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Goodbye Iowa

Prologue

Buffy tells her friends how Maggie Walsh set her up and tried to kill her. Trapping her in the sewers with two fierce demons and a faulty weapon.

“Got to hand it to you, Goldilocks,” says Spike. “You do have bleeding tragic taste in men. I got a cousin married to a regurgitating Frovlax demon that’s got better instincts than you.”

“What does my taste in men have to do with this?” asks Buffy.

“You think Riley was out knitting booties for your future offspring while Maggie was stringing you up?” asks Spike.

Buffy doesn’t want to believe that Riley had anything to do with what happened to her. Professor Walsh made sure that she got him out of the way first. The others aren’t quite so sure. That Riley may have been involved is something that Giles thinks they have to consider.

Willow sides with Buffy. She can’t imagine Riley taking part in something like this. “He seems like he wouldn’t tell a little white lie, let alone a whole bunch of big dirty ones.”

“That’s why they call it the secret forces, Will,” says Xander. “’Cause they kind of keep the whole lying thing to themselves.”

Whether or not Riley was involved in the attempt on her life, Buffy knows that Maggie tried to kill her, which means that the entire Initiative is a threat to her. And since her friends all know about the Initiative too, they are all in danger.

“What could have happened to make Professor Walsh want to kill you?” asks Giles.

Buffy doesn’t know, but she knows that Professor Walsh wasn’t happy about all the questions she was asking.

“So you were getting too close to something,” suggests Anya.

“Clearly,” says Giles. “Although, one can only imagine what she’d be so desperate to hide.”

A set of doors at the end of a tunnel open up into the woods, and Adam steps out into the daylight.

Act I

Buffy opens Giles’ chest, and starts pulling out weapons. She wants everyone to grab one before they go.

“Storm the Initiative?” asks Xander. “Yeah. Let’s take on those suckers!” He sounds enthusiastic.

That wasn’t what Buffy had in mind. “I was thinking more that we’d hide.”

“Oh, thank god.” Xander is greatly relieved. He really wasn’t looking forward to going up against the Initiative.

Giles isn’t sure that hiding is the best plan, especially when he hears where Buffy is planning to hide: Xander’s basement. None of the Initiative people have really met Xander, and she doesn’t expect them to go looking for her there. Giles has no intention of squatting in that dank hole.

“What?” asks Spike. “It was good enough for me, but you’re above it all?”

“Precisely!” Giles sits down at his desk. “Besides, I don’t see why we can’t stay right where we are. It’s very unlikely those Initiative boys are going to come around here to look for—”

Riley bursts in through the door. “Buffy! God, Buffy, are you okay? What happened?”

“You know?” she asks.

“I know something went down. Tell me.”

“Maggie tried to kill me,” says Buffy.

“It didn’t work,” confides Anya, “but they’re all upset, anyway.”

Riley wants Buffy to tell him what happened. He figures that this must all be some sort of mistake. Xander is suspicious. He wants to know how Riley knows that anything happened. Riley starts to explain, but he notices Spike. This time he recognises him. “That’s Hostile 17!”

Spike tries to say that he’s just a friend of Xander’s again, but then he gives up. “Bugger it! I’m your guy!”

“This is Spike. He’s um…” Buffy is a loss for words. Spike looks at her expectantly. “It’s a really long story. But he’s not bad anymore!”

“Hey! What am I, a bleeding broken record?” asks Spike. “I’m bad! It’s just…I can’t bite anymore. Thanks to you wankers.”

Riley is a little upset. The Initiative has been hunting for Spike all over town for a couple of months, and now he learns that Buffy has been harbouring him. He wants to know what Spike is doing there.

“Leaving you swabs to your dramatics, thanks.” Spike grabs his coat. “I’ve got my stories on the telly for that. By-the-by, if you’re trying to kill her…” He gives Riley a big smile, and a double thumbs up. He pulls his coat up over his head to protect himself from the fading daylight, and leaves.

Riley is still confused. He doesn’t understand how Buffy could be protecting an HST.

Xander isn’t interested in Riley’s problems right now. He’s still waiting for Riley’s explanation for how he knew anything happened.

Riley tells them about how Professor Walsh had told him Buffy was dead, and then he saw her on the monitor. He doesn’t believe that Walsh could have done this. “There must be something making her act this way. Something—I don’t know—controlling her.”

Giles tells Riley about their theory that maybe Buffy was asking too many questions, getting close to something Walsh didn’t want discovered. Buffy asks him about 314 again. Maybe that has something to do with it.

Riley is still looking for some other explanation. “Maybe she was trying to test you. What if it was only a drill?”

“Then why did she tell you I was dead?” asks Buffy. “Riley, it wasn’t a test.”

Giles tells Riley about the information he got from Ethan (leaving the source out.) That the Initiative might be working towards some darker purpose. Something that could harm them all. Riley doesn’t believe it. If something like that were going on, he thinks he would know about it. Buffy tells him that they just need some time to figure things out.

Riley needs to do some figuring too. “I can’t be here. I’ll sort it out on my own.” He leaves.

Adam walks up to a young boy sitting on the ground by an overturned bike on the fringe of the woods. He’s playing with some toys. The boy looks up, and sees Adam. He isn’t frightened, he’s curious.

“What am I?” asks Adam.

“You’re a monster,” says the boy.

“I thought so,” says Adam. “What are you?”

“Me? I’m a boy.”

“A boy,” says Adam. “How do you work?”

“I don’t know. I just do.” The boy notices the tip of the Polgara demon’s skewer at Adam’s wrist. “What’s that for?”

Adam smiles.

Riley walks through the park alone at night, thinking.

Dr. Angleman walks into lab 314. He tries to turn on the lights, but they aren’t working. He calls for Dr. Walsh and gets no answer. Then he calls for Adam.

He walks farther into the lab. He slips on something and falls to the floor. He gets some of what he slipped in on his hands. He looks at them and sees that it’s blood. Then he sees Dr. Walsh’s body.

Sunlight reflecting off Xander’s mirror ball wakes up Giles. He has been sleeping in an inflated chair in Xander’s basement. There’s an empty sleeping bag on the floor beside him. The sound of a Roadrunner cartoon is coming from the other side of the basement where Buffy, Anya and Willow are watching morning cartoons from the bed. Blankets are hung as a curtain across the room separating them from where Giles is.

Willow giggles as Wile E. Coyote gets clobbered by one of his own traps again.

“That would never happen,” says Buffy.

“Well, no, Buff,” says Willow. “That’s why they call them cartoons, not documentaries.”

Giles comes in and turns off the TV. The noise is aggravating his headache. He did not sleep well in his “beach ball.”

“Every time you moved, it made squeaky noises,” says Anya. “It was irritating.”

“Really?” says Giles. “I’m surprised you could hear it over your Wagnerian snoring.”

Buffy does not want to listen to them bicker. “Okay, you guys. Could we not, please? Everything’s screwed up enough without you two doing scenes from my parents’ marriage.” Anya and Giles apologise to each other.

Willow is sure that things will work out with Riley, but Buffy isn’t as optimistic. She expects things to get worse before they get better.

“And after everything you’ve been through with Angel,” says Anya. “You know, you really should get yourself a boring boyfriend, like Xander. You can’t have Xander.”

That’s what Buffy thought Riley was going to be, when she started dating him.

“Poor Buffy,” says Willow. “Your life resists all things average.”

“So dump him,” says Anya. “But you can’t…have…Xander.”

Buffy thinks that it is too late for that now. She will just have to find some way to make it work with Riley.

Xander runs down the stairs, carrying a tray of breakfast. He doesn’t have food on his mind though. He tells them to turn on the TV. Willow reaches across and turns it back on. The Roadrunner cartoons have been replaced by a live news report about the murder of a young boy. He had been killed with a large skewer like object, and the body mutilated.

Buffy immediately suspects the Polgara demon. She figures that Maggie must have sent it after her, and it got distracted.

“Buffy, it’s not your fault,” says Willow. “How could you know?”

“She’s right,” says Giles. “You mustn’t blame yourself.”

Buffy hops out of bed. “I’m not going to. I’m going to the crime scene to see what I can find out. You guys research the Polgara demon. I want to know where it is. When I find it, I’m going to make him pay for taking that kid’s life. I’ll make him die in ways he can’t even imagine.” Buffy notices the way Willow and Anya are looking at her. She looks down at herself. “That probably would have sounded more commanding if I wasn’t wearing my yummy sushi pyjamas.”

Riley arrives back at Lowell House and heads up to his room. He’s met by Forrest, who wonders where Riley has been all night. He thinks Riley has been with Buffy. Riley tells him that he wasn’t with Buffy, he had to be alone, to think some things through. Forrest wants to know what. Riley doesn’t want to talk about it in the hallway, so he invites Forrest into his room.

“This is mighty ominous,” says Forrest. “What’s up, man?”

Riley tells Forrest about Professor Walsh trying to kill Buffy. Forrest doesn’t want to believe it. He wants to know if Riley has any proof, or if he is just going on Buffy’s word. Riley tells him that he saw enough for himself to know that it’s true. He tells Forrest about Buffy’s suspicions about why Walsh did it.

“I wouldn’t put it past Buffy to get on Professor Walsh’s bad side,” says Forrest. “She tends to put her nose where it doesn’t belong.” Riley doesn’t really believe what he’s hearing his friend say. “She’s a pain. Always wanting to know why this and why that.”

“You’re saying she should die because of that?” asks Riley.

“I don’t know,” says Forrest. “Maybe Professor Walsh found out that Buffy was up to something bad. That ever cross your mind?”

Riley wonders why Forrest is so bugged by Buffy all of a sudden. He wonders if Forrest is jealous of Buffy’s capabilities.

“It bugs me that she’s using you to infiltrate our operation!” says Forrest.

“So you’re saying she’s a spy?” asks Riley. “You’re crazy.”

“Riley, think about it,” says Forrest. “Professor’s not stupid. If she tried to kill Buffy, maybe Buffy needed killing!”

Riley and Forrest are interrupted by the arrival of Graham. Riley doesn’t want to talk to him now, but Graham has news that can’t wait: Professor Walsh is dead.

Act II

Riley and Forrest arrive at lab 314. Dr. Angleman and another scientist are examining Maggie’s body. Forrest takes one look at the scene, it looks like Maggie was staked to him. Riley really doesn’t like the implications of what Forrest said. He thinks that Walsh’s death looks like the work of the Polgara demon.

Forrest is doing more than implying. “Only one person I can think of who could do something like that. That’s your girlfriend’s M.O.”

“Hey, that’s a serious accusation.” Riley grabs Forrest’s shirt. “You better be ready to deal with the consequences.”

“Bring ’em on!” Forrest pushes Riley away. “Supernatural freak is blinding you, and I’m sick of it!” He and Riley are getting close to coming to blows.

Angleman intervenes. This is neither the time nor the place for what they are doing. It isn’t what Professor Walsh would want. He tells them that Washington has ordered a lock down on the Initiative until the investigation team arrives. They are to wait for them before they do anything. He confirms that it was probably the Polgara that killed Walsh. It has escaped. Riley is not happy to hear that. They have to go after it, but Angleman refuses. They have their orders. He tells them to go back to their quarters.

Angleman leaves, and Riley turns to the other Initiative commandos who have gathered in the hallway. “Listen, Angleman can talk all he wants, but I’m still in charge until the brass gets here and tells me otherwise. I say we’ve got a demon to hunt.” He’s scratching the back of his hand. “Now suit up for armed patrol, and by that I mean loaded guns, men. Target practice is over. We’re going for blood!”

A group of Initiative commandos hits a cemetery in broad daylight with full camo gear, and weapons. They are checking out the various crypts and mausoleums. Forrest and Graham enter Spike’s.

It’s clear to them that something has been living there, but they can’t tell if it is a demon or just a homeless person. It isn’t the Polgara, but Forrest doesn’t care. If he finds a demon he intends to kill it.

Graham feels the top of the TV that Spike has added, and it’s still warm. He and Forrest are instantly suspicious. They move to the stone sarcophagus in the center of the crypt, and shove its lid aside. There’s nothing inside but a skeleton, covered in a shroud.

Forrest is disappointed. He and Graham start to leave. Forrest smashes the but of his rifle into the screen of Spike’s TV. “Animals!”

Spike pulls the shroud down, and sits up. He was underneath the skeleton.

Buffy arrives where the little boy was murdered. The area is crawling with cops, she doesn’t get too close. She watches from a hilltop overlooking the scene. Riley arrives. She apologises to him for how everyone acted earlier, they were all upset. She also tells him that there’s an explanation for the Spike thing that almost makes sense.

Riley doesn’t say anything.

“Hello? I’m apologising here,” says Buffy. “And I think that’s pretty big of me considering I’m the one who was almost made a demon sandwich. This is the part where you throw me a bone.”

“Maggie’s dead,” says Riley. “Happy now?”

“How can you ask me that?” asks Buffy. “Of course I’m not happy. What happened?”

Riley doesn’t want to tell her. That information is classified.

Buffy isn’t happy to hear him say that, but she really doesn’t need him to tell her. She jumps to the same conclusion he has. It was the Polgara. “I’m going to find it. I’m going to find it and destroy it. And then you can stop asking me how happy all this death makes me.” She leaves.

Tara answers the door to her room and sees Willow. Tara is happy to see her.

“I had so much fun the other night,” says Willow. “Those spells.”

“Yeah, that was nice,” says Tara.

“I hope you don’t think that I just come over for the spells and everything. I mean, I really like just talking and…and hanging out with you and stuff.”

“I know that,” says Tara, “but you want to do a spell.”

“Yeah, but only because it’s really important.” Willow starts to explain, but Tara doesn’t need an explanation for why. She’s willing to help.

Willow starts to explain the spell she wants to do. She plans to call on Thespia to help her locate demonic energy in the area. Tara becomes less enthusiastic. She asks Willow if she thinks they are really ready for that sort of thing.

“You and me?” asks Willow. “This is beneath us.”

Tara reluctantly agrees to go along with it.

Buffy enters Willy’s Place. Willy is not pleased to see her. She hasn’t been in there for a while, and Willy liked it that way. The Slayer is bad for business. He beckons for her to join him at the far end of the bar, as far from his patrons as possible. A vampire who had been drinking a beer at the bar takes one look at Buffy and leaves.

Willy tells Buffy that he has gotten out of the snitch business since he had that encounter with the apocalypse demons. He’s trying to bring in a better class of clientele. He has gotten himself a deep frier. Demons just go crazy for chicken fingers. He does not want to be seen dealing with Buffy.

“I’m going to have to punch you, aren’t I?” asks Buffy.

“Just once,” says Willy quietly. “And it don’t have to hurt. Just make it look good.” Buffy raises her hand and makes a fist. “Ow! Oh!” Willy holds his nose.

”Not yet.” whispers Buffy. “I haven’t touched you.”

“Oh, sorry. Right. Go ahead. Wait.” Willy raises his voice so that everyone in the bar can hear. “No! I can’t talk to you!”

Buffy punches him in the nose. “What have you heard about the Polgara?”

Willy hasn’t heard much. He knows that there was one around a week ago, but that Buffy and the army guys had caught it. He hasn’t heard anything about it since.

Buffy wants to know what Willy has heard about the army guys, and if he has heard anything about 314. Before Willy can say anything Riley enters. Buffy is not happy to see him. She thinks he’s been following her.

“You told me you were tracking the Polgara demon. I thought I’d help,” says Riley. “But now I see you’re not hunting demons, you’re socializing with them…again. Thought you were supposed to be killing these things, not buying them drinks.”

The remaining vampires and demons in the bar do not look happy. Neither is Buffy. Riley is being much too conspicuous. He also isn’t looking very healthy. He’s sweating, and trembling. “What are you doing here?” he asks Buffy.

“Just cooling her dogs, like the rest of us,” says Willy.

Riley ignores him. He wants to know just who Buffy is. Willy offers him some chicken fingers, on the house.

Riley tells Willy to shut up. “Or maybe you’d like to go back to the lab with me? I’m sure the coats would love to classify a—whatever you are.”

“Leave him alone, Riley,” says Buffy, “He’s human.”

“So he’s human. He just harbours demons, which makes him a good guy like you?” Riley grabs Buffy by the shoulders. “The truth, Buffy, now.”

“You have the truth. You are just too screwed up because of what happened to Professor Walsh to see it. Now let go of me.” Buffy pushes Riley away.

A woman who was sitting at the bar gets up and starts to go. Riley tells her to stop. He pulls out his pistol and aims it at her. “No leaving until I say so. Got it?”

“Hey!” says Willy. “We got new rules here. No killing!”

“Right. Except the rules don’t seem to apply much these days, do they?” Riley turns his attention back to the woman. “Like if I shot you right now. I don’t know if I’d have a corpse on my hands or one pissed-off vampire.” The woman stands frozen in fear, unable to make a sound. Riley’s pistol is trembling. “I mean, who do you believe? First it sounds like lies, then it sounds like truth.”

“Riley,” says Buffy gently, trying to calm him down. The woman is trembling, and sobbing quietly.

Riley holds his gun on the woman for a few more seconds, then he spins away toward the bar. He smashes some glasses sitting on it with the gun. “What’s happening to me?”

Act III

Buffy takes Riley to Xander’s basement. He is shivering and sweating. She sits him on the bed and tries to put a blanket over his shoulders, but he shrugs it off. She tries to get him to lie down. Buffy notices that Riley’s scratching the back of his hand. He has scratched it raw, and it’s bleeding. She tries to get him to stop.

“I can’t. It’s like something’s crawling inside.” Riley keeps scratching.

Buffy takes the kerchief from her hair and wraps it around Riley’s hand. She tries to tell him to lie down again.

“No. Buffy, I don’t know…anything. I don’t know which team I’m on, who the bad guys are. Maybe I’m the bad guy. Maybe I’m the thing you should kill.”

“No. Don’t you even think that. Okay. Listen to me. You’re sick. You just need to get some sleep. Please. Lie down for me. Come on.”

Riley finally lies down, curled up into fetal position. Buffy strokes his head. “You’re going to be okay.”

Riley dozes off, and Buffy leaves him to go talk with Giles, Xander and Anya. It isn’t just grief affecting Riley, he is physically ill. She suspects that it’s something Walsh was doing to him. Someone else must know what Walsh was up to, or she must have left some records behind. She plans to take Xander for a little undercover work, while Giles and Anya keep trying to find the Polgara.

Anya is not happy to hear this. “Hey! Remember before: no Xander! Not in a boyfriend way, or a ‘lead him to certain death’ way!”

Buffy tells Anya she needs Xander’s military experience.

This does not impress Anya. “It’s not like he was in the ‘Nam. He was G.I. Joe for one night.”

Xander tries to tell Anya that things will be okay, he’s backed up Buffy before. Anya thinks he should find some other way to help, such as xerox fliers or something.

Giles wants to know how Buffy plans to get into the Initiative. She’s hoping that Walsh didn’t have time to revoke her clearance before she was killed.

Willow and Tara are ready to begin their spell. At the proper time they will both blow their portions of the potion Willow has prepared over a square representing a map of Sunnydale. If all goes well the potion will form a mist which will coalesce into different colours over the parts where the demons are.

Willow pours part of the powdered potion into Tara’s hand, and the rest into her own. They close their eyes and Tara begins the spell.

“Thespia, we walk in shadow, walk in blindness.
You are the protector of the night.”

Willow takes over her part.

“Thespia, goddess, ruler of all darkness, we implore you.
Open a window to the world of the underbeing.”

Willow blows the powder in her hand over the square. Tara blows too, but not on the powder. She closes her fist over it as she blows, and then dumps the powder under her bed. Willow finishes the spell.

“With your knowledge, may we go in safety.
With your grace, may we speak of your benevolence.”

Willow opens her eyes, and looks for the results. She sees nothing. “Or not.”

Tara looks disappointed too.

Buffy and Xander arrive at Lowell House. It’s nearly deserted. Buffy goes to the mirror concealing the elevator down to Initiative HQ. Xander steps up beside her. He thinks she is checking out her disguise. She has her hair up in a bun, and is wearing glasses. She has a lab coat wrapped around a clipboard. Xander is dressed in military fatigues.

Buffy shoves Xander aside. She’s the only one who will pass the retinal scan.

“Ew!” says Xander. “I don’t want to see that!”

“Retinal scan, Xander. Well, we’ll know in a few seconds if my clearance is still good.” The green light plays over Buffy’s face, and the mirror slides aside. Buffy is still recognised. Xander isn’t thrilled. The elevator looks like a man sized microwave to him.

Buffy and Xander step out of the elevator into Initiative HQ. She is now wearing the lab coat. Xander is very impressed with what he sees. “I totally get it now. Can I have sex with Riley, too?” Buffy grabs him by the arm and leads him to the stairs down to the main floor.

When they reach the landing Xander sees a couple of commandos coming up the stairs toward them. He grabs Buffy and turns her around. “Quick! Pretend to make out with me.”

Buffy pushes him away. “What? What are you talking about?”

“Well, you know,” says Xander. “In the movies, the guy and the girl have to hide.”

“Please!” whispers Buffy, “Could you possibly draw more attention to us?” She and Xander pretend to be examining something on her clipboard as the two commandos pass by, then they continue down the stairs. “This is the Initiative, Xander. Military guys and scientists do not make out with each other.”

“Well, maybe that’s what’s wrong with the world,” says Xander. “Ever think about that?”

Willow tells Giles and Anya about the spell not working. She doesn’t understand it. It wasn’t like the spell went wrong, it just didn’t do anything.

Giles and Anya haven’t had any luck with researching the Polgara demon either. There has been no sign of it since the boy was killed. This demon seems to be acting in a very un-Polgara way. They don’t normally mutilate their kills, and they have to eat often.

“Factor in the low IQ and you have a demon who is not exactly low profile,” says Anya.

Willow pulls aside the blanket to check on Riley, and is startled to see that he is standing up, just on the other side of it. He wants to know were Buffy is, if she has found the Polgara. Willow tells him that Buffy has gone to see if she can learn what’s making him sick.

“I’m not sick! Are you telling me she went to the Initiative? She doesn’t belong there!” Riley starts to head for the stairs. Willow tries to block him. He just pushes her roughly out of the way, and she falls to the floor. He runs out of the basement while Giles and Anya make sure Willow wasn’t hurt.

Buffy and Xander are walking down a corridor when Buffy hears Angleman’s voice coming toward them. She quickly drags Xander back around a corner so Angleman won’t see her. She leans against the wall out of Angleman’s sight while Xander stands facing her, pretending to be talking with her, but where he can see Angleman too.

Angleman is talking with another doctor. They’re worried about the effects that the withdrawal from the medications the field teams have been getting in their food will be having on them. They have managed to bring most of them back into the Initiative, but some of the recent arrivals have been in pretty bad shape. Angleman is particularly worried about Agent Finn. “He’s too important to the work to lose now.”

Spike wanders into Willy’s, steps up to the bar and orders a double shot of O-Negative. “Make it the good stuff. I don’t want no freaking orangutan.”

Willy pours him a drink of blood, and Spike starts telling him his troubles. The army blokes ran him out of his place, and they are all over town.

A demon comes up behind Spike and rests its hand on Spike’s shoulder. Spike turns to see what it wants and is greeted by a fist.

Angleman leaves the doctor and goes to the records room, using his pass card to unlock its door. Buffy follows him. She manages to get to the door before it locks behind him.

Buffy quickly crosses the room to Angleman, grabs him and spins him around. “Now I don’t generally like to kill humans, but I’ve learned that it pays to be flexible in life.”

Angleman isn’t surprised to see Buffy. He has been kind of expecting her to show up. Buffy doesn’t care about that. She just wants to know what was done to Riley, and what’s in room 314.

“Somebody’s coming, you know,” says Angleman. “I’m sure they’ve already seen you on the security monitors.”

Riley steps into sight. “Monitors are non-functional at this time, sir. Went down about ten minutes ago.”

Angleman tries to order Riley to take Buffy into custody, but Riley is kind of interested in hearing Angleman answer Buffy’s questions. Angleman confirms that Walsh tried to kill Buffy, but he claims it was all her idea. The Initiative has no interest in eliminating the Slayer. It was a personal vendetta of Walsh’s. She thought Buffy was getting too close to the project.

Riley doesn’t like this. “That’s enough! You’re making her sound like some psychopath. She wasn’t like that. She was a brilliant woman. All she was doing was trying to help people. And this is the way you want them to remember her?”

Buffy tries telling Riley about the drugs in his food, but he won’t listen to her.

“You’re doing this to me, aren’t you?” asks Riley. “This all started because of you!”

“Look,” says Buffy, “if you will just listen to me. I am trying to help you get to the truth.”

Riley grabs Buffy. “You want truth? Then tell me, what did you do to her, Buffy?” Angleman makes use of the distraction to slip away and press a silent alarm button.

“Stop it!” Buffy pushes Riley away. “I didn’t do anything.” He tries to grab her again. “Riley, stop! This isn’t about us. Everything we need to know is here. We just need to find out what was in 314.”

Their argument is stopped by the thud of the body of a guard landing on the floor. They look up at the overhead catwalk and see Adam.

“Me.”

Act IV

Adam paces back and forth on the catwalk. “I’ve been thinking about the world. I wanted to see it, learn it. I saw the inside of that boy, and it was beautiful, but it didn’t tell me about the world. It just made me feel. So now I want to learn about me. Why I feel, what I am.” He jumps down off the catwalk. “So I came home.”

Adam reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a computer disk. He slides it into a disk drive in his chest. “I am a kinematically redundant, biomechanical demonoid designed by Maggie Walsh. She called me Adam, and I called her Mother.”

“Adam,” says Angleman. “Maggie would want you to stand down.”

“Yes, but I seem to have a design flaw.” Adam goes on to tell them some more features of his construction.

“She pieced you together from parts of other demons,” says Buffy.

“And man, and machine,” says Adam. “Which tells me what I am, but not who I am. Mother wrote things down. Hard data, but also her feelings. That’s how I learned that I have a job here. And that she loved me.”

Riley doesn’t like the way Adam keeps calling Dr. Walsh “Mother.” Xander tries to calm him down, not upset the big demon/man/robot. Riley doesn’t pay any attention to him.

“Riley!” warns Xander.

Adam recognises the name. He pulls out another disk, labeled “FINN” and slides it in. “Oh! Mother created you too!”

“Maggie is not my mother!” Riley looks at Buffy. “I have a mother, a real—”

“A birth mother, yes,” says Adam, “But after you met Maggie, she was the one who shaped your basic operating system. She taught you how to think, how to feel. She fed you chemicals to make you stronger. Your mind and body. She said that you and I were her favourite children, her art. That makes us brothers…family.”

Riley steps closer to Adam. “No, I’m not like you!”

“That’s pain, isn’t it?” asks Adam, “Why? Because your feeding schedule, the chemicals, have been interrupted? Or do you miss her? Tell me.”

“I’ll kill you!” says Riley.

“You won’t,” says Adam, “You haven’t been programmed to.”

“I cannot be programmed!” says Riley. “I’m a man!”

“It’s here.” Adam holds up another disk. “The plan she had for us. What happens. How it ends. Do you want to hear?”

“No!” Riley pulls out his pistol and aims at Adam’s head.

Adam swats the gun aside, and grabs Riley’s arm. Buffy tries to come to Riley’s aid, but she gets swatted aside too. Adam hits Riley and knocks him flying across the room. Xander tries to grab Adam but he gets tossed away as well.

Dr. Angleman tries to run away. Adam extends his skewer and kills Angleman with it.

Forrest and Graham start pounding on the outside of the door. They can’t open it.

Riley attacks Adam again, and gets skewered in the side.

Buffy attacks, kicking and punching at Adam. He barely notices her blows, and knocks her away again.

“Thank you.” Adam looks around at the various people lying on the floor around him. “This has been…very interesting.” He climbs up a ladder back to the catwalk, and up into an air vent. Buffy goes to check on Riley.

The commandos outside the door shoot away the lock, and come into the room. Xander tells them that the demon escaped through the vent. Buffy tells them it wasn’t the Polgara. It looked sort of half man.

“Right,” says Forrest. “And you just happened to be in the neighbourhood.”

“She’s telling the truth,” says Riley. “I saw it. It killed Angleman. Go. Now!”

Some of the commandos go after Adam. Forrest, Graham and a couple of others stay behind. Buffy tells them that they have to get Riley to a hospital. Forrest tells her that they will take care of it. Buffy wants to go along.

“It’s a military hospital,” says Forrest. “Back off! We take care of our own around here, understand?” A couple of the commandos level their guns at Buffy.

Xander thinks that this is a good time to let the commandos have their way. Forrest and Graham pick up Riley, and Forrest orders the others to escort Buffy and Xander out.

A beaten and bloody Spike gets tossed out into the alley behind Willy’s. A demon stands over him. “What did you expect, Spike, a welcome party? Word’s out. You’ve been making war on the demon world, with the Slayer. You kill other demons, and the rest of us don’t hold with that.” The demon warns him that if he shows his face again, he will be killed.

Epilogue

Buffy and Willow walk through the UCSunnydale campus. Buffy hasn’t heard from Riley, and she hasn’t been able to come up with any plan to get to see him which probably won’t get her shot. “What am I going to do? He needs me, and I can’t get near him.” Plus she has the whole Adam thing to worry about. She can’t concentrate on the Initiative while he’s still at large.

“He’s really that big of a threat?” asks Willow.

“I could barely fight him,” says Buffy. “It was like Maggie designed him to be the ultimate warrior. He’s smart and fast. He gave the commando guys the slip with no problem.”

“There’s got to be a flaw,” says Willow.

“I think the part where he’s pure evil and kills randomly was an oversight.” Buffy is still feeling guilty about letting them take Riley away from her. She needs to be with him.

“I’m sure he’s okay,” says Willow.

“There’s no way he can be,” says Buffy. “Everything he’s ever believed in has been taken away or… He’s alone. He has nothing to hold on to.”

Riley lies in a bed in the Initiative’s infirmary. He’s holding Buffy’s kerchief tightly in his fist.

Death Toll