Unknown Factors (Book One)

Ch.17: To my action

  Sometime in the afternoon, Pops and I had gone to Buffy and Willow's campus. Walking outside, we soon met up with Xander, Willow, and Buffy. The air between them was a bit on the awkward side as they looked at each other, and Buffy was the first to speak

  "Where's Anya?" She asked when she saw Xander was alone.

  "Oddly, Anya decided not to join us despite the fun we had at our last meeting." Xander replied with his arms crossed as he spoke with sarcasm.

  "And I don't think Tara felt welcome." Willow spoke with a quiet voice.

  "Why? Because of the things we said?" Buffy was shifting on her feet as Willow nodded. "Will, who told you that we were talking behind your back, specifically?"

  "Well, I...." She trailed off while furrowing her brows.

  "Spike." Crossing my arms, I shook my head slowly. 'That son of a bitch.' I thought while realizing what Buffy was getting at.

  "And who told you that we thought you'd be better off joining the army?" Buffy looked at Xander.

  "That's not...." He looked around. "exactly what he said." Xander dropped his arms and put his hands on his hips.

  "Well, uh, S-Spike can be very convincing when-when-when, uh...." Pops sounded like a broken record. "I'm very stupid."

  "He played us. He wanted us to fight to split us up." Buffy glanced at each of us. "That's where it came from, the stuff we said the other night."

  "Of course. Well, piffle. Let's move on." Pops put a hand on his hip while waving his coffee to the side.

  "I'm moving." Xander raised his hands.

  "Me, too." Willow nodded.

  "Good." Buffy smiled. "Great." There was a silent pause with a bit of awkwardness.

  "So, why do you think Spike made with the head games?" Willow asked.

  "He is evil." I shrugged while putting my hands into my pockets.

  "He's all dressed up with no one to bite." Xander nodded at me. "He's got to get his yayas somehow." He looked around.

  "I think it was more than that." Buffy said. "I think it was Adam."

  "Spike's working for Adam?!" Xander swung his arms out. "After all we've done- Nah, I can't even act surprised."

  "That son-of-a-cracker thief!" I growled while crossing my arms and frowning.

  "You're still on that?" Xander raised a hand. "Remind me never to mess with Aud's food." He glanced at everyone.

  "I just went to Adam's lair, and he was gone, but Spike just happened to be there. And he made this big noise about getting information off those encrypted disks."

  "Oh, I decrypted 'em." We all looked at Willow. "Well, they decrypted themselves, but I almost had it."

  "What did they say?" Pops asked.

  "Bunch of stuff we already knew about 314, but it also said there's some final phase where Adam manufactures a bunch of creepy cyber-demonoids like him." Willow answered as Giles took his glasses off. "There's a special lab in the Initiative, but it didn't say where."

  "Adam fed Spike those disks. It has to be. He wanted me to know about his evil-guy assembly line." Buffy shifted on her feet again. "This lab, it's in the Initiative?"