My Life is Different Ch. 06

Martha got us more towels and dry clothes for Buffy and I to wear. She also got some dry clothes for herself. Like Xander says, if you're gonna save the world, you should put on some pants first.

"So, right before the lesbian group sex started," Buffy prompted Martha, "You were trying to tell us about the cyborg-demon-thingy."

Martha stepped into a pair of black hip-hugger panties and said, "Yeah. His name is Adam. He's a bio-mechanical demonoid, and in the year 2007 he's got and entire army of demon cyborgs. He's killed over 36,000 people, including at least 144 members of the California-"

Buffy cut her off in mid-sentence, "Wait, Martha, hold up. In the year 2007? It's only the year 2000. How do you know what happens seven years from now?"

Martha looked a little bit irked at being interrupted, but she adjusted the waistband on her panties until they were just right and replied, "I'm from the future. The Doctor and I are both from the future. He's got a time machine and he brought us back here to the year 2000, so we could stop Adam before he could get started. We'd planned on getting here before he went online, but I guess we got here a little bit too late."

"Time travel?" Buffy asked, "Time travel is possible now?"

"Seven years from now, we'll have mastered time travel?" I asked, the science nerd in me, suddenly excited.

"Well, not the human race, no," Martha answered, "The Doctor's people have mastered time travel. I don't think the human race ever gets the knack of it."

"Wait, Doctor Smith isn't human?"

By this point Martha had donned a bra and a stylish V-neck t-shirt. I finally took the hint and started sorting through the dry clothes Martha had carried out and searched for something to put on.

"His real name isn't Doctor Smith. He's just called the Doctor. And no, he's not human. He's from the planet Gallifrey. His people are called the Gallifreyans, sometimes they're called Time Lords and they perfected time travel some time ago."

Buffy and I both ended up with black underwear, pretty much identical to Martha's. I was surprised that the clothes she picked out fit so well. She had never asked us our sizes, she just walked into a huge-walk-in closet and grabbed a bunch of clothes. It seemed unlikely that she could grab clothes exactly our size, so quickly, so easily just by pure luck.

"So, you're from the future," Buffy said, "The Doctor is an alien, and the two of you just sort of travel backwards and forwards through time, saving lives and battling the forces of evil?"

"Well, yeah," Martha said, forcing her tiny butt into a pair of tight, leather pants and zipping them up, "I've never heard anybody phrase it quite like that before, but yeah."

"Giles is gonna love this," I blurted out, "Xander too, I'll bet."

I mean, time travel and aliens! Living on the Hellmouth, we'd become accustomed to vampires, demons, demonic possession, witches, warlocks, zombies and werewolves, but we'd never suspected that aliens or time travel might be real things!

"Don't tell too many people," Martha cautioned, "The Doctor tends to work best when he doesn't attract a lot of attention to himself. That's why he tries to pass himself off as human. Tell people you're an alien from a planet in the constellation of Kasterborous, and it tends to cut down on cooperation."

"Fine," Buffy said firmly, suddenly all business, "But how do we stop this Adam guy? I mean, I hit him hard enough to crack open a man's sternum, and he barely even flinched. What does it take to put him down?"

"Does the Doctor have some sort of high-tech ray gun we could use to stop Adam?" I asked, "Like the phasers they use on Star Trek?"

Martha frowned and shook her head in negation. "He doesn't believe in guns. He won't allow guns on his ship. No guns."

"So, you and theDoctor travel backwards and forwards through time, saving lives and battling the forces of evil, but you don't have any guns. How does the Doctor battle the forces of evil?"

Martha got an adorable smile on her face and got this far-away look in her eyes and said, "Usually, he comes up with some totally mad plan that no sane person would ever have any faith in, but when he puts it into action, somehow he emerges victorious, saves lives and walks away unscathed."

For a long time there was silence in the room. From the look on her face, it seemed to me that Martha was in love with the Doctor; possibly it was just hero worship; but I thought it looked like love. It made me feel uncomfortable about the fact that she and I had just had sex together. Had Buffy and I damaged Martha's relationship with the Doctor?

Finally, Buffy broke the silence by saying, "Okay then, let's go talk to the Doctor and see if he has a totally mad plan. I'm down with that."

* * * * * * * * * *

Up in the control room, Doctor Rostenkowski and the Doctor were arguing again. Doctor Rostenkowski was claiming that time travel was impossible. The time-traveling alien from Gallifrey was insisting that it was not only possible, but that the two of them were currently standing in a fully-functional time machine.

"Okay, if this is a fully-functional time machine," Doctor Rostenkowski countered, "Why don't we just go back two days into the past and remove Adam's uranium power core, two days before he goes online?"

"Yeah, the thing about that," the Doctor said, "The thing about that is, we can't."

Doctor Rostenkowski got a smug grin on his face, folded his arms across his chest and said, "Oh, really? Why can't we?"

The Doctor seemed somewhat delated, but answered, "Because your entire town is surrounded by a dimensional instability field. And that field causes huge problems with the TARDIS's navigation system. It took me fourteen attempts just to get this close. On my second-closest attempt, I ended up landing in 1969."

"Dimensional instability field?" Doctor Rostenkowski said, contemptuously, "You just made that up!"

"No, he didn't," Martha asserted hotly.

Then, suddenly an idea occurred to me.

"No, he didn't," I said, backing up Martha and the Doctor.

"Of course I didn't," the Doctor said, having no idea why I was agreeing with him.

"Willow," Doctor Rostenkowski protested, all ready for a science nerd fight, but I cut him off.

"It's the Hellmouth," I said.

"What?"

"The dimensional instability field! It's the Hellmouth!"

"What's a Hellmouth?" the Doctor asked. He might know all about time travel and alien technology, but he didn't understand the mystical significance of the town he just arrived in.

Gesturing wildly with my hands, I said, "It's like this huge doorway that connects our reality to a hell dimension! The town of Sunnydale was built right on top of it! That's why this town is such a magnet for vampires, demons and other nasty, lurk-y things! And I bet it can screw with time travel technology too!"

"Oh, come on, Willow," Doctor Rostenkowski protested, "Why are you helping him? You cannot possibly believe that-"

But, the Doctor cut him off in mid-sentence and said, "A semi-permeable dimensional portal."

"What?"

The Doctor looked at me with his eyes really intense, and said, "This Hellmouth of yours, it sounds like some sort of semi-permeable dimensional portal. And just about any type of dimensional portal would create a dimensional instability field, but I've never heard anyone building a town right on top of one before! The amount of power required to keep it open, would be phenomenal! Where's all that power coming from?"

"Don't look at me," I protested, a little intimidated by his intense glare, "The Hellmouth has been here for at least a hundred years. It was here before I was born."

"But, to build a town right on top of top of a permeable dimensional portal, you'd have to be quite mad! I mean; on top of everything else; if the portal every collapsed in on itself, the entire town would get sucked in!"

Buffy listened to all this and replied, "Richard Wilkins".

"Eh?"

"You said that whoever built a town right on top of a dimensional portal would have to be crazy. Well, his name was Richard Wilkins, and he about as crazy as you can get."

"Spent the last years of his life locked in an insane asylum?"

I shook my head in negation and replied, "Actually, he spent the last years of his life running the town government. He was the town mayor."

"For many, many years," Buffy added.

"Sounds like the whole town was mad," the Doctor muttered, so softly that I could just barely hear him.

* * * * * * * * * *

Eventually we got past all the arguments about the impossibility of time travel, the insanity of Mayor Wilkins and the insanity (or possibly the stupidity) of the registered voters of Sunnydale for constantly re-electing Mayor Wilkins and we focused on how we were going to defeat Adam.

"There's an appollonix bird, loose somewhere on the TARDIS," the Doctor explained, "The appollonix bird is extremely rare, native to the planet San Helios. They're now very nearly extinct. When I found this one, I brought him onto the TARDIS with the plan of taking him to an aviary operated by the Tritovore. The Tritovore already have other appollonix birds in their aviary, and there she'd be able to breed and help advance the population of the species."

"Doctor," Martha warned, "You're getting off topic. How is the bird going to help us stop Adam?"

"Right," the Doctor exclaimed, snapping out of his lecture on appollonix birds, "The appollonix bird is somewhat unusual in that they devour solar radiation, gamma radiation, X-radiation, pretty much any type of radiation. If we could get the appollonix bird into the same room as Adam, it could drain all of the energy from Adam's uranium power core."

"Are you serious?" Doctor Rostenkowski asked, "I mean, if you are, that could neutralize Adam completely. The energy he gets from that uranium 235, is pretty much his key to cell replacement, regenerating from injuries, powering his nanobots and shrugging off fatigue. Take that away, and it would be like cutting a puppet's strings."

"Oh, I'm serious," the Doctor replied, "The only thing is finding the appollonix bird. She escaped from her cage several days ago, and I haven't been able to find her."

"We'll find her," Martha assured the Doctor, "We'll split up into teams and search the TARDIS, until she's found, yeah?"

* * * * * * * * * *

We split up into three teams. Martha and the Doctor made up the first team. Buffy and I made up the second team, and Doctor Rostenkowski made up a team all by himself.

According to the Doctor, the appollonix bird looked a lot like a red-tailed hawk, although it had crimson eyes and had orange, chestnut red, fiery red, copper red and auburn feathers. It was also bioluminescent, which might make it easier to find.

I mean, if it glows in the dark, finding the appollonix bird could be a lot like finding a neon sign.

"We're gonna get lost," Buffy said after we had been searching for about an hour without finding the bird, "This place is huge."

"It does seem larger than I thought it would be," I admitted.

"What about down there?" Buffy asked, pointing down the hall. There was an open door and it sounded like somebody or something was moving around inside.

"I suppose it could be in there," I conceded.

Buffy went in first and I followed. I didn't see a bioluminescent bird, however I was sure something was in the room. The sounds I kept hearing were definitely signs of life. It looked like we were in some sort of huge library, but I didn't think an appollonix bird would have much use for a library.

Well, maybe it might want to build a nest on one of the higher bookshelves. That might make sense.

I noticed the bookshelves were made of wood. The books had leather binding and paper pages. The floors were hardwood. Somehow I was expecting that the library of a time-traveling alien from the future would be more high-tech somehow. Like maybe, instead of books printed on paper, books could be read on a PADD, like they had in Star Trek the Next Generation.

When we found the source of the noises we heard in the library, it wasn't the appollonix bird at all. It was just Doctor Rostenkowski.

"Rostenkowski," Buffy snapped, "What are you doing in here?"

Doctor Rostenkowski was seated at a table with a reading lamp and five books. He looked up, excitedly when he heard Buffy call out his name.

"Summers," he exclaimed, "Rosenberg! This is amazing! Do you know what I found here?"

"Apparently, not the appollonix bird," Buffy said, sharply.

Ignoring the criticism, Doctor Rostenkowski responded, "I found the holy grail of science! I've got a book here that tells you how to make computers that are less than one tenth of the size of the computers we have now! Also how to make them with a thousand times more memory! And at least a hundred times faster! Also an improved cooling system, so they'll never overheat, no matter how hard you work them! This is incredible!"

"Um, I thought we were supposed to be trying to save Sunnydale from the killer, demon-cyborg," Buffy said.

"Yeah, this isn't helping," I said, backing Buffy up.

"Well, yeah," Rostenkowski conceded reluctantly, "But what about after we stop Adam? It would be extraordinarily cool to have these books and advance computer science by decades! I could win a Nobel Prize for this!"

"Wait," I said, "A Nobel Prize for somebody else's work? You didn't figure out how to build computers that are faster and smaller! You're just planning on copying research that somebody else did!"

Doctor Rostenkowski looked deflated and said, "Well, when you say it like that, you make it sound like I'm cheating."

"It is cheating," I replied.

"And we have more immediate concerns," Buffy added, "Every minute we spend not stopping Adam, is a minute where Adam has the opportunity to kill more people."

"I thought I heard voices in here," the Doctor said as he entered the room with a burst of enthusiasm, "Any luck finding the bird?"

Martha was just a few steps behind him. Her face was awash with urgency, determination and disappointment.

"No luck," Rostenkowski said, pushing away from the reading table and preparing to rise up from his chair, "I've searched this entire room and there's no sign of the bird here."

And then; as if the goddess has a sense of humor; I heard the sound of wings flapping and then the brightly colored appollonix bird landed on Doctor Rostenkowski's shoulder.

"Auwk," the appollonix bird squawked, and I could almost imagine it was calling Doctor Rostenkowski a liar.

"Searched the entire room?" Martha asked, mockingly.

"She was probably up on top of one of the bookcases," Doctor Rostenkowski protested, "She was probably too high up for me to see!"

"So, you didn't think that the ladders in here would be useful to assist you in your search?" Martha asked playfully, looking directly at one of the many ladders in the library. They were the kind of ladders with wheels on the bottom for easy transport.

"Look, I'm sorry," Doctor Rostenkowski snapped, "My major at U.C. Santa Cruz was in microbiology, not hide and go seek!"

"Are we good to go now?" Buffy asked, "Does the bird need any prep, or are we ready to go after Adam now that we've got the bird?"

"Oh, we're good," the Doctor said enthusiastically, "We've got Adam outgunned! There's no way he's going to be ready for us!

* * * * * * * * *

"What the hell happened?" Doctor Rostenkowski exclaimed, as he saw all the damage that had been wreaked on his top-secret military base.

There were scorch marks everywhere. The floors had actual craters about three or four inches deep in some places and several of the walls had buckled and ruptured, almost as if a fast moving SUV had crashed into them.

We wandered down the halls of the Initiatives secret base. Everywhere we went the situation was the same, everything was destroyed. The infirmary was all blackened and scorched and shards of broken glass covered the floor. The storage rooms, showers, mess hall, sleeping quarters, offices and even cells were all destroyed. Eventually we found a group of soldiers with fire extinguishers, putting out small fires just outside of the armory.

"Agent Hamilton," Doctor Rostenkowski called out to one of the soldiers, "What happened here? Report!"

"Doctor Rostenkowski," the soldier said, standing up straight and snapping his head around to make eye contact with his base commander, "An H.S.T. somehow infiltrated our base and killed over twenty of our personnel! Small arms fire had no effect on the H.S.T. and we were unable to locate you! Agent Finn assumed control of the base in your absence and he authorized the use of Condition Red Emergency weapons! C.R.E. weapons were issued and used against the H.S.T.! The H.S.T. was neutralized, Doctor, however the base suffered some damage as a result of using C.R.E. weapons in an enclosed, manmade habitat!"

"Condition Red Emergency weapons?" Doctor Rostenkowski demanded, "In a heavily populated, civilian town?"

"Technically sir, we're underneath the town, there were no civilians in the line of fire," Agent Hamilton shot back.

"I could have neutralized the H.S.T. without destroying the base," Doctor Rostenkowski protested, "I had a plan! We didn't need Condition Red Emergency weapons!"

"What are Condition Red Emergency Weapons?" I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me.

"Rocket launchers, C-4 explosives, anti-aircraft weapons, that sort of thing," Doctor Rostenkowski explained, "Ordinarily we don't use them on U.S. soil unless we're many miles away from civilians and populated areas."

"Begging your pardon, Sir," Agent Hamilton cut in, "But that H.S.T. was killing our people left and right, you were out of communication, you were missing and assumed dead. We had to do something in your absence."

Totally deflated, Doctor Rostenkowski replied, "As you were, soldier," and proceeded to inspect the rest of the damage to his secret military base.

* * * * * * * * * *

"They are going to crucify me," Doctor Rostenkowski complained bitterly.

"Oh, come on," the Doctor said jovially, "It wasn't your idea to blow up the base! You weren't even here when it happened! You were on the TARDIS! You had nothing to do with all of this!"

"It doesn't actually work that way," Doctor Rostenkowski explained, "This is a military base and I'm the base commander. It doesn't matter where I was when the base was destroyed. I was still in charge. I was in charge when disaster struck, therefore I'm responsible. That's the military way. When the bigwigs in Washington DC start assigning blame for this little fiasco, my name is gonna be at the top of the list."

"Can't you shift some of the blame to Professor Walsh?" Martha suggested, "I mean, Adam was her brainchild. She pretty much designed and created him."

"Oh, I'll shift as much blame as I can to her," Doctor Rostenkowski assured her, "But this is still gonna sting. They're still going to load enough blame onto my narrow shoulders to destroy my chances of ever working on a military project ever again."

* * * * * * * * * *

When we eventually found Adam amongst all the rubble, I was shocked to see that he was still alive. One of his legs had been blown off, both of his arms were broken, he was bleeding from at least four gaping wounds and there were serious burns on his face, neck and arms.

But he was still alive.

"The nanobots are already starting to repair the damage," the Doctor said.

"He's very difficult to kill," Doctor Rostenkowski replied, "Professor Walsh designed him to be the ultimate soldier."