Standard disclaimers apply.

Warning : implied non con and violence.

Spike walked down the bland white hallways, to the left and just ahead of his current 'handler', leash pulling tight at his throat. Seriously, a leash? As if the bit of leather around his neck was doing anything to control him compared to the button on the handle that would trigger his implant. But it was an affectation that was catching on. At least the wankers didn't want him to crawl to go along with it.

A slight tug as they reached an intersecting corridor, so they were turning right. Like he couldn't have figured that out after going this route the first hundred times. Or just followed the asshole. No, he had to tug him along like a fucking puppy still learning to heel instead of a master-

"Vampire! Um, that's a vampire. Here. In the hallway. Not in a cell." Spike stopped when his handler did (and did not need the yank on his neck and 'halt' command to do so, ta muchly, prick) and caught a glance of shock, youth and brown hair and eyes before lowering his gaze as this handler preferred. "Definitely a vampire..."

What gave it away, pup, the unit jumpsuit or the fangs and bumps? The kid smelled nervous, but something about his body language seemed ready rather than panicked. His fingers were grasping as if wanting to reach for a weapon, and his stance had changed to 'might need to dodge' rather than 'really want to flee'. Interesting.

The Colonel who was with the kid just laughed. "Ah, Finn, this is Alexander Harris, he's considering joining the Initiative. Mr Harris, Lt Riley Finn." Huh, not Dr Harris and no rank given. And the kid was young, too. This was something different in new recruits.

"Um yeah and the... vampire?"

"Well, not exactly, Mr Harris, what we have here is an HK unit. While it was originally a Hostile, it has been trained and conditioned into an effective tracker and combatant at our command."

Yeah, trained and conditioned, you just keep telling yourself that. Try 'restrained every moment of the day and threatened into each individual action' instead. Take this implant out and see how well the training holds up why don't you?

"Oh, um... HK unit huh? Guessing that doesn't stand for Hello Kitty."

Spike couldn't help it, he snorted in amusement as he looked up to see brown eyes carefully watching him, even as teeth were flashed in a goofy smile. Then he gave a silent gasp when the half strength 'warning' jolt of pain tore through him and quickly lowered his gaze to his handler's bark of "Eyes down, 1217!"

Completely ignoring the byplay, the Colonel laughed again. "Hunter-Killer, actually. Finn uses the unit among other weapons in his team's patrols of the Cleveland area."

"Uh, what just happened there?" All playfulness had fled the kid's voice, and the wariness was stronger than ever.

Finn grinned and responded before the older man could. "All the vampire units are implanted with a behavioral modification chip that administers a shock directly to the pain centers of the brain when activated." The wanker was excited to explain, of course. Spike had heard him talk about his psychology studies in college enough to know that tone. "It triggers automatically under certain circumstances, most importantly for any pain inflicted on a human being. But I can also use it at a variety of settings for training."

Yeah, training, just keep telling yourself that, fucker. Christ, now he was pulling the remote off his belt. "The leash connection isn't necessary, I use this in the field. Would you like to try it?"

"Uh... Wouldn't that throw off the training, to give corrections without him having done anything?" Hmm, smarter than he looks to think of that, but naive enough to think it would matter to Finn.

"Well, never hurts just to remind it that humans are in charge around here." But he put the remote back. "So what capacity are you applying in?"

The Colonel stepped back into the conversation. "Mr Harris would be commissioned as a field agent, possibly going straight to Handler training considering his background."

And the 'different' just kept coming, didn't it? Agents were usually recruited from combat veterans, and handlers from among the field agents. What kind of experience made a civilian kid qualified to go straight to controlling one of the Initiative's slaves and leading a team?

"That sounds, um, exciting. If it's not classified, what sort of background are we talking about?"

"Maybe you could show Alexander the training facilities and he could fill you in on that himself. I have a few things that need to get done before the General goes off shift, but I'll meet you in the Mess around nine."

By the time they got to the gym, it had come to light that Alexander, who went by Xander rather than Alex, had grown up on the California hellmouth, assisted a Slayer there for three years and could, in his words, 'test out of Basic because of being possessed by G.I. Joe one Halloween.'

"A Slayer, wow." Finn started showing the boy some of the gear, but seemed preoccupied with his story. "I've heard of them but we never work together, the Initiative has this awkward relationship with the Watcher's Council."

"Yeah, that's what Giles said. He wasn't sure if his recommendation would actually help, but he ended up getting to know one guy when he was explaining the whole Mayor thing and that guy had a supervisor who thought my situation was interesting."

"Interesting is one way of putting it. I can see why they're willing to jump a few steps to get you in here."

After a few more minutes of looking at weapons, the boy jerked his head towards Spike. "So can I ask you a few questions about your, um, HK?"

"Of course!" Great, thanks for drawing his attention back to me, pup.

"Where did he originally come from?"

"It."

"Excuse me?"

"If you'll be working with a unit, you need to get in the habit. Just because they look a little more human than the other hostiles doesn't make vamps people. Anyway, most of the units were captured on patrol, a lot don't survive the implantation of the chip and some that do never seem to learn to respond to the corrections, just keep attacking until the pain knocks them out. This one has been with the Initiative for decades, I'm not actually sure where it was captured."

"Oh. Does he, uh it, ever go out of game face?"

"Game-? Oh, yeah." A light jolt from the chip drew Spike's attention - or at least he assumed that was the wanker's excuse. "Twelve Seventeen, human mask! It's definitely one of the advantages of vamps over the other types of hostiles that can be conditioned. I can take it around civilians if needed. Some handlers like to keep them in the human mask all the time, cause the real face is pretty damn ugly, but I don't allow mine to pretend to be anything it isn't. So, no mask unless I'm doing something I don't want fangs near."

Spike suppressed a flinch as Finn ran a finger from his cheekbone to the corner of his mouth and after a beat, he smelt the boy's unmistakable arousal - only to have it swamped a moment later by the stink of quickly swallowed bile. He wondered mildly if it was teenaged hyper masculinity or disgust at the idea of being serviced by a demon. He'd never seen either stop handlers or their friends from enjoying the perks of their position for long.

The conversation went back to weapons and combat training until the small group entered the Mess to wait for the Colonel. "So, do they serve O positive here for the Hello Kitties?"

Spike managed to restrain himself from a silent chuckle at the boy's chosen nickname. He had seen the ridiculously cheerful icon a couple of times and couldn't help an honest amusement at the connection with his military designation.

Finn, of course, gave an awkward sort of fake laugh, recognizing that it was supposed to be funny, but not quite getting it. "The units feed after patrols, usually on animal blood. They're only given human a few times a month, it seems taking it out of their diets entirely weakens them too much."

"Huh." The boy seemed to be filing this information away into holes in his prior experiences, and Spike wondered what dealings he had had with vamps besides staking them. "Guess h- it must look forward to that."

Wouldn't exactly say that, pup. Intellectually he knew he needed it, but...

"Well, I know I do. Human blood is one of the only forms of positive reinforcement these monsters can be offered, and the special feedings are a good opportunity to strengthen the conditioning of its place in the world."

Again the scent of rising gorge. "And what is that, exactly?" The tone was very carefully neutral, but the wanker didn't notice, of course. For a guy who claimed an expertise in psychology, his current handler was thick as a brick when it came to reading people.

"Property." The conversation so far had taken them through the lines and when they reached an empty table another harsh yank at the leash 'reminded' Spike that, as for the last five decades, he was expected to kneel while his handler sat. "It's an item of property, a thing, not a person, no matter that it can sometimes look like one. It can be a tool for tracking hostiles, a weapon in combat, or a toy for off hours, but we can never allow its prey luring behaviors to fool us into thinking of it as human."

The combination of arousal and disgust flared again at the mention of his 'toy' status. The kid was clearly struggling to hold his composure.

"I suppose that's why you don't allow it to talk either?"

"Hmmm? Oh, it's not a matter of allowing, all the units are muted immediately to prevent their speech mimicry."

"Mimicry?" The incredulity showed well enough that even the wanker might start to notice, but before any more could be said another tray was set on the table and the Colonel sat beside them.

"Lt Finn, Mr Harris. The trip to the gym and range went well?"

"Yes sir." The boy seemed delighted at the distraction. "You've got some wonderful facilities here and the weapons available are very impressive. It'd be nice not to have to steal a rocket launcher if I need one. ...er, that is..."

Finn looked shocked at the admission, but the Colonel just laughed heartily and clapped Xander on the back. "Now that's a story I'd love to hear sometime! But no, anything our agents need for their missions they just have to justify and sign for. No theft required."

"If you needed the firepower the military could provide, why didn't your Slayer just contact us and allow us into her territory?" The wanker was still stuck in righteous indignation mode. Perfectly moral bloke when he was dealing with humans. Then again, you could say similar of most gentlemen in history who had happily shagged their slaves.

The boy stiffened a little. "Buffy was dealing with some issues at the time and Giles was injured. The rest of us hadn't even heard of your group until G-Man had to smooth it over afterwards."

"And the report indicated that the incident was entirely justified," the Colonel put in firmly. "Say, Alexander, I see that you didn't pick up any dessert. They do a great chocolate cream pie."

"Chocolate? I didn't even notice a dessert station! I'll be right back."

Once the pup had scampered off, the older man's tone turned chilly. "Lieutenant, you do understand that we want Mr Harris in the Initiative?"

"With all due respect, sir, I don't understand why we would be courting him? This is an elite organization, we look for the best of the best and then give them a chance to try to make it in." Wanker. Though Spike supposed it was more surprising that someone in this conformity factory would recognize the boy's value than that Finn would ignore it.

"Yes, we recruit from the top performers in all branches, and we still have a wash out rate over 75%. But you aren't seeing why. The specialized combat we do is not exceptionally grueling, and we do not require the survival training of Special Forces. The vast majority of applicants don't cut it in the Initiative simply because they cannot handle the existence of the beings we deal with."

The wanker gave a slow nod. "You're saying that just by virtue of having already accepted the... unusual hostiles we deal with, Harris is almost guaranteed to become a field agent, so even if he requires extra training, we know it won't be wasted?"

The Colonel glanced over to make sure that Harris was still distracted by his dessert options. "Even moreso, our reviews of agent performance has shown for years that acceptance of the," he made a slight face, "mystical aspects of the creatures we deal with is a survival trait, but that it rarely coincides with a suitability for teamwork in a military environment. In this young man we have both, and the General agrees with me that it's an opportunity we do not want to pass up."

The nod was even slower; unwilling. This was one who would deny the mystical entirely if he could, and when denial ran out insisted on using scientific sounding terms to describe what couldn't be hand waved as animals, infections or unusual technology. Even aliens would be a preferred explanation over the bogeyman. But they had reviews of agent performance so the same blinkered worldview said the Colonel must be right.

Finn's expression changed to a broad smile when the pup returned to the table bearing three different desserts. "Couldn't decide, huh?"

"No, I made the informed decision to pig out." The boy grinned back as he dug in.

"So, Xander, are you staying the night here at the base or heading out?"

"The Colonel said I could bunk here and finish my tour in the morning." He was looking between a last peice of cake and Spike like a guest considering feeding the host's dog from the table and not sure it's allowed in that household.

"Well, I've got a double room for the moment, if you want the spare." After a glance at his superior, the wanker gave a smile that was probably slimier than intended. "If you're going straight to Handler track, you should learn what the perks of the position are."

This time the smell of disgust came first as the pup looked at Finn, but he calmed as he looked down at Spike. His face and smell together told of compassion, curiosity and no small amount of attraction as he nodded but the grin he pasted on probably fooled the other two men when he faced them and said cheerfully, "Sure, sounds good... and maybe I can spend some, er, private time with the Kitty."

Spike was strangely okay with that idea and as Finn yanked him to his feet, he found himself wondering just how much 'different' this Xander was going to bring to the Initiative with him.