Sisters ch.35 – Operation Nevada and the return of Oliver Pike

Four months earlier, Oliver Pike had had to make a dreadful decision. He had been dallying, spurred by his friends, with a pretty, underage cheerleader from the rich people's school. Oliver himself had no family worth speaking of, and, at nineteen, he and his friends had an attitude that drew them to rich girls – or, as one of them had it, to rich bitches. He himself owned nothing but a bike that he had himself built out of scrap, learning a lot about motors in the process; and he assumed that the girl's parents hated him as much as her friends and neighbours certainly did. But, over the months, things had changed. He had begun to like Buffy for herself, and to be unhappy with the role of seducer of high-toned virgins that so tickled his friends. Without telling anyone, he was beginning to feel that there was no future in his romance; and that he was not being fair to her.

One day, he had taken Buffy to an "unofficial" dirt bike race in a deserted patch of California scrub. Buffy had loved the speed and the sense of danger, and that, curiously enough, had made him feel even worse about his relationship; but she had also got more than a taste of biker attitudes and biker chicks, and she had not liked that at all. And he had found himself thinking that if they stayed together, he would have to take his pretty, animated, naïve girlfriend in such surroundings all the time. This was the world he had lived in since he was nine, with cousins, older friends, and people who had just casually taken him in. He could not change it, but he did not like the idea of Buffy in it. And then, out of the blue, a man he had met at the race, with whom he had had a long talk (with the odd enthusiastic, but not very knowledgeable, comment by Buffy) about his bike and how he had built it himself, had got in touch with him. There was a job going in Las Vegas for a man who knew bikes and did not mind getting his hands dirty.

The choice seemed obvious, but before he could decide himself and talk with Buffy, the whole business of the Slayer and vampires had begun to raise its ugly head. And in Pike's eyes, the whole affair had changed from "leave girlfriend who is too good for me" to "leave girlfriend who is in deadly danger." His whole mind and soul rebelled against the idea of leaving her alone against those horrors.

They had stood together, one night, and talked about their choices. And it had dawned on Pike, suddenly and yet without a sense of surprise, that his little cheerleader had grown. There was thought, in those hazel eyes, and kindness. She saw the expression on his face, and read it correctly. "Don't do it, Pike! You don't have to help me or fight for me. That business about the Slayer …." She picked up a stone from the ground, held it in her right hand, and squeezed. The stone broke into several pieces. "Being the Slayer is not ijust/i a curse. I can deal with problems."

"You've been eatin' your spinach," said Pike in an admiring tone.

"I have. Along with a lot of my words.

"I'm not trying to send you away. And I'm not trying to refuse your help. But you have a future of your own, and your world... at least for now… is not my world. Don't throw away your job in Vegas… There's nothing left to do or to fight here. And I'll be all right."

Pike was near to being torn in two. But before the Slayer business had burst upon him, he had made a decision. What he was being asked now was to stick to it. And leaving a little fifteen-year-old alone to face vampires and monsters was not quite the same as leaving a little fifteen-year-old who could break rocks with one pretty, bare, manicured little hand.

"Well, all right, gorgeous. You go your way and I'll go the Vegas way. But I want to stay in touch. And I want you to remember that, when you need it, you've got a friend."

…..

It had gone well, too. Pike was a hit with his new boss and with the local bikers and bike users. He worked hard, without even realizing he did, because he enjoyed the business of building, repairing and maintaining motors so much. By the same token, customers enjoyed discussing their hogs and their problems with him, because he had good ideas and paid attention to what they said. After four months, he had moved into a larger flat and started a bank account.

And then came those three awful days.

The first Pike, and much of Las Vegas, knew about it, was when a radio report informed the locals that the Hulk had been seen in a cafeteria a hundred or so miles from the city, where he had left an injured man demanding that he should be treated. That was quickly followed by increasingly alarmed reports about a jailbreak in a prison for superheroes. There were ugly rumours about gamma monsters, in the plural, and about super-powered killers not to be approached for any reason.

Pike was asleep when the awful news from New York City came; and by the time he woke up and took it all in, it was over and people were beginning to count the cost. But the emergency was far from being over; that was made clear by the mobilization of the Nevada National Guard, and by the frightening passage through the town of a number of soldiers in massive armour. "Hulkbusters," said a few people with military experience.

Pike's memories of the next day weren't clear. There was a vague sense that he had been some sort of monster, and he felt no surprise – and strangely little horror – when he awoke to the damage-ridden, frequently devastated cityscape around him. He had spent hours as a monster, and then, without warning, without control, collapsed back into his native humanity. He knew that it was the worst thing he had ever experienced, and yet had little by way of focused memories – only red rage, and black ugliness, and a hideous unnatural green everywhere.

He went to bed because there was nothing else he could do. His flat was devastated and there were holes in the walls, but his mattress was still in one piece and some clean sheets could be wrestled from the wardrobe. And this was one time when it was good that Las Vegas had a desert climate. The night air was almost warm. Pike went to sleep in exhaustion and bewilderment.

The next day was spent in trying to come to terms with what had happened and decide what to do next. The administrator of his building told him that the structural damage could be repaired and would be, but he could not be sure how soon. Pike's boss gave him a few days off till the shop was cleaned, but said he would need him again. His own material was mostly shredded, but on the plus side dozens of motorbike and car owners needed urgent repairs and part exchange. Soon there was going to be more work than anyone had expected. Till then, that is till next week, Pike would have free time… in a smashed flat with holes in its walls.

What made Pike think of going to Los Angeles, he wasn't sure. For a few days, there would be nothing for him to do in Vegas, and perhaps he didn't like the feel of the armed people in fatigues and helmets who seemed to be coming through more and more. But something made him want to see Los Angeles again… and, of course, a cute little dwarf with golden hair.

It took him hours to find a petrol station that was working, and by that time he knew he would not make it to the City of Angels that day. He spent another unpleasant night in his wrecked flat, and, as early in the morning as he could make it, he got dressed and left on his machine.

The military he had seen in small groups in the city were increasingly visible out of it, as he got to Interstate 15. He was twice stopped and questioned. Ordinarily, this would have raised all his hackles; but there was something left over from his terrible experience of two days earlier – if you could call an iexperience/i something that had barely any hold on the memory, whose reality he could not and indeed would not recall – that made him think of the position of those men. Men and young boys. In a boiling desert, loaded down with gear and weapons, looking for monsters that could kill them in horrible ways. He answered all his questions politely and was let go with hardly any palaver.

The armed men Pike met in Las Vegas and on the Interstate were part of a set of actions that were taken without coordination by various authorities, as the pressure of events in Nevada grew. From the moment the Cube had fallen, gamma monsters and other escapees were loose there; and the Gammabuster units were being scrambled from various bases in almost automatic reaction. And while the governor of Nevada mobilized the National Guard and asked for help, other individual army and air force units had placed themselves, without waiting for orders, on a war footing. Thor and the Hulk had stayed behind after crushing The Leader and his mad plans, but so had many more gamma monsters, not changed back to human.

Meanwhile, back in DC, Nick Fury had clashed with Thaddeus Ross. The Gammabusters had not all scrambled at the same time, in their separate bases, by chance. Ross had informally let his former subordinates know that there was a Hulk-based crisis. He had then tried to claim command over the Nevada operation on the grounds of his experience with the Hulk in the area. Nick Fury had reacted immediately, and the Pentagon had clamped down on Ross. Though they immediately reformed the Gammabuster (previously Hulkbuster) command, they placed it under SHIELD control.

Ross was sick with rage. He promised himself that this would be the last time that Nick Fury got in his way.

But until SHIELD actually sent someone to take control, that would be theory. And while SHIELD troops were being mobilized across the Western states, they and the Infantry Gammabusters notoriously got along like cats and dogs. Worst of all, the other force that would be involved was going to be the Avengers, including the Hulk. There was no telling what people trained to hate the Hulk would do, when they met the superheroes.

And at a time when Nick Fury would normally take command, he could not. He did not like to manage things from a desk and a phone. He liked to be in the field, looking at his people face to face, seeing the situation as it was. He had frequently been chided for this habit, but it was the part of the job that kept him going. His argument was that, thanks to modern technology, he could keep in touch with headquarters by wi-fi. And he did not like to be told that he was risking his life and that to place the commanding officer in danger was bad strategy.

But this time he had no choice. He had to testify before the US Senate, apparently reinforced by a large number of foreign ambassadors and representatives. And he didn't know who to send. Sitwell was the organization man, much better at a desk than in the field, and he was needed there. Valentina, even if her mental balance could be trusted, had no experience as a field commander, and was too junior. Brand would be a disaster, and at any rate she was needed to oversee the ongoing expansion of SWORD. This guy was unavailable, that guy was unsuitable…

At the last minute, faced with several mutual vetos and a good deal of egotism, Nick Fury had exploded. He had placed Jack O'Neill, who just happened to be there, in overall command, with Maria Hill, Colonel Walker Kazybrid of the Army rangers, the Wasp, and the Hulk as deputies. The Hulk only commanded himself, but his sheer power made him an equal of the other commands. Of course, the Hulk decision was whimsy of a sort, but it would give the giant a stake in the operation. But mainly it was a spur-of-the-moment result of Fury's irritation with his own subordinate. Maria Hill remained deeply unhappy about the concept of the Hulk as avenger, let alone collaborating with him, and Fury decided that she should learn to cooperate by force. Captain Mar-Vell had offered his super-powered help, but Fury had decided that the risk of his getting injured or killed was too great to run until he had been properly debriefed.

Altogether, Colonel Kazybrid said to Colonel O'Neill, this chain of command had all the makings of a king-sized Charlie Foxtrot.

Fury summed up the situation for the commanders he had chosen:

"When the Cube was destroyed, a coupla dozen gamma monsters fled into the desert. And when Thor and the Hulk broke down the Leader's gamma ray irradiation plan, that left several more behind. At present, our best estimate is that some thirty gamma monsters are roaming a part of the United States. And they are within easy reach of Los Angeles and other population centers.

"They need to be subdued, and only force can do that. Only you people, working together, have that force. The Army Hulkbuster unit, the new Avengers group, and SHIELD's superhero-fighting troops. And that sum only adds up if you all cooperate and obey orders. If you don't, the gamma monsters will kill you one by one, and then turn their attentions to civilians.

"None of you like the others. But you and your men are the only thing America has right now, and you will have to work together.

"I could say this: that if anyone lets private feelings get in the way of mission objectives, they will be demoted to buck private as fast as papers can be signed. But I won't. What I will say is this: I trust the lot of you have the country and the good of the public at heart. There are millions of civilians who depend on you. The monsters must be subdued, and if that can't be done, they must be killed. I believe that this is more important, to each of you, than your own grudges. I expect you to work together. And I expect you to win."

BFD, thought Clint Barton to himself as the SHIELD aircrafts took off to head west. No mission he had ever been in had been so clearly going to go to Hell from the word go.

Standing at the threshold, holding the door open, Buffy was in an unusual condition of irresolution. She did not like the way she had found the house, empty of all its furniture and memories, feeling somehow hollow and fragile. Even was somewhere in one of the cardboard boxes that were being driven to their new Sunnydale address as she stood there. Yet she could not quite bring herself to shut that door once and for all.

Her phone rang. It was her mother, and she was surprised to hear that Buffy was at their old, empty house. She hersef was at her shop, closing down and packing up. Everything else was already gone, but her antiques had to be available as long as possible. You never knew when a client would turn up. So she had waited to the last minute to pack them up and place them in a van to be taken to her new place of business. She woud be done in a couple of hours. They agreed that she would come and pick Buffy up after that – three hours, maybe? And then… this was it. They would take the trip to their new home in Sunnydale.

Buffy looked around herself. She had never really looked at her neighbourhood with any care.

The street was quiet, and it was a beautiful late spring day. And the air was clean; ironic, on this day. Ever since she had been the Slayer, her senses had grown in power and range, and Los Angeles' smoggy air had become harder and harder to ignore. But today, as she was moving to a much cleaner upstate environment, between steep wooded hills and the ocean, Los Angeles wore her finest and most deceptive look. She almost grimaced inwardly.

Out of the distant, complex welter of traffic and other noises, that a normal girl could never have heard, a strand of sound became clearer and clearer. Not only because the bike was clearly coming closer, through otherwise deserted streets of a residential quarter on a working day morning, but also because that engine somehow sounded familiar. She had heard it before. And suddenly it came to her, and she smiled.

As for Pike, he felt the familiar discomfort this part of the city gave him. The roar of his motorbike sounded almost barbaric among those large houses shining in the sun, those manicured gardens, those expensive European or Japanese cars, and the occasional Latino servant or gardener livening up the otherwise empty landscape. He wondered how many eyes were watching him from behind first floor windows, and thinking of ringing the police just in case.

But then… there was her house, round a bend behind a rise; and there was she, standing right in the frame of the door like a small, eager flame.

"Pike!"

"Buffy!"

…..

"...I can't say I remember much. I had it lucky, the way it turned out… when I woke up, I just had some bruises and a nosebleed. Maybe I'd dealt out more punches than I'd got. And my flat was still standing. Dennis is going to restart the bike shop. Most of the stock is smashed, but on the plus side, a lot of people need their hogs repaired."

"It still sounds like a nightmare. But you know, I was actually in Manhattan when all that ess aitch one tee went down."

"You what? Crap. Sounds like we're cursed, aren't we? If there's vampires around, we'll be the ones who find them. Thousands of cities and towns in this country, and we two end up in the two that get the super-murder attack."

"I know. Well, I actually am… I mean, all that stuff about the Slayer was real, not just a joke."

"What? I mean…"

"Yeah. Real. Really really real."

"And if I think about it, I can't say I'm even surprised."

"No. I just hope you don't have some curse of your own. There's a reason why they call them curses, you know?"

"There sure is. But… the house is empty. Are you moving?"

Buffy blushed. "Sorry, Pikey. I wanted to let you know, but things kind of rolled over each other. Yes, we're moving to Sunnydale. Cheaper house prices and all. But I swear I wasn't trying to hide from you."

"No, beautiful, of course you weren't. Still, lucky I came by today. If I'd come tomorrow and found the house empty, I'd have freaked."

"There's other stuff I should have told you. Like the parents' marriage was making like the Titanic. And like after you left for Vegas, I had to burn down the gym, and when I tried to explain about vampires, that didn't go down well."

"I can imagine."

"Can you?"

"Yeah, they'd pretty much think you'd gone crackers."

"Good guess." And Pike suddenly realized that there was a bitter expression on Buffy's face.

"In that case… I mean… My God, Buffy! What'd they do to you?"

"The… the kind of thing you do to people who'd gone waka waka and burned down a gym with people inside."

"Buffy! Did they try to lock you up?"

No reply.

Pike didn't know what to do or say. He had never been jailed or confined, but many of his friends had. They were men who could take it, from a social class to whom imprisonment was one of the risks of life. But little Buffy… he could not help it. He knew she was a superheroine, but the thought of it still revolted and horrified him.

Suddenly, he felt two small arms hug him, and a pair of soft lips on his cheek. Buffy had seen his expression, and understood.

"It's all right, Pikey. Really, it's all right. I am out of it, now, and I'm all right."

After a while, he spoke – and was ashamed of himself, inwardly, since the few words that came to him were so pitifully inadequate to what he wanted to say.

"Was it very awful?"

"It wasn't nice. It was lonely, and VERY boring, and I missed my fam. And the first few days, I was very hungry. They hadn't realized…"

It struck him. "They didn't know you are a superhero?"

"Pretty sure they didn't. And a week or two after they found out, tbey let me go. Just like that."

"Maybe you'd scared them?"

"Maybe I had. I didn't know then, but looking back, nothing else makes much sense."

"So now what? Have your family found out?"

"I don't think so. I don't want them to."

"I think…"

"I know. But I don't want them involved, Pikey. It would make me sick to think they could be involved. They're good people, Pike!"

Pike felt the humour of this… humour with a tang of bitterness. That was the same thing he felt about Buffy and imprisonment. She was too good for it, never mind that she was a superheroine. She could take it, but he did not want to think of her loveliness in that world. And she thought of her fam as he thought of her. Perhaps, he realized, he thought of him that way, too. His next words went in a completely different direction; he didn't want to continue.

"Hunh. At least I've still got the job. And they're already rebuilding the city… I'll say one thing for the Mob, they work very fast when their money is concerned."

"The mob? You're dealing with crooks?"

"Not me. But they built the city, Buff. I just repair bikes, but if you are into building or entertainment or a lot of other stuff, you deal with them."

"Oh. I hadn't thought of that. You're not in any dangerous situation, are you?"

"Naaah. It's just that if you work in a bike shop… in any kind of shop… in Vegas, you have to know who's in with them. So Dennis told me a few stories about the real hard guys out there. Just to keep well away from them."

"All right. But listen, Pike, if you ever have any problem, if you are in trouble, call me. I can really deal with them. And let's try to keep in touch. I promise to try not to be looney-binned again."

"I'll hold you to that, honey. And maybe some day we'll meet again."

As Pike was bending over to kiss Buffy on the mouth, he heard a car brake to a halt behind him. He changed position at the very last moment and kissed her on the cheek instead, just in time for Joyce Summers to step out of her Volvo and give him a nuclear-powered glare. The rest of the farewells were short and far less intense than they would have been had she turned up five minutes later.

…..

Rupert Giles was speaking on a private international line.

"I've managed to get the post. Look, Quentin, we have to be careful. There was nothing to see or feel, but nobody can convince me that this man Wilkins is not dangerous."

"Well, Ripper," said the voice at the other end, "even if that is the case, we have no better man than you to deal with problems… if they arise. And we can still hope they won't.

"You must never lose sight from your main object, Rupert. To judge from Merrick's reports, your Slayer will be problem enough. And to be perfectly clear with you, we need you to keep her and yourself alive for long enough for us to recruit and train some new Watchers. We are in a crisis. And we know that there will always be a new Slayer, but nobody ever promised us that there would always be new Watchers.

….

Operation Nevada went on for a week, which, for a search-and-capture operation on such a scale, was an extraordinarily short time. It was remarkably successful. When it was decided to reduce it to a patrolling effort, 23 gamma monsters and 6 non-gamma escapees had been captured; 4 gamma monsters and 14 non-gammas were dead. Avengers, SHIELD troops, and Gammabusters, plus a number of other Army and Air Force units, had cooperated with astonishing efficiency. Thrown in at the deep end and charged with a task on which the lives of millions might depend, they had mostly managed to set their mutual suspicions and hostilities aside. In some cases, a certain amount of rough and grudging respect had developed. Most extraordinary of all, the Hulk and some of the Gammabusters platoons had developed a common tactic for the subdual and capture of gamma monsters.

The worst threat to the cohesion of the operation did not come from old hatreds and rivalries, however. Three days within the op, after their start, one incredible piece of news had startled them all. On the seventh day, together with the order to wind down, another astounding piece of news followed.

Nick Fury had been forced to resign as head of SHIELD. Four days later, Maria Hill was nominated as his successor.

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