The Fever, Part Fifteen Author: Elsa Frohman Rating: PG-13 Spoilers: Post Chosen. This is my AU AtS S5. Summary: Spike is back, and he's human -- sort of. He's
working for Wolfram & Hart as an outside contractor.
The street was blocked off. A number of unmarked, vaguely military-
looking vehicles were parked so that their headlights illuminated
the area around the grating Ralph, Gunn and the children had come
through. There was a sleek, black helicopter sitting in the middle
of the road, its blades idling. W&H agents, their faces hidden by
the visors on their helmets, milled around talking into hand-held
radios and cell phones.
Ralph and Gunn were handcuffed. Nobody was paying much attention to
the children, who were safe for the moment, but frightened beyond
tears. They huddled together at the edge of the activity, watching
with wide eyes.
The leader of the paramilitary agents motioned for Ralph and Gunn
to go to the helicopter.
"This is not going to look good on your performance review," Gunn
said darkly. "You work for me. Can you say, insubordination? I knew
you could."
The leader cocked his head, and one of his men poked Gunn in the
back with the barrel of his assault rifle.
Another poked Ralph, and the vampire started to walk.
"Hey! You leave my man alone!" Sonic shouted, breaking out of the
huddle of children and coming over to interpose himself between
Ralph and the agent who was threatening him.
"Yeah, you leave him alone!"
Matt had joined the older boy. He ran up and tried to push the
agent away.
A hand was raised to bat the boy out of the way, but Ralph moved as
quickly as only vampires can to get between Matt and the agent.
"What's going to happen to these children?" Ralph asked.
"They are not our concern," the squad leader replied.
"Look, there are two ways this can go down. I can resist, and maybe
run, and maybe you'll end up with the vampire you're after, and
maybe you'll end up with a pile of dust. Or I can go along with you
and not give any trouble. All the blood samples and medical tests
you want.
"But if it's going to be that way, we gotta make a deal."
"I'm not authorized to negotiate," the squad leader said
tonelessly.
"It's nothing big. Just promise you'll have someone take these kids
somewhere safe -- somewhere where nothing can get at them. That's
all I'm asking for."
The leader paused for a moment, then gave a curt nod.
Ralph turned around and crouched down to face Matt.
"You go along now. Everything's going to be fine. I'll see you
later."
Matt wiped his nose on the back of his hand.
"You gotta come with us," the boy whimpered.
"I promise, I'll come find you later. After these guys are done
with me. It's no big deal. They just want to check me out."
The boy nodded, but Ralph could see he was about to burst into
tears.
"Oh, I almost forgot," Ralph said. "I can't use my hands, but if
you open a couple of buttons on my shirt, I've got something for
you."
Matt did as asked. He gasped when he saw what Ralph had under his
shirt. It was a comic book -- Legends of Valor, to be exact.
"Now, you take good care of that," Ralph said. "Remember what I
told you. One of only two inked by Jimmy DeLuca. It's going to be
valuable. And after these guys are done poking at me, I'll come and
we'll go back for the rest. They'll still be there."
Matt threw his arms around Ralph's neck to hug him. When the boy
let go, Ralph stood up.
Gunn turned to Sonic.
"You keep looking after the little ones," he said. "They still need
you."
Sonic nodded. He put a hand on Matt's shoulder and led him back to
the others.
"I don't get it," Gunn said as they started toward the helicopter.
"They didn't give a damn that I'm being hauled off. But they're
running out here to defend you."
Ralph shrugged. "It always comes down to 'them' and 'us'. And it just
happens that you're one of 'them'."
"Say what?" Gunn exclaimed, looking at the pale, dirty, blond
vampire.
"Them," Ralph replied with an ironic smile. "The grownups."
Angel recovered from the shock of having Lorne plant a big, wet one
on him, and pushed the green demon away.
"Jesus! No tongue! Ack!"
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"You ever try that again -- at least, without dinner and a movie
first -- there are going to be serious consequences! What the hell
is going on here?"
"Congratulations, cupcake, you're now immune to vampire blood
fever," Lorne said smugly. "Don't bother to thank me. Gratuities
accepted, however -- large cash payments, foreign cars, the key to
your room..."
"What?" Angel said, looking at his three friends as if they had all
grown second heads.
"Lorne just vaccinated you," Fred explained. "He's got super-
aggressive antibodies. And they're in his saliva, as well as his
blood."
"I could have just spit on you, bon-bon, but that's not my style."
"OK, let's take this slowly -- from the top," Angel said with a
frown.
"We knew something was different about Lorne, when they did
different tests on him than on Wesley and me," Fred said. "And when
I broke into Knox's hidden project reports, we found out how
different.
"When they took the first blood sample, they found that Lorne had
been exposed to the fever sometime in the past, but didn't have any
live virus in his blood stream," Fred continued.
"I was exposed years ago," Lorne added. "At Caritas I was exposed
to just about everything, with all the different demons coming through.
I was getting sick all the time.
"So I went and found me a mystic healer, and got an all-purpose
mystic vaccination. It was supposed to cover only me, but it
reacted differently with my Pylean blood and got all pumped up.
That's why I can pass it on to you."
Fred nodded. "Right at the beginning, they took a sample from
Lorne, but then they came back and injected him with something, and
took another sample a while later. When I read Knox's notes, I
found out that the injection was live virus. They wanted to see if
he could be infected. I think I'm going to have to have a talk with
Knox about medical ethics.
"But anyway, fortunately, Lorne's antibodies killed all the virus.
So, they had a way to make a cure for the fever a couple of hours
after the whole thing started," Fred said.
Wesley was putting his shirt back on and buttoning it.
"But our rather independent minded Wolfram & Hart employees decided
that it would be more advantageous to keep you isolated for a
while, than to give you the cure and go back to business as usual.
Keeping you isolated puts the Los Angeles branch back under the
control of the senior partners. And the senior partners saw certain
advantages in the situation," Wesley said.
Fred took over again.
"The senior partners were intrigued with the idea of vampires that
could be controlled. They could give the second-stage subjects a
synthetic blood product that would stabilize the virus, and keep
them from being eaten up by it and dusting. And any infected
vampire they gave it to would be completely dependent on them for
the synthetic blood. They could create an army of vampire slaves --
if there was no cure, that is."
Angel frowned, struggling to take all this in.
"But sooner or later, they were going to have to let me out..." he
said.
Wesley shook his head.
"We can't be sure, because the tactical directives weren't in
Knox's notes. But I don't think they intended to give you the cure
at all. I think the master plan was to see that you were
'accidentally' infected."
Angel's expression turned dark.
"There is some serious ass kicking about to begin..." He felt his
pockets, then remembered the fate of his cell phone.
"Give me your phone," Angel said to Wesley.
"Sorry. We all got rid of our mobile phones. They were being used
to track us."
"Then we'd better get to a floor with working communications,"
Angel said.
He was about to start off, when a thin, whiny voice drifted up
through the hole in the floor.
"Mr. Angel, are you up there?"
Angel's expression got several shades darker.
"Yeah," he shouted.
"There's a hole in the ceiling, sir."
An evil smile spread across Angel's face.
"Yes, there is, Edmund. And it's a serious breach of security. I
want you to stay right there and guard that hole. Make sure nothing
gets through it into my private bathroom. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Stay right there, no matter what happens."
Angel turned to go. Wesley caught him by the arm.
"You are going to send someone to relieve him, aren't you?"
"No."
"But he'll probably stay there all night!"
Angel smiled. "And tomorrow as well ... maybe he'll starve to
death."
Ralph and Gunn were being loaded into the helicopter when a
subordinate ran up to the squad leader.
"New orders, sir!"
A Palm Pilot was handed over, and the squad leader read something
from the screen. There was something very reluctant about his next
words.
"Uncuff them!" he said.
The handcuffs were removed.
"Now, if you'd consent to come with us, sir," the squad leader said
deferentially.
"I ain't going nowhere with you!" Gunn barked.
"As you wish, sir. But the new orders are direct from the top."
"The senior partners?"
"No, sir. From Angel."
The next time the helmeted agents came into the tool bin, they took
the handcuffs off Spike and Maria. They backed away quickly after
the two prisoners were free.
"What's this now?" Spike asked suspiciously. "Don't need us anymore?
We're going to be killed escaping?"
"We have new orders, sir. You're free to leave. But if you choose
to stay, there will be a department-heads meeting here in a few
minutes, and you're welcome to participate."
"Department heads?"
"Mr. Wyndham-Price, Miss Burkle, Mr. Gunn and the boss."
"Angel? He's decided to come out of hiding, then?"
"I've said all I'm at liberty to say, sir."
The agents turned and left.
Maria gave Spike a puzzled look.
"What now?" she asked.
Spike laughed. "Damned if I know. But, I'm sticking around, pet. I
want to be looking Angel right in the eyes when he explains all
this."
The department-heads meeting got underway a scant half-hour later
in a fairly open space among the stacked containers out in the
warehouse proper.
Ralph and Gunn arrived by helicopter, and Wesley, Fred, Lorne and
Angel came by limousine. Knox arrived in his Toyota and took his
place among the others.
Fred made a quick presentation; then Angel took the floor.
"That's the size of it," he said. "As of right now, this project is
officially over. There will be no enslaved vampires. There will be
no deliberate infections. I want every remnant of this project shut
down."
Knox cleared his throat.
Angel turned and glared at the young scientist.
"And you no longer work for Wolfram & Hart," Angel growled.
Knox looked a little worried. "Actually, sir, you don't have the
authority to fire me. I'm under contract. And you might want to
reconsider transferring me out of the Los Angeles branch."
"And just why would I want you here?" Angel said darkly.
"As long as I'm here, I work for you; and I give you my word, I'll
be working on what you tell me to.
"However, if you kick me out, my contract goes back to the senior
partners, and I'll be working on their projects. Now, think, sir.
Who would you rather have me working for?"
Angel glared but didn't answer.
"I realize this all looks pretty bad," Knox continued, nervously.
"But please understand. I didn't have any choice after you were
isolated. I had to do what the senior partners wanted. Believe me,
they're not to be defied.
"And there's something else. I guess Miss Burkle never made it into
the third-level classified file."
Fred looked at Knox. "Third level?" she asked.
"You would have needed the other password for that," Knox said.
"The one I programmed into your cell phone."
"I got rid of my phone, so you couldn't track me," Fred replied.
"Well, I guess we're all just one step too clever," Knox said with
an ironic smile. He turned back to Angel.
"You still need me. You still have a real problem with vampire
blood fever."
"And we have the solution," Angel said, gesturing toward Lorne.
Knox nodded. "But not the delivery. You've got an unusually large
vampire population in this city -- especially so after the recent
devouring-the-sun incident. And the infection is spreading through
them like wildfire. In three or four weeks, it will have burned
itself out, but until then, you've got at least two weeks of
violent vampire mobs roaming the streets.
"The Pylean demon can't possibly be expected to cure them all --
or even a few of them. They aren't very approachable."
"Or kissable," Lorne interjected. "I have my standards, you know."
Angel didn't even bother to glance Lorne's way, but Spike raised an
eyebrow and gave them both an amused look.
"And you have a solution?" Angel asked impatiently.
Knox pulled an ampoule from his pocket. "As a matter of fact, I
do."
Knox came forward.
"This is a little side project of my own. I've been looking at
rhinoviruses for some time."
"Rhinoviruses?" Angel asked. "Diseases of African horned animals?"
"No, the family of viruses that causes the common cold. Anyone who
works out a cure for colds will make a billion," Knox said. "I've
been playing around with their mutagenic properties. The reason
nobody has ever found a cure for colds is the rhinoviruses
mutate so quickly that as soon as you've found something that kills
them, they change into something else.
"I spliced some of the genetic properties of the Pylean demon's
antibodies into a strain of extremely fast-spreading rhinovirus
I've developed. I injected it into the female vampire."
Knox turned to Spike.
"That's why I wanted you to leave her behind. I needed another 12
hours to see if my hybrid virus was going to cure her. And then, if
it did, I needed to use her blood for a culture to produce more of
the virus."
"I'm cured?" Maria asked.
Knox nodded. "According to the most recent blood sample we
took, you're absolutely disease free."
"I can eat humans again?"
"I wouldn't suggest it in the present company," Knox said
pointedly.
"Oh... yeah..." Maria said, looking around nervously.
Knox held up his ampoule.
"This contains a concentrated form of the new virus. If it were to
break, it would escape into the air. The wind is from the south-
west tonight. Before morning, everyone downwind of us to a
distance of about two miles would become a carrier. I did some
computer modeling, and I believe the infection would spread
throughout the Los Angeles metropolitan area within seventy-two
to ninety-six hours. It would spread world-wide within one to two
months."
"You're saying vampire blood fever would be completely eradicated?"
Angel asked.
"Yes."
"What are you waiting for?" Spike asked, stepping up and glaring at
the young scientist.
"It's a contract issue," Knox said. "I developed this while I was
under orders from the senior partners to do no such thing. If I'm
not working for you, Angel, I can't let this get out, because the
senior partners would not be pleased at all. They still see some
potential in the fever."
"Oh, bugger that," Spike said impatiently. He snatched the ampoule
from Knox's hand and dropped it, crushing it with his boot heel.
"Hey!" Knox exclaimed. "That was my bargaining chip!"
"Tough!" Spike replied.
Angel glowered at Knox.
"All right. You still have your job," he said. "I'd rather have you
where I can know what you're up to."
He turned to Fred.
"You keep him on a short leash, understand? I don't want to hear
about any more unauthorized projects."