"Bit extreme, even for the NID." Colonel O'Neill commented.
"You think they had them killed?" Dr. Jackson asked, shocked.
"It's too much to be a coincidence." Major Carter said. "One having a seizure and dying is explainable, two stretches the bonds of credibility."
"Finn was a blind follower, but Miller was trying to do his due diligence and being roadblocked. He'd have turned evidence over fast. Finn, confronted with proof, probably would have too." Colonel O'Neill said. "Anything else, sir?"
"No, it's no longer our concern. We were only able to investigate the ray gun story because of the possibility of alien tech being involved. Now it's up to the investigators to try to find something. For now, we get back to work. I'll let you know if anything changes."
Just before midnight that night four teenagers broke into Edmund Hall, well picked the lock on the back door anyway. Buffy, with a stocking cap covering her blond hair and a communicator in her ear, kept watch by the back, prepared to tell anyone who tried to talk to her that she was looking for her boyfriend who lived in the first house.
Alexander, Faith and Johnathan made their way inside. Corda was stationed on a rooftop, not far way, keeping an overwatch. Giles and Jenny were anxiously waiting for word. An annoyed to be left out of everything Oz, was holed up in the basement of the former Sunset Club, wolfed out. Being a werewolf could seriously stink when you couldn't watch your friends backs because of it.
"My scanner isn't showing any recording equipment active." Alexander said, sotto voice. The three made their way inside and found an elevator. Johnathan pried open a panel beside the door and hooked his laptop into it.
"I'm in." He said a few minutes later. "That's a really simple program they're using. I didn't even need to use any of the Alteran programs. Just standard hack programs."
"Then let's see what they were hiding down there." Alexander said and the three entered the elevator. Johnathan hooked into another panel and once again, didn't have any problems getting in.
"They obviously never expected anyone would suspect there was a problem and investigate, because they really used basic programs." He commented. "Voice recognition, mostly. Nothing involving retinal scans or even fingerprint scans."
The doors opened to reveal a large complex.
"I want to say, how did they build all this without anyone noticing, but this is Sunnydale, even with the Mayor's protections gone, people are so used to not seeing what's going on, that they just don't see anything." Alexander commented.
"Except for people who are from out of town, they seem to notice the odd things. Which makes it doubly good all the nasties are pretty much gone." Faith observed.
"True." Alexander agreed as they moved thru the complex, his scanner out and scanning. "Still not picking up any life signs or signs of active electronics, no recording devices."
"Looks like an office over there." Johnathan pointed. "We should check to see if there's a computer."
"No computer." He said, disappointed after they got the door opened. "Filing cabinets are empty." He added, pointing at some that were partly open. They checked each of them anyway.
"There's another set of doors over there." Faith pointed toward the back of the large room they were in. Johnathan needed to work his computer magic again to get them in. What they found here was horrifying.
After returning to Giles with the others, they filled them in on what they'd found.
"Twelve demons. Eleven non violent. All dead." Alexander reported. "Killed and their bodies left there to rot. We brought out the ones we know their kind have death rituals and let Willy know to spread the word we got the bodies out of there. He agreed to let us leave them in his back room for now. It won't take more then a day for them to be claimed. All of them come thru his bar. The rest, we incinerated. The other one, it was a Pogara, its spike and arm had been removed. From the elbow down. We didn't find it. What could they want with a Pogara's spike?"
"Nothing good." Giles said grimly. "There are some black magic rituals that call for ground Pogara spike but, I doubt very much, what they were doing had anything to do with Magic."
"Even if I was a betting man, I wouldn't take that bet." Alexander agreed.
"We may not have seen the last of them." Corda said. "We should have Willy keep an ear out for stories of people capturing demons. Demons gossip as much as humans do, we may eventually hear something."
"Major Carter, I've approved your budget request for those programs you wanted. You can go ahead and purchase them."
"Thank you, General. I'll contact the Altimah Project right away. I think they're going to make a big difference."
"Dr. Jackson, the background checks on Dr. Giles and Alexander Harris didn't turn up any red flags, you can go ahead and bring them in as consultants. Limited knowledge only. Nothing about the Stargate or the Program. Tell them everything comes from digs."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, I'll get ahold of them right away too."
"Colonel O'Neill, the Altimah Project has patented a very interesting item. A pulse pistol, it shoots a pulse of heated energy at a target, it may have a number of potential uses and the military is going pursue those. The company has also filed a preliminary patent on a stun pistol with two settings, low and high stun, that they hope to complete trial testing on shortly. It's also of interest to the military. It seems the Altimah Project is producing a number of things of interest to us. I wonder what else they'll come up with?"