Giles pulled into the park's small lot and turned off the Citroen's engine. The clatter of the pistons was replaced by the hammering of the rain on the car's sheet metal. Buffy pulled up the hood of her raincoat and reached into the back seat for the battle axe. Giles buttoned his jacket and looked at her.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

"Giles, please," she said, rolling her eyes. "Cliche much?"

They opened the doors and were engulfed in the storm. The rain did not seem to be falling; it was so fast and fierce that a wall of water simply seemed to be suspended in the air. Giles opened the trunk and pulled out the small garden sprayer. As he pumped up the pressure, Buffy gestured toward the street. "They were that way," she shouted, straining to be heard over the deluge.

Giles glanced toward the street, then at her. His glasses were stippled with rain; his hair was plastered to his forehead.

"Can you see?" Buffy yelled. "I don't want you accidentally spraying me."

Giles leaned closer to her. "I think I will be able to differentiate between you and a large supernatural gastropod."

"Not the time to show off your vocabulary." Buffy hefted the axe and set off. Giles picked up the sprayer and followed, his shoulders hunched against the deluge. The Slayer trudged through the sucking mud; it threatened to pull off her shoes with every step, and she made a mental note that the boots, no matter how disgusting, must be worn in the future. She squinted through the rain, her hair plastered to her forehead.

"There," she said, pointing with the axe. Giles leaned forward, blinking through his rain-spotted lenses.

"Were there this many before?" he asked, raising his voice over the lashing cataract.

"No." She shook her head. The street ahead was flooded, water flushing down the overloaded storm drains. The torrent crested the curbs and pooled in the low areas of the verge. In the middle of the surge, the whatevers undulated back and forth. Their gelatinous nature made it difficult to count them, but Buffy was sure she could spot at least six. She swallowed, squared her shoulders, and started forward. The whatevers paid her no mind as she approached. As she grew closer, she could see that they were slightly whiter than before. The bite marks on her neck began to burn and itch. She resisted the temptation to scratch, instead channeling the feeling into forward momentum. She stepped off the curb into the street. The rushing water tugged at her ankles and feet, but she was more mobile there than on the muddy ground. She took a last long stride and brought the axe over her shoulder in a great arc.

The blade passed through the whatever with no resistance. The body of the creature closed around the axe head, enclosing the steel in a murky gel. Buffy felt the shock as the axe hit the pavement, then a tingling sensation flowing up her arm into her shoulder. Her heart dropped. Frustration and anger welled up in her; she was so tired of new monsters, so tired of fighting them. What was the point?

Her sluggish brain realized that the whatever had turned its attention in her direction and had begun to flow toward her. She stepped back, but the combination of her fuzzy consciousness and the rushing water tangled her feet, and she went down in the street. As she fell back the water closed over her face. She jackknifed back to a sitting position, coughing and hacking. The whatever oozed the last few inches and rolled over her foot. Buffy felt a weird, massaging sensation; the creature heaved forward and slopped over her ankle. The Slayer kicked, but the glutinous mass kept moving forward. Buffy's head cleared as a throbbing numbness spread through her leg. She tried to pull her leg away, but the whatever stretched like taffy. A low, dull burning crept in beneath the numbness. "Giles!" she screamed. "Giles!"

But he was already there, working the sprayer, the mist falling on the creature in a laughably futile act, futile until the whatever began to pull back, releasing the Slayer's foot and ponderously turning away. Buffy scrambled to her feet, axe still in hand. The whatever did not appear wounded, but there she saw a patch that looked grayer, maybe stiffer than the surrounding… stuff. She brought the axe down with a vengeance, and this time the blade bit.

A jet of mucus struck her full in the face, blinding her. She struggled to breathe as the gunk clung to her. She released the axe and brought her hands to her face, scraping away the disgusting supernatural loogie.

Giles grabbed her by the shoulder. "Are you all right?" he shouted, his eyes invisible behind the foggy lenses of his glasses.

Buffy looked at the thick globs of goo dripping from her fingers. "He slimed me," she said and spat. She spotted the whatever pulling away, the gash opened by the axe still open. She looked down at her left leg. Her jeans were tattered, the drenched leather of her tennis shoe partially dissolved. She picked up the axe.

"Giles, spray it again, then get back." She gripped the axe and raised it above her head.

"Are you-"

"Just do it," she said. The Watcher nodded, then squirted the muriatic acid on the whatever. The surface grayed, Buffy swung the axe, and the wound widened. The creature was not dead, or even visibly harmed, but it was definitely trying to get away now.

"Look," Giles said, pointing at the other whatevers. They were oozing toward the storm drains.

"Quick," Buffy said, rain running off her shoulders, "let's get as many as we can."

They proceeded to do so: Giles would spray, Buffy would chop. The whatevers squirmed away and made it to the storm drains, squeezing into the small openings and causing more flooding before they disappeared. Buffy stood over a drain, panting, drenched with rain on the outside and sweat on the inside. Giles swallowed, tried to catch his breath, and turned to her, holding up the sprayer nozzle.

"I think," he said and inhaled deeply, "I think the timing is fortuitous. I believe the nozzle is clogged."

Buffy leaned on the axe, bone-weary and numb. "Then I vote we head home."

Giles nodded wearily. "I second that motion."

Willow grabbed the sheet of paper from the printer and placed it over the monitor of Matti's computer. She looked at it, futzed with the alignment, then took a pencil and began tracing. Matti stood behind her, watching. Willow stared intently at the screen, drew two circles on the paper, then sat back in the chair, drawing in hand.

"Care to share what you're doing?" Matti asked.

"Mapping ley lines," Willow replied.

"Ley lines? Why?"

Willow turned in the chair to face Matti. "If the Hellmouth is acting like a kind of supernatural battery, what's it energizing? When you said the Watchers and the Knights are connected but not allies, it triggered… a weird thought in my brain." She pointed at the monitor. "That's a street map of Sunnydale." She held up the paper. "This is a map I found online of ley lines in this part of California. What if the ley lines are the channel the Hellmouth is using? What if a connection got formed along the ley lines that drew on or, or allowed Hellmouth energy to pour in. So, I printed the ley lines and overlaid it on the street map."

"Since you're going into this much detail, I'm assuming you found something." Matti raised her eyebrows.

"Maybe. Come look." Willow placed the paper over the monitor as the teacher approached. The colors of the city map bled through the white paper, leaving the ley lines superimposed over the street of Sunnydale.

"Okay," Matti said. "What am I looking at? Why did you trace over that one line? What are the two circles?"

Willow nodded. "Okay. Here's where I'm going a little Dark City. One circle is Xander's house, one is Cordelia's. They're not exactly on the ley line, but pretty close."

Matti straightened up and looked down from her considerable height at Willow. "Which means what?"

Willow shrugged. "I don't know. But it's got to mean something, don't you think?"

Buffy tossed the axe in the back seat of the Citroen and slid into the front seat. As she slammed the door, Giles turned sideways in his seat, grabbed her face between his hands, and pulled her toward him.

"Giles!" She recoiled. "Inappropriate much?"

"Whatever was in those things hit you in the face. We need to see if it did any damage." Her Watcher's voice betrayed his exasperation.

"Oh." She nodded. "Give a girl a warning, okay? It felt like we were headed into Lifetime movie territory there for a minute."

Giles ignored her as he leaned in to examine her face. "I don't see anything amiss, although this is not the best possible light. Do you feel anything wrong?"

Buffy shrugged. "Not really, just disgusted at being covered in monster snot." She shuddered. "But when I hit it with the axe the first time…"

"What?"

"I felt… like, why am I trying? What's the use? There'll always be another monster. I'll never be done with this." She looked into Giles's eyes. "I hit it with the axe, which didn't do, like, anything, then my arm just… tingled, then I got those feelings." She looked through the windshield. "But after you started spraying them, when I could hurt them… I didn't feel anything… aside from grossed out by the snot." Her eyes widened. "But when it…" She pulled her left foot up into the seat. The leather of her sneaker was a mess, gummy and losing its structure. Her jeans were saturated, but the left leg below the knee was shaded varying colors and marked by six or seven circular frayed spots and two or three outright holes. Buffy looked closely and gave a small cry.

"What?" Giles asked as he leaned forward.

The Layer looked up, meeting the Watcher's gaze. "There's some sort of… sucker mark there. I think that thing tried to give me death by hickie."

Giles drummed his fingers on the dashboard, a counterpoint to the rain. "When you did hit the first one, did you notice that all the others began to move toward the drains? I think they are controlled by some sort of hive mind."

"A what?"

"A hive mind, a group of beings controlled by a single overarching intelligence, so that the members act in concert rather than independently."

"Ohhhhh." Buffy nodded. "A Borg."

"A what?" Giles turned his head toward her.

"A Borg. You know, like Star Trek: Next Generation. Jean Luc Picard?"

Giles shook his head. "Not a clue."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Honestly. Geeky sci-fi? Should be right up your alley. I mean, he's even British."

Giles turned the key and cranked the ignition. "I think we should go and pick up Willow."

"Can I use your phone?" Willow asked.

Matti made a sweeping gesture in the direction of the device. "Sure."

Willow punched in the number. As she waited for the connection, she looked at the teacher. "I need to talk to Oz. He said Xander was acting weird the other day. Hello, may I speak to Oz?"

"Oz? I need to know how Xander is, but I don't want him to know... Yeah, so I'm going to ask you yes or no questions… Is he acting normal? You know what I mean… Okay, is he asleep? Is he acting sleepy? Is he… what? Oh, I get it. Is he interested in what you're watching? Is he upset about anything? Is he upset about, uh, give me a minute, this is hard… is he upset about school? Of course not." Willow frowned. "This is harder than I thought. I'm gonna hang up. I may call you later. Bye."

Matti leaned against the doorframe. "Wouldn't that look suspicious? Him answering just yes or no?"

Willow shook her head. "Oh no. Oz does that all the time."

Matti nodded. "How's your friend?"

"Xander?" Willow glanced at the phone. "Oz says he's not himself. They're watching old episodes of Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, but Xander's not into it, which is bad, because he's always into Gundam. On the bright side, he's not sleepy, just not really there." She bit her thumbnail. "I don't like this, but I don't know what else to do."

"You've done quite a bit for one night." Matti jerked her head toward the door. "Let's check on Cordelia."

Willow sighed. "That's probably a good idea."

"So, it's getting pretty late," Jessica Harris said as she passed through the living room.

"Yes, ma'am, it is," Oz replied. He was seated in a threadbare armchair; Xander sprawled across the sofa.

"The storm's pretty bad. Won't your parents be worried?" Her voice came from the kitchen.

Xander waved his arms wildly, making a giant 'X' with his limbs. Oz watched him for a moment, then turned his head and spoke. "They're used to me being late. I'm in a band."

"Oh." The disappointment in her voice was palpable. "Well, stay as long as you like. Mi casa es su casa." Her heart was clearly not in the invitation. She passed back through the living room. "I'm just going to be in my bedroom. Getting ready to go to bed. Because it's late."

Oz turned back to Xander. "Your mom's as subtle as plummeting anvil."

"Yeah," Xander said, his gaze vaguely directed toward the TV, "the Harrises are the souls of dignity and decorum. Oh wait, that's another family."

Giles pulled into Matti Harris's drive and turned off the engine. Buffy slouched against the passenger door. She leaned forward and shook her head as the motor died.

"God, I am so tired." She rubbed her face with her hands, then reached for the door handle. She limped to the porch, Giles a step behind her. Willow opened the door when they rang the bell. The Slayer and her Watcher stepped into the living room, water dripping from their clothes. Matti Hollis came into the living room from the bedroom.

"Buffy, your shoe," Willow said.

The Slayer looked down. Her left sneaker was a mess: the seams split, the leather bubbled and shapeless. "Huh," she said and kicked her foot. The sneaker disintegrated; bits of leather, fabric, foam, and mud sprayed across the living room floor.

Buffy turned to Matti, a mortified look on her face. "I am so sorry," she said. "I was just going to take off my shoe."

Matti shook her head. "No big deal. A little mess is the least of our worries."

"What happened to your jeans?" Willow asked.

"What? Oh." Buffy bent down and tugged on the denim below the knee. It crumbled and tore, shredding in her hands. She looked at Giles, dumfounded.

"What's on your leg?" Willow's voice rose in pitch.

A series of circular marks were clearly visible on Buffy's lower leg. "That?" she said, "that's where one of the whatevers tried to gum me to death."

"Does it hurt?" Matti asked.

Buffy shrugged and touched one of the marks. "If I press right on it, it stings a little."

"Stop doing that!" Willow cried.

"May I?" GIles said and knelt to look at the Slayer's leg. "Ms. Hollis, could I ask for your opinion?" Matti squatted and peered closely at the wounds.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "I feel like the prize cow at the county fair."

Matti reached out a tentative hand. "I'm going to touch one," she said to Buffy. "Tell me if it hurts." She prodded, turned the Slayer's leg one way, then the other. "It looks like some kind of sucker to me."

Giles nodded. "Exactly my impression."

Matti touched the mark again. "Where the marks are, the skin seems to be slightly thickened, a little dry and rubbery."

Buffy shrugged. "What can I say? Slaying often takes the time I should spend moisturizing."

Matti sat back on the floor. "These came from the… whatevers, as you call them?" Buffy nodded. Matti looked at Giles. "That's not a very efficient way to kill your prey, is it?" She looked up at Buffy. "How long was it on your leg?"

The Slayer thought. "Not long. A minute? Oh-" she looked at Willow "-the acidy thingy was perfect. Didn't like it one bit."

"So, are they fast?" Matti asked.

"No," Giles replied. "Quite slow, actually. They have no legs and appear to move by some form of amoeboid locomotion."

Matti looked up at Buffy. "So, how did it get hold of you? Did it ambush you?"

"Nope." The Slayer shook her head. "I hit it with an axe, which did absolutely nothing, by the way, and then, I just felt so…" Her voice trailed away. "Useless. By the time I snapped out of it, Slimer had hold of my leg."

"Slimer? Oh, is that why the…?" Willow pointed.

"What?" Buffy raised a hand to her hair and pulled out a congealed clot of ectoplasmic goo. "Giles! Why didn't you tell me I had some of them in my hair?"

"Wait!" Willow's voice was sharp. "You said you felt bad after trying to hit it with the axe." The Slayer nodded. "I'm having an idea," Willow said and dashed out of the living room.