Spike was on top of the world. Tara’s concoction had turned out to be a half-decent hangover cure and Dawn had inexplicably stopped being mad at him. She was a sulker, usually – took days and days to get over anything – but she’d been right solicitous from the moment he’d opened his eyes. And, even more miraculous, she’d somehow charmed Giles into retrieving his abandoned car and sorting out a new pair of boots. Boots’d been paid for with his own money, courtesy of Dawn’s sticky fingers, and it had taken absolute bloody ages to readjust the seat and mirrors after Giles messed about with them, but still. All Spike had to do now was convince the cynical sod his chip still worked, and everything would be golden.
 
Well, almost everything, anyway.
 
He parked the car.
 
“This is it?” Giles asked dubiously, staring out the window of Spike’s – Spike’s! – painfully suburban SUV at the even more painfully suburban homes surrounding them. They all had perfectly coiffed gardens and most of them sported lawn gnomes.
 
Spike gave him a quizzical look. “What were you expectin’? Boy builds robots. Hardly demon central.”
 
“Something marginally less prosaic?” Giles pursed his lips. “A bunker, perhaps? Or an abandoned factory? And how do you know he’s still living here? Surely, this is his parents’ house.”
 
Spike shrugged. “Mum’ll know.” He grinned. “Right cordial, she is. Offered me a slice of cake and a cuppa last time.”
 
Giles sighed. He struggled to understand, sometimes, how anyone survived more than a week in Sunnydale. “So what’s your plan?”
 
“Plan?” Spike looked genuinely confused.
 
“Of course you don’t have a plan,” Giles groaned. “What was I thinking?”
 
Giles wasn’t sure quite how he managed it, but with a twitch of his shoulders, Spike could say ‘you’re an idiot’ louder than any words.
 
“Slam open the door,” Spike said, as if speaking to a small child, “then threaten to break body parts until the little shit pisses himself in terror and agrees to examine my head. The End.”
 
Giles looked shocked. “He doesn’t know?”
 
Spike snorted. “Who would tell him?”
 
It was a fair point. “You’re taking an awful risk.”
 
“Worried ‘bout little old me, Rupes? ‘M touched.”
 
“On second thought….”
 
“Oi!”
 
“So where do I fit into this ‘plan’?” Giles asked, feeling the imminent onset of a headache.
 
Spike arched one eyebrow. “You don’t.”
 
Giles sighed.
 
“You’re a librarian, for fuck’s sake!”
 
“I’m a good deal better than a bloody librarian!” Giles barked.
 
“Then stop dressin’ like one!”
 
“Why am I even here?” Giles had meant to say it under his breath, but … vampire.
 
“You didn’ trust me not to lie ‘bout the results,” Spike snapped. “If you’ll recall.”
 
Giles hrmmed noncommittally. “And what happens if Warren finds out what the chip does? Either before or after he’s checked it?”
 
Spike shrugged. “Jump off that bridge when we come to it, shall we?”
 
Giles just stared at him. Surely, surely, recklessness such as this ought to have gotten him killed decades ago.
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
Willow was shocked when she heard her father calling out that he was home. It felt like only minutes had passed since her parents had left for work. But seeing as how his return meant it was probably long past seven by now, she’d pretty much lost the day.
 
Oops?
 
It was all Empedocles’ fault. His theories on how Love and Strife controlled the elements were just fascinating. Not hugely practical – magic during that period was mostly passed down orally, so the written stuff was pretty much philosophical underpinnings – but it was totally changing the way Willow thought about elemental spells. She’d always believed that they called on either the earth itself or some kind of earth deity like Gaia. But Empedocles seemed to think that there was another route: one that didn’t take anything but the caster’s emotions to power it. She wished there was a professional journal for witches. She’d love to get stuck into researching and writing a paper on internal versus external sources of power for spells. She’d be able to do important, meaningful work again; computers just felt so pointless these days.
 
Stretching her sore back muscles and rubbing at her eyes, Willow reluctantly put down Empedocles and started leafing through the other books she’d thought might have what she needed. Her dad would call her down for dinner soon, and Willow wanted to feel like she’d actually accomplished something today.
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
Giles watched as Spike kicked at the basement door of the Mears house. Repeatedly. To no avail.
 
Reinforced? Must be something impressive to keep out a vampire. So the boy was stupid enough not to revoke an invitation, but not quite so stupid as to make it easy to brute force a way in. Given his previous experience with recalcitrant super-strong robots, that was perhaps to be expected.
 
Curtains were starting to twitch all along the street. Only a matter of time before someone rang the police. Even in Sunnydale.
 
Annoyed, Giles decided to get out and help. He glanced longingly at the crossbow lying across the back seat, but since he wasn’t actually willing to shoot Warren with it, he couldn’t justify taking it.
 
Spike had stopped throwing himself at the door by the time Giles arrived.
 
“Thought you were gonna stay in the car?” Spike said, panting a little.
 
Giles held up a set of lock picks.
 
“Wondered what happened to those,” Spike grunted.
 
“I took them off of Dawn,” Giles said coldly.
 
Spike reached for his tools, but Giles dodged his outstretched hand and bent down to start working on the lock himself.
 
“What the—”
 
The lock was picked. Spike blinked unbelievingly.
 
“Now,” Giles said smugly, holding the door open. “Wasn’t that rather easier?”
 
Spike brushed past, lips pressed into a tight line, then let out a low whistle as he took in the room. “‘S like a cross between Hugh Hefner’s pad and an episode of Star Trek.” Then he saw the shelves filled with toys and memorabilia. “Or not.”
 
Giles was staring open-mouthed at the white board off to one side sporting a ‘To Do’ list. “There’s not even any gold in Fort Knox,” he muttered. “Why on earth would anyone want to miniaturise it?”
 
Spike noticed what Giles was looking at. “That’s what you find odd? I wanna know what the hell the ‘Gorilla Thing’ is.”
 
They kept staring.
 
“On second thought,” Spike muttered, “maybe I don’t.” He started wandering around the room, picking things up and putting them down again. “Plasma flat screen,” he whispered, awestruck, reaching out to stroke a TV that might actually be bigger than him.
 
Giles rolled his eyes. He was mentally measuring the room against the size of the house. There had to be more rooms. Possibly some closet space as well…. But there didn’t appear to be any doors. He began examining the walls.
 
Spike was staring at a messy collation of desktops and laptops and trying to convince himself that he could figure out how they worked if he just kept pressing buttons. Windows was supposed to be all intuitive now, wasn’t it? That’s what the adverts said…. He picked up a keyboard and watched as one of the screens came to life.
 
“Aha!” Giles shouted, and swung open a knob-less door camouflaged to look like the rest of the wall.
 
Linux? What the fuck’s Linux?
 
Giles let out a noise that, coming from anyone else, might have been charitably described as a girlish scream.
 
Spike dropped the keyboard like a hot potato and ran to where Giles was standing open-mouthed outside what appeared to be a broom closet.
 
Inside was the Buffy-bot.
 
The bot’s eyes popped open in something like pleased surprise. “Guyles!”
 
“Bugger me,” Spike breathed.
 
She squinted at him. “Who are you?”
 
Spike started laughing. He’d begged and pleaded with Willow to make it forget him for months. He should’ve just taken it back to Warren.
 
“Shut up, Spike!” Giles snapped.
 
To their mutual surprise, he did.
 
“Buffy?” Giles asked hesitantly.
 
“Yes!” the bot said happily. “You’re my Watcher; you’re smart but lacking in personality.”
 
“Quite.” Giles sat down on an occasional table. Spike was frozen in place.
 
The bot stepped out from the closet. “Have you found more demons for me to rob and kill?”
 
“Rob and-? Buffy, er, perhaps you could remind me of your, ah, mission?”
 
She nodded happily, like a dog about to perform a trick. “It’s my sacred duty to go out and patrol every night for demons, and if they look like they’re rich, I take their money before I slay them.”
 
Spike let out another startled laugh; it had an edge of hysteria to it.
 
“I also protect my masters from anything that tries to hurt them.” She switched her focus to Spike, eyes narrowing. “You’re a vampire. Are you here to hurt my masters?”
 
“No, he’s not,” Giles said sharply. “Who are your masters?”
 
“Warren and Jonathan and Andrew,” the bot breathed reverently. “They’re so smart and tall.”
 
Spike mouthed “Tall?” incredulously towards Giles.
 
Giles coughed “Sinister attraction,” into his hand.
 
Spike scowled.
 
Turning back to the bot, Giles said, “So, er, Mears, and  … what are the full names of the others?”
 
“Jonathan Levinson—”
 
“I never thought that Levinson boy had any friends,” Giles said, surprised.
 
“Not without magicking ‘em into existence anyway,” Spike grumbled, still deeply discomfited by the entire situation.  
 
The bot shot him a glare. “You’re mean. I don’t like you.” She turned back to Giles. “And Andrew Wells.”
 
Giles frowned. “Andrew Wells? I remember a Tucker: hellhounds at the, er, the spring fling?”
 
“They’re brothers,” the bot supplied happily. “Andrew knows all about demons.” She paused. “But not as much as you, Guyles. Your books are your only friends.”
 
Giles shot Spike a venomous look. “I blame you for this,” he hissed. “Entirely.”
 
“Hey now, I wanted it destroyed soon’s Buffy—”
 
The bot had cocked her head and was watching him; suddenly, he knew what gazelles must feel like.
 
“Went away?” Spike suggested carefully, taking a tentative step back. The first time Willow had insisted on sending it out with him, it had all gotten a bit much and he’d tried to destroy it. But it had been created to be stronger than him – just like her. There had been a lot of “accidents” after that, in which lives wires and water had figured heavily.
 
The bot relaxed her gaze, satisfied for the moment.
 
“Willow was the one insistin’ we keep it,” Spike said quietly.
 
“Why on earth would she do that?”
 
“Made it easier to pretend the Slayer was still … here. Physical presence and whatnot.”
 
It made a sort of sense.
 
Giles turned back to the bot. “You, er, you live here?”
 
“I live at 1630 Revello Drive.” The bot blinked slowly. “But I stay here to better service my masters.”
 
“Of course you do,” Giles sighed. “Perhaps, er, perhaps you should go back home now?”
 
The bot’s whole body lit up with her smile, then she turned around and went back into the closet, shutting the door behind her.
 
There was a moment of silence as Giles and Spike stared at the wall, its door rendered invisible again.
 
“That really happened, right?” Spike asked.
 
“If you mean that your obscene sexbot is currently being used as a means of income by … by social rejects with a science fiction obsession, then yes, Spike. Yes it really did happen.” He stood up and went to re-open the hidden door.
 
The bot’s eyes blinked open in pleased surprise. “Guyles!”
 
“Buffy,” Giles said softly.
 
“Have you found more demons for me to rob and kill?”
 
Just as Giles was about to speak, Spike shoved him unceremoniously against the bot and into the closet, slamming the door behind them. The bot’s eyes had closed as soon as the door shut. Giles assumed it was some sort of programmed response.
 
“Robot-boy!” Spike’s voice called out gaily from the other side of the door.
 
Giles’ righteous indignation vanished. Resigned to stay where he was for the time being, he leaned back against the door as much as he could and tried very hard not to put his hands anywhere.
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
Willow finally hit the jackpot with the Elementals Primer for the Experienced Practitioner. It was something she’d bought as part of a job lot at an estate sale back when she was still hoping to find resurrection spells that didn’t require Vino de Madre, but it turned out to have a whole chapter on failsafes for big magicks … and, even better, something very like the spell Tara had used.
 
Same ingredients … cosmic alarm clock … blah blah … one person guaranteed unaffected. Willow frowned, re-reading one particular passage:
 
The link will feel a prickling, akin to electricity in the air during a storm, as the magicks try, and fail, to take effect.
 
Willow frowned. It was … odd. Why would Giles’ pet coven choose something like this? It was no kind of alternative to a full binding spell. It would only protect Tara, and it heavily implied she wouldn’t even feel anything if a spell wasn’t directed at her. And no matter where the magic was directed, if something on the scale of major earth magicks only made an itty-bitty tingly feeling, anything smaller probably wouldn’t even be noticed.
 
Willow slumped back against her chair. She just couldn’t understand why they’d choose that spell.
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
Warren’s entire life flashed before his eyes, and it was sad. Sad and pathetic. He couldn’t die before he got out of his mom’s basement! He’d been drafting blueprints for an island hideout. Why couldn’t he have just agreed to help install the cameras? Then none of this would be happening.
 
“Uh, h-hi Spike,” he stammered. Warren looked around frantically for something he could use as a weapon, but there was nothing. All his weapons were locked away to keep Andrew from touching them, and he had no idea how to use any of the magical ones. His so-called perfect bodyguard was powered down in the closet, unable to react to anything until he could get the door open again. And between him and that door was a very hungry-looking vampire. Warren briefly wondered if he could somehow trick Spike into opening the closet – he wasn’t the brightest bulb, after all – but then Warren’s back was against the wall and Spike was looming over him and growling and the constructive thinking part of his brain mostly started gibbering “Run! Run, you fool!” loud enough to drown out everything else.
 
“D-did my mom let you in again?” Warren only just managed not to whimper. Please don’t have eaten my mom. Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease.
 
Spike’s grin got a little bit wider and a lot more threatening. “Need you to look at my chip.”
 
Warren gulped. “It that a euphemism?” he squeaked.
 
Inside the closet, Giles rolled his eyes.
 
Spike frowned, straightening up. “In my head. The chip in my head.”
 
Warren relaxed, marginally. Then Spike took an actual step back, which made Warren relax so much he was momentarily worried about voiding. But the step had taken Spike out of direct line of the closet door, so Warren started edging further into the room, towards the bot and safety.
 
Spike stared at him until he stopped.
 
“Why should I help you, huh?” Warren asked, hesitantly placing his hands on his hips and thrusting out his chest, trying for confident and in control.
 
Spike cast a quick look around the room. “You got a lot of collectibles here, don’t you?”
 
Warren’s face went ashen.
 
Spike picked up a figurine from a nearby shelf. “Examine my chip or Vader here gets it.” He started pulling and prodding at the toy, including the piece of flimsy plastic sticking out of its arm.
 
“No!” Warren shouted, arms outstretched. “Not that Vader.”
 
Spike grinned wolfishly.
 
“Okay, okay. Chill. Let’s all just be cool. We can do that, right?” He took a few deep breaths. “You can still make it right. You know you don’t want to do this.”
 
“I want answers, nimrod.” Spike started tossing the toy from one hand to another. He was making no effort to protect its fragile arm. “Tick tock.”
 
“Right, right. Of course. But, you don't wanna hurt Vader. ‘Cause, man, you're not coming back from that. You don't do that and walk away.”
 
“That right?” Spike growled. “Let's find out.”
 
Warren started into cold, unfeeling eyes. Eyes that could not possibly comprehend the magnitude of destroying a mint condition 1978 telescoping lightsaber Darth Vader that Warren had spent days writing a special eBay-sniper to acquire. Spike would break the telescoping mechanism. No question. Maybe even worse. He was just that evil.
 
“I help you, you owe me one,” Warren said. “It’ll be a deal. And then later—”
 
“No,” Spike said firmly. “You help me, you get to keep your … toy … in one piece.”
 
Warren gulped again. It had totally been a euphemism. He knew it.
 
Spike stepped in a little closer, drinking in the heady scent of fear It was fun, threatening a squidgy little meat sack again. Even if it was only by proxy. “That’s the deal. Deal?”
 
“Deal,” Warren breathed.
 
“Let’s get on with it, then.” Spike said.
 
Warren nodded. He considered a mad dash for the closet door, but Spike was back to standing directly in front of it. It was almost like he knew, which he couldn’t possibly, or Warren would probably be dead by now. Warren crossed to the other side of the room and unlocked the second hidden door – the one that led to his lab.
 
From inside the closet, Giles heard a door opening, then closing, and then only the barest murmur of voices. If he wanted to hear what Warren told Spike about the chip, he needed to get out. He carefully put one hand behind his back, scrabbling for the latch. It meant pushing up against the bot’s chest. It felt disconcertingly lifelike. After far too long, he managed to release the latch and open the door.
 
Big, hazel eyes blinked open. “Guyles!”
 
“Shhhh,” Giles put a finger to his lips.
 
“Did you hear something?” Warren asked Spike, looking at the door.
 
“Crackle of breakin’ plastic?” Spike suggested blandly.
 
Warren turned back to him, scowling. “Lie still. If you move too much it’ll screw up the scan.”
 
While Warren waved a wanna-be tricorder over him, Spike stared at the ceiling and tried not to fidget. It had been years now since he’d even tried biting anyone. He shivered. Just the thought of it made him brace for pain.
 
Like Pavlov’s bloody dog.
 
It could still turn out not be Buffy at all. Could be all women – some kind of hormone or pheromone thing. And while that sounded even more idiotic and Star Trek than all the junk in Warren’s little shrine to geekdom, the Initiative had always been a geek’s wet dream: the weak controlling the strong through superior tech.
 
“Okay, all done,” Warren said.
 
Spike sat up.
 
Warren turned back to the machine at the other end of the scanner. “Just gotta print some stuff off, and then I’ll be right with you.”
 
Spike left the room, only to walk straight into Giles. He flinched at a minor firing. Yep. Something definitely still worked.
 
The bot was grinning. “Be vewy, vewy quiet,” she whispered. “It’s wabbit season.”
 
Giles shrugged helplessly.
 
“Get out of here!” Spike hissed. “He’s gonna see you!”
 
 Giles’ eyes went flinty. “Not until I know the results.”
 
“Oh for the love of – fine! But bloody hide already!”
 
“Buffy,” Giles said gently. “What time do you normally start your, er, patrols?”
 
Suddenly the inner door to the main house opened. “Warren?” a voice called out. “Dinner’s ready!”
 
Warren came out of the lab, yelling, “Be up in a minute, Ma!” Then he saw Giles.
 
“Who the hell are you?” he asked.
 
“Bugger,” Giles said under his breath.
 
Then Warren noticed the bot. Jumping up and punching the air at his good luck, he shouted, “Kill him, Buffy!” It wouldn’t matter now if Spike didn’t like that he’d repossessed his Buffy-bot: she’d been designed to be able to beat him in a fight, the freak.
 
Her bubbly smile turned feral. Giles started backing away.
 
“Now, now, Buffy, you don’t want to hurt your Watcher, do you?”
 
“You’re Guyles?” Warren exclaimed incredulously. He started laughing. “Where’s the tweed, dude? From what he said, I always figured it was, y’know, surgically attached.”
 
“It’s Giles,” Giles snapped.
 
The bot was now stalking him.
 
Spike dug into his pocket for Vader. “Forgettin’ somethin’ robot boy?”
 
Warren looked confused. “I thought you hated that guy.”
 
“Do,” Spike said seriously. “But you’re still gonna call it – her – it off.” He made the figurine’s arm wave at Warren. “Or Vader here gets it.”
 
“Buffy stop,” Warren said. A smile spread over his face. “Way I see it, we’re at a stalemate now. You give me back my Vader, and I let you and Guyles—”
 
“Giles!”
 
“Whatever. I let you two go.”
 
Spike’s eyes narrowed. “What about my chip?”
 
Warren shrugged. “What’s that information worth to you?”
 
Spike vamped out. “What’re the contents of your veins worth to you?”
 
Giles winced. There was no way this was going to end well.
 
The bot suddenly switched focus to Spike. “You’re threatening my master. Also, evil. You need to die.” Then she was flying at him, brandishing a stake.
 
Spike tossed Vader to Giles, and only just managed to deflect the stake away from his heart. As he was blocking a frenzy of kicks and punches, Giles walked over to Warren.
 
“Mr Mears,” Giles said in his best teacher voice, “Hand over the printouts, and I will refrain from breaking your doll.”
 
Warren’s mouth opened and closed.
 
There was a crash as Spike flew through the air and into the table filled with computers. He sat up, dazed and shaking his head. Every single computer monitor was cracked and smoking.
 
Warren started whimpering.
 
“Do you have any money?” the bot asked Spike, cocking her head.
 
He launched himself at her with a growl.
 
“Mr Mears,” Giles snapped. “The printouts.”
 
“In the lab,” Warren said, still mesmerised by the damage Spike and the bot were doing to his beautiful, beautiful lair.
 
Giles went through to the lab, and tore off the sheaf of papers connected to an ancient dot-matrix printer.
 
“Thank you,” Giles said to a distracted and grieving Warren. “Spike! Time to go.”
 
Spike ducked the next punch, spun around, and ran for the outer door. The bot hared off after him into the night.
 
Giles followed at a more sedate pace, closing the door behind him, and returning to the car. As soon as he sat down, he realised Spike still had the keys.
 
After readjusting the seat and mirrors, Giles hotwired the car. He was pleasantly surprised at how easy it still was.
 
Sighing, he set off for Willow’s house. In the absence of further assistance from Warren, she was the only person he knew who would be capable of making sense of the one language he’d never been able to understand: technology.