Author: Bobby Cox smeghead_76@dodo.com.au
Disclaimer: Some of the characters are mine. Some aren't. The 'verse in which this is set, however, belongs to Peter F. Hamilton (the 'Night's Dawn' trilogy 'verse). There may or may not be characters and situations belonging to ME productions and the team that writes Buffy. I'm just covering my arse there. No money will be made from this, but if someone *thinks* it's good enough to make money, I'd be flattered :)
Summary: This is a parallel story to 'In Their Shadow' by rei_ite (and later on, myself), and provides back-story for Xander's activities on Earth. Basically, vampires and the Light Bringer sect - a Satanic cult (no, really!) - are starting to bump heads with each other in the Downtown section of the Los Angeles arcology. Normally, the authorities wouldn't pay too much attention to something like this.
However, when the fighting spills over to the Uptown sections...
AN: The follwing text formats will be used for datavises and affinity:
Affinity will be represented as such: AffinityDatavises will be represented as such:{Datavise}
'Then again, hindsight is always perfect.'
- Slayerette Alexander Matthews (2614)
Slayerette Headquarters
Sunnydale Dome, Los Angeles Arcology
2nd June 2614
When Amanda burst into the main room, she saw a new face who, along with the others, was gathered around an Audio-Visual pillar, watching with a grim intensity as the laser sent its data down their optic nerves via a series of coded pulses.
It took a few seconds for anyone to realise that she'd arrived. Much to her lack of surprise, it was Cat. "Hey, Amanda! Have you seen this?" she asked, waving a hand at the pillar.
Amanda looked at the pillar and as the laser swept across her eyes, she saw the same building that had been the centre of the firefight earlier. Police and medical vehicles filled the scene, hauling off the casualties to local hospitals and the survivors to the police station.
"In the aftermath of the biggest criminal shootout in North American history since the High Noon shootout in Edmonton," the presenter was saying, "the Los Angeles Police Department have imposed a three-block exclusion zone around the scene and are refusing to comment on the cause..."
"Oh, that," Amanda muttered, and the flat tone she used was enough to get everyone staring at her in surprise. "I saw the whole thing live. Believe me, it's not pretty."
She brandished several fleks. "Here it is, live and unedited for your viewing pleasure. Although if you get much pleasure out of this, there's something seriously wrong with you." Brandishing another handful of fleks, she added, "And something else of interest, to be viewed after the first set."
Moving over to the desktop processor, she inserted the first set of fleks into the input slots. As one, all heads turned to the AV pillar once more as the laser flickered into life...
Three-quarters of an hour later, shocked silence reigned supreme. Since all present had neural nanonics with nausea-suppression programs, no-one had felt the need to throw up, but queasy looks - Much like the ones at the station, Amanda thought to herself - indicated that it was a close-run thing.
William was the first to break the silence. "That is truly disturbing, Amanda," he said slowly, a clear sign that his brain was working overtime. "If Jonsson's forces are strong enough to take on both the Light Bringer sects and the police Assault Tactical teams and, if not win, then at least not be annihilated, then the situation if quite grim."
Amanda shook her head. "He didn't take on our full strength," she pointed out. "Just what was available on short notice. After all, that sort of battle could not have been allowed to go on. God alone knows where it would have ended up."
"True. But the fact that Jonsson's forces broke contact the way they did indicates that he is willing to make a tactical withdrawal in order to preserve his future plans," William replied thoughtfully.
Alexander broke in at this point. "Well, if worst comes to worst, we can always find a way to bring in Govcentral or the Confederation," he said. "I doubt that Jonsson would stand up to a full assault from Marines in any sort of shape. The AT teams may be well-equipped for police," he continued with an apologetic shrug to his sister, "but they're not kitted out the same way we are." He said this with a fair degree of authority, being a corporal in the Govcentral Navy Marine Corps. The only reason he was able to take part in Slayerette activities was the fact that he was on a month's leave after a three-month deployment with Govcentral's commitment to the Confederation, conducting anti-piracy patrols and exercises designed to ensure that any groups on asteroid settlements who had aspirations of independence stayed with peaceful means.
Amanda nodded, conceding the point. While the police AT teams were lavishly well-equipped, they lacked the heavy weapons of a true military force.
"Wait a minute," the new person, whose name Amanda still didn't know, objected. "Assuming that we can get in touch with Govcentral, why should they believe us?"
Amanda frowned in thought. "Err... not to sound rude or anything, but who are you?"
Cat groaned. "Give me a chance," she said. "I was going to make the intros, but you decided to show us something that will probably inflict nightmares for the next week or so. Liz, this is Amanda Matthews, LAPD. Amanda, this is Elizabeth Baker, Vampire Slayer."
"Slayer?" Amanda asked as the two women shook hands. "Council of Watchers?"
Elizabeth nodded. "At the moment. But I'm reconsidering in the light of tonight's events."
"So that was the 'something interesting' that happened. I'm sure it's a fascinating story, but right now, we've got more pressing matters to deal with." Amanda retrieved the fleks and inserted another one. "This should provide an answer to your question. It's not the full dataset, but that would be somewhat redundant."
Datavising a command to the desktop processor, she shifted the data display to one of the wallscreens. First to show was a screen full of text.
"Amanda," Alexander protested, "I know that both you and Will might understand this, but can you please explain it to the rest of us?"
"Sure," Amanda answered easily. "This is the message headers for a file I pulled from the station's AI along with the recording of tonight's battle." Highlighting a section, she continued, "These are the fields identifying who sent it. According to this, Govcentral sent this message, and it's a relay from Tranquillity. It's also been copied to the Confederation Assembly, which means we should see something from that direction before too long."
"That's interesting, Amanda," William observed, "but what was this file, exactly?"
"The data taken from a set of debrief nanonics. The memories of someone who has spent five years fighting vampires and associated nasties - even saved the world on a couple of occasions, at least."
"Great," Michael said. "Who was this information taken from, though?"
"Alexander Harris. Yes, that Alexander Harris."
The room erupted into noise and chaos. Through it all, Elizabeth sat quietly with a slightly confused expression. "I'm sorry, but that name doesn't mean a great deal to me."
Cat stopped swearing long enough to respond. "Remember what I told you about the history of the Slayerettes? About how the founder was someone named Alexander Harris? If the data is correct, it's the same person."
"That's impossible! You told me he lived during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries!"
"Yep."
"But this is the twenty-seventh century!"
"Yep."
"Then how did he get here?"
"Dunno. But I wanna know why the Lord of Ruin found it necessary to implant a set of debrief nanonics to him."
"Maybe we can send a message to the Lord of Ruin," Amanda suggested.
"Yeah, right," Alexander scoffed. "Send a message to a head of state, saying that we've seen the information she sent, that we already knew about vampires and such, and asking her to send us the founder of our little group. She'd be curious as to how we got the information, doubly so if we added a 'please explain' regarding the fact that the information was extracted via debrief nanonics."
"Before we do that, is it possible to ascertain if the source of the information is truly Alexander Harris?" William asked.
"I thought you'd ask that, Will," Amanda said with a smile, calling up another file to replace the header data. This was an image of someone's face, obviously seeing himself as he looked into a mirror.
It was undeniably Xander Harris.
"Dear Lord," William said weakly.
"It gets better," Amanda said with a smile, calling up another image. This time it was a first-person perspective of a group of people sitting around a table, obviously a captured frame from a video sequence.
All but one of the people present recognised them instantly.
"Elizabeth Summers. Willow Rosenburg. Dawn Summers. And last, but not least, Rupert Giles," William muttered to himself, while everyone else simply stared in stunned disbelief.
Shaking off the shock temporarily, he added, "I think a message is in order."
****
Los Angeles Police Department Precinct Headquarters
Sunnydale Dome, Los Angeles Arcology
3rd June, 2614
Captain Henderson finished up the report on last night's events and stood up wearily. He'd been awake all night writing this report, unwilling to dump it on somebody else, and the caffeine and stimulant programs required to keep him awake were taking their toll.
Submitting the finished report to the AI for a coherency check, he decided on one last cup of coffee before heading home for some well-deserved sleep.
That is, if he could sleep after seeing what he'd seen that night. The first shock had been finding out that vampires and other creatures from horror tales were real.
The second was being witness to a small war that had produced well over a thousand dead, including fifty AT officers. He didn't even know how many casualties the vampires had suffered, as they didn't leave bodies behind to count.
He'd finished the coffee by the time the check was finished - the AI proclaimed a clean bill of health for the report, which was gratifying. After all, he'd been only semi-conscious when finishing the report, particularly the concluding section, which recommended in the strongest possible language that assistance be sought from both the Govcentral Navy and the Confederation.
Well, the strongest language possible in an official report, Henderson mused to himself. I somehow doubt that saying something like 'Get the fucking Marines in here right fucking NOW' would be appreciated.
He sent the report off to the Mayor of the Sunnydale Dome before signing out and cadging a lift home, being in no fit state to drive himself, and probably not coherent enough to tell the governing processor of a taxi where he lived with any great accuracy.
This report is gonna detonate like a planetbuster, was his final thought as he left the building. I wonder where it's going to end up?****
Henderson was exactly right about one thing - the report did detonate like a planetbuster, and he would have been mildly gratified to learn where it ended up.
The Mayor of the Sunnydale Dome passed the report on to the Mayor of Dome One - who acted as the mayor for the whole arcology - who passed it on to the Governor for the Govcentral State of North America.
From there it went to the President of Govcentral who, appalled by its contents, kicked it on to the Confederation Assembly.
As a courtesy, he sent copies to the Jovian Consensus and Ione Saldana, Lord of Ruin.