My Life Is Different

I love Xander, but sometimes he's not very smart.

He had spent months worrying about Y2K, insisting that on January 1, 2000, there was a very good chance that computers -- which ran everything -- would get confused and misinterpret the year as 1900, leading to a number of potential catastrophes. Elevators would get stuck. Airplanes would just stop flying. ATMs would break down. Launch codes for nuclear devices would accidentally be triggered. I told him not to worry and tried to explain to him about software upgrades, but he just wouldn't listen to me.

And then, on January 1, 2000, none of his scary predictions came to pass and he was all embarrassed.

"But those guys on Fox News were

so sure,"

Xander protested, "They came out with an investigative special report called "Danger on the Internet Highway: Cyber terror". They said the next Armageddon was almost here. They said cyberterrorism was taking the Internet to its most lethal level! They said lots and lots of people were going to die!"

I rolled my eyes and tried really hard not to snap at Xander. Fox News isn't really into journalism and fact-checking. They were more into fear mongering and melodrama.

Fox News had also came out with an investigative special report called, "The Clinton Body Count: Coincidence or the Kiss of Death?" that contained the names of 34 people they claimed had died suspiciously and who had ties to the Clinton family. Nobody at Fox had any direct evidence of Clinton's killing anyone, however that didn't stop them from attempting to make President Clinton sound as guilty as a fox leaving the henhouse with a freshly killed chicken held firmly in his bloody jaws.

"Xander," I protested, "You've got to stop watching them. I'm pretty sure they're not a real news channel."

"But they look so professional," Xander protested, "They wear suits and ties and have a really impressive-looking studio. And they just recently hired a former U.S. Congressman to come work for them."

I deliberately steered the conversation away from Fox News and tried to interest Xander in seeing the new Sigourney Weaver movie.

What?" Xander asked, "Sigourney Weaver did another movie? Is this an Aliens sequel? I loved the first four Alien movies she did."

Xander sounded enthusiastic for a fifth Alien movie, but I patted him on the shoulder and said, "It's not really one of those."

"There's a race called the Thermians," I said, trying to explain. "They're being oppressed and killed off by the Sarris Dominion. Sigourney Weaver is part of a group of humans who are recruited to help the Thermians..."

"Let me stop you right there, Will," Xander said, interrupting me, "These Thermians are aliens, right?"

"Well, yeah," I admitted, somewhat annoyed at being interrupted in mid-sentence.

"And the Sarris Dominion, they're aliens too, right?"

I gave Xander my annoyed face and said, "Of course they are. They're both aliens from another galaxy."

"Sounds like an Alien sequel to me," Xander said with an arrogant, yet playful look on his face.

See what I mean? He's lovable, but not very smart. He takes so much looking after.

I tried to explain the new Sigourney Weaver movie to him again, however as I explained, I let him into my house and led him back towards my bedroom. I had a movie poster back there and it showed Sigourney Weaver with her long, stylish, blonde hair and her boobs popping out of the top of her custom-fit uniform. She didn't look anything like the tough, ungroomed, battle-weary character she played in the alien movies.

But, when Xander and I arrived in my bedroom, we weren't alone. We had a very unwelcome houseguest going through Buffy's things and putting on her clothes.

"Oh my God,"

Xander exclaimed,

"Faith?"

I had kind of hoped we could sneak out of my room without Faith noticing us, but Xander had ruined that plan. Faith stopped what she was doing and looked right at us.

"Hey, Xander," Faith said, sounding somewhat detached, almost as if she was barely aware of Xander's presence.

I made eye contact with Xander. He made eye contact with me. We both had inquisitive-face. There was something not quite right about Faith. The last time we had seen her she was all evil and going on a killing spree. Now, she seemed calm, unflappable and relaxed.

"Um, Faith," I said, in a cautious tone of voice, "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, hey, Red," Faith said, as if she was only just now noticing I was in the room, "I needed some clothes. I was told B lived here now, and she and I are basically the same size. I kinda figured she wouldn't mind if I borrowed a few things."

That's when I noticed the white lab coat on the floor of my bedroom. Faith probably grabbed that from the hospital and wore that while she traveled from the hospital, to here. The lab coat would've covered Faith from her shoulders to her shins. She probably wouldn't have needed to wear anything else for the short trip from the hospital.

That answered one question, but on the heels of that a whole army of other questions popped into my head. Who told Faith where Buffy and I live now? How the hell did Faith wake up from an irreversible coma? And how had Faith gone from a merciless killer, to a dispassionate laggard?

"And who was it that told you Buffy lived here now?" I asked, hoping that Faith's calm, unflappable state would last long enough to get her to answer a few more questions.

"Hypnos," Faith replied, "He knows all about B. He told me where she lives. He also told me to borrow her clothes, before I went on my mission. You can't go on a mission without pants and shoes, Y'know?"

"Um, yeah, I've always said that," Xander replied, "If you're gonna save the world, you should put on some pants first."

"So, this mission," I said, still pumping Faith for information, "It doesn't involve killing anybody, does it?"

Faith zipped up her jeans and snapped the snap closed. She paused for a few seconds, as if considering my question and finally replied, "I dunno. Maybe. It all depends. There's these guys that have kidnapped Hypnos. They think they're wizards. Actually, they're just a bunch of talented amateurs, who got lucky with a spell. I might have to kill some of them if they get in my way. It's really their call. If they stay out of my way while I do my thing, I shouldn't have to kill anybody."

"Uh huh," I said, still watching Faith for any sudden, violent movements, "And where are these talented amateurs holed up?"

Faith ignored my most recent question and finished getting dressed. She had bigger boobs than Buffy, so she was busting out of Buffy's bra like some sort of cleavage-y slut-bomb, but everything else seemed to fit.

I noticed that the outfit she put together from Buffy's clothes was decidedly monochromatic. She wore black panties, black jeans, a black bra, a black t-shirt and black boots. She was definitely going for a theme here.

"Listen guys," Faith said, looking at both of us, "I was a total bitch before I went into that coma. Hypnos kinda lectured me and made me feel guilty for all the crap that I did to you two, and I totally suck at apologies, but if I'm still alive after I'm done rescuing Hypnos from his kidnappers, I'll come back and I'll treat you better. I won't be a total bitch like I was last time."

"Um, that would be nice," I said, still watching for any sudden, violent movements, but I was starting to relax now. I was fairly certain that Faith had undergone a transformation of some sort and wouldn't be killing anybody anytime soon.

"I'm gonna solve all of Hypnos's problems and then he's gonna solve mine," Faith said, "And if all that works out, I'll come back to Sunnydale and we can hang."

On the way out, Faith gave Xander a hug. Xander let out a startled gasp and he visibly flinched, but he managed not to scream like a little girl. Like me, Xander was nervous and cautious about any physical contact with Faith, but all she wanted was a hug. She wasn't offering any violence.

Faith released her grip on Xander, and then suddenly she was hugging me. It was a nice hug, not too soft, not too hard. And while we were pressed close together, she whispered in my ear, "Hypnos told me about you and B. I didn't know that B was into girls, but now that I know I am totally kicking myself for not making a play for her myself."

Then Faith released me from the hug and walked out of the room. Within seconds she was out of the house, and Xander loudly inquired, "Okay, did all that just really happen?"

I just stared at Xander for a few seconds, too shell-shocked to speak.

"Yeah," I finally responded, "We need to tell Giles."

"And Buffy," Xander added.

"Buffy is with Doctor Rostenkowski," I said, "I'll go tell Buffy."

Doctor Rostenkowski was in the Initiative's secret base underneath the Alpha Delta fraternity house. There was no way Xander would be able to get in there, but I was considered a comrade in arms of the Initiative, so I could get in.

"I'll go tell Giles," Xander offered and we both split up.

* * * * * * * * * *

"Faith is awake and walking around?" Buffy said, sounding stunned, "I thought she was in an irreversible coma. How can she be awake?"

"That's what I said," I countered, and "I mean, I didn't say it out loud, but I was

thinking it

really hard!"

"Who is Faith?" Doctor Rostenkowski asked, breaking into the conversation between Buffy and me.

"She's a friend," I said, then I added, "Well, first she was a friend, then she was an enemy, then she was in a coma. I guess I'm not sure what she is right now."

"A coma-frenemy?" Doctor Rostenkowski ventured.

"We should find her," Buffy said urgently, "Now! Will, do you have any idea where she went?"

I shook my head in negation, "All she said was she was on a mission."

"Do you have a photo of her?" Doctor Rostenkowski asked.

"Not here," Buffy replied, "But I've got a few back at my house."

"Bring some photos in," Doctor Rostenkowski suggested, "There are a couple of federal agencies that can access the video feed of most of the airports in America. If you give them a good photograph of Faith, they can scan it, run all the video from the airport security cameras and let the facial recognition software see if there's a match. If she goes to almost any airport in America today, we can probably find her."

Buffy raised a quizzical eyebrow at this revelation and said, "You know, I got a C-minus in civics class, but I'm pretty sure that level of surveillance is a violation of our constitutional rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure."

Doctor Rostenkowski got an exasperated look on his face, then in an indignant tone of voice, he asked, "Look, do you want to find your coma-frenemy or not?"

Buffy never had a chance to answer, because just then the door to Doctor Rostenkowski's office burst open and two incongruous people waltzed in.

"Excuse me," the first one said, "I'm looking for the person in charge. I'm Doctor John Smith, of the I.A.E.A. and this is my colleague, Doctor Martha Jones."

Doctor Smith had a charming British accent, was tall and thin and was

almos

t dressed like you would expect a respectable government employee to dress.

I mean, he was wearing a suit and tie, but he was also wearing high-top sneakers, and I'm pretty sure most government agencies have dress codes that would insist on their employees wear some sort of more serious footwear.

Doctor Jones was a very attractive, young, black woman. She was also slender, although not as tall as Doctor Smith. Her attire would pass muster for most government agency dress codes. She wore a long-sleeved V-neck dress shirt, dress slacks and stylish, black leather boots.

Both of them were holding up their I.D.s that identified them as employees of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

"I'm in charge, here" Doctor Rostenkowski announced, sounding much more irked with Doctor Smith than he was with Buffy, "I'm Doctor Rostenkowski, and how the hell did you get in here? This is a top secret federal government installation! How did you even know how to find this place?"

"Oh, that,"

Doctor Smith said dismissively, as if he waltzed into secret government bases all the time.

"Our office received a call from Senator Chafee's office," Doctor Jones cut in. She had a charming British accent too.

"Yes, Senator Chafee," Doctor Smith agreed, "He had some concerns about the CU1108 containment unit, housing the uranium power core for your project 314. He doesn't think it's safe. He's actually quite worried about the danger of radiation contamination."

"

Chafee?"

Rostenkowski exclaimed, indignantly, his face now starting to turn red with outrage, "

If he had safety concerns, he should have taken them to me!

Going behind my back like this to the IAEA, I could have him arrested for divulging national security secrets! This is outrageous!"

"Well, I don't know about outrageous," Doctor Smith said, seemingly oblivious to how irate Doctor Rostenkowski was, "Perhaps a little unorthodox."

"And I could have

you

and Doctor Jones arrested for trespassing," Rostenkowski accused, "Don't' either one of you move!"

Rostenkowski pointed a finger at Doctor Smith and Doctor Jones and then he picked up the receiver of his phone and punched in some numbers. If I was a betting woman, I would have bet that he was calling Senator Chafee.

Doctor Smith and Doctor Jones didn't step away from where they were standing, although I noticed that Doctor Smith pulled out a device from his inner jacket pocket and there was a brief visible flash of blue light before he removed his hand from his jacket pocket.

Doctor Rostenkowski put the phone receiver back in its cradle just a few seconds after he picked it up. He looked deflated.

"The phones are dead," He said bitterly, "That's never happened before."

"I'm sure it's not anything serious," Doctor Smith said, "I'm sure it's not a radiation leak, damaging your communications technology."

"What?" Doctor Rostenkowski snapped, "Look there's no reason to suspect a radiation leak! And there's no reason to suspect that the CU1108 containment unit won't keep everyone on this base safe!"

No matter how angry Doctor Rostenkowski got, Doctor Smith still remained calm and composed. "Well, not during the first 300 hours of use anyway," Doctor Smith said, "After that, I wouldn't trust it very much."

"What are you saying?" Doctor Rostenkowski asked, suddenly sounding more curious than angry.

"Well, according to the IAEA's data, the CU01108 performs just fine during the first 300 hours of continuous use, but after that, there are usually significant problems with radiation leakage, sometimes levels as high as 600,000 micro-Sieverts per hour."

For a long time Doctor Rostenkowski didn't say anything.

"600,000 micro-Sieverts?" he finally asked Doctor Smith.

Both Doctor Smith and Doctor Jones nodded in agreement.

Frowning, Doctor Rostenkowski said, "Miss Summers, why don't you and Miss Rosenberg go home. You two find a good photo of your coma-frenemy and bring it back here. By the time you return, I should be finished with Smith and Jones here."

"That's the spirit, Rostenkowski,"

Doctor Smith said enthusiastically, and the five of us all left Doctor Rostenkowski's office.

Doctor Rostenkowski threatened Smith and Jones with charges of espionage if either one of them talked about anything they learned about project 314. This threat utterly failed to intimidate either member of the IAEA, however they promised that they would keep quiet about anything they saw.

It seemed like everything was settled, until we rounded a corner at the end of a long hallway and encountered some something out of a nightmare.

About fifty feet down the next hallway there were four dead soldiers lying on the floor, their blood splattered everywhere, and a fifth soldier was dangling from the grasp of a tall, menacing, humanoid creature that was utterly unlike any of the demon-y things I'd seen in Sunnydale before. Parts of his skin were a grotesque green color, like the skin of a sinensis demon, other parts of his skin looked quite human. The two wildly divergent skin-types seems to be held together with medical staples, and to top it all off, this creature seemed to have stainless steel armor grafted on top of his skin in totally random locations.

"

HUMANS,"

the patchwork demon-y thing said as he calmly and easily broke the fifth soldier's neck,

"YOU HAVE AN UNIMPRESSIVE PHYSIOLOGY AND SHORT LIFESPANS, AND YET YOU CLASSIFY YOURSELVES AS THE DOMINANT SPECIES ON THIS PLANET."

""Oh, bloody hell, we're too late," Doctor Smith exclaimed, suddenly looking very pale, "Project 314 is already online."

Then, turning to Doctor Rostenkowski, the demon-y thing dropped the dead body of the fifth soldier on the floor and said,

"DOCTOR ROSTENWOSKI, EXPLAIN THIS CONTRADICTION TO ME."

With a look of panicked frustration on his face, Doctor Smith turned to all of us and yelled, "

Run!"

Running actually sounded like a good plan to me, however my girlfriend is The Slayer, and it's her job to stand against vampires, demons and other supernatural threats. It's her job to kill the things that would threaten humanity, so rather than run away, Buffy charged straight forward and launched a flying kick attack that landed high up on the creature's abdomen, right in the solar plexus.

"No,"

Doctor Smith protested, "Run

away

from the scary cyborg demon thing! Don't run

towards

it!"

Buffy's kick to the horrific thing caused it to stagger back a few inches, but it didn't fall down. Then Buffy launched a flurry of violent jabs at its face, left jab, right jab, left jab.

The thing's head snapped back when Buffy hit him, but he didn't fall down or even cry out in pain. He was far more resilient than most of the things I've seen Buffy fight against, and Buffy's blows barely even got a reaction out of him.

"VERY INTERESTING,"

the patchwork demon-cyborg thing said, and grabbed Buffy's wrist before she could punch him in the face a fourth time. I had thought that he was slow and awkward at first, but apparently he could move quite fast when he wanted to. I barely even saw him move, but suddenly he had Buffy's wrist trapped in an iron grip.

"YOU ARE HUMAN IN APPEARANCE, HOWEVER, YOUR PHYSICAL STRENGTH IS FAR SUPERIOR TO THE OTHER HUMANS."

Buffy tried to break free from the thing's grasp, but failed. Then she tried head-butting it, but the creature barely even flinched when Buffy's hard skull smashed into his.

"FURTHER STUDY IS WARRANTED,"

the patchwork thing announced in a flat, eerie, emotionless voice,

"I BELIEVE A DISSECTION IS IN ORDER."

"No!!!!"

Doctor Smith and I both screamed in unison, and then Doctor Jones ran up and grabbed a handgun that has been lying on the floor, near one of the corpses.

The patchwork thing began to carve an incision down the middle of Buffy's torso with one of its sharp, black fingernails. Buffy struggled as the thing began to cut her open, but she still couldn't break free. There was a lot of blood as the thing sliced Buffy open down the front of her body.

Doctor Jones fired off six shots in rapid succession. She wasn't a very good shot, and the first four shots missed the patchwork creature completely, however the fifth and sixth shots hit him in the neck and on his face, just barely missing his left eye.

Neither one of the gunshots seemed to break the skin, however the gunshots were apparently painful enough to stun the patchwork demon and make him flinch. Then he lost his grip on Buffy's wrist.