Started my wait-staff job at the Pheasant today... interesting experience. The place is owned and run by Lacy and Mona, a pair of thirty-something socialites who enjoy entertaining high profile guests with pomp and circumstance. Well, they enjoy emptying their wealthy clientele's wallets at least. What really struck me is that their entire wait staff is comprised of young, muscular, former military men. Head waiter Rodney Winters recently finished a tour with the Marines in Afghanistan. Bartender Kurt Thomas was flying combat missions over Iraq from the Abraham Lincoln just four months ago. Chef Francis Duncan recently left his post as an Army medic in South Korea. I could go on and on naming military men for hours. I was also hard-pressed to find someone who had been working there for more than three months... very peculiar if you ask me. Mona mentioned that the high turnover was due to massive troop activations in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion... I guess that might account for some of it.
//Firewall against all Scoobies and Evil
My co-workers were tight-lipped when I asked around about their former co-workers. Not sure if hostile activity is involved, but I suspect something sinister is going down. Managed to secure several names from Sgt. Winters in confidence, will run them against military database in the morning. Mona and Lacy wearing heavy amounts of lilac-scented perfume- may be cover-up of demonic scent... or very bad b-o. Circumstantial evidence at the moment, but will keep pair under surveillance for now.
//End Firewall
I swear they give us uniform pants half a size too small on purpose. I've never felt this many eyes on my unmentionables in my life! About 80% of the customers are female. Many are power brokers in local business and/or politics. Politics, brie, and men... I have an idea of how the Hooters girls must feel. But let me warn you ladies, keep your hands off the merchandise! I'm packing mace!
6 demons whacked | whack a demon
| Date: | 2003-08-18 10:30 PM |
| Subject: | Read the fine print... |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: |  relieved | | Music: | Dio - Rainbow in the Dark |
Ok so I was so anxious to leave the initiative that I didn't read my discharge papers as carefully as I should have. How can the National Guard add a 2 year service rider onto a discharged member of an ultra-secret demon hunting paramilitary force?? Argh I don't know what's up or down right now. I spent the weekend delivering bottled water and chasing down looters during the power outage/water emergency. You'd think water was gold the way the wackos were chasing us down for the stuff. Its weekends like these that make Sunnydale look like Palm Springs!
Oh by the way, I did get the job at the Golden Phesant last Wednesday... and I don't think it was for my merits as a waiter. But I'll get into the gory details at a later date. Right now Graham wanna collapse and watch cartoons!
2 demons whacked | whack a demon
| Date: | 2003-08-12 09:23 PM |
| Subject: | Where's the action?? |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: |  lonely | | Music: | Sponge - Molly (Sixteen Candles) |
Wal-Mart for food and supplies, Bally Total Fitness for physical maintenance, Burger King for a quick bite... gosh I hope this doesn't turn into a routine!
Less than a week after leaving the Initiative, and already I'm going out of my skin with boredom! At least when the guys were around, we could go and round up some mindless fun together. You know the deal... down some brews, chase some skirts court some women, and just be guys for the night. That'll never happen again. Forrest's dead and buried, Riley's henpecked hitched, and besides which, I have no unit anymore. Have I been socially conditioned to the extent that I can't live without my unit?? Maybe I'm overreacting... besides, it hasn't even been a week yet. The world can't keep a good looking guy like yours truly down forever!
My interview tomorrow is at the Golden Pheasant, an upper crust formal establishment downtown for coat and tie/VIP types. Sounds like prime rich widow potential for the Grahamster!
whack a demon
I'm here, and in the same day too! Its a good thing the Initiative has an apartment finder, cause I think I would have been content taking a nap in the gutter after all of that flying. Alright its not much, a room in a rat trap motel... but oh, the sinful pleasure that is linen service! I haven't slept on clean sheets in months...
//firewall against all scoobies, scoobie adjuncts, slayers, and evil
I'll say this much for the Initiative, they don't beat around the bush. I found my mission dossier resting on the bed, blocking my path to a restful nap. I haven't even begun to scratch the surface on the intelligence packet, but I did glance my way through the briefing document:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: Agent Graham Miller, Initiative
From: General Colin Spencer, Initiative bureau chief
Date: Monday, August 11, 2003
Re: Operation Silent Shadow
Agent Miller - Your mission in Cleveland is to be one of discrete observation and intelligence gathering. Our recent intelligence indicates that the same kind of demonic forces that had been operating in the former California town of Sunnydale may in fact be drawn in increasing numbers to the hellmouth underneath Cleveland. DO NOT ENGAGE ANY HOSTILE UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. A 12-person strike teambased at Maguire Air Force Base will be at your disposal should an emergency situation arise. Our intelligence also reports the the slayer and her cohorts may have set up shop within the vacinity of the city. AVOID CONTACT WITH THE SLAYER AND HER ASSOCIATES AT ALL COSTS. Your objectives are as follow:
Primary Objectives:
1. Locate and report on the activity of the Cleveland hellmouth.
2. Gather intelligence on the frequency and intensity of hostile incidents within the Cleveland city limits.
Secondary Objective:
1. Locate and gather intelligence on Buffy Summers and her associates.
Again, I cannot stress the importance of limiting engagements with hostiles and avoiding contact with Ms. Summers' operation at all costs. Remember, your mission is to gather information. Information on your cover assignment, intelligence on potential hostiles, and all available intelligence on the slayer are enclosed. Remember, I don't want Cleveland to turn into another Sunnydale!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Great, covert ops.... I got a D in covert ops! Oh well, you take what you're dealt.
//End Firewall
The Initiative's job placement service has set me up with a job interview at a local resturant on Wednesday. It doesn't sound like much, but maybe it'll give me a chance to live a somewhat normal life. Maybe I'll finish college... I'm kind of fuzzy on the whole deal, but something came up that interrupted my studies... oh yeah that's right, my former boss's Frankenstein monster got loose and indirectly killed half of my division! How could I forget?? America's tax dollars at work, as usual!
6 demons whacked | whack a demon
Well here I am, a complete circle. My flight from Tokyo just landed at LAX about twenty minutes ago, and not soon enough! Twelve hours in a cramped coach seat and my reconstructed left knee is ready for a tune up! Worst yet, they showed a Pauly Shore film marathon! Sit me on hot coals and I'm on Dante's seventh level of hell!
I can't believe it's been so long.... three years... it feels like just yesterday that Riley, Forrest, and I were doing the college thing up the road at UC Sunnydale. Good times. Its gut-wrenching to think that its all gone... no more college, no more Bronze, no more Lowell House, no more nothing. I've got to believe that if the Initiative had been focused more on protecting mankind and less on creating monsterous freaks of nature that we could have avoided the kind of carnage that devoured Sunnydale.
Actually the whole Sunnydale fiasco caught the higher-ups completely with their pants down. Though I don't blame them, it all seemed to come out of the blue. The operation's attention focused on a greater evil- the Southeast Asian country of Thailand was on the verge of being overrun by genetically superior vampires. These things were unreal - like nothing I've ever seen before! You literally had to pound the stake through one of those things with a sledgehammer to pierce their outer skin. And these things were real ugly... like the vampire in the old silent noseferatu flick. I don't know how any of use survived, we must have lost over 40 agents in last spring's fighting.
The strangest thing was, the vampires all but ceased to exist in late May, but not before the monsters struck their final blow. We made base camp in an old 19th century Catholic mission on the evening of May 19th; you know, we felt pretty secure inside a house of God, surrounded by all those crosses. I lost 12 out of 20 men that night... the beasts, they plunged right through the windows as we slept. Vinny went first; his blood-curdling scream as his neck was snapped was what allowed 8 men to escape with their lives. I was able to slay two of them single-handed, but not without having my kneecap shattered. Those brave bastards... I ordered them to leave me behind, save themselves. That's my last recollection until five days later, when I awoke in a US military hospital in Okinawa, Japan.
I still have nightmares; I guess I always will.
But who would have guessed that the demon's real target was Sunnydale? I'm sure Buffy was smack dab in the middle of it; she always seemed to have a nose for evil. Forrest never cared too much for her; as far as I'm concerned, the more help in the fight against evil, the better. Besides, she made Riley spark like no other woman ever has, before or since. I hope she and her friends made it out safely.
Well, that chapter of my life is over with now. I received a medical discharge from the Initiative and am en-route to restart my life in Cleveland. From now on, just call me Graham Miller, civillian. Well looks like I'm spending the night here in the terminal; I catch a red-eye for Cleveland at 5:30am.
7 demons whacked | whack a demon
|
|
|
|
|
curious
cynical
sleepy