::.. Witlingville ..::

Gloryhole part 8

He ran like stink the whole way, his head pounding with every step, his stomach a bitter, turgid stew. The streets were full--cars and people, tarps and umbrellas, everyone shouting and pushing. There was talk of lights in San Francisco. He ran into a woman carrying a case of 30-grade sunblock, scattering tubes everywhere. She screamed and punched him in the throat. Passersby grabbed up the tubes and kept going.

Forsythe's was closed, the front doors locked. He went around the side and banged. For a couple of minutes nothing happened. He kept it up, banging and kicking, until the spyhole opened with a squeak, and he found himself face to face with Lou.

"Open up." He banged the door once, hard, with the flat of his hand. Lou didn't flinch. For a few seconds they just looked at each other. Spike considered spitting, and decided it would be counterproductive. Then the spyhole closed, the locks clattered, and the door swung open.

He stepped inside and started down the hall, ignoring Lou until a heavy hand settled on his shoulder. Then he whirled around, his whole body ready to launch into it.

Lou let go immediately and stepped back. Left with nothing to punch, Spike faltered. There was something strange about Lou's appearance, he realized. Something off-balance. It took him a second or two longer to realize what it was--the left sleeve of Lou's shirt hung empty.

"Huh." That wasn't the barb he'd like to have thought of, but his mind was on other things. "What happened to you?"

"I screwed up." It was hard to read Lou's tone, but his expression was the kind of flat that usually meant murder. "I didn't see this coming."

"Nobody saw this coming."

"You did." Lou's eyes were flat, and his gaze felt heavy on Spike's face. "You told him he had an insurgent in the group."

"I--" Made that up. "Guess I got lucky, didn't I?"

Lou said nothing. Spike turned and started down the hall toward the offices.

"You're too late," Lou called after him, his voice hoarse and self-satisfied. "He's already started."

Spike broke into a run.

Forsythe wasn't in his office, and the hallways were empty. No bustling clipboard vamps, no cell phone hostesses. The place was a ghost ship. On his way to the whores' quarters, he passed a couple of open bedrooms, one draped in pomegranate satins, the other a tastefully appointed torture chamber. They were empty, too.

The door to the whores' wing was closed and locked. He peered through the window; inside, the hallway light was dim. The doors at the far end of the hall stood open. The near ones were closed. As he watched, Forsythe came out of Dirk's room, wiping a hypodermic needle on a piece of tissue. Spike banged.

Forsythe came down the hall at a trot, his expression alarmed. On the other side of the safety glass, he studied Spike with concern. What's going on? his expression asked.

"Open up, you dumb fuck." Spike smiled and pointed at the handle: let me in.

Forsythe punched in the code and the door swung open. He was still holding the syringe, looking perplexed. "Spike, what are you doing here?"

"I said I was coming, didn't I?" The near doors were still closed, and Xander's was the nearest one. Did that mean he was first, or last? "Didn't you hear me say I was coming?"

"I didn't think you really meant it. The streets are mayhem right now." Forsythe's face softened into a pleased, flattered smile. "Spike, you really didn't need to do this. I've got things under control, it's all perfectly safe. They're all sedated already, it's just a matter of finishing them off."

"Which ones did you do?" He could barely feel his hands or feet. "Which end did you start at?"

Forsythe looked confused again. "The far end, why?"

Spike stepped around him and tried the door to Xander's room. It opened easily into darkness. Xander lay on the bed, unmoving, his breathing deep and regular. He was dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, as if he'd been off duty when they'd drugged him. Alive. Dead to the world, but alive.

"He's not dangerous," Forsythe said again, stepping in behind Spike. "I appreciate the thought, Spike, but we took all the necessary precautions. He just won't wake up." He produced a small vial from his pocket, and punctured its seal with the needle. "It's one of the risks of the industry, I guess. Humans are never really tame, and at a time like this, it's just too risky to keep them around." He raised the needle, tapped it, and started for the bed.

"Don't," Spike said. Forsythe paused.

"You'll get your money back, Spike. We'll have to close the houses for a while, until this all blows over, but in six months we'll be up and running again, I guarantee it. There's a new technology I'm looking at, it's a control chip, you implant it and the subject can't do any violence--"

"I'm not worried about my money," Spike snapped. There was a brief silence, while Forsythe's brow furrowed in a new way. He raised the syringe and gave a meaningful sideways look at Xander's limp body.

"What are you worried about, then?"

Spike opened his mouth, then shut it again. He could snap Forsythe's spine, tear his head right off, but...the door was locked, and he didn't know the combination. He couldn't get out on his own, much less lugging a knocked-out Xander. He opened his mouth again, and Forsythe raised an eyebrow.

"I'm worried about your money," Spike heard himself say. Forsythe looked wary.

"What?"

"Your investment." Spike's brain turned a corner, and he seized on what he found there. "Humans are expensive, Forsythe. Good gamers are bloody expensive. You're flushing a fortune down the toilet, here."

"I don't see what choice I have." Forsythe was studying Spike carefully. "You were right, you saw this coming. Whatever you picked up on, it means there was a leak somewhere. If they weren't insurgents before, they are now."

"They don't know what's going on--they haven't seen the news."

Forsythe gave a hollow laugh. "I'm sure they don't need to. Their clients will have let things slip, or their contacts. Whoever those are." He shook his head and studied Xander with regret. "They talk to each other, information gets passed. And now they're all dangerous."

"Troy isn't," Spike said. "He's been isolated since before it started. He hasn't talked to anyone."

Forsythe's hand rolled left then right, as if it were considering all sides of things. The syringe glittered. "You said he was a danger. You thought he was an insurgent."

"Maybe," Spike said. "Might have been leaning that way, at least. But he's also your prize pony, and those don't come cheap."

"Then what do you suggest?"

Spike hesitated. He couldn't help looking down at Xander, so he tried to make it a considering look. A look that suggested hard thought and calculation. Xander was lying on his back, his arms up over his head in an attitude of surrender. His chest rose and fell slowly. His face was peaceful. Wherever he was right now, he looked happy.

"In-service training," Spike said.

Forsythe pursed his lips and lowered the syringe to his side. "Frankly, Spike, I don't think it would work. He'd just break, and I can't use him if he's broken."

"You can't use him if he's dead, either."

Forsythe stared glumly at Xander, tapping the syringe against his leg.

"You salvaged him once," Spike says. "Might as well do it again."

There was a pause of a million years. Then Forsythe sighed and raised his shoulders, lowered them, and rolled his head with an expression of discomfort. "I hate this kind of thing."

"I know what you mean." Spike couldn't stop looking back down at the bed, at the sleeping, breathing body on it. He frowned, trying to seem like a man gauging possible outcomes. "Worth a shot, though."

"Says the man who hates business." Forsythe stepped toward the door. "For a silent partner, Spike, you're taking care of this place a lot better than we are."

"I want my money back, don't I?"

"You'll get your money." Forsythe paused on the threshold. "We'll try him in training. Marsha's going to have the insurgents sewn up inside a week, she says. Probably take months for business to get back to normal, though." He sounded weary and petty, a man driven past his own limited inner resources. "You can stay here today, if you want. It's not safe outside right now."

"Sure." Spike sank back against the wall, a strange weak feeling filling him. Relief. "I'll just let you finish up, then."

For the next ten minutes he stood in darkness, watching Xander breathe and listening to Forsythe walk from room to room, all the way down the hall.

"We're not animals," Forsythe said irritably, running his hand through his thin crop of hair and making it stand up wildly. He was tired, tieless, a pain in the ass and far more tolerable than he'd ever been, now that the world was coming apart. "We don't just drop them in a stake-filled pit, Spike. We explain what's going on, and why it's happening. That's why we call it 'training'."

Spike chewed his lip and waited while Forsythe punched in the code to the lock. "I don't want to be there for that part, all right? Just give me a minute with him first, and then I'll bugger off and you can explain all you want."

The lock buzzed, and Forsythe turned the handle but didn't open the door. He gave Spike a long look over his shoulder. "Troy's a whore, Spike."

"I know that."

"Whatever he was to you, I guarantee you weren't anything to him but a job."

Spike bit his tongue. "One minute." When Forsythe didn't move, he added, "Didn't I help save this whole bloody operation?"

"Yes," Forsythe said. "And you know I like you, Spike. I more than like you. I--" He broke off, yielding to good sense. His expression spoke volumes, though. Spike tried not to flinch. "I just don't want you to expect something he isn't going to give you."

"He's a whore," Spike said. "He's supposed to give me anything I want."

Forsythe took a deep, stabilizing breath and opened the door.

Xander was awake, sitting on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands. When Spike knocked at his door, he looked up. His face was puffy and lost-looking, his pupils huge. He blinked and nodded. Spike went in.

"Only got a minute, pet." For some reason it was hard to talk, hard to think. The room smelled of heavy sleep and whatever drug they'd slipped into the dinner, the one that had knocked them all out in the first place. It smelled repulsive. "Thought you'd want a news flash. How's the head?"

Xander stared at him. "What?"

"Sleep okay?"

"I feel...shitty. Hung over."

"That's too bad. Listen, here's the thing." Spike crouched down beside the bed, and forced a smirk onto his face. He spoke almost at a whisper, trusting that Forsythe was being a good lapdog, waiting on the other side of the door. "You're a stupid little fuck and you always have been. It's been great seeing how far I could drag you, the last few months."

Xander's face was white as paper in the darkness. His hand hung in midair beside his temple. "What?"

"You actually thought I was going to get you out of here," Spike said. "God, that's great. I hate you, Harris. I've always hated you. Just had fun fucking you, and stringing you along."

Xander's mouth formed a silent, black O. Nothing came out.

"I'm not getting you out," Spike said. "I'm turning you in. Your little friends are dead, and you're headed for in-service training." He smiled. "Sounds like a very good time had by all, if you ask me."

"But--" Xander stopped, looked at the door, then back at Spike, as if he was wondering where the real Spike was. "But the rebellion--"

"Failed," Spike said. "Looked good there for a minute or two, but they just put the lid back on Chicago last night. They've been barbecuing humans all day long."

Xander swallowed. Then he grabbed for the edge of the bed, and stood up shakily. Spike got up and stepped away.

"Just thought I'd check in one last time," he said, "and gloat. But now I'm done, so..." He started for the door. "Think of me fondly while you're being re-wired, will you?"

Xander didn't answer. He was standing over the sink with his hands clamped to the edges, swaying dangerously. Spike waited a second longer, to give him an opportunity. All he did was spit messily into the sink. He was going to throw up, by the sound of it. Spike left before it started.

Forsythe was waiting on the other side of the door; he opened it as soon as Spike emerged. His eyes scanned Spike's face, and whatever they saw there made his expression melt instantly into empathy. "I hate to say it, Spike, but I told you so. He's a whore. You can't expect any real feeling from them."

"Shut up," Spike muttered, brushing past him and stalking down the hall. He was not upset. He was fine.

He shoved his way through the mayhem in the streets, found a bar where they were still serving whiskey and blood, and sat down to watch the news feeds from the east coast. The lights were in New York now too.