Chapter 2.
After the initial period of stunned silence, followed closely by a lot of hemming and hawing, the questions started to flow freely. But it was Xander’s that got everyone’s attention “So prime time television, huh? That means there’s got be a sex symbol…so who is it?” he really did do a good impersonation of an excited puppy, Buffy thought.
“Oh come on, you’re not serious?” Penny looked at them in amused disbelief.
“No, go on tell us.” Willow smiled indulgently at her hapless friend.
“You’re kidding me right...You can’t work that out?” Penny gazed at each of the room’s inhabitants in growing amazed incredulity. “Abs of steel, a butt you could bounce a coin off, a compact powerhouse just oozing sexuality.”
When Penny saw Buffy giving Riley a shy smile, she burst out laughing “Oh please. You have a choice between Dudley Do-Right and Studly Do-Me-Right-Now, and you’re gonna pick the Mountie?”
A glance over at Xander had Penny quickly commenting, “You won comic relief, Xander.”
Buffy screwed up her face as a thought came to her, “EW…isn’t Giles a little…er…old, no offence Giles.” She smiled apologetically at the older man.
Before Giles could comment, Penny piped in. “While he’s definitely a favourite with the older fans, what with the whole Band Candy thing and Ripper on the loose; and his singing has a certain drool factor, Giles is not the show’s resident sex symbol.” Penny smiled at the quietly preening watcher.
“But, there isn’t anyone else…” Buffy silently wondered if maybe it was Angel, but didn’t want to say anything in front of Riley.
“Come on people; it’s Spike, of course.” Anya sometimes felt she surrounded herself with idiots.
“Spike!” voices exclaimed, some horrified, some thoughtful and one in total disbelief.
“But, he’s a vampire!” Buffy belatedly cried out.
“And?” Penny asked, curiously.
“What do you mean ‘and’? He’s. A. Vampire.” Buffy spoke slowly, as if to a child that had missed the entire point of the argument.
“Oh, I get it…you’re a racist.” Penny observed.
“Buffy is not a racist!” Riley yelled, “He’s not human, he’s an animal, a thing; he’s not even alive.” His attempt to grab at her upper arm had him awkwardly stumbling into the table.
“Agent Finn, why don’t you put that education of yours to good use rather than spewing rhetoric that is so easily disproved; and I don’t want to have to ask you not to poke me again” Penny snapped, her eyes flashing angrily.
The vampire sat quietly, taking everything in. He had a strange feeling that it was important to listen to what was going to be said tonight. Something just a little more important than the fact that he was a sex symbol ‘as if it could have been any of these other wankers’, Spike thought to himself with a grin.
“What do mean, ‘so easily disproved’? What exactly are your qualifications?” Giles asked, the researcher in him taking over.
“Two Ph.D.s; one in Psychology and one in Film and Media. Incidentally, I wrote my doctoral thesis for my film and media Ph.D. as a psychological evaluation of the program ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and its dysfunctional main characters. What the show didn’t tell me, Whistler showed me before he left,” Penny flatly informed the astonished man before turning back to Riley.
“Agent Finn has voiced some of the beliefs that many of you share. Before we go any further, I think it’s important to address these inaccurate beliefs. How many of you are under the impression that vampires are not alive?” Penny looked around the room to see every hand raised…even Spikes. “Willow, what denotes life?”
“Um…to be considered life the subject must be able to procreate and die.” Only Buffy and Xander seemed to have not grasped the significance of Willow’s description. Giles and Spike seemed equally shocked by the revelation. Willow and Tara seemed thoughtful, Anya bored and Riley looked furious.
“You’re saying vampires are alive? But they don’t have a pulse…no heartbeat…they’re not human.” Buffy angrily inserted.
“You’re right. Vampires aren’t human. So why would you think that they have the physiology of humans? Demons may be different on a physiological level, but they still exist within the parameters of the definition of life…which makes them alive and before you say that vampires just animate a dead body, Xander, that’s irrelevant. Vampires may be different than other demons, they may require a human body to fulfil the parameters, but they still fulfil them. Vampires may be a different form of life than you are used to, but they are a life form.
Agent Finn also seems to be under some other mistaken opinions. He calls vampires things, or animals. As they can’t be both, because an animal is not a thing, it’s time to pick one; which is it Agent Finn, are Vampires animals or things?” Penny set her hard glare on Riley.
“They’re things.” Riley spat, his hatred contorting his features.
“Then please don’t call them animals again. Now, you call them ‘things’; I take it that you don’t consider them sentient beings then?” Penny questioned the ex-initiative soldier, unemotionally.
“Of course not.” Riley confirmed, with distain.
“What criteria are required to denote a being as sentient, Agent Finn.” Penny asked.
“Intelligence, self awareness and consciousness;” his educational training ensured a quick and confident response.
“How do you measure intelligence?” Penny continued.
“A being with intelligence has the ability to learn and understand, and to cope with new situations.” Riley proudly showed off his knowledge.
“So clearly you must be under the impression that vampires are intelligent, or you wouldn’t have developed the behavioural modification chips. Modifying behaviour requires the ability to learn and understand, and, obviously, to cope with new situations. I’m happy to hear that we both believe vampires are intelligent.” Penny smiled smugly at Riley, daring him to disagree. “I believe self awareness was next?” Penny waited for his curt nod, before turning to Spike. “Spike what are you doing right now?”
“I’m sittin’ here listenin’ to you and the mountie prattle on about sentient beings.” He answered his amusement clear.
“What do you think the outcome of this will be?”
“I don’t think it matters. Even if you prove to this lot that vampires are sentient, it’s not gonna change the way they treat me.” Spike replied, surprising the others with the sad acceptance in his voice.
“Well will you listen to all those ‘I’ words…sounds pretty self aware to me. Wouldn’t you agree Agent Finn?” Penny said smiling, and then continued after gaining Riley’s angry nod. “Consciousness, I believe, was the final requirement, wasn’t it Agent Finn? Well then perhaps you can answer me this…Did Spike make the conscious decision to escape the Initiative, or not?” She waited for him to ground out the affirmative. “Well then, we’ve clearly proven that vampires are sentient beings; that makes them your equals, they are not beneath you and terms like ‘thing’ or ‘monster’ are not appropriate.” Penny stated with finality, furtively glancing at Buffy and noting her shell shocked countenance.
“What does it matter what we call them, it’s not like we’re gonna hurt their feelings or anything, ‘cause…you know…they don’t have them.” Xander jumped in, valiantly attempting to support Riley.
Penny rolled her eyes and sighed deeply. “Tara, when you read an individuals aura, are you able to see the depths of their feelings.”
“Er...y.y.yes.”
“Out of every individual in this room, who feels things the most deeply?” Penny pursued.
“Buffy…and Spike.” The shy Wiccan confirmed what Penny knew to be true.
“Impossible!”
“No way!”
“Could you have misread him, Sweetie?”
“No Willow, I didn’t misread Spike.” Tara’s voice was quiet, but firm, her conviction clear. “I’m sorry if it’s not what you want to hear, but it’s true. Spike feels things deeply, he has a really deep capacity to love and I can see it in his aura whenever he is around Mrs. Summers or Dawn or…” She broke of, when she noticed the vampire’s look of complete terror, and changed what she was originally going to say. “Well it’s there, and…and…and I think you’re all really mean to him.”
“Tara, dear, I’m sure that you believe what you think you are seeing, but it’s simply not possible. Demons are incapable of feeling emotions as we know them.” Giles tried to gently enlighten the girl.
Penny turned to the watcher and laughed “Please, enlighten me Mr. Giles. How precisely do you measure or evaluate emotional usage? Other than a full psychological evaluation, where the subject is participating with full cooperation, I can’t think of any other way. I seriously doubt that any demons have been willing subjects to a full psych evaluation.”
“The Council of Watchers has been around for a long time, there have been thousands of books written on the subject.” Giles replied stiffly.
“What proof did they offer?” Penny countered, softly “they have a supposition, but without proof that’s all it is. You don’t trust the Council, but you blindly believe all they teach you? You don’t question their theories? Miss Jenkins here is human, but she was a demon for eleven hundred years, so she’s been both…did you think to ask her?”