What Are Friends For?
Chapter 7
Part 1
Things went well at first. They found Oz unconscious and strapped to one of the tables, freed him and were on their way out when one of the captives recognized Angelus and called to him for help. Angelus remembered the demon and turned back to free him. When he did so he found himself facing Riley and a half dozen soldiers who hit him with taser blasts and he fell to the floor unconscious.
Outside the facility when Elizabeth realized that Angelus was not with them, she panicked. It took two of the minions to keep her from trying to get back inside.
"We will get him, slayer," one of the minions told her, "but he would want us to get you and Oz to safety first."
Two hours later the group was at Giles' house again and planning how to rescue Angel (actually Angelus) before the Initiative had time to put a chip in his head. There was a sudden banging on the door. When Giles opened the door, he had to act quickly before Angelus fell into the room. Two people dressed in soldiers' uniforms ran down the walkway and jump into a black SUV. It sped away from the house without its lights on, but Giles recognized the face of the driver; it was Riley Finn. He was laughing.
Elizabeth rushed to the door and helped Giles to get an unconscious Angelus to the couch. They could tell that he had been operated on.
Part 2
Buffy was almost hysterical, but Elizabeth was not. Elizabeth excused herself and went into the bathroom where she convinced her reluctant counterpart to let her handle things until their current problem was resolved. Buffy only agreed because she knew that, with her current concern for Angel, she might not be able to act with cold detachment as Elizabeth would. When Elizabeth returned to the living room, she was deadly calm. She spoke to one of the minions.
"Do you know where Spike is and how to get in touch with him?"
"Yes, slayer. He is at the soul's apartment in LA."
"Contact him. Tell him to return to Sunnydale immediately and bring Drusilla and the rest of the minions. They are needed here right now. Have him hire a human to drive him back if necessary. Do not tell him what has happened to his sire."
Angelus' childer and all of his minions knew about the relationship between their sire and the slayer; they had been told that when he was not available, they were all to take orders from her. That included Spike and Drusilla. Spike didn't like it, but he knew not to go against an order from Angelus.
Part 3
By the time Spike and the others arrived in Sunnydale, Angelus had been moved to the Crawford Street mansion and, thanks to stolen human blood infused with a pint of slayer blood, he had recovered from the surgery that implanted a chip in his head. However, the chip was functioning as it should; he could not hit a single human being, not even to defend himself.
Wesley opted not to participate in the venture, but Elizabeth and Angelus, Giles and Jenny, Willow, Spike and the others put together a plan for assault on the Initiative. Everyone's actions were spelled out in detail. There would be no mistakes this time. None of their team, including Drusilla and the minions, would be left behind. Giles, Jenny, Willow, Oz and Xander would remain at the mansion while the others carried out their plan. Jenny and Willow would continue downloading all of the Initiative's data from their computers onto backup disks; Giles and Oz would try deciphering what was downloaded. Xander would help in protecting everyone if vampires invaded the mansion.
When Drusilla first arrived at the mansion, she went straight to her sire and without touching him, she wailed over what had been done to him. "The stars have stopped singing. Don't worry, daddy, the mean old doctor will make you all better. I will see to it," she told Angelus.
When Angelus told Spike to get his battle axe, the bleached blond vampire knew that a fun time was ahead.
Just as they were about to leave, Elizabeth pulled Spike aside. "I know that I don't have to tell you this, Spike, but look after Drusilla while we are in the Initiative. They have already managed to chip two of the most notorious vampires in history and if something goes wrong with our plan, I know they would be only too happy to chip Dru as well. I don't think she would survive with a chip."
Taken by surprise, Spike looked at the slayer for long moments. This was possibly the last thing he expected to hear from her. He nodded his head at her and said, "I will never forget you, slayer."
According to what they learned when Willow and Jenny first hacked into the Initiative's computer system, only a skeletal crew of soldiers would be on duty between eleven at night and eight in the morning. Unknown to anyone inside, at 11:15 pm all of the outside exits were automatically unlocked.
Two minutes later a slayer and her pissed off vampire boyfriend, two of his childer and a dozen minions, all fully armed, entered through the various doors, disabled the soldiers on guard and locked the doors from the inside. Maggie was the first one to notice Elizabeth and Angelus, but she was hit with a taser blast from a gun retrieved from a soldier who had been standing guard at one of the doors. With the soldiers out of commission, over-powering the doctors and support personnel was easy.
Unfortunately Riley and his team were on guard duty that night. When the Initiative's support personnel came to, they found themselves bound, gagged and secured to chairs or operating tables while Elizabeth, Angelus and Spike held Walsh, Riley and the doctors secured to chairs in one of the rooms for questioning.
Part 4
"Now," Angelus addressed the doctors casually, carefully controlling the anger that boiled just below the surface, "which one of you planted the chip in my head?"
The doctors looked at each other, but did not reply.
Without moving his eyes from the doctors, he told Spike, "Cut off their right hands."
Spike was confused. "Whose?"
Annoyed, Angelus growled, "All of them and burn them."
"Why do you want them burned?"
"So that they cannot be reattached." Angelus thought the reason should have been obvious.
"Oh, right." Spike stepped forward with the battle axe in his hand and a look of gleeful anticipation on his face. "Who wants to go first?"
"Wait! I did it. I did it." One of the doctors admitted.
"I knew you did. I just wanted to see if you would admit it to save your friends. Remove the chip."
The doctor hesitated, "I don't know if I can; I..."
"Now!" Angelus' voice was low and menacing, but his face remained calm, serene. He could tell that the doctor was afraid and he did not want a nervous doctor playing around in his head.
The doctor knew that he had no choice. He nodded his head in reply.
"And doctor, make sure that it is not painful and there are no after effects."
Half an hour later the chip was out and Angelus felt almost normal again, but he wanted to make sure. He called Drusilla over to the operating table and instructed her, "Dru, see if the chip is out."
Drusilla danced around the bed and without looking at her sire, she reported, "It's all gone, daddy. The stars are singing again."
Angelus got off the table and walked over to the doctor. "I will ask you this just once. Will there be any side effects from the implant or the surgery?"
"No."
"Will I have to come back here looking for you, for any reason?"
"No." The doctor closed his eyes, trying hard not to imagine what would happen to them all if Angelus was dissatisfied after the surgery. "No."
"You'd better hope not, doctor. Now, how many vamps do you have chipped in this place?"
"Four. Two others are scheduled to be chipped today."
"Free those scheduled for today and remove the chips from the others, but first remove the chip from Hostile 17."
"But I..."
"Do it now. How many demons do you have chipped here?"
"None now, they have all been released."
"How many were there and where were they released?"
"There were six. Four were released here in Sunnydale and two were taken back to LA."
"Contact one of your other team leaders. Send him and his team out to recapture those released here in Sunnydale; have them here by tonight. Don't even think about letting your people know of the situation existing in here or you will all be dead before help can arrive. Understood?"
"Yes. Yes I understand."
Part 5
While they waited for the four demons to be recaptured, Angel contacted his friend, Lorne, in Los Angeles to see if he had heard anything about the two chipped demons that were released there. He had and he could have them back in Sunnydale by nightfall.
Two hours after sundown the four chipped demons from Sunnydale and the two from LA were back in the Initiative. The team that captured the four had joined the others as prisoners in their own facility.
The other Initiative teams had been told that government representatives had arrived from Washington and had closed the facility for a review of Professor Walsh's projects. If they were not satisfied, the facility would be shut down permanently.
"Remove the chips from all of them," Angelus demanded.
"The demons don't have the healing power that vampires have; it will take them longer to recover."
Angelus was getting impatient. "How much longer?"
"We kept them here about a week after the implant."
"Then plan on being here for a week."
The doctor hesitated and Angelus could sense that there was something he wanted to say, but was afraid.
"Come with me," he demanded and led the doctor into the office with 'Dr Walsh' on the door. "All right, what's on your mind?"
"Are you familiar with project 314?"
"No. What is it?"
Part 6
The doctor was very much afraid that Walsh would somehow discover that he was the one who revealed information about her pet project, 314, but he knew that 314 had to be stopped and, like it or not, right now it seemed that Angelus was the only being with the resources to do what needed to be done. The doctor had to trust that once Angelus found out the truth about the project, he would see to it that Adam, the creature being created in the project, would be destroyed; after all, Adam posed a very real threat not only to the slayer, but to all beings that he encountered once he was released.
The doctor walked over to the desk; he entered a code on a keyboard and a heretofore unseen window opened in the wall revealing another room on the other side. On the bed was ... Angelus could not describe it; he had never seen anything like it before. It seemed to be something more gruesome than the monster described by Mary Shelley in her novel, Frankenstein. The chest cavity and abdomen of the creature were open and the insides seemed to be a combination of parts from various entities - human, demon and machine.
"What is this?" He demanded of the doctor.
"It is a prototype being created by Dr. Walsh. Her original intentions were quite honorable - to create an unstoppable warrior that would be used in battle instead of humans; unfortunately, things got out of hand and she refused to see the danger that this thing posed. It sees everything in its path, human or demon, as disposable. It should be destroyed."
The thought of Elizabeth or Buffy facing this creature in battle gave Angelus chills and he agreed with the doctor, this thing had to be destroyed and all of Walsh's records should also be destroyed. In fact, this entire Initiative should be shut down, permanently.
The doctor seemed shaken by what he was about to say next, but he felt that he had to get the words out.
"And Angelus, this is only phase one; phase two is well underway."
Angelus looked at him expectantly and the doctor continued.
For some reason the vampire's cold unemotional stare was not as unnerving as it had been earlier. He knew that Angelus was shaken by the sight of Adam. The doctor relaxed a little as he described the rest of Professor Walsh's plans.
It seemed that in phase one each base for the project was chosen mainly because of its size and strength. Everything else was added. For phase two the base required not just size and strength, but mindset, attitude, willingness and desire to kill. Soldiers were being trained in the field, now, to have a 'take what I want', 'have feelings for no one', 'spare no one' attitude, to be human killing machines. Demon and machine parts for additional strength and special abilities were being added, without the subject's knowledge, as they became available.
As it turned out phase one was taking too long to get a prototype ready and the government was getting impatient. They wanted the prototype now, or else. With the necessary mindset already developed, creating a battle-ready warrior now took one-third of the elapsed time as it took getting Adam ready. Even so, Walsh had not been willing to give up on her pet project.
Angelus was appalled. "Are you saying that there are humans walking around Sunnydale now that are being groomed with this destiny in mind?"
"Yes. And most, unknowingly, have demon and machine parts already implanted. There are twelve of these soldiers in the field now and, so far, none have failed. Most startling of all is their recovery time. They can be badly injured tonight and still ready to return to the battle tomorrow after not more than four hours of down-time."
"I want all of them destroyed."
"But they're human..."
"Not anymore, they're not."
Angelus left the room and walked over to Elizabeth. "Contact Willow on your cell; find out if she has finished downloading all of the Initiative's files, then let me speak to Giles."
Their plan had just gotten a lot more complicated.