Disclaimer: "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" and all its characters are property of Joss Whedon, 20th Century Fox and Mutant Enemy and the UPN Network. "The Monkey Zoo" written by Ginger, published by Copyright Control.
Summary: Things have been going just a little too well lately so there must be something wrong.
Spoilers: Up to and including "The Gift".
Distribution: If you want it, here it is, come and get it. But you better hurry 'cause it's going fast. Oh yeah, and let me know.
Feedback: Yes, please.
Author's Note: The name "Boffy" belongs to whomever came up with it. I believe it was somebody over at TelevisionWithtoutPity.com.
***
PART III
SITTIN' ON THE TOP OF THE GRAVE
***
Death
Though going on worldwide
Still takes you by surprise
Okay, you had to go
But I bet you didn't know
That you'd take
A piece of me away with you
Now it's too
Damned late to say "I love you"
Monkey see, see, see
Monkey do, do, do
It's so hard, it's so very hard
It's a mystery how we keep on seeing it through
We just do, we just do
Here at the Monkey Zoo
-- "The Monkey Zoo", Silver Ginger 5
***
"Don't look at me like that," Xander admonished. "I'm not drunk!"
This, however, was not completely true. He had done quite a bit of drinking, and was therefore in an advanced state of inebriation. "FUBAR" would be the scientific term favored by college students.
Earlier that day when Xander had returned to his job, he had casually mentioned to his boss that he had just broken up with his girlfriend. Xander was just about to return to his work when he noticed that his boss was very visibly struggling to fight back tears. Also somebody must have overheard Xander, because within moments the news had spread all around the building site, once again proving that the only thing to travel faster than light is gossip. Before Xander really had time to react the whole place was awash in tears, with all of Xander's colleagues crying, howling, blubbering and weeping openly. Some may even have been bawling. Except for Xander, who just stood there dumbstruck, watching this rather bizarre spectacle.
After everyone had managed to calm down to a reasonable degree, Xander's boss had yelled, "Everybody put down whatever it is you're doing. We're going to help poor Xander through these very difficult times. Tonight the drinks are on us!"
And so they had laid down their work, gone from bar to bar and saturated themselves in mass quantities of alcohol. Xander had actually tried to explain that he was fine, and that he wouldn't mind going back to work, but his colleagues would have none of it. And besides, Xander had never been one to turn down free alcohol.
Xander had been very pleasantly surprised that he had not been carded all night, because he had left his fake ID at home. Also the bars had stayed open late that night, and it was three o'clock in the morning when he finally started the long stumble home.
On his way however he had gotten sidetracked into the graveyard, and that's how he had ended up sitting on Buffy's gravestone and justifying himself to her.
"Really," he repeated. "Not drunk at all."
"Yes, you are," Buffy's voice replied, startling Xander so much that he lost his balance and tumbled to the ground.
He unsteadily scrambled back to his feet, wheeled around on the source of the voice, over spun and ended up facing his original direction. He turned again, this time slowly enough to keep track of his feet, and faced the figure before him.
The figure did bear a striking resemblance to the late Buffy, except for the "R" that had been stuck to her forehead. It was Boffy, the robot double of the girl whose body was merrily decomposing approximately six feet below Xander. Willow had done a quite remarkable job of putting the robot back together, she had turned the glorified sex toy into a bona fide RoboSlayer. The name, however, had stuck.
Nonetheless Boffy now patrolled the streets of Sunnydale every night slaying the undead, and she had kept everyone fairly safe for the past year. There had been a short-lived dream of producing these robots in series and selling them to the Watcher's Council for a hefty fee. But there was only so much two witches, a carpenter, a wanna-be poet vampire, a fifteen-year-old and a man whose whole knowledge revolved around ancient mystical texts knew about advanced robotics.
The idea for the "R" on the forehead had come while watching Red Dwarf one night, but there were still occasional fights about whether it stood for "Robot" or "Rimmer". Although the whole thing was academic anyway, since there was no real Buffy to mistake the robot for.
"Boffy!" Xander gasped, once he had remembered to resume breathing. "You scared the crap out of me."
Boffy's eyes narrowed for a moment. "According to my scans the crap you are referring to is still very much inside you," she stated, her wide grin in place.
"Yes," Xander answered, turning a very bright shade of red. "Thank you so much for checking."
"So, what are you doing here?" Boffy inquired. "You know you shouldn't be here at night. You could get killed. Or worse."
"Why, are there many vampires around?" Xander asked, trying not to sound too alarmed and failing miserably.
"Not one," Boffy shrugged. "It's very boring. I would have sex with you but I don't remember how to do that. Willow erased the subroutines. But I'm programmed not to find you attractive anyway."
"No woman seems to be these days," Xander answered. "And ewww," he added.
Boffy walked over and stood before Xander. She was a notorious close-talker, probably a leftover of her original programming. "So how was your day?" she asked cheerfully, accessing the somewhat limited folder in her memory labeled "Small Talk".
"Oh, excellent," Xander responded without enthusiasm. "I went to work and then Anya broke up with me. So I went drinking with my colleagues."
"That's nice," Boffy grinned. She searched for another appropriate question to ask. "And why is your girlfriend not here?"
Xander gave her a confused look for a moment. "Didn't I just tell you that we broke up?"
"Really?" asked Boffy, still grinning. "That's too bad." Before she forgot she erased the 'Anya's boyfriend' cross-reference in Xander's profile. However she forgot to do the same in Anya's profile. "So who is your girlfriend now?" she inquired hoping to fill the blank in Xander's vitals.
"Nobody, I guess," he answered.
"Ah, that's nice," chirped Boffy and created a new profile, labeled it "Nobody" and added 'Xander's girlfriend'. "So what is she like?"
"What is who like?" Xander asked.
"Nobody."
"Why did you ask me then?"
"Because I don't know Nobody."
"That's not true. You know people."
"I do?" wondered Boffy, and created a new profile labeled "People" with an entry saying 'I know him'. Then she erased 'him' and replaced it with 'her'. This left her with an unknown for which she needed clarification. "Is People a boy or a girl?"
"What?" Xander stared at the robot in utter confusion. "People are people," he added, even though he never had been much of a Depeche Mode fan. He hoped his answer would be helpful, but doubted it.
Upon hearing this Boffy erased here original entry in People's profile and replaced it with 'See People'. Then she tried to process this input, which promptly caused her operating system to crash.
Xander looked on in horror as Boffy's eyes rolled back in her skull, her body went stiff as a board and she keeled over on the spot.
"Oh, dear," Xander mumbled as he got down on all fours next to the robot. Willow had told him that in such cases he had to press the reset button, but had then failed to mention where said button was located. I guess I'll just have to look for it, Xander thought. And so he started by feeling around Boffy's skull. He assumed the button wouldn't be on her face, so he concentrated on her scalp and ears but came up empty. He sighed and started unbuttoning Boffy's shirt. He couldn't help but notice that her upper body was anatomically correct. Xander hoped that nobody would pass by and see him, because this scene would look very strange indeed.
When his search of Boffy's front came up empty he decided to try the back, because taking off the robot's pants was something he was not ready to do quite yet. He tried rolling the robot over but found that it was quite a bit heavier than a human being. Xander cursed under his breath and stomped off in search of some tools. He soon returned with a long stick and, using Buffy's gravestone for leverage, he got back to work. After several failed attempts and a quite impressive string of profanity Xander was able to flip the body over.
To his great relief he found the reset switch in the small of Boffy's back. After taking a few moments to boot up Boffy's eyes flicked open and she got up off the ground.
"Hi, Xander," she said cheerfully. "How are you?" She looked down and noticed her open shirt. "Hey, my shirt is open," she announced. "And you're all sweaty and breathing heavily. Did we have sex?"
"No, Boffy, we did not have sex," Xander explained, wondering how long his patience would last.
"Oh, that's nice," the robot responded. "Because Willow programmed me not to be attracted to you."
"So you said earlier," Xander mumbled unenthusiastically. "I'll have to thank her for that when I see her."
"She did program me to be attracted to her though," Boffy added helpfully.
"She what?" Xander asked aghast. Then he quickly shook his head. "You know what? I don't even wanna know."
"My operating system did not shut down properly last time," Boffy announced. "Please, use the proper shutdown procedure in the future. Thank you for using the ZX Spectrum."
"I think your system crashed," Xander said. "There was this really unfunny scene with lots of misunderstandings. It made me wish my system could crash too."
Boffy ran a quick diagnostic on her operating system. Luckily the "People" profile had not been saved and so no errors appeared. When she was done she reverted back to the "Small Talk" folder. "What are you doing here?" she asked.
"Nothing." Xander shrugged. "I just thought I'd come by and visit Buffy."
"Buffy is not here," Boffy said helpfully.
"I know, but this is her grave after all," Xander tried to explain. He didn't really expect the robot to understand.
"It is her grave. But Buffy has left," Boffy explained.
"Is this another one of these conversations with lots of misunderstandings?" Xander asked, losing his patience. "Buffy is buried here."
"That's what I have been trying to tell you. She is not buried here. Buffy dug herself out and left."
"She what?" Xander was back to his incredulous self. "You're kidding!" He felt as if all the effects of the alcohol he had imbibed earlier evaporated off him. He wished they hadn't, considering the way things were turning out.
"No, I saw her do it. About two hours ago. I was standing right over there." Boffy pointed into a random direction. "By the time I got here she had already gone."
"Gone?" Xander repeated. "Wait! If she dug herself out why is there not a big hole here?"
"I closed it," Boffy said proudly. "I thought it rather spoiled the landscape."
"Did you tell anybody?" Xander inquired.
"I told you."
Xander groaned. "So instead of trying to follow her you stayed here and closed up the hole through which Buffy had dug herself up?"
"Yep," Boffy said with a smile.
"And you have no idea where she went?"
"Nope."
Xander groaned again. This time longer and deeper. "I guess we better go tell Giles," he concluded.
"Okay!" Boffy exclaimed cheerfully. And as they walked in the direction of the watcher's home she added, "I like Giles. But I don't want to have sex with him."
"Shut up, Boffy."
***
"So we're not in this part then?" asked Bill. And yes he was still in a bad mood. He was in an every-silver-lining-has-a-cloud kind of mood.
"Nope," replied Lucy, who was happy to have some time off.
"This is not good," said Bill gravely, which was quickly becoming somewhat of a catch phrase. "And now I even have to talk to my agent. Greedy bastard."
***
Xander was quite surprised to find that Giles had not been in bed at four o'clock in the morning. The watcher promptly opened the door to let him and the robot in. And then Giles was buried under a tsunami of words that spilled out of Xander.
"OhmyGodGilesBoffysaidthatshesawBuffydigherselfoutofhergraveabouttwohoursagoandinsteadoffollowinghershestayedthereandclosedup
theholeagainandnowshetoldmeandnowI'mtellingyouandwhoknowswhereBuffyisrightnowandwhoknowswhatBuffyisrightnowshecouldbezombie
oravampirenoit'stoolateforhertobeavampirebutazombieoradeaditelikeinEvilDeadandwehavetodosomethingmaybeshe'sokaymaybeshe'slost
maybeshe…" And then he finally ran out of air and doubled over panting heavily.
When Xander straightened back up he scrunched up his nose in response to the rancid smell that was permeating Giles' apartment.
"Giles, no offense, man," he began, having reacquired the use of punctuation. "But you gotta air this place out, I mean, it smells really bad in here. It reeks like something died and you…-"
"Xander?" a voice interrupted him. Xander wheeled around on Boffy to tell her to shut up when he noticed a second figure standing next to the robot. That figure bore a striking resemblance to the robot, except for its somewhat odd-looking color.
"Hi, me!" Boffy chirped. "I'm pretty. You're green."
***