City of Steel - Part One

The Visitor and The Buffybot Adventures Present:

CITY OF STEEL
Part One

“Angelus.”
The word issued from a voice like old gravel, out of a green, bulbous, yet oddly majestic demon all but pouring over a throne of ebon stone, underneath the streets of Los Angeles, California. The vampire he spoke it to stepped forward out of the shadows and into the firelight.
“Goraiko,” the guest replied, dark hair framing the inhuman ridges on his transformed face, “...been a while.”
The demon called Goraiko lifted a clawed hand in greeting. Around him, a host of vampire guards flexed their muscles. “Too long, old friend. Too long. Romania, correct?”
The vampire smiled. “Good times. Heard you were in my town, thought I’d be sociable.”
Goraiko chuckled, making a noise like a landslide, before pushing up off his throne. His odd body shifted and settled as he moved, the great chains he wore as vestments rattling as he went. When he had reached his full nine feet, he stepped slowly towards his old cohort, shaking his head.
“Angelus, Angelus...it is Goraiko to whom you speak. Sociable you never were.” He paused, shifting his gaze to the girl on the vampire’s arm.
“Ah...except, of course, with your women, eh? Who is your lovely friend?”
Goraiko extended a thick arm and took the offered hand of the vampire’s escort. She gave the green demon a polite, sensual smile as he gingerly kissed her hand.
“This is Faith,” the vampire replied, noting Goraiko’s immediate reaction. He grinned again and continued.
“...the vampire slayer.”
Around them, the vampire guards started murmuring and shifting, tensing their undead bodies for attack. Even Goraiko backed off, though it had been a century since anyone had even dared attack his noble self. He eyed his guests with restrained anger.
“You must be mad, Angelus! It is suicide to anger Goraiko...to say nothing of consorting with the chosen one. You are vampire! She is Slayer!”
Shifting on the vampire’s arm, the brunette blew a few strands of hair out of her face. “And YOU are in dire need of a mint.” She gave the stunned Goraiko a withering glare before shifting lazily to her right. “I’m bored already.”
The vampire laughed. “Relax, green-jeans. Has old Angelus ever let you down?” Easing the girl’s grip off his coatsleeve, he took a step closer. “I know you don’t exactly get out too much, big G...but surely your goon squad here reports back to you from topside every now and then? Stories, rumours, the odd misplaced post-it note?”
Goraiko stayed his ground. “Continue.”
“Oh, come on!” Spreading his arms wide, the vampire turned and faced the assembled vampire guards with mocking eyes. “At least ONE of you sad excuses for a nightcrawler must have heard the stories by now. Of the rogue Slayer?”
Goraiko turned and stared hard at his soldiers, who one by one looked confused, searching, and entirely awkward. Until at length, one of them slowly put a tentative hand in the air.
“Uhh...I think I heard something about that, boss...actually...”
Without another word, Goraiko took two huge strides towards the guard with the raised hand. He wrapped his long talons around the vampire’s throat.
“A Slayer, turned on her calling, and I was not told? You dare withhold from Goraiko??”
The guard sputtered and choked under the demon’s powerful grip. Behind them, the dark-haired girl squealed with delight.
“Finally! I thought this yakfest was never gonna end. Yo, Hulk!”
Goraiko turned his head, eyeing the girl, who looked almost feral with excitement. “How about you let me dust him for you? Sort of a ‘prove myself to the big bad boss-man’ thing? I could use the exercise.”
Beside her, the girl’s vampiric escort nodded proudly. “She is SUCH a pip. You really have to see her work.”
Goraiko waited a moment, then let out a heavy laugh, releasing his grip and dropping his nearly crushed guard to the ground. He turned and walked back towards his guests. A smile started across his wide face.
“To see a Slayer kill a vampire, little one, is proof of little but that she is a Slayer. But if what I am told is true...if you have turned from your destiny...”
“Destiny shmestiny. I like power. Let someone else save the puppies and damsels. Never had much use for them, myself.”
As she smiled a dark smile, Goraiko raised his hand to the girl’s face, parting the hair from her face to reveal a scar across her cheek. “Others, perhaps, have not approved of your new...’lifestyle’, the humans call it?”
“I like to play rough,” the girl said with a wink. Goraiko turned to her companion.
“You always surprise me, Angelus...I never thought I would see you with anyone but Darla.”
“I guess I have relationship issues, what can I say? Besides, that whole ‘dating your sire’ trip has such an incest vibe to it.”
Across the room, one of the guards nodded his head glumly. “Hear ya, brother.”
Moving quickly away from Goraiko, the Slayer grew annoyed. “Are we gonna talk about your ex-skank all day, or get down to business? Not all of us dig on sewer smell, you know.”
The vampire laughed heartily, making a quick cat’s claw motion to Goraiko. The girl gave him a whack on the shoulder for it.
“And what business is it,” Goraiko asked at last, “...that brings my old comrade Angelus, and his remarkable new friend, to my presence, then?”
The vampire raised an eyebrow. “Word up top is, you made a big score recently. A score, one might say, of the forbidden-occult, end-the-world variety?”
“The Hand of Manus,” the girl added with a smug grin, “...good news travels fast.”
Goraiko and his guards looked uneasy for a moment. But the great demon let out a hollow laugh shortly after.
“Angelus, you were always quick. How did you know?”
“Because you beat US to the punch,” was the reply, “...Faith and I paid old man Gregson a hospitality call two nights ago.”
“Looking for a certain five-fingered, ten-thousand year old accessory,” the blonde noted, “...Imagine our surprise when we found it had already been snatched. Had to break an awful lot of that guy’s insides before we got your name out of him. Thanks for that opportunity, by the way.”
“You’re planning something big, Gorey. We want in.”
Goraiko eyed his guests carefully, stepping closer. His gaze fell especially heavy on the slight frame of the girl.
“Asking Goraiko to traffic with the Slayer...even a rogue, my dear, is to ask much. I will need...assurances.”
The girl sneered. “Assurances? Do I look like an Allstate rep, gruesome?”
“Faith...”
Swatting the vampire’s hand away, the girl kept her eyes locked on Goraiko. “Yeah yeah, I get it. I’ll jump through the big bad’s hoops. But first, I wanna see it.”
Goraiko bristled. “The Hand..?”
“Damn skippy the Hand! So far all I’ve heard is a lot of demon wind and Yoda-speak, and I’m not...and I’m not...and I’m not...notnotnotnotnotnotnotnotnotnotnotnnnnn......”
Goraiko and his guards stared curiously as the girl started issuing forth a stream of repetitive babble, otherwise remaining stock-still. Her vampiric companion looked suddenly nervous.
“...NNNNNnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnot going anywhere until I get some assurance of my OWN, bubba.”
The room was perfectly quiet then. Goraiko eased slowly forward, an expression approaching curiosity on his face. The girl remained still as his massive head lurched over her own. And before she could react, a thin, tongue-like appendage shot out of Goraiko’s mouth and licked harmlessly across her cheek. She recoiled, pushing Goraiko back.
“Hey! What gives, you perv? No tongue on the first...”
“She is no Slayer! BETRAYAL!!”
Goraiko thrust one massive arm out, knocking Buffybot back into Angel. They stumbled together before regaining their balance. The vampires surrounding them were wearing their demonic faces. And Goraiko was getting bigger.
Angel cast a quick, annoyed glance at Buffybot, looking rather sheepish now underneath her black wig.
“The HARD way, then..?”

“Man, I wish they’d let me go with’em. Sounded like a good time.”
Gunn slashed across the hotel lobby with a broadsword, working up a lively sweat. Fred was flipping through a case file at the desk, smiling.
“Good time? Penetrating the lair of Goraiko the Oppressor and his demon gang to steal a ten-thousand year old wizard claw that could turn the world inside out?”
Driving a powerful thrust though a nonexistant opponent, Gunn paused to think. “Well...I admit I used to have cooler ways of spending Friday nights...”
“I hope they’ll be all right.” Fred fretted momentarily, then pulled a small bottle of aspirin out of a drawer and cracked it open. She tapped two out then swallowed both with a drink of water.
“You all right yourself?”
Fred turned to see Gunn walking over. She blushed quickly at his concern. “Just a little headache is all. It’s okay. Cordy had some aspirin stashed.”
“That why you ain’t out with them? Cordelia and her Sunnydale buddy, I mean?”
Fred nodded. “Why don’t you go? It’ll probably be fun...I hear going out can be fun.”
Gunn smiled, turning and launching into another attack pattern. “Nah. Let’em get all caught up, do their hometown thing. ‘Sides, Angel might need backup. They haven’t called yet, have they?”
“No...but I’m sure they will soon. As long as Angel’s plan worked...”
A sudden screech accompanied a flash of headlights, and Fred and Gunn turned their attention to the front doors. One loud slam followed, and a few seconds later the doors flew open. Angel, riddled with countless new scars and bruises, stormed in. A similarly battered Buffybot quickly dashed along behind him.
“If you weren’t working right, you should have TOLD me! You almost got us killed back there.”
“I didn’t know! It was a low-level repetitive malfunction that I thought I had under control. I must have picked it up during my battle with...”
“I don’t care where you picked it up, you should have fixed it! We were storming a demon nest, supposedly undercover, and I seem to remember you’re the one who insisted on coming!”
Gunn and Fred quietly stared, not sure when the polite time to interrupt the argument might be. Personally, Gunn could no longer decide if he still wished to have gone along or not.
“I wanted to help! Mister Gregson DID ask me for help first.”
Angel sighed. “And I appreciate you bringing this to us. Goraiko’s a tough customer. But if I’m going to work with anyone, they’ve got to be up front with me. A hundred percent. Is that clear?”
“I..”
Buffybot stared back at Angel’s stern eyes, and her defensive behaviour programming switched to off. She straightened up.
“I understand, Angel. I’m sorry.”
Barely acknowledging the apology Angel turned and started heading for the stairs. En route, he reached into his inner coat pocket, pulling out an ancient, atrophied hand and tossing it toward Fred.
“Take care of this for me. I need to clean up.”
“AAAH!”
Fred caught the hand just barely, bobbling it distastefully a few times before finally bumping it into Gunn’s clutches. He seemed to find it rather amusing.
“And here I thought Angel might need us to give HIM a hand...”
“Charles, that’s awful,” Fred noted with a brief smile, wiping her hands on her pants. When she looked up and saw Buffybot, rather forlornly watching Angel vanish up the staircase, the smile died.
“Oh, Botty...are you all right? What happened?”
Fred walked towards Buffybot, Gunn close behind. Buffybot offered up a lopsided smile.
“I goofed up. I developed a mild vocal glitch that gave us away. Which is a bummer, because I was doing really well at being an evil Slayer, I thought!”
“Yeah, you were killer in practice here this afternoon,” Gunn confirmed, “...so what’s with the malfunction?”
“It was a small energy fluctuation from one of my backup processors. It got out of control. Something got knocked loose in my fight a few nights ago. I guess I wasn’t 100% yet.”
Looking at Buffybot’s dejected expression, Fred gave her arm a reassuring pat. “It’s not your fault, sweetie. Angel understands.”
“It’s just so hard getting used to it all! I never used to have to fix myself...Willow always took care of me.”
Gunn seemed to understand. “Never easy, standin’ on your own for the first time. You’ll get it.”
“Would you like me to take a look? See if I could patch anything up, I mean?”
Buffybot smiled. “That’s very sweet, Fred. But I should get cleaned up too. I promised Oz I’d meet him.”
“Oh! That reminds me.” Fred fished around in her pocket for a moment, pulling out a scrap of paper and handing it over. “Cordy left her cell phone number, and a couple of addresses where they’re likely to be. She said Wesley might be coming later.”
“Hey, you want some bandagin’ for those cuts?”
Gunn pointed out a nasty looking row of scratches in Buffybot’s epidermal layer, all up and down her left forearm. “I know you don’t hurt, but they ARE nasty-looking.”
Botty glanced at the new wounds herself, running the fingers of her right hand gently over them. “That’s all right,” she replied, with a polite smile. “They don’t go deep.”

“Here’s to LA...cheers!”
Cordelia grinned widely at Oz’ toast and touched her glass to Oz’, then rushed to down the shot of...whatever it was that he had ordered for them. Oz beat her to the chug, loudly slamming his empty shotglass down on the table. It took Cordelia another few seconds to choke down the latest round. She’d have to slow down if she didn’t want to be on the floor by the time Wesley and Robogirl showed up. And that seriously would NOT do.
“Waow! NOW I’m awake! AwroOOOOO!!”
Shaking some of the buzz out of her head, Cordelia laughed. “I gotta say, Oz...the new you is taking some getting used to. Last time I saw you, you were the proverbial slouching tower of Zen.”
Oz smiled, before shooting Cordy an odd look. “I didn’t slouch, did I?”
“Little. Anyways, this whole Tyler Durden thing of yours is a bit much to process, although that may be the shooters talking.”
Oz shrugged, taking a sip from a pint glass. “What can I say? Me and the wolf are getting pretty tight. Amps up the aggression something fierce, among other occasional side effects.”
Cordelia nodded thoughtfully. “You haven’t started...I mean, you don’t...”
“Mark my territory? Not yet, thank God. I’ve told Axel, the day that happens, he’s fired. But so far, so good.”
That earned a raised eyebrow. “This manager of yours...Axel? This was all his idea, right? I mean, you making all nice-nice with your hairy side?”
“Mm-hmm.” Oz paused to take another large drink, nearly emptying his glass. “He calls it ‘living with the disease’. I call him full of himself, but he’s cool with that. He swings good gigs.”
“Swell. But Oz, are you sure this guy is on the up and up? Maybe I lived in Sunnydale too long...”
“You mean is he evil?”
Cordy nodded guiltily, and Oz grinned back. “Not really. We talked about it early on. I’m from Sunnydale too, you know. He’s high on mischief, but that’s it. Strictly a ‘baby bad’ at best. It’s too bad he had to go on with the rest of the band. You’d like him.”
“I’m sure,” Cordelia replied, doubting it. Suddenly she was eager to change the subject. “So what did you think of our new recruit?”
“You mean Joan?” Oz lit up, putting down what was left of his third pint. “Pretty mind-blowing. I mean...robot? That’s a new one on me.”
“She’s my second robot, actually,” Cordelia noted with odd pride. “But what do you think, really? That’s an awful lot of perky, artificial lifeform or no.”
“She definitely qualifies as odd, even from the werewolf perspective. But I think she’s great. Far as being a robot, hey, who’s to say we aren’t ALL robots, one way or another? Least she’s up front about it.”
Cordelia stared, and Oz raised his glass, flashing her a wink.
“See? I’ve still got some Zen in me yet.”

Buffybot strode at an even pace down the city streets, looking decidedly less glum than she felt. The sleeves of her leather jacket were rolled down to hide her scars, hands thrust in her jeans pockets. The scar on her cheek, a reminder of her battle with Kyle Ridge and his band a few days earlier, was still faintly visible in the moonlight. Her self-repair centers informed her it would be fully healed by tomorrow, but the news brought the little robot slender comfort.
She had messed up today, but good. And just when she’d been starting to feel like things were working out! She’d set all her systems to perform automatic triple-backups and performance checks, but somehow it felt like too little, too late. Too late to impress Angel, at least.
Annoyed at this line of pessimistic thought, Buffybot shunted some power to her anticipation circuitry, hoping to start getting excited about her night out with Oz and the others. That would be fun! Maybe she was having trouble getting Angel to like her, but she and Oz had gotten along just great, thank you very much. Wesley and Cordelia were super-duper too. Buffybot put on a big smile. Things weren’t so bad, really.
But WHY was she having so much trouble making Angel like her..?
Working hard not to let her smile fade, Buffybot increased her pace, marching past a narrow alley. She was past it in a second, stopping when she heard the faint voice issuing forth.
“Spare some change?”
Buffybot turned, glancing down and spotting the girl. Her scanners pegged her as approximately 16 years of age, and rather underweight for her age and height. From what little Buffybot could see of her face, covered as it was by a flop of dirty black hair, she seemed very pretty. She wondered why she was sitting in an alley. Maybe she was lost.
“Of course!” Buffybot smiled politely, staring down at the girl, who was only half glancing back up. “How much do you need?”
The girl shrugged weakly. “Quarter, whatever you got....please.”
Buffybot pulled out the change from her pockets. It amounted one dollar and sixty cents. She supposed it would be all right to give that away...no one had ever asked her for money before! It seemed a little odd to her, actually.
Maybe the girl was collecting for a charity, like what Dawn had told her she sometimes did for school. Wasn’t that nice!
“Here you are, miss!” Buffybot reached down and offered her handful of assorted dimes, quarters and such. “It’s very nice of you to do this. Charities help people.”
Botty let the change slide into the girls hand, and she took it without sparing a glance. “Thanks a lot,” she muttered, tucking the money inside her tattered jacket. Then she pulled it tight around herself.
Buffybot frowned. It struck her as odd that the girl didn’t seem happy...wasn’t helping people supposed to make you happy? It always did her.
“Excuse me...are you all right?”
The girl coughed out a few humourless chuckles, pulling her jacket tighter still. “Gets cold at night, is all. Wouldn’t think, in LA...but it does. Sometimes.”
Buffybot pondered that. She supposed it was so...even if cold didn’t really bother her personally. “Maybe you should go home, then,” Buffybot offered helpfully, “...then your parents could give you a nice warm sweater!”
Suddenly the girl shot Buffybot an angry glare, the hair momentarily falling away from half her face. “What are you, a comedian? You think that’s funny?”
“I’m sorry,” Buffybot said honestly, starting to get confused, “...I wasn’t trying to be...”
“Just leave me alone! Okay, just leave me...”
Something stopped the words, and the girl doubled over, shutting her eyes tight. Buffybot thought she looked like she was in pain, and she immediately kneeled down in front of her, increasing her scans.
“Are you all right? Is there something I can do? Would you like me to alert emergency medical services, or call your parents?”
“NO!”
The girl sucked a sharp breath in, seeming to recover from her momentary unease. “Just go, okay? I’ll be...fine...”
Slowly, the girl turned towards Buffybot, looking her straight in the eye. Pulling a hand out of her pocket, she swept the hair out of her eyes, and started examining Buffybot’s face with something like wonderment. Buffybot was even more confused now.
“What?” Positing a likely solution, Buffybot raised a hand to her cheek. “Is it the scar? Because I got that at work. I’m a...an auto mechanic, and I had an accident with a high pressure hose. I wasn’t fighting!”
That sounded pretty good, Buffybot thought with a slight satisfied grin. Her cover stories were definitely improving.
“You’re a ROBOT!”
Buffybot’s eyes suddenly shot wide, staring into the equally impressed orbs sizing her up scant inches away.
“What?” Immediately, Buffybot rechecked her automatic area scans, confirming that no one was within earshot. The all-clear they promptly delivered did little to assuage her worries. Did EVERYONE know?
“No, really, I’m not!” Botty protested, though the girl seemed to be barely listening anymore. “My name is Joan and I’m a mechanic, and I work on the East Side at a little garage my Father started when he was barely out of high school, and even though I was a girl he still took a chance on me. ‘Daddy’s little greasemonkey’, that’s what Mom always called me, yes sir. The things I can do with a crankshaft, well, golly, you would have to see it to...”
“You are TOTALLY a robot!” The girl practically shouted, sending a fresh jolt of worry through Buffybot’s processors. Her stress was quite lost on her young companion, however.
“Oh my God, that is SO cool! Who built you? Can you, like, do stuff? Leap tall buildings and that sh...”
“Language!”
Buffybot raised a halting finger, and the girl did indeed fall silent. She was still quite intrigued, however, and despite Buffybot’s initial surge of pride, she was obviously NOT falling for her cover story.
A mild swell of gloom fell over Botty’s emotion centers. This was screw-up number two for today, she supposed. Some wonder-robot.
A second later, Buffybot felt a hand on her shoulder, and she glanced up again at the girl. Her amazement had turned to concern.
“Hey...are you all right?”

“Yes, Miss Morgan. Of course...no, not at all. If there’s anything...
...yes, I understand. I will. Absolutely, Miss Morgan, I do. Don’t worry. Thank you.”
Biting her lip, Lara Markham gently but firmly hung her phone up, letting out a long breath. She was feeling a little irritated just now. Two weeks straight she’d been getting these check-ins and power trips from that insecure tramp Lila Morgan, backlash from her run-in with Angel and his crew over Caritas. Now she was trying to put Lara on a leash, and that just wouldn’t do. Not at all.
On top of that, Quinn STILL wasn’t back from the Deep, a longer than usual stay for him. All in all Lara felt she was having a bad day.
Leaning back, Lara took a slow, long sip of a thankfully hot cup of coffee. There was time to relax for a few minutes, she decided, before her meeting. She’d been doing a little work on this ‘Buffybot’ for Quinn, tapping into Park’s half-assed surveillance to keep an eye, but she needed more hard info, and her local contacts were coming up zero. One of her more scientifically-inclined iterations seemed to know a few things, though. Lara’d be calling her up to learn a little more...only so much you can hear across existential planes, after all.
But that could wait until she settled down. Last thing she needed was to summon the wrong ARV, like that time she tried it drunk last April. Thank God her ‘guest’ was still in the straightjacket when she arrived.
The memory gave Lara a slight cringe, and she clutched her coffee mug tight. Infinity could be a real pain sometimes.

“Hey, where’s that Irish guy I met last time? He liked a night out...what was his name?”
Stopping in mid-sip, Cordelia felt a small tremble as she lowered her glass to the table, coughing as her drink almost went down the wrong way.
“Doyle,” she replied, her eyes dropping away from Oz for a moment, “...his name was Doyle.”
Taking a deep breath, Cordelia pulled herself up and resumed eye contact. It had been two years now, after all. Saying his name shouldn’t hurt so much..right?
“...we lost him.” Despite her willed strength, Cordelia found she couldn’t quite keep her head up, after saying it out loud. She had forgotten Oz had met him.
“Oh.” Oz suddenly stiffened, his eyes softening. “Hey, I’m sorry...really. My bad.”
“It’s okay,” Cordelia offered, forcing a smile and fighting off a quick tear. Oz didn’t look as though he was completely buying her bravado.
“He was a good guy,” Oz remarked, meaning it. A loud bellow from across the bar almost drowned him out, but Cordy ignored it.
“The best.”
“Knew how to drink, too,” Oz added, loosening up and trying to lighten the suddenly sombre mood, “...very seriously Irish.”
Cordelia sniffled. “You were his little Bam-Bam.”
Eyes shooting wide, Oz waved an excited finger. “Right! Bam-Bam...wow, that was while ago, huh?” When there was no response besides a mild nod from Cordelia, Oz glanced about and started to rise.
“I’m getting us a refresher,” he announced, “...hold the fort, Pebbles.”
“I have to work in the morning..!”
Despite Cordy’s plea, and Oz’s likely enhanced wolf-hearing, he made a quick line for the bar through the growing crowd. Cordelia sighed and smiled, wiping away a tiny bit of moisture from one eye. No waterworks tonight, she told herself...though if Oz kept up this pace, Dennis would have his work cut out for him getting her ass out of bed in the morning.
“Cordelia?”
Surprised, Cordy looked up and saw Wesley staring back down, a familiar look of concern in his eyes. She immediately put on her happy face.
“Too much Sambuca,” she noted, only half-lying. Wes smirked and pulled himself a chair. “About time you made it. I need back-up!”
“So I see.” Wes took a glance at the collection of empty shooter glasses and mugs on the table, raising an eyebrow. “I take it the ‘new Oz’ is prone to more than his share of merriment?”
“If that means he’s a teeny weeny Russell Crowe, yes. Do wolves do drop-shots in their natural habitat? Should I have been paying more attention to those nature shows all these years?”
“You and I both,” Wesley agreed, submerging a tiny wave of regret that Fred hadn’t made it out after all. Still...it would be good to see Oz again. He reckoned they had both changed quite a bit since their last meeting.
“Where IS the werewolf of the hour..?”
Cordelia motioned towards the bar. “Loading up on alcohol like it’s about to be outlawed,” she said drily. “Wes, you come from a beer-worshipping people, maybe YOU can keep...”
A loud crash cut Cordelia off when a figure came spinning downward onto her table, sending the aforementioned collection of glasses and tumblers flying to the ground. Cordy gave a short cry of surprise, and both she and Wes looked down to see a familiar face, laughing, resting in the wreckage at their feet. Approaching them all was one of the largest, and angriest men either had ever seen.
“Still think that’s funny, jackass? I’ll give YOU bam-bam!”
Oz laughed harder from his painful-looking spot on the ground, and Wes bid his hopes for a pleasant night out farewell. “Oz. You’re...looking well.”
Oz winked back, pushing himself to a stand. Cordelia glared.
“Would this be one of those unexpected side-effects you mentioned..?”
“As for example,” Oz replied with a grin, before launching himself forward, howling loudly all the while.

Buffybot quickly located a small coffee shop nearby, where she and Jackie (the girl’s name, she quickly learned) had relocated to talk. Jackie sure was a hungry little girl, Buffybot noted. It was a lucky thing Gunn had lent her some money for tonight.
“I’ve always been able to...mmff...to see things, you know? Don’t really know why...”
“You shouldn’t talk with your mouth full,” Botty advised politely. Her curiousity about Jackie’s ESP was being momentarily overshadowed by a subdirective on table manners. But just for a moment.
Jackie laughed awkwardly, then forced herself to swallow an impressive slice of carrot cake. A few crumbs spilled onto a dark blue jewel on her bracelet.
“That’s very pretty,” Botty noted genuinely. Jackie lowered her eyes.
“It was my Mom’s...only thing I remember about her, really. Kind of a keepsake, I guess. From the good old day.”
Buffybot felt a twinge of sadness. It was sad to not have a Mother. “Do you live with your Father, Jackie? Should we..”
“Dad?” Jackie laughed again, this time with a lot less humour. “Dad didn’t really feel like raising Mommy’s little freak all by himself, okay? And I didn’t feel like getting my ass kicked every other day just for being born. I left that creep back in Michigan. If there’s any justice, the son of a bitch’s long dead by now.”
That gave Buffybot a shock. It certainly didn’t jibe well with her protocol processors. Fathers were supposed to love their daughters...and little girls sure weren’t supposed to be living all on their lonesome! Even ones who seemed to know things they shouldn’t.
“You said you could see things,” Buffybot prodded, shifting back to a subject she felt at least mild comfortability with, “...how? Do you mean you have telepathic skills?”
After a moment of gulping down a mocha latte, which Buffybot thought would be very tasty, Jackie wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “I guess...a little like that Dead Zone crap. I just sometimes get these flashes from people, or whatever. It sucks.”
“Really?” Buffybot sounded surprised. “It sounds very exciting to me! Reading thoughts, having special powers...”
“It sucks,” Jackie reiterated, “...I’m a freak. People like normal, okay? First sign of not-normal, they start treating you like the town leper.”
“Don’t be so silly. You aren’t a leper, Jackie, you’re a pretty young lady with super-powers! Think positive, that’s what I say.”
Jackie looked unimpressed at Buffybot’s attempt at inspiration. “Is it?” She took another sip of her mocha, boring holes into Buffybot with her dark eyes. “What’s it like, being a robot?” The question came out almost as a challenge. And, Botty had to admit, not an entirely simple one.
A few months ago, of course, she wouldn’t have hesitated to offer her wholehearted enthusiastic support for robotness. She had friends, and a mission, and a good, clear mechanical outlook on things. A smile was her umbrella (It kept the frowndrops off)!
But since her revival and relocation to LA, well...some of the perks of being a robot had gotten, perhaps, slightly less perky. Emotions were sure a handful, she had to say. She’d been doing just fine without them! Now she was forever getting all goofy and sad and upset, not at all like a proper android, not one bit.
Plus, all her friends had forgotten about her, and she was in a strange new city where the sky was polluted and people seemed to get kidnapped an awful lot, and she kept on messing up in front of Angel, and...
“It’s lonely,”
Buffybot snapped out of introspection mode and stared at her new companion. Jackie looked back sympathetically.
“...isn’t it?”

Angel jogged down the stairs of the Hyperion, changed and cleaned from his battle earlier. Gunn and Fred were behind the main desk, playing a spirited game of snap.
“Fred, call Mister Gregson, tell him we’ve got his hand. The sooner we can get this thing back in his vaults the better. In the meantime, Gunn, I don’t want it out of our sight.”
“I’m on it, “ Gunn replied, pointing to the artifact in question, loitering quietly on a nearby tabletop. Fred put down her cards and walked to the telephone, giving Angel a cautious eye as she went.
“Angel?”
Not looking, Angel continued walking towards Wesley’s office, doing up his shirt. “Yeah?”
Fred fiddled half-heartedly with the phone. “Oh nothin’...nothing important, I suppose. Just...it’s nothing.”
Angel stopped, turned, and stared at Fred, who was peering awkwardly back. Gunn just smiled and continued playing on his own.
“What is it, Fred?”
“It’s just...”
Girding herself, Fred took her hands off the telephone. “Buffybot. She seemed kinda upset tonight. Dont’cha think you were a little hard on her?”
There was no immediate answer, just a continuing glare, but Fred stood her ground. “She’s trying her hardest, Angel. You know she is.”
Continuing his cardplay, Gunn snuck a peek towards Angel who, after several moments of patented stammering, finally sank into a defeated slouch. Gunn grinned and threw down another card.
“I know. And okay, I was a little rough on her. But...”
“But nothin’! Honest, Angel, you’re a sweetie pie, but you got enough buts to fill a roomful of rocking chairs!”
Angel and Gunn both tossed confused stares at Fred, who squirmed playfully. “My Gran always used to say that.”
Smiling now, Angel straightened up. “So what do you want me to do?”
“Just...be a little nicer to her, is all. Lighten up. I know what it’s like bein’ the new girl around here, Angel. It can be pretty scary sometimes.”
Angel glanced from Fred to Gunn, who just shrugged his shoulders noncommitally and continued snapping cards down. He sighed.
“Maybe I’ll call Cordy...meet up with them tonight, try and smooth things over. Okay?”
Fred smiled girlishly, clapping her hands together loudly. “You’re the best!”
Nodding, Angel slowly walked back into the lobby and up the stairs to grab his coat, unaware of the undead eyes staring in at this moment from outside the hotel. He’d learn about them soon enough. For now he just climbed the stairs, mumbling to himself.
“They couldn’t have built a robot Xander..?”

“I’m not lonely!”
Buffybot backed up defensively, although Jackie continued leaning over the table, staring her down through strands of jet black hair. It was a look that made Buffybot think her denial was not being taken entirely seriously.
“Really, I’m not! I’m...I have friends! You bet I do! I’m off to meet some of them right now and have some crazy fun. We’re clubbing! We’re going to drink and dance and laugh and...”
Halting, Buffybot’s intuition generators came up with something that she somehow couldn’t quite ignore. She leaned forward. “Did...did your telepathy tell you I was lonely?”
Jackie shook her head. “Just recognized it. You can tell, after a while. I’ve been alone my whole life. I bet you have too.”
“Nuh-uh!” Botty protested, reactivating her conversational defenses, “...I’ve had plenty of friends. Tara, and Dawn, and Xander, and Mister Giles, and...”
“But were they really friends?” Jackie asked, surprising Buffybot. “Didn’t they just think you were some dumb machine? Isn’t that what they STILL think?”
“I don’t understand...how could you know...”
“THAT was the telepathy,” Jackie replied, smirking. Buffybot thought it was an awfully confusing way to carry on a conversation, neat though it was. It was also a little bit depressing. “They ARE my friends, “she repeated, eyes wide, “...they just don’t remember. That’s all.”
“For a robot, you don’t lie very good.”
Fighting to suppress a fresh barrage of emotional information, Buffybot spoke in as flat a monotone as she could muster. “I’m not lying.”
Jackie shook her head softly, then reached a hand across the table, resting it on Botty’s arm. “Joan, it’s okay. I mean, it sucks, but it’s okay to admit it. Better to be alone than stuck with jerks, I figure.”
Botty let slip a tiny smile at the corner of her mouth. She was quite liking her new friend Jackie, and noted it in her files. Although she had to say, she wasn’t always fond of everything she had to say. Even if it was fairly accurate.
“I’m not SO lonely...”
Giving Buffybot’s arm a soft squeeze, Jackie leaned closer. “I’ll bet they don’t understand you,” she said quietly, “...’cause you’re a robot?”
Buffybot raised her head to meet Jackie’s gaze. Yes, she decided with some positivity, she liked her new friend very much.
“No,” she answered, alert, “...they really don’t seem to understand at all.”

“Oh, I understand, all right. You’re a crazy little wolf-person and I liked you a lot better when you were your quiet old Sunnydale self!”
“Don’t overreact. It was just a barfight...besides, did you see the look on his face when I cannonballed him? THAT was classic, you have to admit.”
“Classic stupid,” Cordelia sniped, pulling her jacket tighter around her shoulders. Oz just snickered, and Wesley cleared his throat. He walked in between the two of them, a wise policy at the moment he had decided, as they walked down the sidewalk, having been soundly kicked out of the last bar. And before Wesley had even managed a single pint!
“Now, now,” Wes soothed, trying to defuse his partner, “...no harm done, except for a few tables and some glassware.”
“See? Wes gets me. We always did see eye to eye, right?”
Cordy rolled his eyes, and Wesley wasn’t far off himself. “Yes, well...it’s certainly gotten off to an exciting start so far. Perhaps we should call it an early night..?”
“No way!” Oz sounded adamant, turning towards Wes and Cordy. “Joan was really looking forward to this. Don’t worry, I’ve got it out of my system. I promise, more Jekyll, less Hyde for the rest of the night. Deal?”
Staring Oz down, Cordelia’s annoyance finally gave way to his pleading. “Okay, but you’d better watch it, buster! I may not be the ‘old Cordelia’ so much anymore, but I do NOT get kicked out of two bars in one night. Got it?”
Oz shot Cordelia a soft smile and they all started walking again, Wesley for one secretly glad that he’d have the chance to get at least a few drinks in tonight. None of them were aware they were being followed.

A waitress came by and dropped off two cups of regular coffee for Buffybot and Jackie. Neither of them seemed to pay any attention to the event, however. Jackie just leaned forward, chin resting in her palms, listening to Buffybot talk. And talk she did.
“...and I’m grateful, I sure am! But now I’m back in this new body, with all these new programs, and systems, and no one to repair me, and no one understands how hard it all is. The emotions are bad enough all on their lonesome, and boy do they cause me troubles, I could tell you. They’re so...new!”
Buffybot finally paused to mimic taking a breath, using the break to review just how long she had been complaining. Had she really been complaining? That wasn’t like her at all. She had never thought it a very constructive pastime.
But then, she had never really had anyone who seemed willing to LISTEN to anything she had to complain about. It was more than a little freeing, she thought. She wondered if this was relief she was feeling now.
“It sounds really rough,” Jackie said in agreement, rapt with attention now. She didn’t seem to be hungry anymore. “People just have no clue...can’t put themselves in someone else’s shoes for one lousy second.”
Buffybot smiled. “Today? Angel and I were laying siege to a villain’s lair, and I got a little glitch in my vocal processors? And he got SO mad at me! I felt just terrible. And I don’t like feeling terrible, not even a little bit.”
“What a jerk! Like he doesn’t screw up all the time too, I’ll bet.”
“Xander used to tell me stories,” Botty confided with a grin, “...but I just wish...”
Jackie inched forward. “Yes?”
Buffybot stopped then, consulting her chronometer. “Goodness, look at the time! I should call Cordelia...”
“Never mind them!” Jackie almost knocked her coffee over reaching a hand forward, this time taking Buffybot’s hand in hers. “Stop living around everyone else, Joan. They sure as Hell aren’t living for you.”
Buffybot squirmed just a little. “I don’t know about all THAT...they are super-nice people, really...”
“Just stay and talk a little more, okay? You aren’t the only lonely one out there..”
A sudden rush of guilt flooded Botty’s processors. “Oh, I’m sorry! Have I been insensitive? Because I really try not to be, but I’m still adjusting, and...”
“Joan, it’s okay. Really? I’m okay. But thanks...I really like listening to you. You’re really cool.”
Jackie stared fondly at the little robot, whose guilt was giving way to embarrassment. “Me? Cool? Really?”
“Really really,” Jackie answered, smiling, “...now what were you gonna say before? I want to know.”
What a great new friend, Buffybot thought with one of the bigger smiles she’d used in recent weeks. It was so nice to be with someone who really wanted to just hear what Buffybot had to say. She felt a little bitty bit bad about doing so much kvetching, but...
...oh, shoot, Botty decided. What could be the harm?
“I just wish,” Buffybot resumed, “...that everyone else could know what it’s like to be a robot. Maybe then...”
A sudden flood of external signals bombarding Buffybot’s receptor array suddenly cut off her dialogue, and she lurched back in surprise. Even her sophisticated brain needed a few seconds to make sense of the massive informational upgrade. It was as if there were electronic signals coming in from everywhere! Botty’s automatic systems hurriedly sorted them, finding most to be relatively innocuous...GPS and locator transmissions and the like. But where had they come from?
Buffybot recovered quickly, and looked across the table at Jackie. In an instant her threat assessors went active at the sight of the demon seated opposite her. It didn’t match any of her files, but had dark, dark skin like tree bark. It’s forehead was sloped in an exagerrated V-shape, it had fire-red eyes, and was grinning a sinister grin indeed. Nothing about it was familiar...except of course, for the clothes it wore. And the bracelet around it’s wrist.
Buffybot’s intuition generators took little time in making what would turn out to be a very good guess.
“...Jackie?”
‘Jackie’ smiled wider, baring short, cerrated teeth, and uttered one word. The voice was cold.
“Done.”
A flash of dark light followed, overpowering Buffybot’s visual scanners for a split-second. When they recovered, she was alone at the table. And the optimism she’d started feeling a few minutes ago was fading pretty darn fast. Intuition generators and logic processors were working furiously to figure out what had just happened...Jackie hadn’t been a demon when they’d first met, Buffybot was certain of that. So how had she suddenly become one? And where had she gone? And why was she receiving all these unidentified external transmissions...not really directed at her, Buffybot had by now deduced, just a sort of background noise. But many thousands of times more than was normally present in the LA Airspace.
Slowly, Buffybot was getting the unpleasant feeling that she had goofed up a third time. “Payment, please.”
Botty turned up and saw her waitress standing over her, hand extended. “Payment, please,” she repeated, smiling a benign smile al the while.
“Oh. Of course!” Buffybot was glad for the reminder...she should probably leave this place and find the others. Maybe they could help her figure out what had happened, without having to involve Angel. He was already cross at her, no need to bother him worse.
Buffybot pulled a ten dollar bill out of her jacket and handed it dutifully to the waitress. She would just wait for her change and then go out and solve this mystery!
The waitress uttered a polite ‘Thank you’, before her chest cavity opened up with a hydraulic hiss, and a tightly compartmentalized cash register setup slid out. With deft precision she folded the ten dollar bill, tucking it into a slot. Next to it, Buffybot’s bill appeared in digital readout, and a second later the appropriate change dispensed itself into the waitress’ hand. The cavity resealed itself and the waitress handed the change to a much shocked Buffybot.
“Payment received,” the waitress said with an ever-present smile, “...have a pleasant day, patron. Gratuities appreciated. Suggestion: .15%. Goodnight!”
“Wait!”
“Yes?” The waitress paused, flashing a perfect smile. “Do you require further service?”
Firing every scan she could muster towards the waitress, analyzing every scrap of information coming in to the utmost of her considerable abilities, Buffybot couldn’t find anything in what she was discovering to prevent her from asking the question that she, herself, never liked hearing. But she asked anyways.
“Are...are you a robot?”
“Affirmative,” the waitress replied automatically, “...gratuities appreciated. Good night!”
Buffybot didn’t stop her from walking away this time, concentrating instead on widening her scans all around her, hoping to find something to contradict the conclusions her logic processors were churning out. But as she watched her fellow coffeehouse patrons uploading their coffee files, and monitored a person-to-person e-transfer of 25 cents from a business-bot to a homeless-unit on the street, Willow’s file on Anya and her days as a Vengeance Demon started calling themselves to attention. Certain types of demon, it stated quite plainly, disguised themselves as human and granted wishes, usually harmful or disruptive. It warned to be especially careful about making any wishes out loud, a bit of advice Buffybot immediately entered into her conversational algorithms, a touch too late. If what she suspected was true...
“I’ve definitely goofed again,” Buffybot said glumly, getting out of her chair and taking to the streets. After leaving a nice tip, of course. Even robot-waitresses had to pay the bills, she figured.

“Greetings, Professor Markham. Your appearance is appreciated.”
Nodding politely, the recently arrived Chelsea Markham settled into her chair in Lara Markham’s office. Although she felt just a little uncomfortable...something, and she couldn’t quite tell what as yet, seemed very off about her hostess.
“You possess detailed knowledge of target designate: Buffybot in your native reality, correct? Please upload said data in it’s entirety.”
Chelsea looked confused. “Upload..?”
Smiling back at her mittor-image, Larabot leaned forward, opening a small dataport in her wrist and pulling forth a connection wire. She offered it to her guest. “Please.”
Professor Markham stared. This was not how she envisioned the meeting going. She’d crossed over several times before...her mind-to-mind contact with Lara was crucial in getting the device created in the first place. Something awfully strange was going on.
“Excuse me...I don’t mean to be rude, but...”
“Proceed,” Larabot said, remaining immobile. Chelsea cleared her throat.
“It’s just...well, forgive me for asking, Lara, but...are you a robot?”
“Affirmative,” Larabot replied smartly, cocking her head to one side. “Reason for inquiry?”
The Professor squirmed slightly. “Well...you never USED to be. That’s all.”
Blinking, Larabot leaned back in her seat, scanning her memory and system specs. “That information is contradictory to my existing data. Please explain how you came by it.”
“Lara...”
“Larabot,” she corrected, “...continue.”
“Larabot...I’ve met you before. We’ve been in sub-ethereal telepathic contact for over ten years now...we ALL have. And I promise, you were never a robot before. None of us are. We’re all human.”
“Human?” Larabot looked confused at the term, something that worried her counterpart. A thought came to her.
“Does this have anything to do with the Buffybot? You brought me here to ask about her...”
“Affirmative,” Larabot replied, doing a few experimental logic operations, trying to make sense of what she was hearing. It did NOT compute...but her still-existing telepathic link was corroborating what her guest was saying. It was curious.
“Continue, please.”

HYPERIONHOTEL/LOBBY
“Gunnbot? Are you registering any unusual auditory signals?”
Rising from her seat at the lobby counter, Fredbot stood and cast her visual receptors outside, canning as best she could. Something she had just heard was not sitting well with her internal processors.
“Negative,” Gunnbot replied, having returned to his martial exercises, executing drill routines with a longsword. “I give 90% odds it was Angelbot you heard.” Gunnbot thrust the open air hard, increasing his speed by a factor of .33 over the last run-through. He grinned.
“That computes,” Fredbot admitted, her extrapolation functions getting a surge, “...Angelbot is taking a large quantity of time for readying himself, isn’t he?”
“The lack of mirror-function has gotta be a factor. Why do you seem excessively distracted?”
Fredbot enabled a shrug. “Possible reason: presence of the Hand of Manus. It activates my creepout function. I wish Mister Gregsonbot were retrieving it sooner.”
“Engage chill mode, Fredbot. Hand artifact is safe. Now cast your visual scanners in the direction of this next attack sequence...it classifies as ‘tight’.”
“Conserve your energy, Gunnbot.”
Gunnbot and Fredbot turned as Angelbot bounded down the stairs, making for the weapons cabinet. “I scanned them from the window upstairs,” Angelbot continued, pulling out a battleaxe, “...Demonbots. Numbering 6, minimum.”
Gunnbot activated defensive posturing. “Demonbots? In pursuit of the Hand artifact?”
“Enemy designate Goraiko may have had followers in reserve,” Angelbot hypothesized, moving forward and disengaging his automatic brood-mode functions, “...Fredbot! Take the hand and plot a flight path through the sewer access tunnels. We will retrieve you when combat is successfully terminated.”
“But Angelbot..!” Fredbot gathered up the Hand artifact, her state-of-the-art brain complex analyzing hundreds of scenarios a second. “Perhaps I should activate telephonic link-up with Cordeliabot! She and the others could...”
“I engaged said communication from upstairs,” Angelbot interrupted, prompting a surge of surprise from Fredbot, “...now go! We must protect the Hand artifact!”
Distressed, Fredbot nonetheless acquiesced to Angelbot’s command override. “Use extreme caution, Gunnbot/Angelbot!”
“Go!”
Darting around a corner, Fredbot disappeared from active scanning range with the Hand artifact, just as the first Demonbot burst through the main doors. It was followed closely by several others.
“At least I’ll get to input SOME action today,” Gunnbot mused, tensing his prodigious battle circuitry, “...gotta love evil that delivers.” Beside him, Angelbot activated his vampiric facial-mode.
“Action shouldn’t be much of a worry. Let’s get this over with.”

“This classifies as ridiculous,” Cordeliabot said, checking her chronometer for the third time in a minute, “...I thought he said he WASN’T marking his territory yet.”
Wesbot nodded reflexively, leaning up against the side of a building while Ozbot, down a nearby alley, performed an emergency waste-discharge operation. He wondered just what quantity of technohol Ozbot had already downloaded.
Already knowing the answer, Cordeliabot busied herself adding a line to her personality software to regard with wariness any future invitations to engage in social activities with a Lycanthropic unit.

“Sorry, maybe I’ve got smog in my ears...you turned WHO into a robot?”
“Everyone!” Buffybot raced down street after street, Doyle keeping an effortless pace thanks to the benefits of non-corporeality. “At least, everyone I’ve come into scanning range of so far. I think I may have been tricked by a Vengeance Demon.”
“One of those wish-demons? Are you sure?”
“My intuition generators are giving it high odds...otherwise, it’s a pretty funny coincidence.”
Doyle grimaced. “Not funny ha-ha, but I get it. So how big is this? Are we talkin’ planet of the robots here?”
“I don’t know,” Buffybot admitted, taking a sharp left, “...Anya was the only Vengeance Demon I ever knew, and I never talked at any length about the extent of her former abilities. Do you know anything about Vengeance Demons?”
“A little, none of it good. This is trouble, kiddo. We gotta fix this.”
“I’m on my way to Cordelia and the others now,” Buffybot replied, “...but I’m sure they’re in no immediate danger. Being a robot isn’t so bad, really! I do it every day!”
“I don’t mean any offense, doll. You wear it well, no fooling. But Cordy and the rest might not fit molded steel shells quite as...naturally as you do. Know what I mean?”
“I think so...aha! I found them! Five blocks ahead!”
“Really?” Doyle squinted to get a better look. “You can scan’em from that far away?”
“Not exactly. I’ve managed to home in on Cordelia’s personal identification signal.”
That gave Doyle pause. “Cordelia has a personal...whatever?”
“Yup! Everyone seems to, now that they’re robots. It’s awfully convenient, actually.”
From his ghostly perch, Doyle gave Buffybot a stern glance. “Don’t go gettin’ any ideas now, gal.”
“I wasn’t!” Glancing momentarily at Doyle, Buffybot quickly refocussed on her quarry, increasing her footspeed. Her eyes narrowed.
“It’s just awfully convenient, is all...”

Finally emerging from his alley, Ozbot gave a long stretch, paying little attention to the glares Cordybot was giving him. Instead he gave a quick consult to his planning software.
“Do we have a new destination selected yet? Maybe we should contact Joan.”
“I know an amenable establishment,” Wesbot said proudly, mapping a course, “...we could enjoy a round of darts amid imbibements.”
“Swell,” Cordybot muttered, sarcasm mode in full force, “...and Buffybot has my communication digits. She can initiate contact with us when...”
“There she is,” Ozbot interrupted, pointing to a lone figure running down the street. “Joan! Over here!”
Ozbot stepped towards the curb, waving. Buffybot was still about a block away when the voice called out to Ozbot from behind him, down the sidewalk.
“Hey, target designate: jerk!”
Ozbot and the others turned, to see the robot Ozbot had tussled with back at the last bar. He wore a menacing smile as a hollow cavity in his leg slid open, and he pulled the gun out. Ozbot felt a twinge of simulated fear as the weapon was aimed directly at his motherboard.
“Bam. Bam.”

Buffybot heard the shout at the same time as Ozbot and the others, and spared a scan in the strange robot’s direction. Her defensive systems instantly shot to high alert at the sight of the weapon.
“Holy God,” Doyle muttered, watching the stranger level his gun towards Ozbot, “...Botty, go! GO!”
“Oz!” Buffybot shunted emergency power to her leg motors and altered her course to get in between Ozbot and his assailant. She was only a few feet away when the gun fired.

There was a terrible explosion as the trigger engaged, and a bullet of solid synthesteel ripped into Ozbot’s shell just below his left power valve, shattering his superstructure. He cried out in automatic pain-disclosure protocol, falling to the ground amid a terrible shower of sparks and leaking supercoolant.
“OZBOT!” Cordybot screamed, rushing to the fallen robot’s side. She had only begun the most cursory scans of his wound when Wesbot arrived, pushing her down.
“Cordybot, engage caution! Enemy designate: unknown is still...”
Before he could finish his sentence, Wesbot scanned the assailant, only to see Buffybot slamming into him at top speed, crashing them both hard into a wall.

“That’ll upload you a lesson about making reference to ME as...”
Buffybot didn’t let the shooter finish gloating as she tackled him hard, driving him into the side of a building at some 55 kilometers an hour. Botty stepped back, leaving the stunned attacker to extricate himself from the vertical crater she’d planted him in. Doyle watched with impressed concern.
“Nice hit! But if he’s a robot like you, how do you finish him off?”
Buffybot scanned her opponent as he staggered out, monitoring his system status with interest, and trying to keep her emotions to a minimum. Especially her anger.
“Quickly,” was all she said, lunging forward and knocking the shooter back into the wall with a right cross, then a left. Her scans told her that his power and energy levels were nowhere near her own, and darned if she wasn’t going to use the advantage.
A heel-first kick shattered her opponents grip on his weapon, which clattered harmlessly to the ground. Buffybot didn’t hate things, as a general rule. But she was certainly beginning to nurse an intense dislike, at the very least, for guns.
“You shouldn’t...SHOOT...people!” Botty shouted, hammering away with unusual abandon, slowing only when her scans indicated she was in danger of cracking her opponent’s superstructure. She relented, backing off to assess her progress. She had never FOUGHT a robot before, and really had no concept of how to go about it.
“I think you got him on the ropes, kid. That was some smackdown!”
“Wait...”
Buffybot continued her scans, as the other robot bobbed erratically to and fro. She must have damaged his gyroscopic functions.
“Error...systems not responding...error, error...crash imminent...”
A pitiful siren-like wail escaped the robot’s throat before his eyes blinked shut, and he toppled and fell face-first to the ground. Doyle smiled.
“Winner and still champion,” he gushed, but Buffybot wasn’t listening. She had already turned and was moving to Ozbot’s side along with Cordybot and Wesbot. Her scans were coming back already, and what they said was bad news indeed.
“Ozbot? Can you hear me?” Cordybot held Ozbot’s hand tightly as Buffybot arrived, scans telling her what her intuition generators had laready surmised. But she was surprised nonetheless.
“Oz! You’re a robot! I’m...I’m sorry! It was an accident!”
Ozbot blinked back in a system-crashing haze. “Logic...error, what...cannot maintain...”
Diverting power to her skills database, Buffybot accessed her medical emergency protocols, and tried to adapt an ad-hoc robotic upgrade. She would have wished Willow were here, if only she hadn’t stopped wishing for things.
“Error...error...power dropping...motor functions off-line...”
“What’s the prognosis, doll?” Doyle was hovering over Buffybot’s shoulder as she scanned frantically. “Can he fix himself up, like you?”
“He’s not as sophisticated a robot as I am,” Buffybot replied, hoping her answers wouldn’t seem too odd to the others, “...his self-repair functions are minimal. They can’t handle the damage, and his power loss is already critical.”
“I’m summoning medicbots,” Cordybot said, dialing 911 via the cellular upgrade in her mainframe. Remaining at Buffybot’s side, Wesbot made his own urgent tactical calculations, directing his scans towards the remnants of the bullet.
“The projectile contains no silver,” he noted hopefully, “...damage should be non-fatal, given Ozbot’s lycanthropic status.”
“Optics failing...error, error...”
“I have to help him!” Buffybot formulated a hasty plan in her tactical processors, not willing to rely on Wesbot’s optimistic theory. There was magic afoot...maybe you didn’t NEED silver to kill robot werewolves. Who knew? All she knew was she would be darned if she let some dumb wish of hers hurt her friends. Not if she could help it.
“Hold on, Oz! Think happy thoughts!” Buffybot put on her best bedside smile as she pulled up her shirt and tugged open her stomach access panel. No need to hide her robotness if EVERYONE was a robot, she figured. She flipped a small switch, and a second later was pulling a thin cable out of her body.
“Buffybot?” Wesbot looked on with unease, memory files of his own unpleasant brush with firearms springing to active viewing.
“I’m going to initiate an emergency power transfer,” Buffybot told him, plugging the cable into one of Ozbot’s exposed inner consoles, “...try and charge up his backup batteries. And I think I may be able to import some of my bittybots to try and repair some of the most immediate damage.”
Doyle and Wesbot both cast Buffybot curious looks. “Bittybots?”
Immobile, Buffybot started the power flow. “My nanodrones for self-repair,” she answered, monitoring the revolutionary medical process she was undertaking, “...it’s what I call them. I think it’s a pretty name!”
Wesbot only nodded. “They won’t survive long outside of my body,” Buffybot continued, “...but they should be able to seal some of the worse breaches before failing. He’ll require more reconstruction than I can administer, however...”
“An ambulance-unit has been dispatched,” Cordybot added, “...ETA 2.3 minutes.”
Buffybot consulted her scans, now vastly improved thanks to her connection to Oz’ mainframe. He had exited consciousness-mode, but was still functioning. “His power levels are stabilizing,” she said with a smile, “...minimal degradation to his command functions. I think he’s going to be all right!”
“Thanks to you, darlin’,” Doyle added, beaming proudly, “...nice work, Doc.”
Buffybot smiled faintly, slightly embarrassed at Doyle’s praise. Her relief that Oz would pull through was rapidly being overshadowed, however, by her growing tactical appraisal of the situation. Her goofup tonight may have changed the whole world, turning everyone into robots against their will. It would take more than one close call averted to fix THAT.
Sirens reached Buffybot’s audio centers, and she started wondering, despite herself...just what was a world full of robots LIKE, anyhow?

Fredbot crouched down in the sewers, holding the Hand of Manus tightly to her shirt, and wondering what was going on back at the Hotel. Elapsed time was .95 of an hour now, and her worry function was starting to overheat her synaptic circuitry. She had tried to calm her system relays by rounding pi off to the 10 to the 23rd power decimal place, but had done that seventeen times now and it was failing utterly in it’s function.
Ideas flashed in and out of her busy cerebral complex: should she attempt telecommunication with Hotel/inhabitants? Or Wesleybot, or Buffybot, as reinforcement units? Should she take deeper refuge in the sewers, which were even now provoking flashes of virtual remodelling in her habitation software (despite the occasional ratbot trundling by on filthy little treads)? Or perhaps...
An echo of metal on metal reached Fredbot’s audio receptors, and her panic centers threatened to override her tactical processors. With effort, she reigned the fear-signals in and began following one of the pre-plotted escape vectors she had plotted in as reserve actions. She was no combat unit, and if the Demonbots could best Gunnbot and Angelbot...
Frowning, Fredbot refused to continue with that theoretical data-pathway, shifting the bulk of her considerable processing power to the task assigned to her...preserve the Hand artifact!
Clutching her prize, Fredbot ran forward down a particularly pretty tunnel, when another echo assembled itself in her audio analysis matrix. It was a voice.
“Fredbot? FREDBOT! You can come out now! It’s over!”
Fredbot entered stopping mode as the voice was instantly recognized as Angelbot’s, simultaneously engaging her widest possible smile-function. She turned, and immediately started retracing her flight path. She should have known her Champion-units would best any foes!
As she ran, she hoped that Gunnbot was all right as well. But then, Angelbot wouldn’t be here if he weren’t, now would he?
Yes. That was logical.

Buffybot watched the Ambulance veer away with Ozbot and Cordybot towards the nearest Hospital, intrigued at the magnetic track it seemed to be following. It seemed every vehicle followed one of them. Her wish had altered more than just people, she realized.
“You’ve stepped in some king-size this time, sweet thing,”Doyle quipped nervously by Buffybot’s side, “...we gotta fix this, pronto.”
“Mm-hmm.” Buffybot listened half-heartedly as she watched Wesbot uploading his witness-log to the Policebots who had arrived to investigate the shooting. Buffybot had very much enjoyed her interaction with them...she hadn’t even had to pretend she wasn’t a robot, which was the best part! She bet this was what it was like for regular people...no wonder everyone loved the police!
“Last time I heard, only way to break a vengeance spell was through the original demon...but we gotta find her first. You got a good look at her, right? Computer memory and all?”
“Of course...it’s all in my file on her.”
Doyle nodded. “That’s my girl. Maybe Wesley over there could help you track her down...probably has all sorts’a Watcher programs, or Windows for Spellcasters or somethin’. Should be able to find a summoning spell, or...”
“There’s no hurry.”
“Exactly. So I figure...”
The ghost paused, mentally retracing where his train of thought had gone wrong. It didn’t take him long, and he looked with sudden disbelief at his ever-so-slightly guilty looking mechanical charge.
“Come again?”
Buffybot grinned sheepishly. “I just mean...it’s not SO bad, is it? Everyone being a robot...it’s not hurting them, I don’t think. Do you think it’s hurting them?”
“Of course not,” Doyle agreed, though trying to keep his focus, “...but that’s hardly the point, is it?”
“I know we have to fix it. I understand. Things aren’t right.”
“Glad you’ve gotten the hang of understatement...”
“But they’re not so bad,” Buffybot continued, smiling a little broader now at the new, robotic world she had accidentally created. “Are they? Technically, I likely would have been unable to help Oz very much if he’d been wounded as a human. So it was GOOD that he was a robot then. Wasn’t it?”
Doyle started to talk, stammering a few times before managing to settle on anything. “You’re tryin’ to confuse me,” he accused, wagging a finger, “...and you do that enough naturally. Tell me you’re not thinkin’ what I think you’re thinking.”
Buffybot frowned, not sure how she was expected to be able to know such a thing. But somehow or other, she seemed to get the point. “I know we have to fix it,” she reiterated, turning towards Doyle with a sad smile, “...but I kind of like it. Everyone being a robot, I mean. Just for once, it’s nice...to not be the only one. That’s all. I’m sorry if that’s wrong.”
Doyle’s face softened under Buffybot’s sincerity, as it often did. “It ain’t wrong. I’m sorry. But you understand why we’ve got to put things back?”
Buffybot nodded. “I understand. I’ll ask Wesley for his help...he’s very smart. Watchers know lots of helpful things about demons. I’m sure he’ll be able to fix things.”
Silently, Doyle breathed a sigh of relief. “Here he comes,” he noted, even as the police car slid away with a magnetic hum, “...keep yer chin up. And don’t worry...everything’ll be fine. Call me if there’s any snags.”
With a smile, Doyle faded from view as Wesbot approached. Buffybot put on a happy face, deciding to do her best to do as Mister Doyle suggested.
Although she made sure to record as much about this magic robot-world as she was able. She almost wished she could spend a little more time in it. Except, of course, she wasn’t indulging in wishes anymore. Just to be safe.
“My auto is filed 5 block-units east,” Wesbot stated, and Buffybot snapped to attention, “...do you wish to accompany me to Hospital/Emergency Room to convene with Cordeliabot?”
“I don’t wish anymore,” Buffybot replied, “..but yes, I would love to go to the hospital with you!”
Wesbot nodded, and he and Buffybot started towards his car. Buffybot only indulged a few moments of receiving the myriad of transmitted electronic signals he was giving off (if only people did this all the time...so simple!) Before resolving to get down to business. She DID have to fix things.
“I hope I can get your help after we check on Oz, Wesley...I need to track down a Vengeance demon.”
“A demonbot, you say?” Wesbot sounded intrigued. “Yes, of course, of course. Has something transpired?”
Buffybot looked a little confused. But then, why would Wesley know that it was HER who had caused all this? Silly Buffybot. “I’m sorry. I should have explained earlier. This is all my fault.”
“Explain statement,” Wesbot requested, simultaneously accessing his secure Watcher-files for data on Demonbot-subclassification/Vengeance.
A mild guilt buildup swelled in Botty’s emotional buffers as she explained. “I made a wish,” She went on, “...to a pretty young lady with no money and a terribly sad home life. Except she WASN’T a pretty young lady at all, but a Vengeance Demon, and I made a wish that everyone would know what it was like to be a robot, and now everyone IS a robot, and even though it’s pretty neat, I think, and not really hurting anyone, it’s not how things are supposed to be and so we should probably fix it, and you’re not mad at me, are you? Because I didn’t mean anything bad, I really didn’t!”
Wesbot stopped, and gave Buffybot a strange look that gave Botty a rotten feeling. He WAS mad at her, she just knew it. Doyle was right, she had to fix this and...
“Buffybot, your dialogue is highly illogical,” Wesbot finally said, shaking his head, “...of COURSE everyone is a robot. They have always been robots. What else would we possibly be?”
That caught Buffybot by surprise. What a funny question!
“Why, you’d be human, of course! Just like always. Except for me, that is.”
Wesbot continued to stare, puzzled. “Human?”
Before Buffybot and Wesbot could properly explain their mutual confusion to one another, an incoming transport signal caught both of their notice. Buffybot turned and spotted the sleek, jet black hoverRolls gliding up beside her and Wesbot. She wasn’t usually much of a car robot, but she had to say it was very nice. It reminded her of the flying car she drove once, although her memories of that event were not the sharpest.
The rear window slid noiselessly down, and Buffybot and Wesbot both immediately recognized the face of Lara Markham smiling out at them. Wesbot went to immediate high alert status, while Buffybot was slower to her own defensive posturing. Ms Markham had SEEMED pleasant enough on their previous encounter...even helping out quite a bit, it seemed to her. But Angel and the others said she was not to be trusted. It was a little confusing.
“Good evening, Buffybot,” Lara offered politely, “...I was wondering if I could have a word in private.”
“Possibility: remote,” Wesbot replied, charging his defiance circuitry, “...whatever Wolf-Ram/Hart.org wants with Buffybot, they can delete it from their memory files.”
“I’m here to help, Mister Price...bot. And I think a quick scan will provide ample proof of my sincerity. Buffybot?”
Still wary, Buffybot still performed an automatic scan on Miss Markham. And the results were just the latest in a line of surprises.
“You’re still...!”
“Get in,” Lara ordered, opening the door for Buffybot, “...we NEED to talk.”
After a moment of nervous calculations, Buffybot took a step towards the car. Wesbot grabbed her arm.
“Buffybot, I must express heightened concern. Wolf-Ram/Hart.org is not to be trusted. You are not familiar with them, but they are a virus among the files. Exercise extreme caution!”
“I will, Wesley, I promise. But I think I have to go with her. It’s very important...please trust me.”
“Implicitly,” Wesbot replied without hesitation. Buffybot smiled warmly, wondering if he would have been as quick to do so if he were still human.
“I’ll be by to visit Oz as soon as I can,” she promised, stepping into the Rolls opposite Lara, “...and I’ll fix everything! I promise!”
Lara threw Wesbot a withering grin through the window, just as the Rolls smoothly fired itself along the city’s magnetic traffic system. Wesbot continued frowning after the vehicle even after it left his visual scan field. Things were not sitting well in his processor core. What was Buffybot on about that needed repairing? Why hadn’t Larabot been transmitting her personal identification signal just now?
And just what in the Devil’s cyber-cache was a ‘human’..?

“Thank you for seeing me, Buffybot. I had a feeling you might be involved with whatever is happening, am I right?”
Chelsea Markham did her best to keep a good pokerface, playing the role of her counterpart Lara for Buffybot’s benefit. It was jarring seeing the robot like this...aside from some video footage, Chelsea’s experience with HER Buffybot was confined to a vivisection table. And it was so odd seeing her with blonde hair.
Buffybot grappled for a second with conflicting drives, acknowledging Wesley and Angel’s strong warnings about the Wolfram and Hart organization. But if Lara was still a human, she reasoned, she may know some way to defeat the spell. And she supposed she had best at least try and get on with that.
“I think so,” she began, a little cautious. “...how did you know?”
“Lucky guess. You were the only newly arrived robot in LA, and suddenly everyone in LA turns into robots themselves? Gotta admit, I’d love to know how you pulled it off.”
“It was an accident! I was talking with a pretty young lady, only she wasn’t REALLY a pretty young lady, and...”
“A wish demon? You met a wish demon?”
Buffybot paused, surprised. This Miss Markham sure was a good guesser! “I thought they were called Vengeance Demons.”
Chelsea shrugged. “Same difference.” Where she came from, they were called Wish Demons. “I think I can help...can you describe this demon?”
“Of course! I can download a complete description to your...”
Chelsea smiled. “Not a robot, remember? A sketch will do nicely, plus whatever other information you have. Wolfram and Hart should be able to track this creature down.”
Buffybot nodded. She wasn’t sure why Angel and the others thought this woman was so bad. She seemed perfectly helpful to Buffybot. Although one nagging question was still bothering her.
“Miss Markham? How come you’re not a robot like everyone else?”
“Hmm? Oh, I...I had protection spell active. Lucky break.” Chelsea handed Buffybot a pad, eager to switch the subject before the robot could tell she was lying. “So...you wished everyone was a robot, then? Interesting choice.”
Buffybot cast her eyes towards the pad in her hands, starting to draw elaborate sketches of Jackie in both human and demon guises. “I guess it was awfully silly of me. But I’ll fix it.”
“We’d better,” Chelsea added, “...whatever you actually wished for, these people aren’t robots like you are.”
Botty glanced up, never pausing in her sketching. “What do you mean?”
“I mean they’re less sophisticated...more generic. And they certainly don’t have your special qualities.”
That brought a quick smile, although it was followed by a slight confusion. “Special qualities?”

“...should have predicted you and Gunnbot would be victorious. A few Demonbots couldn’t stop two Champion-units like yourselves. What classification were they? Vampirebots?”
Angelbot shook his head, walking through the sewers with Fredbot towards the Hotel. “Gar classification Demonbots. Three horns, limited processing power. Muscle-units.”
Fredbot giggled. “Bet you and Gunnbot took ‘em out in one data cycle. Regrets that I couldn’t assist in the battle-operations.”
“Don’t engage your silliness circuitry, Fredbot. You kept the Hand-artifact safe. That was crucial.”
Fredbot’s blush-function self activated. “Thanks. Did Cordybot and the others arrive yet?”
Approaching the Hotel access, Angelbot stared calmly forward. “I’m sure they’ll be here soon enough.”

“Emergency! Emergency! Prepare massive reconstruction unit. Summon critical reprogramming units. Paging Surgeonbot on duty! Emergency!”
Ozbot was hovered in on his stretcher-glider as top speed, flocked to by a small army of Medical care units. Cordybot followed along as long as she was able, but was stopped by a Nursebot when they accessed the MRU. Frustration bubbled in her programming as she slowly made her way back to the Waiting Room. She was about to scan through their mediocre file of magazines when it occurred to her that she should contact Angelbot. She wondered if Ozbot would want her to summon the Sunnydale units...
“Oh no...”
Cordybot froze suddenly, as her main programming was shunted and her Vision cycle was self-activated. Gigabytes of information flooded her cortical sphere, incoming PTB data transmission overriding all but her most basic functions. It was al she could do to maintain gyroscopic integrity.
A Nursebot emerged from her station and ran to Cordybot’s side as the vision cycle subsided. Cortical function resumed normal activity, and the new data began to be analyzed.
“Are you all right, ma’am? Do you require a system scan?”
Cordybot reeled slightly. “No,” she answered, rechecking her new data. Then, she checked it again.
“Oh, NO...”

Buffybot got dropped off a few blocks from the hospital, at her request. She wanted to make sure Oz was all right, darn straight! But first, she had to tell Doyle everything she had just learned from Miss Markham. It wasn’t very good news...and she was definitely starting to see the urgency of correcting the situation but quick.
“Not sure I’m followin’ ya, doll. What do you mean they’re not ‘robots like you’?”
It was a little tricky, she had to agree, explaining properly. Embarrassing, too. “They’re not as sophisticated as I am, Miss Markham said. My scans back that up so far, although I HAVE noticed some fascinating individual upgrades.”
“Gotcha. Well, that could work in your favour, right? Is that what you’re thinking?”
“No. You see, when everyone got turned into robots they...”
Buffybot frowned. She would have to use one of her least favourite phrases to describe the situation. “They’re just robots,” she finally said, “...not alive like me.”
“Whoa!” Doyle’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Are you sayin’ we’ve just killed everyone on the planet??”
“No! Of course not! It’s just...well...they’re still ALIVE alive. But they’re just regular robots, and regular robots don’t have souls like me.”
“Souls...are you sayin’ no one has a SOUL anymore?”
Ashamed, Buffybot nodded glumly. “Oh, this is bad doll. We gotta...”
“I’ll fix it!” Raising her head again, Buffybot started switching over to defiant mode. “Miss Markham is going to try tracking the demon, I’m going to work with Wesley to...”
“Oh NO...”
“I know, it’s very bad! But we’ll fix everything, you’ll see! Just like new!”
Doyle gave Buffybot a stern look. For a second, Buffybot thought she noticed him trembling. “I don’t think you’re hearin’ me, doll. Listen to the inflection here...’Oh, NO’...”
Buffybot stared back, confused. Her emotional indicators were picking up fear in Doyle’s voice. Big time.
“What is it?”

Angelbot and Fredbot moved quickly up the stirs from the Hotel/Basement towards the lobby access. Fredbot was anxious to see Gunnbot safe and sound again.
Reaching the door, Angelbot stopped and turned, reaching out an expectant hand to Fredbot. She stared.
“The Hand Artifact, Fredbot?” He smiled. “I’ll take it from here.”
“Oh! Of course.” Fredbot passed the Hand Artifact over, glad to be rid of it. Even wrapped as it was, it still chilled her synaptic circuitry.
Angelbot bowed gracefully on receipt of the Artifact, opening the access door with flourish.
“Ladybots first,” he said sweetly, and Fredbot output a small giggle. Angelbot was so gallant! Like a knight-unit with a shining armour protection program. How lucky she was to have made a home with robots like...
Fredbot turned the corner and froze. Seven massively built demonbots, each sporting three shiny red horns on their skullpieces were stationed inside the lobby. Two of them were actively restraining Gunnbot, each holding one arm. He looked to her immediate visual scanners as if he’d been damaged.
“Fredbot!” He shouted weakly, struggling against his captor-units, “...engage flight mode! RUN!”
Logic conflicts immediately arose in Fredbot’s processors, and she nearly suffered a mild system crash. That was when Angelbot arrived behind her, patting her on the shoulder.
“Don’t be like that, Gunnbot. She just arrived!” Angelbot smiled down at Fredbot, then turned his scans towards the demonbots, holding the Hand-artifact aloft. “And she brought presents!”
The demonbots murmured in quiet awe, and Angelbot gave Fredbot’s shoulder a noticeable squeeze. “See, boys? It’s like I said...if anyone can pull off a good hand job, it’s my little Fredbot. Am I right?”
“Angelbot, I-I don’t process this...are these actions part of some plan? Where is Cordybot?”
Angelbot snapped his fingers. “Oh right...I was supposed to contact her, wasn’t I? Well, all in good time.”
Grinning ferally, Angelbot increased his vise-grip on Fredbot’s shoulder, pulling her savagely off her feet, and hurling her across the room. She collided hard with a column, and Gunnbot tried furiously to get free, to no avail.
Fredbot’s system’s performed an emergency reboot from the impact, and she started receiving potential damage estimates when Angelbot stalked over, glaring down at her with a menacing eye. Her fear circuitry was starting to overheat.
“Angelbot, I don’t...”
“You will,” he growled, still smiling. “And if we’re gonna be friends, we’ll have to nip your little filename error in the bud. Kind of a pet peeve of mine.”
Fredbot shook her head, not computing any of this input. The face above hers sneered down.
“My designation is Angelusbot,” he informed her smoothly, “...and you’re going to LOVE the plan...”

TO BE CONTINUED...

NEXT EPISODE: Buffybot versus Angelusbot!

BONUS STORY! CLICK HERE!

ADDENDUM
Buffybot was scarred in her battle with Kyle Ridge and The Five in PUNK RULES.

Oz met Doyle, and last saw the Angel team in the Angel Season One episode IN THE DARK.

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