Part 3
#
"Buffy?" Willow asked, looking at her friend standing in the door. Or what looked like her friend.
"Not exactly." The Buffy-lookalike said. "I'm Anne. You know? The voice in Buffy's head? That's me. Hi!" She waved, doing a remarkable expression of a girl very unsure of her welcome.
Giles, Rose, Willow, and Tara just kept staring at the waving android standing in Giles' door, unable to utter a word.
"May I ... may I come in?" Anne asked after a minute of awkward silence.
"Yes ... of course, come in." Giles said after another minute. "I'll ... I'll just get on the phone and call Angel and his friends."
Anne walked into the apartment, doing her best to look small and harmless. She was well aware of how scared the people around her were.
"They have reason to, don't they?" Riley said inside her head. "Considering what just walked into their living room."
"Oh, you mean the greatest achievement of cybernetics ever created?" Prof. Walsh asked him.
"The thing that killed us all, yes."
"Shut up!" Anne mumbled below her breath. At least when Buffy had been in control she had only had to deal with one whispering voice in her head. Now, though, with the 112 minds inside it dreading, or looking forward to, their death, again, the chatter just didn't stop anymore.
WARNING: INTEGRITY OF PRIMARY PERSONALITY MATRIX CRITICAL. OUTSIDE ASSISTANCE REQUIRED URGENTLY.
"That stupid girl is going to kill us all." Walsh mumbled.
"Not that you didn't do a good enough job of that yourself." The witch Colleen Wing replied.
Anne tuned out the voices as best as she could, concentrating instead on the people in the room. None of them were cybernetic experts, but the again the problem inside her head wasn't technological in nature. Buffy was killing herself and no amount of scientific tinkering would stop that.
Maybe her friends could, though. It was Anne's last hope. She spent a few seconds trying to figure out how the concept of 'hope' had entered her programming, yet found no answer.
Willow sat down across from Anne and looked at her so intensely that the android feared her casing would melt.
"Just ask the question that's on your mind, Will!" Anne said when she couldn't stand it anymore.
"What are you?" Willow said, then looked ashamed with herself for asking.
Anne smiled at her. "I wish I could tell you, Will. I really do."
Silence settled between them again. Anne was aware of the suspicious stares the Watcher Rose McNamara was giving her. The blonde girl she didn't know, but she seemed determined to do her best not to be noticed. Anne's sensors could pick up the slight tremble of magic around her, though. A witch?
"A beginner more likely." Colleen Wing scoffed. "I'd be surprised if she can levitate more than a pencil."
Anne was blissfully distracted when the door opened and three people came running in. One of them hid beneath a large blanket and was smoking slightly at the edges.
Angel!
"We came as quickly as we could." Wesley said. "Where is ... oh!" He stopped, seeing her.
"Hi, guys!" Anne waved to them. "I'm ... well, I'm not Buffy. But ... hi!"
Angel had discarded the blanket and just looked at her, the stare of his dark eyes a thousand times more intensive than Willow's could ever be. Anne resisted the impulse to squirm under his gaze.
"You're ... looking good." Cordelia said. "Whoever you are."
"Thanks."
"Well, now that we are all here ..." Giles began, only to be interrupted by the door opening once more.
"We came as quick as we could." Xander panted, followed through the door by Anya. "Is she ...?" He, too, trailed off upon seeing Anne.
"She looks like Buffy." Anya announced, seemingly content with that observation. "Can we go now?"
The door opened again and Faith came into the apartment. Unlike the others she said nothing, just looked at Anne with wide eyes.
"Okay, I think we're really all here now." Cordelia said. "So ... what's the what?"
Everyone turned to look at Anne, the few that hadn't done so before, and the android found that being the center of attention for so many people was not to her liking.
"I think we can skip the preliminaries." Giles said. "Anne, if that is your name, why don't you tell us what is going on here?"
Anne nodded, fully capable of seeing past the stony facade Buffy's father in all but blood was putting up. He was desperate for an answer, as were all the people present here. Desperate to know what happened to the person they all loved one way or another.
The only one who seemed genuinely disinterested was Anya.
"You already know the high points, I guess. The 314 experiment was supposed to create a mind for the android called Adam One. A mind patterned after the Slayer. So Walsh had Buffy captured and then everything went wrong. When Buffy realized that her body, her old body, was dead, it sent her into shock and ..."
"Wow, slow down a bit here, okay?" Xander interrupted her. "I hate to be the one asking the obvious questions, but ... which Buffy are we talking about here?"
"I think what Xander means," Giles elaborated, "is whether that ... mind, personality you carry inside you ... Anne ... is it really Buffy? The Buffy we know?"
Anne sighed. She had feared this question would come up.
"I can't tell you." She simply said. "She has all of Buffy's memories. All of her character traits. Pretty much everything that made her Buffy is in here with me."
She wrapped her arms around her body, closing her eyes.
"Whether that makes her Buffy, or just a perfect digital copy that thinks she's Buffy, well, I'm afraid that's a philosophical question. One I'm sure as hell not qualified to answer."
Angel was the first to move after that statement. He knelt down beside the couch, putting a hand on Anne's shoulder. The gesture was so familiar, so full of memories and emotions, that Anne could barely suppress a gasp.
Not her memories, she reminded herself. Not her emotions.
"Where is Buffy now?" Angel asked.
Anne looked up into his dark eyes, seeing the worry there.
"She's ... well, she's gone into a kind of shock. Seeing her own dead body, realizing that she is not who she believed to be ... it was too much for her. I'm afraid she is busy killing herself right now."
"What?" Several people all over the room jumped to their feet.
"What do you mean?" Giles asked.
"Buffy has seen her own dead body." Anne said. "Has seen that the body she now lives in is not hers, is not even alive in the classical sense. I think right now she is convincing herself that she is, in fact, dead. And if that happens her personality matrix will deteriorate." Seeing the blank looks on the faces around her, Anne added. "She will die."
Anne shook her head, feeling things she had never been intended to feel. "And when she does she will take all of us with her. She is the primary personality of Adam One. If she dies, we all die. I don't want to die, okay? I'm not sure I'm alive, but I don't want to die!"
With something very close to astonishment Anne realized that her emotional programming was in the process of overloading. It hadn't been meant for this kind of turmoil. She hadn't been meant to be like she was. How was she supposed to deal with all this? She hadn't been programmed to deal with things like panic, desperation, fear. She didn't know how to handle being scared to death.
Angel still rested his hand on her shoulder.
"What can we do to prevent that?" He asked calmly.
There was no logical way to explain it, but his presence managed to stabilize her. Anne knew that a lot of what she was could not be explained logically. She was not just a machine, she was also magic, and, in a way she was not able to explain, alive. She wasn't a hundred percent sure of that last part, but she suspected it was true.
Ignoring her logic circuits she took comfort from Angel's presence and calmness.
"The problem is psychological." Anne explained. "Buffy thinks she is dead. The only way to help her is to convince her that she's not."
"How can we do that?" Wesley asked. "You yourself said that you are not certain whether she is alive or just ... a copy."
"We have to convince her." Anne repeated, looking down. They just had to, the alternative was unthinkable.
"Very well!" Giles said after a minute of silence. "We have to talk to Buffy then. How do we do that? How do we communicate with her if she has withdrawn the way you say?"
Anne looked up, the determination in Giles' eyes giving her new hope.
Walsh complained. I certainly didn't program you this way.
"You also didn't program me to hate your guts. So there!" Anne murmured. Out loud she continued. "I already went through all the technological options, to no avail. The only way to reach Buffy is by magic. I did a lot of thinking these past few days, going through a few billion possibilities on how to reach her this way."
"A few billion?" Xander repeated, astonished.
"The best bet is a form of magical trance. It would allow one or more of you to enter my personality mainframe as if you had been assimilated into Adam One. Once there you should be able to reach Buffy."
She didn't tell them that she had calculated the odds for all of the few billion plans she had made. The one she had told of them of was the best, that was true. It was the only one with a chance of success greater than five percent. Barely.
"So we'll somehow ... travel into your head?" Willow asked.
"Talk about your fantastic voyage." Xander muttered.
"Not 'we'!" Angel said. "I will go."
"I will accompany you." Giles said, his voice leaving no room for argument. The two men who both loved Buffy the most, though in very different ways, looked at each other for a long moment, then Angel nodded.
"It's not without danger." Anne said, though she found it very illogical to try and keep them form helping her. She couldn't help it.
"We will do it!" Angel said without hesitation.
Looking into Angel's dark eyes, Anne suddenly found that a possibility of success just exceeding five percent didn't bother her as much as it should.
TO BE CONTINUED
#
"Buffy?" Willow asked, looking at her friend standing in the door. Or what looked like her friend.
"Not exactly." The Buffy-lookalike said. "I'm Anne. You know? The voice in Buffy's head? That's me. Hi!" She waved, doing a remarkable expression of a girl very unsure of her welcome.
Giles, Rose, Willow, and Tara just kept staring at the waving android standing in Giles' door, unable to utter a word.
"May I ... may I come in?" Anne asked after a minute of awkward silence.
"Yes ... of course, come in." Giles said after another minute. "I'll ... I'll just get on the phone and call Angel and his friends."
Anne walked into the apartment, doing her best to look small and harmless. She was well aware of how scared the people around her were.
"They have reason to, don't they?" Riley said inside her head. "Considering what just walked into their living room."
"Oh, you mean the greatest achievement of cybernetics ever created?" Prof. Walsh asked him.
"The thing that killed us all, yes."
"Shut up!" Anne mumbled below her breath. At least when Buffy had been in control she had only had to deal with one whispering voice in her head. Now, though, with the 112 minds inside it dreading, or looking forward to, their death, again, the chatter just didn't stop anymore.
WARNING: INTEGRITY OF PRIMARY PERSONALITY MATRIX CRITICAL. OUTSIDE ASSISTANCE REQUIRED URGENTLY.
"That stupid girl is going to kill us all." Walsh mumbled.
"Not that you didn't do a good enough job of that yourself." The witch Colleen Wing replied.
Anne tuned out the voices as best as she could, concentrating instead on the people in the room. None of them were cybernetic experts, but the again the problem inside her head wasn't technological in nature. Buffy was killing herself and no amount of scientific tinkering would stop that.
Maybe her friends could, though. It was Anne's last hope. She spent a few seconds trying to figure out how the concept of 'hope' had entered her programming, yet found no answer.
Willow sat down across from Anne and looked at her so intensely that the android feared her casing would melt.
"Just ask the question that's on your mind, Will!" Anne said when she couldn't stand it anymore.
"What are you?" Willow said, then looked ashamed with herself for asking.
Anne smiled at her. "I wish I could tell you, Will. I really do."
Silence settled between them again. Anne was aware of the suspicious stares the Watcher Rose McNamara was giving her. The blonde girl she didn't know, but she seemed determined to do her best not to be noticed. Anne's sensors could pick up the slight tremble of magic around her, though. A witch?
"A beginner more likely." Colleen Wing scoffed. "I'd be surprised if she can levitate more than a pencil."
Anne was blissfully distracted when the door opened and three people came running in. One of them hid beneath a large blanket and was smoking slightly at the edges.
Angel!
"We came as quickly as we could." Wesley said. "Where is ... oh!" He stopped, seeing her.
"Hi, guys!" Anne waved to them. "I'm ... well, I'm not Buffy. But ... hi!"
Angel had discarded the blanket and just looked at her, the stare of his dark eyes a thousand times more intensive than Willow's could ever be. Anne resisted the impulse to squirm under his gaze.
"You're ... looking good." Cordelia said. "Whoever you are."
"Thanks."
"Well, now that we are all here ..." Giles began, only to be interrupted by the door opening once more.
"We came as quick as we could." Xander panted, followed through the door by Anya. "Is she ...?" He, too, trailed off upon seeing Anne.
"She looks like Buffy." Anya announced, seemingly content with that observation. "Can we go now?"
The door opened again and Faith came into the apartment. Unlike the others she said nothing, just looked at Anne with wide eyes.
"Okay, I think we're really all here now." Cordelia said. "So ... what's the what?"
Everyone turned to look at Anne, the few that hadn't done so before, and the android found that being the center of attention for so many people was not to her liking.
"I think we can skip the preliminaries." Giles said. "Anne, if that is your name, why don't you tell us what is going on here?"
Anne nodded, fully capable of seeing past the stony facade Buffy's father in all but blood was putting up. He was desperate for an answer, as were all the people present here. Desperate to know what happened to the person they all loved one way or another.
The only one who seemed genuinely disinterested was Anya.
"You already know the high points, I guess. The 314 experiment was supposed to create a mind for the android called Adam One. A mind patterned after the Slayer. So Walsh had Buffy captured and then everything went wrong. When Buffy realized that her body, her old body, was dead, it sent her into shock and ..."
"Wow, slow down a bit here, okay?" Xander interrupted her. "I hate to be the one asking the obvious questions, but ... which Buffy are we talking about here?"
"I think what Xander means," Giles elaborated, "is whether that ... mind, personality you carry inside you ... Anne ... is it really Buffy? The Buffy we know?"
Anne sighed. She had feared this question would come up.
"I can't tell you." She simply said. "She has all of Buffy's memories. All of her character traits. Pretty much everything that made her Buffy is in here with me."
She wrapped her arms around her body, closing her eyes.
"Whether that makes her Buffy, or just a perfect digital copy that thinks she's Buffy, well, I'm afraid that's a philosophical question. One I'm sure as hell not qualified to answer."
Angel was the first to move after that statement. He knelt down beside the couch, putting a hand on Anne's shoulder. The gesture was so familiar, so full of memories and emotions, that Anne could barely suppress a gasp.
Not her memories, she reminded herself. Not her emotions.
"Where is Buffy now?" Angel asked.
Anne looked up into his dark eyes, seeing the worry there.
"She's ... well, she's gone into a kind of shock. Seeing her own dead body, realizing that she is not who she believed to be ... it was too much for her. I'm afraid she is busy killing herself right now."
"What?" Several people all over the room jumped to their feet.
"What do you mean?" Giles asked.
"Buffy has seen her own dead body." Anne said. "Has seen that the body she now lives in is not hers, is not even alive in the classical sense. I think right now she is convincing herself that she is, in fact, dead. And if that happens her personality matrix will deteriorate." Seeing the blank looks on the faces around her, Anne added. "She will die."
Anne shook her head, feeling things she had never been intended to feel. "And when she does she will take all of us with her. She is the primary personality of Adam One. If she dies, we all die. I don't want to die, okay? I'm not sure I'm alive, but I don't want to die!"
With something very close to astonishment Anne realized that her emotional programming was in the process of overloading. It hadn't been meant for this kind of turmoil. She hadn't been meant to be like she was. How was she supposed to deal with all this? She hadn't been programmed to deal with things like panic, desperation, fear. She didn't know how to handle being scared to death.
Angel still rested his hand on her shoulder.
"What can we do to prevent that?" He asked calmly.
There was no logical way to explain it, but his presence managed to stabilize her. Anne knew that a lot of what she was could not be explained logically. She was not just a machine, she was also magic, and, in a way she was not able to explain, alive. She wasn't a hundred percent sure of that last part, but she suspected it was true.
Ignoring her logic circuits she took comfort from Angel's presence and calmness.
"The problem is psychological." Anne explained. "Buffy thinks she is dead. The only way to help her is to convince her that she's not."
"How can we do that?" Wesley asked. "You yourself said that you are not certain whether she is alive or just ... a copy."
"We have to convince her." Anne repeated, looking down. They just had to, the alternative was unthinkable.
"Very well!" Giles said after a minute of silence. "We have to talk to Buffy then. How do we do that? How do we communicate with her if she has withdrawn the way you say?"
Anne looked up, the determination in Giles' eyes giving her new hope.
Walsh complained. I certainly didn't program you this way.
"You also didn't program me to hate your guts. So there!" Anne murmured. Out loud she continued. "I already went through all the technological options, to no avail. The only way to reach Buffy is by magic. I did a lot of thinking these past few days, going through a few billion possibilities on how to reach her this way."
"A few billion?" Xander repeated, astonished.
"The best bet is a form of magical trance. It would allow one or more of you to enter my personality mainframe as if you had been assimilated into Adam One. Once there you should be able to reach Buffy."
She didn't tell them that she had calculated the odds for all of the few billion plans she had made. The one she had told of them of was the best, that was true. It was the only one with a chance of success greater than five percent. Barely.
"So we'll somehow ... travel into your head?" Willow asked.
"Talk about your fantastic voyage." Xander muttered.
"Not 'we'!" Angel said. "I will go."
"I will accompany you." Giles said, his voice leaving no room for argument. The two men who both loved Buffy the most, though in very different ways, looked at each other for a long moment, then Angel nodded.
"It's not without danger." Anne said, though she found it very illogical to try and keep them form helping her. She couldn't help it.
"We will do it!" Angel said without hesitation.
Looking into Angel's dark eyes, Anne suddenly found that a possibility of success just exceeding five percent didn't bother her as much as it should.
TO BE CONTINUED
