__England Should Be So Lucky__
By Gail Christison
"Now look here, Giles, we need answers now. Not exactly an assignment for the military, you have to admit. Who the
bloody hell else is there?"
Giles sat calmly, watching the elderly public servant grow redder in his already ruddy face, making the white of
his eyebrows and mustache the more vivid for it. The government had always been peripherally aware of the
Watcher's Council, but Giles wasn't consciously aware until now, of exactly how much information they had, not
only about the workings of the Council, but about the Council members themselves.
He steepled his fingers. "I don't think so," he said sedately. "This really isn't my area of expertise. And you do
realize that the Council, per se, no longer exists? I am under no legal obligation to assist you in this matter."
The older gentleman cleared his throat irritably and sat back again. "Of course I know that, but damn it, man,
this is important."
"I never said it wasn't. I simply said it wasn't my problem."
"Then you won't help?"
Giles shook his head.
"Not even if I was to offer suitable inducements?"
The former Watcher smiled, amused. "A bribe?"
Taking the question as assent, the public servant leaned forward. "Your past criminal record could be expunged.
And there's always the possibility of a knighthood, were things to go according to..."
Giles' smile widened. "My father is the only knighted member of the Giles family, for services during wartime. Did
you imagine you could actually Knight me for services to the Council?"
The other man reddened, realizing that was indeed his inference and how absurd it was to offer to publicly reward
someone for something that was, in the public eye, never supposed to have existed at all. He cleared his throat
again.
"Of course not. We would have found something else to call it.... something vaguely... conventional. People never
take any notice of the whys and wherefores anyway..."
Giles' expression grew distant for a long moment. "True enough," he said softly, then focused again on the other
man.
"But if you want me to watch this creature, to possibly have to *listen* to it... If you want me to sit and wait
for days, or possibly weeks, if necessary, for it to turn back into a So'Naff demon so I can send it back to its
own dimension for you... you'll have to come up with something a bloody sight more tempting than removing my
record for petty theft and vandalism, given that I was twenty-two and stoned at the time," he drawled. "And
there'll have to be a cover story for the disappearance."
"Cover stories aren't a problem. Removing a So'Naff demon from this dimension... and public consciousness, without
your help, is."
Giles rubbed a hand over his face. "If this wasn't directly in the public interest..."
"You and I both know it is."
The Watcher dropped the ten by eight glossy on the leather seat. "All right, in three months they'll be 'Doing The
Locomotion' in the So'Naff dimension, and England will finally be free. In exchange you'll keep the government out
of the affairs of the new Slayer organization and make certain that inland revenue knows that we're out of bounds...
indefinitely."
The other man's moustache twitched, then he grinned broadly. "I knew you'd make England proud!"
Rupert Giles adjusted his antique brown leather duster over his black shirt and jeans, and subsituted reflective
sunglasses for his reading glasses, his silver hoop glistening in the moonlight through the car window as he
opened the door.
"Proud...? Yes, of course... this from the people who gave the world "The Spice Girls" and David bleeding Beckham..."
he muttered, and disappeared into the night.
* * *