"Did you hear that?" asked Willow, awakening in the darkness of an early morning. After waiting for a reply that was never received, she strained a glance over to the adjoining motel room bed. Cordelia lay there oblivious beneath a silk, black blindfold trimmed with lace. The headphones of a walkman droned out its looped tape of sounds marketed for their ability to bring out one's inner beauty into her ears. Willow shifted her widend pupils to the sleeping bag spread out on the floor in search of a slumbering Slayer. Instead she found the sleeping bag unoccupied and not a single Slayer to be found.
Willow began to worry, but had little time to exercise her concern. With a loud crash two figures plummeted to a clumsy fall, bringing Cordelia out of her catatonic state. The embattled silhouette clad in plain night attire Willow recognized as the vampire slaying adolescent she had looked for earlier. The other wore an unusual orange outfit and seemed to be getting the short end of the fight. Both of the bedside lamps that the motel had hospitably furnished came to life as Willow and Cordelia sat upright in their beds and groped to switch on illumination.
Light found the orange clad intruder pinned beneath an angry Buffy, who's grip on his neck suggested he had better cooperate if he held his larnyx in high regard. The demeanor of surprise that the man had featured moments earlier disappeared in favor of a look of resignation.
"I suppose you'd like to know what I'm doing here," Freeman struggled to say through Buffy's death grip. Just then a concerned pair of male slayerettes stumbled through the unlocked door.
"Actually, Egon, I thought I'd beat you to a pulp then you could make with explaining," replied Buffy, catching her breath.
"Please, I'd like to talk," implored Freeman, ignoring the crack about his nerdy appearance.
"Let's hear the man, shall we?" agreed Giles as he closed a few paces with his Slayer. Freeman looked relieved at Giles' comment as if he was about to get a load of his chest that he had been bearing for much too long.
"Could you let go a bit? I have an odd fallibility: I like breathing," requested Freeman. Relunctantly, Buffy complied after exchanging looks with her Watcher.
Leaning back against the dingy motel wall, Freeman explained, "I was supposed to reaquire the weapon you took from me last night."
"Looks like you didn't factor me into your plan," commented Buffy smugly.
"Hardly," retorted Freeman, pushing his glasses back with an index finger to their center in a cliche of dorkiness, "I could've easily retrieved it undetected if I had wished by engaging my hazard suit's stealth mode."
"What are you, Bill Gates' guido?" questioned Xander from safely behind Buffy's shoulder.
"I am a scientist," refuted Freeman, "At least I was. I worked for an arms technology corporation that had a contract with the Department of Defense. I was assigned to their main research installation when one of the top secret experiments had. . . unforseen side-effects. The base was overrun by a variety of horrible. . . creatures, attacking the science staff and security detail mercicessly. The powers that be decided it would be best to maintain the integrity of their operations and erradicate the creatures. . . as well as the surviving scientists."
"Next thing you'll be trying to give us that Roswell crap," sniped an impatient Buffy.
"I'm telling you the truth," insisted Freeman, "I was fortunate to survive both the clean-up squads and the marauding creatures to destroy the source of the incident. Aparently, it impressed someone enough for them to spare my life and offer me employ in their covert operations. Since it was accept or face certain death I've been living under the thumb of No-Puncuation-Man ever since."
"No-Puncuation-Man?" asked Giles while Buffy nodded empathically, recalling her encounter with the individual in question.
"I don't actually know his name," explained Freeman, "I figured by your resourcefulness and fighting skills that you weren't simply a group of troublesome teenagers and could possibly aid me."
"Even assuming we believe your story, do you really think we can help you?" Giles inquired.
"Perhaps," answered Freeman, "At the least you could help me throw a cog into my employer's machinery."
"That we shall do. I will inform the authorities as to the illicit operation in the morning," Giles.
"You don't understand! The Weberton factory is just one of many. After the Black Mesa incident it was decided it would be wiser if all eggs were not placed in one basket. Regardless, you'll be reporting its existence to the very government that will stop at nothing to cover it up," chastised Freeman.
"What does the factory do exactly?" inquired Giles.
"In layman's terms, it researches the ability to exploit common animals as killing machines through various forms of mutation. We had thought one such product had escaped and mauled a young boy, but the creature we captured turn out not to be one of ours," replied Freeman.
"Was this creature a little taller than me, covered in fur, and sporting some nasty fangs?" questioned Xander with peaked interest.
"I believe so, why?" answered Freeman. The assembled adolescents traded cautiously expectant glares, anticipating a plan to finally locate Oz.
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