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*Committee hearing, fall of 2000*
Maggie Walsh had prepared her speech in detail. Not that she felt she needed to. Her work spoke for itself. But such was the game that once in a while you had to explain yourself to those clearly unable to comprehend brilliance without a guide-a-tour.
So she would smile, make her presentation, and resume her work.
“Please elaborate on the events leading up to your relocation to…” The balding and bespectacled president of the Commission flipped a few pages from a dossier in front of him. His physical appearance indicated to Maggie the presence of an inferiority complex, possibly coupled with a superiority complex due to his erstwhile power. A dangerous man. “Sunnydale, California.”
Maggie felt a chill go up her spine at the mere mention of the name. No matter. She had a presentation to make.
“Yes, thank you for the opportunity.” She hated the deference, but she had to play the game. She took a deep breath and began her tale.
“The project was going to use that location anyway, since out preliminary information gathering indicated it as one with the highest ratio of HST infestation.”
“HST?” The question was asked by a woman wearing entirely too much make-up. Another sufferer from an inferiority complex, and perhaps also a deep-seeded desire to fit in, seeing as how she was the only female on the panel.
“Hostile Sub-Terrestrial. Our official designation for the colloquially named demons.” Although Maggie disliked interruptions, she always enjoyed the opportunity to educate. She had a higher purpose at this hearing, however, so she went on with her presentation.
“The town itself was large enough that an operation the size of the Initiative could be easily camouflaged, while small enough to be ignored to the rest of the country. In fact we conducted a poll and most of the respondents were convinced the place didn’t actually exist. In a word, it was perfect.”
“You said ‘anyway.’ Were there other factors?” This time it was a tall thin man that posed the question. No doubt harboring some resentment over not being selected as the president over the commission over his short balding colleague.
To Maggie he was annoying because he interrupted her only to ask something she was going to explain anyway. Honestly, these people were infuriating. Still, she had to go on. “The operation was planned to start in the summer of 2000, however some experts from Britain, former members of the so called Council of Watchers, made us decide to initiate preliminary preparation one year ahead of schedule.”
“And why would some foreign members of an organization that we have found no trace of influence your decision as to the beginning of your operation?”
Maggie fixed the new speaker—a younger man who clearly lacked the necessary experience to occupy his spot—with a glare. Was every member of the Commission going to interrupt her after every single statement? If so, they would never be done in time. Didn’t these buffoons understand she was on a tight schedule?
“The Council is an organization centered in England that claims to battle the HST infestation with the help of the occult. Mostly they control the agent called ‘the Sayer.’” She could see the fifth member of the Commission getting ready to interrupt as well, so she hurried to explain further. “The group of former Council members, or ‘Watchers’ as they are called, indicated the need to intervene in Sunnydale. They explained that they had lost control of their agent through HST influence and they were unable to reacquire her. It was the reason for their defection, as well as for their presence in the US.”
She sipped at the water in front of her. “They provided vital information on HSTs, as well as their own organization, in exchange for our involvement in the capture and possible reeducation of their agent. Since the Slayer was said to have superhuman strength and reflexes, on par with some of the HST types we had encountered which were superior to our best trained soldiers, I considered it a priority to reverse-engineer the process that created her in order to possibly use it on our troops.”
“Her?”
“Why didn’t these watchers explain the process?”
The woman and the president had spoken at the same time.
“Yes, the agent was a female, in fact the Slayer has always been a young woman, sometimes even a girl as young as twelve. As for the Watchers, they either didn’t know, or were reluctant to explain the exact process that gave the agent her powers. I therefore decided a thorough hands-on investigation was needed.”
She stopped for a moment to remember her excitement the first time Roger Wyndam-Price and his followers had described the Slayer’s powers and offered her free reign once with her body once she was captured. She shook off her melancholy and went on. “The initial stages of our operation were completely successful. We attained cover-stories for our personnel, housing for support staff, and we identified a location for the base: in the underground of the local college.”
She sipped more water to take away the bad taste of what followed. “The base was never fully operational, though. A series of mishaps, accidents, and sabotage prevented the construction crews from completing their tasks. Our first sorties by teams on reconnaissance missions were met with brutal force, hospitalizing or killing more than half of our initial combat troops within a week. The numbers of HSTs that we managed to capture was very small: just three captives before we were forced to stop all retrieval missions due to a lack of personnel.” She shook her head dejectedly. “We didn’t even get to study them before...”
“Please, go on. This is a safe place.” The Commission president’s words sounded mocking to Maggie’s ears, despite the gentle tone, but she complied anyway.
“It was during a visit by myself and the best and brightest minds of the Initiative, alongside the Watchers that had joined us to the newly constructed containment cells that—.” The words wouldn’t come out. She looked down at her useless legs and the wheelchair. “There was an attack on the base from both the outside and from within. I’m certain the Slayer and the vampire that made her defect from the Council were responsible. Our forces never stood a chance.” She glared at the people in front of her. “Due to budgetary delays, we didn’t have the numbers to fight back. We’d also been forced to hire some local contractors. The building crews detonated explosives which collapsed almost all the corridors. I had tried to escape the carnage of the attack and was caught under debris. They only dug me out after twenty hours. Most of my team—some of the most brilliant minds I’ve ever met—were dead or missing. The Watchers’ heads were found on pikes in front of the ‘Welcome’ sign to that God-forsaken town. Their bodies were never recovered.”
“So were the local construction crews also vampires?”
Maggie didn’t even care who’d asked the question. She was staring at the water cup and remembering all the people she’d lost. “No, they were human. Or at least looked human. I think they were some sort of shapeshifting HST type we hadn’t encountered before. If only we’d had the time and the funding to set up HST detective measures, none of this would have happened.” She was looking at them again. They were here to pass judgement. They had no right.
“We were planning on testing various HST types in order to understand their possible use as either controlled weapons, or sources of new technology. The duplication of the Slayer method of enhancement, behavioral modification chips to be implanted in HSTs such as vampires and other human-looking types, creating a combat force which would be able to be sent against any and all threats without any American loss of life, as well as the possibility—.” She willed them to see her point. “Just imagine if the inventiveness and ruthlessness which they employed in dealing with the Initiative could be harnessed. We could pacify the world with such creatures under our control.”
“Creatures such as vampires and demons.”
“Yes. Wyndam-Price told me there were all sorts of HST types that could prove useful. Vampires, werewolves, zombies, ghosts, to call them by their layman names. Of course I am convinced that thorough exploration and experimentation would reveal they are not supernatural in nature, but in fact new types of animals, or viruses that infect humans. Even those types of viruses could then be used as bio-warfare, or for other more domestic uses.”
“I see.”
“Do you? Can you understand what a world we could build if we understood how these creatures worked? We could be unstoppable.”
The president spoke to the rest of the Commission. “It is clear Ms. Walsh—”
“Doctor Maggie Walsh.”
He sneered. “Dr. Walsh is still suffering from extreme PTSD, with paranoid, and megalomaniac tendencies. I hope through intensive therapy and proper medication she could be rehabilitated, however for the time being, my opinion is that the dose of Prozac should be increased.”
“What are you talking about? I am here for you to provide the funding for a new, improved Initiative. This time we’ll start with a more aggressive campaign. We’ll have shock troops sweep the town for those responsible, then—What are you doing? Leave me alone.” Men in scrubs came and started to wheel her out of the room with the Commission.
“Wait. Where do you think you are?” When the woman on the Commission spoke the strangely-dressed soldiers stopped.
“The Senate Commission for Secret Operations.”
The woman looked sad for some reason. “No, you’re not. This is a panel to discuss your progress since you were remanded to us by the state, and the possible start of shock therapy in your case. You are at the Clearview Institute for Mental Health. We are your doctors, and you are our patient. These delusions you have about Sunnydale, vampires, councils, and secret government organizations are what got you here. We’re trying to help you.”
Maggie couldn’t believe her ears. These people had wasted her time. They weren’t going to help her with her projects, and in fact were keeping her away from them on purpose. She needed to get away. She needed to escape them. She bit one of the guards hard enough to draw blood.
“She bit the orderly. Sedate her, put her in restraints and keep her in isolation until she’s subdued.”
Maggie Walsh’s last clear thought was that it was all Buffy Summers’ fault.





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