circle appeared with text and histograms as Cassandra worked to identify him.
Andrew had nothing but admiration for the speed of Cassandra's lightning fast processing core. The fastest computers lagged to analyze video and audio in real time and very often failed. Cassandra locked in on the 'smear' and rapidly built up a human form using statistical odds. He saw a blotch, a smear, a gleam, a glimmer and all in a hideous green. Cassandra found a serial killer named 'Caleb'.
"Very few people hang out anywhere here at night." Cassandra said as the video came to its end. She cut in with an image of the man and his rap sheet. "I came up with his identity given the visual data and the voice records the FBI has."
"Why did he come here?" Buffy asked Cassandra.
Cassandra looked up. She gave a look of deep thought for a moment as she sat on the couch.
Willow watched in fascination as 'Cassandra' began to peer into the future.
Cassandra's look became more attached again and her eyes focused on Buffy with a soft whir.
"The First Evil needs muscle." Cassandra slapped her knees. "She can't actually do anything in the physical world. She plays mind games and preys on human weaknesses and makes use of elaborate mind games that play off the vulnerabilities of people." Cassandra sounded almost sad. "She needs someone to do the violent work real murder and mayhem require. Caleb makes a perfect choice. His record makes for an interesting lesson in how 'wetware' can go very badly wrong."
"Andrew is your name?"
Cassandra looked to the nervous boy bothering her. She had no concept of being bothered but the nervous blond teen with the camera was teaching her. She had had this boy tailing her since he got up and had a camera fully charged. Cassandra had no concept of excitement and was at a loss to understand why her wanderings through the house engaged the boy's interest.
"Don't you have anything better to do?" Cassandra asked in her typical level manner. "You've got a week or a little bit more left to live. Do you want to spend you're last days tailing me with that camera?"
"I've never met a cyborg."
Cassandra pushed herself onto a sitting position on the kitchen counter. "Indeed?" She made herself comfortable "What about Data from Star Trek the Next Generation?"
"Brent Spiner played him – he was an actor." Andrew pined. "He was an android – he was entirely artificial. You have human skin and you're real."
"Such subtlety." Cassandra complained. "Do you mean to imply Brent Spiner was not real or that he wasn't a real android?"
This required Andrew to scratch his head. Cassandra spoke with refined perfection, came so close to emulating human behavior; yet on rare occasions, she lost the flow or mucked up something implied by context but not spoken. She came close to passing the Unrestricted Turing Test but given time, she revealed her machine nature.
"Do you have to sit on the kitchen counter?" Anya complained as she opened the fridge. "Aren't you perfect and without emotion or something?"
Anya pulled the fridge door open.
"I find the variety of birth control pills in the fridge extraordinary." Cassandra told Anya . "Given the high chance of the human race dying out, is birth control a good policy right now?"
"Who drank all the orange juice?" Anya complained bitterly.
Cassandra noticed Andrew zooming in on Anya.
"Why do you need that?" Cassandra asked the nervous Andrew. "I record all."
Andrew had a bit of a crush on Cassandra.
Andrew gulped. "You are so finely made and you have the the blue uniform on. I find you very beautiful."
"Thank you for your complement." Cassandra told Andrew. "This doesn't address my question about the camera you have trained on us."
Cassandra waited and tapped her finger on the counter.
"Can you feel attraction to another person?" Andrew fidgeted.
She looked into the fridge. "In the 'need for birth control' way or the way 'the fridge magnets have stuck to the fridge' way?"
"He means in the way one human likes another." Anya poked her head in the fridge. "He wants to ask you out."
"No." Cassandra spoke as if closing a door. "I fake behaving like a human like a computer model of the weather fakes the real thing. My design comes out of a need to make me easy to interact with. I have no real body and no needs for human companionship. I have no romantic needs. I think you had better look elsewhere."
"Well that settles that." Anya closed the fridge door. "We're out of orange juice and Andrew has no date for the prom – if he has a prom."
"Put it on the list – the orange juice not the prom date." Cassandra could almost sound irked. "I put the whiteboard on the fridge with the pen so people could remind me of the things we need as it seems I have begun to become the housekeeper at Sommer's School for the Slayer."
"Won't you grow old?" Andrew spoke in a quivering voice.
"With any luck, I grow old but the odds of our survival seem about fifty fifty." Cassandra gave her odds on the success of their mission. "If I grow old, I'll grow old alone."
"How lonely." Anya said as she close the fridge. "You have a dark view of the world."
"One has to feel lonely." Cassandra said plaintively.
"I see." Andrew apologized.
Cassandra brushed her robes. "I had hoped to escape the end of the world. Things have come out against me." She a few habits and she brushed her robes when unsure of what to say to a human. "I hope my little life will not end in a deafening crescendo but with a niente."
"I find myself constantly shocked by the sheer size of the spiders in this basement." Cassandra stood on the stairs in her fine blue uniform with the black vest and silver trim and held onto the mail. "I did some digging at the local museum. Did you know Sunnydale used to have a Japanese internment camp where the Target is now. They didn't inter Japanese prisoners of War – odd. They interred Americans of Japanese descent. The same policy wasn't applied to the Germans or their European allies. Anyhow, I have the mail." She waved her hand with the mail in it.
"Did we get anything worth opening?" Buffy asked curtly to head off one of Cassandra's mind melting rants.
"Would you look at the size of that one!" Cassandra pointed at a corner of the basement as she came down the stairs. "The phone bill has arrived."
"Do you have any fighting skills?" Buffy asked Cassandra.
"I can change toner in any photocopier but I can't fight. I can use most four letter words very well." Cassandra twirled a letter in her hand. "This came for you from your dentist." She held out a letter.
Buffy grabbed Cassandra and held her arm behind her back.
"I didn't read your mail." Cassandra complained. "I've had the duty of getting the mail and newspaper when they arrive. Did you decide to kill the messenger? Do you hate your dentist? That isn't my problem. Breaking my arm hardly puts my talents to full use. I can't offer you any combat training."
"I have you pinned. How do you get free?" Buffy menacingly spoke in Cassandra's ear.
Cassandra smelled faintly of plastic and electronics. Buffy didn't wish to hurt the little android but she didn't want her to naively blunder into trouble with no defenses. She wished to know if the 'Little Princess' as some potentials nicknamed her, had any combat skills at all.
"Mom!" Cassandra yelled out. "Buffy's picking on me."
Snickers went around the room.
"How to get myself out of your grasp." Cassandra dryly dissected the problem. "You can greatly overpower me and I'm not physically strong. I can't cause harm to you due to safeguards in my programming so we have to take a new approach to this kind of problem."
Cassandra played the odds constantly. Buffy had greater physical strength but Cassandra could out wait anyone. Cassandra squirmed and in a flash had her freedom.
"You gave me a chance because you loosened your grip." Cassandra explained to Buffy. "I may be a pacifist but I'm not stupid."
Buffy had begun to respect that little cyborg. While dainty Cassandra barely stood five feet tall and had a charming and kind nature but was frighteningly intelligent and Buffy wasn't surprised that she had been outwitted by her.
Cassandra held up her hand and examined her finger. A pale blue milky liquid oozed out and she blew on it.
"Get a bandage." Buffy told her and grabbed the letter from the dentist.
Cassandra walked down the aisle of the St. Bartholomew Catholic Church.
The brick church was one of the first buildings of any size built in the area by the first settlers and still stood out as a landmark in the small city of Sunnydale. The church was directly across from the new high school but after seven in the evening, all was quiet.
The wooden floor squeaked under Cassandra's feet. A blood red carpet went from the front entrance of the church to the back between the rows of pews. She wondered why the old pioneers had felt a need to make the interior so squalid.
The candles in the overhead lights had long been replaced by feeble halogen lights casting a dim tungsten glow over the inside of the old church. Cassandra had great night vision and decent enough vision in daylight but her vision system didn't perfectly adjust the color balance and so the dark wooden floor and the pews took on a pallid green tinge she couldn't adjust out.
"How are you tonight – miss?" An elderly priest with gentle blue eyes and gray hair gently asked the odd looking girl as she walked down the center aisle between the two rows of pews.
"I'm fine. My name is Cassandra." Cassandra placed her hands behind her back and faced the priest as he worked his way along the pews replacing the 'prayer request' forms. "I have a question for you."
Cassandra followed him as he worked along the pews.
"I'm looking for a man who has an unhealthy interest in religion." Cassandra reached into her robes and took out a folded color printout of Caleb's police blotter. "Have you ever seen this man?"
"He looks familiar." The man held his glasses to his face and then let them fall. "I saw him at an Evensong service last week. Wanted by the FBI you say? Are you with the police?"
"No...but I recognized him and wish to do my duty." Cassandra folded up the print out. "Do you know anything about him?"
"I have only seen him at the odd service. We've never spoken." The old priest smiled. "You can have a look at the guest book in the Narthex and you'll see we have many visitors."
"Thank you." Cassandra folded up the image.
This church had a straight line view of the Sommer's house and that made it of interest to Caleb.
"May I look around?" She asked the priest. "I have an interest in the history of this place."
"We make our doors open to all." The priest nodded.
She hadn't lied. She had an interest in the recent history of the place.
Caleb had an interest in this place and Cassandra found herself drawn to the belfry as it had a direct line view of the Sommer's house.
The belfry was a brick room with screened windows to let the bells toll but keep the bats out. Ropes with leather grips dangled from holes in the wooden roof above her. She had not bothered to switch on the lights: she could see plenty of detail through her night vision. Caleb could have found no other place to hide and spy and as Cassandra looked out over the neighborhood she saw their house in clear detail.
They had a problem.
Cassandra wasn't what powerful vampires or demons expected or even looked out for. She had seen vampires lurking in the shadows in the evening but they took no more interest in her than in a mailbox or traffic light. She was a creature with toxic blood so vampires blithely ignored her.
Willow and Buffy didn't like Cassandra to go out alone.
Cassandra had logic on her side. As an artificial life form with blood blended from silicon oil and a mix of fluorocarbon compounds, something akin to slow acting adhesives for clotting and chemical stabilizers, she tasted awful and was probably toxic. Spike had seen her bleed from a cut and described the light blue liquid as utterly revolting. Everyone else noticed it had a faint chemical odor. Willow noticed it became much like fast acting glue since she had stuck her fingers together with Cassandra's blue blood while examining the cut she received at Buffy's hands.
Buffy worried because Cassandra had no instincts. She had an artificial mind shaped by programmers not by the need for survival.
"I have to conclude we're seeing a leveling off of activity." Cassandra told Giles as she met him at the door. "I haven't seen vampires or demons around recently. I can't explain it except that our enemy is regrouping, perhaps strengthening her forces."
"Buffy doesn't want you roaming the neighborhood at night." Giles held the door open as Cassandra pulled her knapsack off her shoulders. "She thinks you're in far too much danger."
Cassandra mulled this for a moment. "I'm in considerable physical danger. Vampires don't pose much of a threat unless directed to kill me. Other things of demonic origins can easily kill me. Bringers could net me and present me to The First One." Cassandra walked into the living room and placed her knapsack on the coffee table and then began explaining to Giles her findings. "Things have begun to move quickly because the increase in vampire population shows The First Evil has begun recruiting muscle to crush us. She tried once and failed but she has Caleb at her disposal and he hasn't yet moved against us. He will. The First One's plan has a precision about it: crush all human resistance here: us, the potential slayers and then claim a foothold and move on."
Buffy leaned against the door. "We have had you in our midst for long enough that you know many of our secrets and plans. If you fell into the hands of The First Evil; she could extract what you know and use it against us."
"She can't manipulate a computer intelligence by deception or torture." Cassandra countered. "She can imitate my look since I'm already dead but she can't imitate my software so she'd give herself away."
"You can't lie." Buffy replied severely. Buffy had grown increasingly irritated and concerned with Cassandra's appearance overconfidence in the face of grave danger and decided to remind Cassandra of her own weaknesses. "She just has to ask you and you'd tell her." She looked down on Cassandra. "The forces out their will not ignore you once they know this weakness – the Bringers act on First Evil command. They can't read your silicon brain, download your files or read your emotions but they don't care – they have their duty."
"I'm almost surprised." Cassandra had not considered this a problem but Buffy had identified a very real problem with Cassandra's nature. She had heard of efforts to make sophisticated artificial intelligences 'lie' or conceal information but it never worked. The systems crashed or the software became utterly unreliable and useless and so computers like Cassandra had limited usefulness in military applications. Buffy had made a point: Cassandra could not keep secrets.
Anya thought Cassandra's choice of clothes a fashion mistake. The android looked like some fictional oriental princess – the silver, gold or copper colored trim on her long trench coat like vest spoke of baroque excess.
She sat at the kitchen table and tried to talk fashion with Cassandra
Cassandra began to brew another pot of coffee and prepared to explain how her solar charger worked.
"The black vest looks like a fashion statement," she began cautiously, "but they're essential for my functioning."
"All very nice." Anya said dismissively as she waited for Cassandra to make another pot of coffee.
"The black vest acts as a solar panel and also engages in photosynthesis." Cassandra waited at the coffee machine as it hissed and sputtered. "The power runs my computer systems and the photosynthesis feeds my biological systems."
"Shouldn't you be green?" Anya watched impatiently as Cassandra poured out a hot mug of coffee. "Plants are green – they do that photo thing."
"Black absorbs more much more light and so I get more energy and food." Cassandra placed a mug in front of Anya. "They designed me for maximum autonomy so I could function on the surface without the need for constant supplying."
Anya reached for the sugar packets Cassandra kept in a white bowl in the middle of the table. Cassandra had become a kind of housekeeper and Anya put up with Cassandra because keeping the house clean wasn't something she wished to do.
"I have a kind of fuel cell that can use ethanol if I need power in a pinch but so far I've never needed it." Cassandra sat down across from Cassandra. "I suppose humans take their clothing so seriously because they look so ugly naked?"
Cassandra had no soul. Anya knew this for a face: no machine had one. Lots of things could have them. The problem for the Buffyverse at large was that with her keen observations, cutting humor and injunctions to protect life; Cassandra simulated a soul using software.