Disclaimer and Continuity Note: I don't own any of the characters used in
this fic, who were created by Mutant Enemy productions unless otherwise noted.
This fic is set approximately circa October 2001. It is presumed to occur
pretty soon after the S6 episode "Flooded" (marking the return of Giles),
PRIOR to the series finale of the Lone Gunmen (which had to occur pretty soon
before their blue-faced appearance on the last season of the X-Files), and
at a corresponding point early in last season's ER.
Giles: Previously, on The Fallen:
Willow: The girl might have gotten away. Weird name though....
Byers: *suspicious* Weird how?
Willow: It was Reese Lyda Hovwal. Weird much?
Frohike: *gets out a pencil, quickly rearranges the letters to.... Lee Harvey
Oswald* Yep....
Langly: Eve.
Buffy: You know the joker who's hacking our computer?
Jimmy: I trust Eve, I don't think she's doing anything wrong here....
Giles: Maybe not, but she seems to know something about the situation, or
she wouldn't have known to try to hack Willow's computer. I think this
bears further investigation.
Frohike: We've dealt with her before. We'll go.
Willow: I think I'll come with. This girl messed with my computer....
Tara: I'll come too... *looks at Willow, worried by her use of magic on the
computer*
Buffy: Great. Meanwhile, I think I'll go hunt down our freakish friend
before he give my good name... er... face.... a bad name... oh you know what
I mean.
Giles: Alright. I'll make flight arrangements for Chicago.
The Fallen: Chapter 4
*Basement, County General Hospital*
Adam, in the body of the Buffybot, walks up to the door of room 0314. He
activates a voice modulation protocol, and suddenly the words coming out of
the Buffybot's mouth are not in Buffy's voice, but rather his own.
Adam: Mother. I have returned to complete the work of March 14th.
The panel on the door reads "voice override password accepted" and suddenly
the door unlocks. Adam steps into it, only to hear a familiar voice.
Maggie Walsh: *voice in the room* Adam. I see you have returned.
In the form of the Slayer. Why both of my most favored must be
brought down by her....
Adam: *for perhaps the first time confused* Mother... This body was
the most... suitable I could recover. But how are you speaking to me?
Walsh: *cross* I created the technology that allowed your consciousness to
be backed up when your body was destroyed. I also arranged for my own
neural imprint to be downloaded here in case any of the three of you should
access this room.
Adam: Intriguing.
Walsh: I had presumed that, should the Initiative fail, it would be Agent
Finn who sought out this failsafe. But it appears that in destroying
my creations, the Slayer has provided us with the opportunity to carry out
my final vision.
Adam: Mother, I executed the plan as you meant me to. Even the augmented
agents of your Initiative were unable to defeat the demons. I lured
the demons into a confrontation with the Initiative to acquire casualties
to continue your work, but the Slayer destroyed my efforts before experimentation
could commence.
Walsh: I've read the accounts of the incident. It is clear that in order
to create the human/demon hybrids needed to rid the earth of the demons, we
will need to resort to more drastic measures. But first, we will use
supplies I sent to this safe-house from the Initiative before its destruction
to improve your new body.
A device scans the Buffybot, and schematics appear on the monitor.
Monitor: Unit vulnerable to electric shock. Designing insulation. Unit
lacks internal weaponry. Installing implants from demon, class Polgara.
Unit optics not optimized for night combat. Installing infra-red
sensors........
*The caves forest in Sunnydale*
A lone figure clad in black creeps through the caves once used by Spike as
a lair, and by Adam as a shortcut into the initiative base. She waves
a metal detector around and finally finds the spot she is looking for. Quickly,
she flips out a panel from what appears to be a solid rock to reveal a pad
with a palm print reader. She reaches into her bag and produces a device,
which she sets down on the reader, which clicks, and a large section of cave
wall slides away to reveal an entrance to a store room of some sort. She
smiles, then shakes her head.
Eve: I know you're there, Gunmen.
Jimmy: Eve... what have you gotten yourself into this time?
Eve: *spins around angrily* What have I gotten into? Trying to clean
up your mess, as usual! Now mind your own business and stay out of my
way!
Willow: You're in my town, hacking into MY computer. That makes this
MY business.
Eve: You have no idea what's at stake here, witch. Stay out of it.
Tara: How... how do you know who we are?
Eve: You may be pretty good at saving this town, but you're both out of your
league here.
Byers: Uh... guys... can we work this out....
Willow: *cutting him off* Oh really? *waves her hand, and a bunch of
loose stones float up and hover behind her* Let's see who's out of her
league!
*Outside County General Hospital*
Xander: Okay, what's our game plan here?
Giles: First and foremost, we must avoid causing panic. This is a hospital,
and there could be very seriously injured people here.
Buffy: Right. Okay, someone has to go in there and convince them to
evacuate the hospital, ASAP. If Adam's in there, all their patients
are in danger.
Anya: Ooooh, I'll go!
Everyone looks at Anya.
Anya: What?
Xander: *ignoring the zaniness for a moment* Look, Buffy, the chances are
good that Adam knows we're coming. Willow was tracking the GPS unit
we installed in him but she said it disappeared. We don't even know
for sure that he's actually here, if it weren't from the Gunmen's report.
Buffy: Right, and they don't seem to be the brightest cookies in the basket.
Okay, I'll go in the side way and see if I can find some signs of him.
I'm best equipped to deal with him if I encounter him alone anyway.
If you don't hear from me in an hour, go in and try to convince the
staff to evacuate.
Dawn: How will we know if you do find him?
Buffy: I think the commotion will be pretty obvious.
Dawn: Oh. Good point.
Buffy: Which is why YOU are going to wait outside.
Dawn: WHAT?
Buffy: I am NOT going to have you exposing yourself to danger.
Giles: She has a point, Dawn. The Buffy bot was strong enough to inflict
damage on... *trails off, remembering sending the bot up against Glory*
Xander: They're right, Dawnmeister, Adam's pretty nasty, and in control of
that robot....
Dawn: Alright, I'll wait outside already.
Buffy: Thanks, Dawn. We've got a crisis here, and we don't have time
for random fights.....
*The Cave*
Tara: Willow, don't....
Eve: I don't have time for this!
Eve throws a small sphere down on the ground, and upon impact, it makes a
sharp, screeching sound that is amplified greatly by the enclosed area. Willow
and the others wince, and as she tries to cover her ears, Willow's concentration
and the spell are broken. Eve flips across the distance and gives Willow
a hard kick, knocking her down. She grabs the closest gunman, Frohike.
Frohike: Not again....
With that, Eve flip tosses him into the other Gunmen, who all go tumbling
down. Eve turns around, only to be punched in the face by a hand holding
a good sized rock. She collapses, unconscious.
Tara: That's what you get for hitting my girl.
*County General Ambulance Bay*
Giles: *following the rest of the gang as quickly as he can* I really think
we need to come up with a better plan than bursting in there....
Xander: We have a plan. Buffy scopes out things from another direction,
we try to clear the place out without causing panic..
Anya: Yes. And clearly they'll believe anyone who comes into their place
of business and tells them to leave.
Dawn: I don't see you coming up with anything better....
As they talk, an ambulance is unloading and patients are being rushed into
the ER.
Anya: Well, as far as I'm concerned, school children don't need to be taken
on cross country save-the-world-trips. And you promised your sister
you weren't coming!
Giles: I stand corrected. The plan is to bicker incessantly.
Dawn: Alright, already, I'll wait here. Sheesh.
Xander: Thanks Dawn. Okay, guys, we don't know what we're going to see
when we go in there, so let's be careful....
With that, the four walk in the doors to the ER to see.... utter chaos. That
is to say, nothing out of the ordinary for the ER.
Dr. Greene: *running with a cart* This patient is crashing, charge and
get me 20 cc's of epinephrine!
Dr. Carter: *with the other cart* We've got a partially collapsed lung, and
probable internal hemorrhage! I need a trauma surgeon down here, now!
Nurse: *into phone* Paging Dr. Corday to the ER stat!
Xander: At least we don't appear to have made much of a scene.
Outside in the Ambulance bay, a blonde girl sitting on a bench hollers at
Dawn
Rachel Greene: Hey!
Dawn: *looks over* Hey.
Rachel: Want a seat?
Dawn: *shrugs* Sure. Who knows how long they'll be.
Rachel: I know what you mean. I'm waiting for EITHER of my dad or my
step-mom to get off work and take me home, even though they were BOTH off
shift a while back. AGAIN.
Dawn: I get it. They're always trying to keep me safe from everything,
but I'm fifteen already, what do they expect, to keep me away from the world?
Rachel: Yeah, makes you wanna rebel, doesn't it?
Dawn: Sure. Why, what do you do about it?
Rachel: Well, I have been known to keep a stash of E around. You?
Dawn: Shoplifting mostly.
Rachel: Oh. How'd that go?
Dawn: Not so highly recommended. I'm from kinda a one Starbucks town,
and I'm not welcome in most of the stores around anymore.
Rachel: Sounds sucky. Want me to hook you up with something?
Dawn: Not to sound like one of those dumb anti-drug commercials, but my sister
probably WOULD kill me. She sorta slays stuff for a living.
Rachel: Huh. Don't worry about it, your folks probably won't stand for
it.
Dawn: My folks? Oh no, those weren’t my parents… Sometimes we go to visit Dad in the summer, but Mom raised us since the divorce...
Rachel: Really? Cause I've got the same deal. Only I can't stand
mom much, so I'm crashing with Dad. I think he's cool with it, but his
new wife doesn't seem to take to it well.... *looks at Dawn* What is
it?
Dawn: Oh I... I just don't have much choice.... Mom died last year. My
sister and her friends have done their best to try and help me out since,
but I feel like I'm always in the way.....
Rachel: Hey... I'm sorry. I sorta know what you feel like.... my dad
nearly died two years ago. I... I dunno, I was so glad when he made
it out, but it seems like we don't really connect. But I don't know
how I'd live without him, cause I'd be stuck with my mom after that....
Dawn: Listen, we thought my mom was better too, and one day she died. Things
were a bit iffy a bit before... well, you wouldn't believe me if I told you.
But I'm sure she knows I loved her. And my sister did too. I
guess things have been hard for her, going through what she had to in her
own... er... life... and this too. Just try to fix things before it's
too late, okay? Cause you never know when something might happen....
Rachel: I guess you're right. I mean, a few months back there was some
psycho who tried to hunt my dad down, and he wound up right here in the hospital
before he died. You never know.
Dawn: Yeah. So, do crazy things happen here a lot?
Rachel: *smiles, grimly* Sure. Bit gruesome, though, not sure you'd
want to hear about them....
Dawn: Oh trust me, I've been brought up on gore.....
*The ER*
Abby: *walking past the Scoobies* If you folks could please wait in the triage
area, someone will be with you shortly.
Giles: Look, none of us is ill, but we're afraid that something bad might
happen here soon.
Abby: *stops* Look, it's an ER, we've seen a few surprises.
Buffy: *coming from behind Abby* This ER needs to be evacuated NOW!
Anya: *surprised* Buffy! Why, what did you find?
Abby: Hey, wait, weren't you looking for a bathroom a few hours ago? What
are you up to?
Dr. Weaver: *comes crutching up before Buffy can respond* What seems to be
the problem?
Buffy: Look, you don't understand, everyone in here is in real danger, you
need to get out NOW.
Dr. Weaver: No, it's you who doesn't understand. This is MY ER, and
you've got to do a lot better than that before I'm going to consider evacuating.
Abby: What exactly is the threat, anyway?
Buffy2: *from the other side of the ER, which startles everyone, since Buffy
is also standing with Abby, Dr. Weaver, and the Scoobies, points to the other
Buffy* That would be HER.
Buffy1: Everyone, stay back, she's dangerous!
Buffy2: Guys, keep your distance, I'm me, and that's Adam!
Anya: Now what's the plan?
Giles: I believe panic might be in order.....
TO BE CONTINUED........
The Lone Gunmen
Bruce Harwood .... John Fitzgerald Byers
Tom Braidwood .... Melvin Frohike
Dean Haglund .... Richard 'Ringo' Langly
Stephen Snedden .... Jimmy Bond
Zuleikha Robinson .... Yves Adele Harlow
ER
Anthony Edwards .... Dr. Mark Greene
Noah Wyle .... Dr. John Truman Carter, III
Laura Innes .... Dr. Kerry Weaver
Alex Kingston (I) .... Dr. Elizabeth Corday
Paul McCrane .... Dr. Robert 'Rocket' Romano
Goran Visnjic .... Dr. Luka Kovac
Maura Tierney .... Nurse Abigail "Abby" Wyczenski Lockhart
Created By Michael Crichton
To Be Continued....
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