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}
'When Jonsson sent those assassins after us - and killed three of my friends - we stopped fighting him because it was part of the job.
'It was personal now.'
- Slayer Catherine Piper (2614)
Los Angeles Police Dapartment Precinct Headquarters
Sunnydale Dome, Los Angeles arcology
7th June, 2614
Henderson was running a comparison between police patrols and reported vampire attacks, hoping to find out the locations of vampire lairs within the dome, so that he could send in the AT teams - ready to strike and out for blood - to wipe them off the map.
Sighing, he cancelled the link with the AI - knowing full well that it would alert him if anything cropped up - and stood up, stretching his back as he did so. I wish Matthews was here. She's got a real talent for this sort of thing, he thought as he went for yet another coffee. Stimulant programs did the job of keeping you awake and functional, but after a while, your mouth started to feel like the bottom of a bird cage whose inhabitants were suffering from incontinence.
As Henderson watched, the current shift's chief computer jockey was entering new data taken from local patrols and orbital surveillance. Despite the fact that the arcology dome made observing from orbit difficult to say the least, he was willing to take whatever he was given.
The computer jockey was good - a person didn't get to his position without displaying a considerable degree of skill - but Henderson again wished Matthews was there instead. She seemed to have a knack for coaxing the AI into delivering exactly what she wanted from it, almost is if she knew the AI personally and was convincing it to divulge secrets to a friend.
His musings were cut short, however, when he heard a loud rumble, almost like not-so-distant thunder. Ever since Earth's environment had been miraculously repaired, thunderstorms - as opposed to armada storms - were a near-daily occurrence. When the building shook gently, however, Henderson decided that this was no thunderstorm. Accessing the security sensors surrounding the station, he checked the visual sensors for anything unusual.
What he saw made his blood run cold.
A small mushroom cloud, which rose all the way to the top of the dome and was splashing off the armour crystal. Someone had set off a sub-nuclear device in the dome. He sent a report to Dome Maintenance to have the area affected tested for structural integrity - the dome may have been rendered redundant, but until the Second Dispersal to the former stage-one colony worlds now sharing Earth's orbit was complete, it was necessary to maintain the domes' condition. After all, bad things would happen to the population of a dome that was allowed to collapse...
But where had the bomb been detonated? And who was the target? Henderson wondered. More to the point, where did the person or persons responsible manage to acquire sub-nuclear devices? I though they were restricted to governments only.
His questions were answered half an hour later, with the arrival of Matthews and some of her friends, all but one of which he had met at the last LAPD Christmas party. Wondering as to why she was present could wait, however, since her expression spoke of someone deep within their own personal hell.
"Matthews? Amanda?" Henderson asked. "What's the matter?"
"Someone blew up our home, sir," Matthews replied in a voice devoid of all expression. "Used sub-nuclear devices - deturium-tritium, to be exact, with a yield of fifty tons each. Three in total."
Someone used three sub-nuclear devices to destroy a single building? Talk about overkill - or someone wanting to make extra sure of it. And something tells me that there's more to this story. He waited, however, suspecting that Matthews would tell more in her own time.
She did. "We weren't there when the devices were planted," she continued, "but thanks to the security systems I had installed, we had imagery - and warning - of what had happened. So while three of us went to attempt to neutralise the devices, the rest - including myself - started to look for the person who had planted them."
Henderson nodded to signal his acceptance of that. He'd already known that both Matthews and her brother were qualified EOD technicians - Matthews had gained her 'powder monkey ticket' through the LAPD, while her brother had gained his qualification through the Govcentral military - but this was the first he'd heard of the rest of her friends holding similar qualifications. He wasn't particularly surprised, however. With laser didactic education, anyone could be qualified in just about anything. The only thing Henderson was curious about was what sort of EOD equipment they had had available.
"The three of us," Matthews continued, "who were working on the devices identified four detonators as molecular-decay timers, and a fifth as a manual remote detonator."
Henderson was forced to resort to a neural nanonics program to prevent a surprised gasp. That was something that Matthews did not need to hear at this present time. Judging by the way her voice had wavered, things had gone horribly pear-shaped, and he suspected that that had had something to do with the manual detonator.
"We-" Matthews gestured to include the group of people with her, "-were looking for whoever had planted the devices at this point, and were some distance away. Michael - one of those who were trying to neutralise the devices - had just warned us about the manual detonators, when his datavise was cut off suddenly, and..." Emotions overwhelming the neural nanonics program that she had been using to allow her to make a coherent report, she sank into a nearby chair and began sobbing softly. Henderson wasn't surprised. When three of your friends are killed, it tends to have a bad effect on you.
The thread of the tale was picked up by one of the other women in the group, who Henderson identified after a little thought - and some digging through neural nanonics files - as Catherine. She wasn't grieving. On the contrary, she looked ready to rip an assault mechanoid apart with her bare hands and use the bits to beat any bystanders to death with. What really scared Henderson, however, was the suspicion that she could do exactly that.
"We'd managed to backtrack the origin of the datavise, and we'd reached the building it had originated from. Just as we were entering, the person who had planted the devices was leaving." Holding up a hand to prevent Henderson from asking the obvious question, she added, "We know it was the right person, since we got a pretty picture of him planting the devices from our security systems.
"Anyway, once he spotted us, he drew a couple of maser carbines and opened fire. Luckily for us, we weren't unarmed ourselves - all legal and aboveboard, I assure you - and we returned fire."
Henderson didn't know what to think about that. Strictly speaking, he should at least ask a few questions and run some checks. Even if their weapons were legally owned, the law tended to frown on firing them in public places.
Self-defence, on the other hand, was allowed. The trouble was proving that it had been self-defence in the first place. Exercising discretion and letting it slide seemed to be the best option available. "Did you hit him?" he asked.
Catherine gave him a look that clearly stated, 'Quit asking stupid questions' and remained silent.
Shaking his head, Henderson asked the obvious follow-up question. "Is he alive, at least?"
The only man in the group spoke up. "Yes, but he was quite badly injured in the exchange of fire, and we left him at the main desk. I also would suggest that he undergo quite a detailed body scan. I suspect that he possesses some sort of nasty implant." Some more careful thought identified him as William.
"Thanks for the suggestion, William," Henderson replied. It was standard procedure, and should already be under way, but shock did strange things to the human mind.
Just then, an extremely agitated police officer burst into the room. "Chief!" he gasped. "Something weird here. That guy that Matthews and her friends brought in? We scanned him, and he seems to have a kamikaze implant in his abdomen. Judging by the strength of the containment field... it's antimatter."
The temperature of the room seemed to plummet abruptly. The ultimate horror, antimatter made thermonuclear weapons seem like firecrackers in comparison. Unlike nuclear weapons, which needed a fairly precise set of circumstances to detonate, antimatter simply had to come into contact with particles of conventional matter. It could be anything - even something as simple as an oxygen molecule would be sufficient to unleash its fury, according to Einstein's ancient mass-energy formula, with one hundred and eighty megatons of explosive force generated for every kilogram of antimatter.
The black cartels' antimatter production stations had been left behind when the Confederation had moved to its new location, but that just meant that large-scale commercial production of antimatter was now impossible. Henderson was willing to be that there were small-scale antimatter production stations dotted across the Confederation, especially on Earth. There were just too many places to hide a small facility in an arcology.
"Study the containment field," Henderson said, mouth moving on automatic while he tried to work out what to do. "Try to determine if it's a deadman trigger. If not, jam his neural nanonics. If so, isolate the signal preventing the antimatter detonation and transmit it." That should prevent the precinct house - and everything in the immediate area - from disappearing in a blinding flash. "Inform the local Govcentral representative and request specialist support, highest priority."
The officer nodded before leaving the room just as fast as he'd entered. Henderson turned to the group and asked. "Do you have any idea who might want to do this?"
They exchanged brief glances, which set off alarm bells in Henderson's head. Finally, it was William who spoke up. "This is going to sound unbelievable, Captain Henderson... well, do you believe in vampires?"
"Yes," Henderson replied firmly, which got him surprised looks. "A few days ago, we received a message from the Lord of Ruin, which contained the data taken from a set of debrief nanonics. The subject was... vampires, actually, and how they've tried to end the world on more than one occasion. And last night, there was a major firefight between a group of vampires and a local cult, which also involved LAPD AT teams.
"So I'm more than willing to believe in vampires. Why, do you know something about them?"
"We've all seen and survived vampire attacks," William said, indicating the people with him. "We decided to fight back, rather than to simply accept it. I can only image that we've been enough of a thorn in their side over the past few years that the local vampire leader - a four hundred-pus year old Master Vampire by the name of Jonsson - decided to do something about it."
Pulling a ring from his pocket, he continued. "This is the symbol of a group known as the Order of Teraka. They are an ancient order of assassins whose origins are unknown, but thought to be at least two thousand years ago. We must have really annoyed Jonsson, since one of the few things that are known about the Order is that they charge steeply for their services."
Henderson was impressed to say the least. These people had access to an impressive collection of information. For some reason, that made him think of the Harris file. Why did I think that? he wondered. Could it be because William sounds suspiciously like Rupert Giles, the Watcher that Harris knew, when he was lecturing?
Almost every police officer knows to trust their instincts, and Henderson was no exception. Launching a shot in the dark, he asked William, "Are you a Watcher?"
It was their reactions - or more accurately, their lack of reactions - that told him that he'd scored.
****
"Are you a Watcher?"
That question, totally unexpected, caused William to shunt a facial-expression program into primary mode to stop himself from flinching. It was only after the program was activated that he realised that he'd made a mistake. A total lack of expression can tell someone just as much as the expression itself.
Resigning himself to the inevitable, William nodded. "Yes. I do happen to be a Field Watcher. May I ask how you know about Watchers?"
Ignoring William's question, Henderson asked. "Field Watcher? Is that some sort of specialisation?"
William thought fast. Henderson knew much more than most people - starting with the fact that vampires were real. That information might have come from a set of debrief nanonics, but he wanted to be sure.
"I'll make an offer, Captain. I'll answer your questions about Watchers if you answer one of mine."
Henderson didn't hesitate. "Done," he said.
William nodded. "A Field Watcher is a Watcher assigned to train and guide an Active Slayer. A Training Watcher's duties revolve around training a Potential Slayer - which I'll explain shortly," he added, seeing the question forming.
"A Research Watcher, as the name suggests, spends most of his or her time carrying out research.
"The organisation that controls the activities of most Watchers is the Council of Watchers. The reason I say 'most' rather than 'all' is that the Council split in the early twenty-first century, mainly over whether or not an Active Slayer should have help in her fight. The traditionalists believe that the Slayer should work alone, with only her Watcher providing assistance.
"The break-away group - which I belong to, by the way - believe that the Slayer should accept any and all aid that is offered. History shows that most Slayers who work alone tend to have distressingly short careers as Sayers. The first Slayer to buck this tradition was Elizabeth Summers, at the end of the twentieth century. She had friends who helped her in her fight against the darkness.
"The Council was reluctant to accept this, and matters came to a head after the group - called 'Slayerettes', incidentally - won their greatest victory, against a hell goddess named Glorificus. The 'New Men' tried to change the way the Council operated, to allow the Slayer to have aid, but the traditionalists refused, and the 'New Men' quit to set up their own operation."
Henderson nodded. That had answered quite a few of the questions that he had - except one. "Potential Slayers?" he prompted.
"Oh, yes, Potential Slayers. Up until the time of Slayer Summers, there was only one Active Slayer at a time. That changed when she died at the hands of a Master Vampire whose name is unknown to us. Fortunately, one of her friends - Alexander Harris - managed to revive her with CPR. However, she had been clinically dead for long enough to call the next Slayer, Kendra McPherson. Since then, there have been two Active Slayers.
"You see, when a Slayer dies, the next one is called. A girl who can become a Slayer is called a Potential Slayer. There are ways to detect a Potential Slayer - which I won't go in to at the moment - and when one is found, she is trained so that she may begin her role as soon as possible after she is called. This is not a foolproof method - Slayer Summers wasn't detected until after she was called, which may have influenced her way of thinking. Unlike most previous Slayers, Slayer Summers tried to integrate Slaying into her normal life, rather than allow Slaying to take over her life completely.
"I hope that clears things up for you, Captain."
William watched as Henderson nodded, obviously deep in thought. "Yes, it does. There are still some things that I'd like cleared up, but they can wait for another time. Now, I assume you have a question?"
"Yes, and it is this: who is your source of information on the subject of Watchers?"
Henderson grinned. "You may want to sit down for this." He waited until William played along and found a seat. He had a good idea who Henderson was referring to, having seen the data in question, but he thought it would be best not to reveal that fact, since it was probably breaking quite a few laws.
Henderson waited until William had found a seat before dropping what he thought was a bombshell. "Alexander Harris. In fact, the same Alexander Harris that was friends with Elizabeth Summers."
****
Henderson didn't know what sort of reaction he had been expecting, but he felt vaguely disappointed when all he did was blink and say, "Oh, my," in a slightly subdued voice.
"You seem to be taking this rather well," Henderson commented in a non-committal tone of voice.
"Well, given that in the last few years, we saw the souls of the dead return in an attempt to take over the living, and the entire Confederation transported thousands of light-years through a number of wormholes, not to mention the other things we've seen, someone travelling through time suddenly doesn't seem all that impressive."
When Henderson thought about it in that light, William's reaction made sense. "But surely you're curious as to how he got here?"
William shrugged. "I'm fairly confident that I'll get the chance to talk to him before too long. I can ask him then."
Changing the subject, Henderson asked, "Have you sent a message to Amanda's brother about what happened tonight?"
William looked mournful for a moment. "Yes, I have. His reaction will probably be terrible to see."