Part 2: Cans Full of Bloodthirsty Worms
#
Riley Finn looked across the lecture hall until his eyes found the tiny blonde who had almost given him a concussion the first time they had met. Buffy Summers, he thought with a smile. Having met her was just about the only good thing about this entire cover story.
Working as a TA for a psychology professor. Well, he guessed there were worse assignments, he just had trouble thinking of one. College had been fun when he had been one of the students, but now? Grading papers in his spare time was not why he had signed up with the service, truth be told.
Again he found his eyes trailing towards Buffy. Bad idea, Riley! Bad idea! First rule of undercover assignments: No fooling around with the ladies unless it was part of the job. His first trainer at the academy had told him to forget about all that James Bond stuff. Still, looking could not hurt anyone, could it?
The lecture passed with agonizing slowness and Riley had to force himself to pay attention. He had majored in psychology but two years ago and been recruited right out of college, so most of what Professor Walsh was teaching fell under old news for him. Unfortunately the woman was also a major bitch, which meant more work for him. He could not really blame the students for rather approaching him with questions than her.
Too bad Buffy never seemed to have much in the way of questions. Stop that, Riley!
Needing something to occupy his thoughts with he thought back to the first time he had set foot in Sunnydale.
#
Riley Finn got out of his car and took a seat at the coffee house, ordering absentmindedly. His eyes moved across the room, checking out the other occupants. Odds were his contact was not here yet, as he had arrived about an hour early to check out the surroundings. From what he had seen on his drive into town Sunnydale was a perfectly ordinary place, except for some strange details.
He had never seen a town with so many churches and cemeteries before.
The preliminary information he had received before coming here read like a fantasy novel and he was not sure he believed any of it. Oh, the facts had checked out so far. The long-time Mayor of this town, one Richard Wilkins, had indeed died in the explosion of Sunnydale High School about two months earlier. It was also true that a lot of the people present had told rather strange stories about everything, though most of them had retracted their statements a week or two later, saying that they must have been confused or something.
His train of thoughts was interrupted when a man in a gray suit entered the coffee house. He was tall, maybe taller than Riley himself, and though he smiled his eyes held a coldness that Riley recognized from some of his trainers. Long time in the field, that one.
The man walked toward him and took a seat.
"Welcome to Sunnydale, Mr. Finn," he said. "How do you like your new home so far?"
"I haven't seen much of it yet, Mr. Burke. Mainly the churches and cemeteries."
The man who would be his boss for the foreseeable future smiled.
"I believe you will see much more of those in the months to come. You have been briefed on why we are here, I trust?"
"I have been. Though I must admit that much of it sounds rather ..."
"... like something a fantasy novelist would come up with? I agree with you, I did not believe any of it at first, either."
Burke ordered a coffee for himself before he went on.
"Believe me, Finn, everything you have been told is true. If anything the initial briefing documents are understated."
Riley frowned. "If that is so, then why has no one ever noticed anything before? The death rate in this town must be enormous and yet the public records all say ..."
"We have the late Mr. Wilkins to thank for that. Unfortunately many of his personal records were destroyed after his death, probably by his followers, but we have recovered enough to get a rough picture. Apparently he has been keeping this town under wraps for a long, long time. Did a pretty good job to keep it off the federal radar. Hell, half the public records don't even know that a town called Sunnydale existed until a few months ago."
His coffee arrived and Burke took a sip.
"After his death, though, it all fell apart. Our Los Angeles office was the first to notice and within a month a full-scale investigation was launched. What we found ... well, it scared even the most hardened of us. That is why you are here now."
Riley shivered. He had read the briefing documents, but only now, seeing the look in Burke's eyes, did he start to believe. And it scared him.
"For some reason we have yet to figure out," Burke continued, "this little town attracts creatures that, until two months ago, we all thought did not exist outside the fairy tales, Finn. The president himself has taken an interest in this and the whole matter is classified ten levels above top secret, you understand me?"
"I know the procedure, Mr. Burke, and I have signed all the forms."
"Sorry, I did not want to question you. Despite your youth you are one of the best agents we have, that is why you are here. We are still in the process of putting this operation together. Our budget has been approved two weeks ago, but you know the bureaucratic process. To tell you the truth, we are going about this rather half-cocked. Not that we have much of a choice in the matter."
He paused for a moment, looking rather tired.
"People are dying in this town every night, Finn," he finally continued. "We have to get this situation under control as soon as humanly possible and we have to do it without the public becoming aware of it. Can you imagine the panic if it came out that vampires and demons are actually real?"
Riley nodded.
"Good! Number one priority on this mission, Finn: Containment. Eliminate as many of those creatures as we can with as little fuss as possible. To do that we will have to learn more about them, of course. We have some researchers on the job, but right now they are mostly busy trying to separate all the Hollywood crap about vampires from the real thing."
"And my job?" Riley asked.
Burke smiled. "You will have the best job of them all, Riley. You get to go out at night and kill the beasties."
#
"That will be all for today," Walsh said, tearing Riley out of his memories. Students began filing out of the lecture hall, some of them coming by his desk. Another few hours seemed to pass until he was finally finished with the last of them.
Too bad Buffy had gone already.
Mind on the job, he reminded himself. Mind on the job. He was honest enough with himself to realize that he was crushing on that girl in a major way, but he was not here to endorse his own romantic urges. No matter how much he would like to.
Setting him up with this cover had been a way to integrate people into what was one of the demons' favorite hunting grounds. Several other agents held day jobs here on the campus, which helped them familiarize themselves with the area and the people.
Making a mental note that he had to grade papers later today he headed towards his car, driving away from the campus toward Sunnydale's warehouse district. Shipping trade was not exactly Sunnydale's major source of income, but the docks remained moderately busy and many buildings had sprung up in that area. Many of them had been abandoned again, too, which left many a hiding place for those who wanted to stay out of the spotlight.
Riley took a zigzag route through the maze of shabby buildings until he was certain that no one had followed him, finally heading toward his actual target. His beeper opened the rusted iron gate of the warehouse in front of him and he pulled inside, parking his car alongside a row of other vehicles that stood well back from the entrance, out of sight.
Stepping through another door, this one opened by a key card, ruined the illusion of the abandoned warehouse quite thoroughly.
Their base of operations was still in the building phase, of course. The fact that they could only work with minimal noise and could not afford to have large truckloads of equipment delivered during the day slowed down the process.
Right now the base consisted of little more than a communications room, set up in what had originally been the office of the warehouse manager, a training area, a weapons cabinet, and several rooms for the research people. Apart from the working crew only a skeleton staff was present, most of the agents assigned to Sunnydale currently going about their day jobs.
Riley approached Burke, who was talking with the researchers.
"Anything new on our guest?" Riley asked.
The first few operations here in Sunnydale had been anything but easy. Oh, finding targets had not been a problem. The town was swarming with them come nightfall. Unfortunately they knew very little about them so far and had to go through a trial and error phase when it came to fighting them.
They had lost two men so far and none of them had gotten away without at least some minor injuries. Guns were useless against these creatures, could slow them down at best. They were freakishly strong and blindingly fast. Taking them on one on one was suicide. The best method they had worked out so far was putting them down from a distance with rifles, then closing in to deliver the killing blow by cutting off their heads with large combat knives. It was an imperfect method at best, though. The bastards recovered too quickly.
A few nights ago, though, they had gotten lucky. His team, consisting of four operatives, had come upon a single vampire who appeared quite busy talking to himself. He had not noticed them sneaking up on him and Riley had made the quick decision not to eliminate this one. The researchers had been screaming for a test subject to put through the wringer and after the rather disastrous results of their first nights out Burke had decided that they should get their wish. Every little bit they learned about these things could only help.
Thankfully vampires had proved to be every bit as receptive to tasers as humans were.
"He is rather uncooperative," Burke snorted. "Keeps ranting about something called the Slayer whenever he feels unobserved. Has quite a vocabulary, too."
Riley looked at the screen that showed them a picture of the jury-rigged cell where they had put their first and only captive. The vampire was dressed in a long black coat and kept pacing the length of the cell, mouthing curses and wringing his hands.
"Apparently his name is Spike," the researcher added.
TO BE CONTINUED
#
Riley Finn looked across the lecture hall until his eyes found the tiny blonde who had almost given him a concussion the first time they had met. Buffy Summers, he thought with a smile. Having met her was just about the only good thing about this entire cover story.
Working as a TA for a psychology professor. Well, he guessed there were worse assignments, he just had trouble thinking of one. College had been fun when he had been one of the students, but now? Grading papers in his spare time was not why he had signed up with the service, truth be told.
Again he found his eyes trailing towards Buffy. Bad idea, Riley! Bad idea! First rule of undercover assignments: No fooling around with the ladies unless it was part of the job. His first trainer at the academy had told him to forget about all that James Bond stuff. Still, looking could not hurt anyone, could it?
The lecture passed with agonizing slowness and Riley had to force himself to pay attention. He had majored in psychology but two years ago and been recruited right out of college, so most of what Professor Walsh was teaching fell under old news for him. Unfortunately the woman was also a major bitch, which meant more work for him. He could not really blame the students for rather approaching him with questions than her.
Too bad Buffy never seemed to have much in the way of questions. Stop that, Riley!
Needing something to occupy his thoughts with he thought back to the first time he had set foot in Sunnydale.
#
Riley Finn got out of his car and took a seat at the coffee house, ordering absentmindedly. His eyes moved across the room, checking out the other occupants. Odds were his contact was not here yet, as he had arrived about an hour early to check out the surroundings. From what he had seen on his drive into town Sunnydale was a perfectly ordinary place, except for some strange details.
He had never seen a town with so many churches and cemeteries before.
The preliminary information he had received before coming here read like a fantasy novel and he was not sure he believed any of it. Oh, the facts had checked out so far. The long-time Mayor of this town, one Richard Wilkins, had indeed died in the explosion of Sunnydale High School about two months earlier. It was also true that a lot of the people present had told rather strange stories about everything, though most of them had retracted their statements a week or two later, saying that they must have been confused or something.
His train of thoughts was interrupted when a man in a gray suit entered the coffee house. He was tall, maybe taller than Riley himself, and though he smiled his eyes held a coldness that Riley recognized from some of his trainers. Long time in the field, that one.
The man walked toward him and took a seat.
"Welcome to Sunnydale, Mr. Finn," he said. "How do you like your new home so far?"
"I haven't seen much of it yet, Mr. Burke. Mainly the churches and cemeteries."
The man who would be his boss for the foreseeable future smiled.
"I believe you will see much more of those in the months to come. You have been briefed on why we are here, I trust?"
"I have been. Though I must admit that much of it sounds rather ..."
"... like something a fantasy novelist would come up with? I agree with you, I did not believe any of it at first, either."
Burke ordered a coffee for himself before he went on.
"Believe me, Finn, everything you have been told is true. If anything the initial briefing documents are understated."
Riley frowned. "If that is so, then why has no one ever noticed anything before? The death rate in this town must be enormous and yet the public records all say ..."
"We have the late Mr. Wilkins to thank for that. Unfortunately many of his personal records were destroyed after his death, probably by his followers, but we have recovered enough to get a rough picture. Apparently he has been keeping this town under wraps for a long, long time. Did a pretty good job to keep it off the federal radar. Hell, half the public records don't even know that a town called Sunnydale existed until a few months ago."
His coffee arrived and Burke took a sip.
"After his death, though, it all fell apart. Our Los Angeles office was the first to notice and within a month a full-scale investigation was launched. What we found ... well, it scared even the most hardened of us. That is why you are here now."
Riley shivered. He had read the briefing documents, but only now, seeing the look in Burke's eyes, did he start to believe. And it scared him.
"For some reason we have yet to figure out," Burke continued, "this little town attracts creatures that, until two months ago, we all thought did not exist outside the fairy tales, Finn. The president himself has taken an interest in this and the whole matter is classified ten levels above top secret, you understand me?"
"I know the procedure, Mr. Burke, and I have signed all the forms."
"Sorry, I did not want to question you. Despite your youth you are one of the best agents we have, that is why you are here. We are still in the process of putting this operation together. Our budget has been approved two weeks ago, but you know the bureaucratic process. To tell you the truth, we are going about this rather half-cocked. Not that we have much of a choice in the matter."
He paused for a moment, looking rather tired.
"People are dying in this town every night, Finn," he finally continued. "We have to get this situation under control as soon as humanly possible and we have to do it without the public becoming aware of it. Can you imagine the panic if it came out that vampires and demons are actually real?"
Riley nodded.
"Good! Number one priority on this mission, Finn: Containment. Eliminate as many of those creatures as we can with as little fuss as possible. To do that we will have to learn more about them, of course. We have some researchers on the job, but right now they are mostly busy trying to separate all the Hollywood crap about vampires from the real thing."
"And my job?" Riley asked.
Burke smiled. "You will have the best job of them all, Riley. You get to go out at night and kill the beasties."
#
"That will be all for today," Walsh said, tearing Riley out of his memories. Students began filing out of the lecture hall, some of them coming by his desk. Another few hours seemed to pass until he was finally finished with the last of them.
Too bad Buffy had gone already.
Mind on the job, he reminded himself. Mind on the job. He was honest enough with himself to realize that he was crushing on that girl in a major way, but he was not here to endorse his own romantic urges. No matter how much he would like to.
Setting him up with this cover had been a way to integrate people into what was one of the demons' favorite hunting grounds. Several other agents held day jobs here on the campus, which helped them familiarize themselves with the area and the people.
Making a mental note that he had to grade papers later today he headed towards his car, driving away from the campus toward Sunnydale's warehouse district. Shipping trade was not exactly Sunnydale's major source of income, but the docks remained moderately busy and many buildings had sprung up in that area. Many of them had been abandoned again, too, which left many a hiding place for those who wanted to stay out of the spotlight.
Riley took a zigzag route through the maze of shabby buildings until he was certain that no one had followed him, finally heading toward his actual target. His beeper opened the rusted iron gate of the warehouse in front of him and he pulled inside, parking his car alongside a row of other vehicles that stood well back from the entrance, out of sight.
Stepping through another door, this one opened by a key card, ruined the illusion of the abandoned warehouse quite thoroughly.
Their base of operations was still in the building phase, of course. The fact that they could only work with minimal noise and could not afford to have large truckloads of equipment delivered during the day slowed down the process.
Right now the base consisted of little more than a communications room, set up in what had originally been the office of the warehouse manager, a training area, a weapons cabinet, and several rooms for the research people. Apart from the working crew only a skeleton staff was present, most of the agents assigned to Sunnydale currently going about their day jobs.
Riley approached Burke, who was talking with the researchers.
"Anything new on our guest?" Riley asked.
The first few operations here in Sunnydale had been anything but easy. Oh, finding targets had not been a problem. The town was swarming with them come nightfall. Unfortunately they knew very little about them so far and had to go through a trial and error phase when it came to fighting them.
They had lost two men so far and none of them had gotten away without at least some minor injuries. Guns were useless against these creatures, could slow them down at best. They were freakishly strong and blindingly fast. Taking them on one on one was suicide. The best method they had worked out so far was putting them down from a distance with rifles, then closing in to deliver the killing blow by cutting off their heads with large combat knives. It was an imperfect method at best, though. The bastards recovered too quickly.
A few nights ago, though, they had gotten lucky. His team, consisting of four operatives, had come upon a single vampire who appeared quite busy talking to himself. He had not noticed them sneaking up on him and Riley had made the quick decision not to eliminate this one. The researchers had been screaming for a test subject to put through the wringer and after the rather disastrous results of their first nights out Burke had decided that they should get their wish. Every little bit they learned about these things could only help.
Thankfully vampires had proved to be every bit as receptive to tasers as humans were.
"He is rather uncooperative," Burke snorted. "Keeps ranting about something called the Slayer whenever he feels unobserved. Has quite a vocabulary, too."
Riley looked at the screen that showed them a picture of the jury-rigged cell where they had put their first and only captive. The vampire was dressed in a long black coat and kept pacing the length of the cell, mouthing curses and wringing his hands.
"Apparently his name is Spike," the researcher added.
TO BE CONTINUED