- [last lines]
- Willow Rosenberg: The one boy that's really liked me, and he's a demon robot. What does that say about me?
- Buffy Summers: It doesn't say anything about you.
- Willow Rosenberg: I mean, I thought, I was really falling...
- Buffy Summers: Hey, did you forget? The one boy I've had the hots for since I moved here turned out to be a vampire.
- Xander Harris: Right. And the teacher I had a crush on: giant praying mantis.
- Willow Rosenberg: [smiling] That's true.
- Xander Harris: Yeah, it's life on the Hellmouth.
- Buffy Summers: Let's face it. None of us are ever gonna have a happy, normal relationship.
- Xander Harris: We're doomed.
- Willow Rosenberg: Yeah.
- [the three of them laugh half-hardheartedly, but eventually stop, wondering if that is actually true]
- Jenny Calendar: You here again? You kids really dig the library, don't ya?
- Buffy Summers: We're literary.
- Xander Harris: To read makes our speaking English good.
- Jenny Calendar: Honestly, what is it about them that bothers you so much?
- Rupert Giles: The smell.
- Jenny Calendar: Computers don't smell, Rupert.
- Rupert Giles: Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower or a-a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences... long forgotten. Books smell... musty and-and-and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer is a... it, uh, it has no-no texture, no-no context. It's-it's there and then it's gone. If it's to last, then-then the getting of knowledge should be, uh, tangible. It should be, uh, smelly.
- Jenny Calendar: Well, you really are an old-fashioned boy, aren't you?
- Rupert Giles: Well, I-I don't dangle a corkscrew from my ear.
- Jenny Calendar: That's not where I dangle it.
- Buffy Summers: Besides, I can just tell something's wrong. My spider sense is tingling.
- Rupert Giles: Your... spider sense?
- Buffy Summers: Pop culture reference. Sorry.
- Rupert Giles: I'm-I'm just gonna stay and clean up a little. I'll-I'll, uh, I'll be back in the Middle Ages.
- Jenny Calendar: Did you ever leave?
- Jenny Calendar: [to Giles] Oh, I know our ways are strange to you, but soon you will join us in the 20th century... with 3 whole years to spare.
- Xander Harris: I mean, sure he says he's a high school student, but I can say I'm a high school student.
- Buffy Summers: You are.
- Xander Harris: Okay, but I can also say that I'm an elderly Dutch woman. Get me? I mean, who's to say I'm not if I'm in the elderly Dutch chat room?
- Buffy Summers: I get your point... I get your point! Oh, this guy could be anybody. He could be weird, or crazy, or old, or... he could be a circus freak. He's probably a circus freak!
- Xander Harris: Yeah, I mean, we read about it all the time. Y'know, people meet on the net, they talk, they get together, have dinner, a show, horrible ax murder.
- Buffy Summers: Willow ax murdered by a circus freak... Okay, okay, what do we do?
- Jenny Calendar: Hi. I got your message. What's so urgent?
- Rupert Giles: Um, thank you for coming. Uh, I need your help. But before that, um, I need you to believe something that, um, you may not want to. Uh, there's, uh, something's got into the, um... in-in-inside, um...
- [sighs]
- Rupert Giles: There's a demon in the Internet.
- Jenny Calendar: I know.
- Willow Rosenberg: Xander, you wanna stay and help me?
- Xander Harris: Are you kidding?
- Willow Rosenberg: Yes, it was a joke I made up.
- Buffy Summers: [very fast] Does he go here? What's his name? Have you kissed him? What's he like?
- Willow Rosenberg: No, Malcolm, no, and very nice.
- Malcolm: Right now, a man in Beijing is transferring money to a Swiss bank account for a contract on his mother's life. Good for him.
- Rupert Giles: Things involving the computer fill me with a childlike terror. Now if it were a nice ogre or some such, I'd be much more in my element.
- Buffy Summers: [about Willow] She certainly looks perky.
- Xander Harris: Yeah, color in the cheeks, bounce in the step... I don't like it. It's not healthy. So, are you going to the Bronx tonight? Oh, you're probably not, you probably have some vampire-slaying or some lame endeavour like that, don't you?
- [scoffs bitterly]
- Xander Harris: Everyone deserts me.
- Buffy Summers: [with laughter in her voice] Check out the jealous man!
- Xander Harris: What are you talking about?
- Buffy Summers: You're jealous.
- Xander Harris: Of what?
- Buffy Summers: Willow's got a thing, and Xander's not the thing.
- Xander Harris: Oh, that's meaningless drivel. I'm not interested in Willow.
- [shakes his head]
- Buffy Summers: Yeah, but you got used to being the belle of the ball.
- Rupert Giles: [leaving while distracted] Well, it's been so nice talking to you.
- Jenny Calendar: We were fighting.
- Rupert Giles: Must do it again sometime. Bye now.
- Rupert Giles: Hoping and betting, that's what we've got.
- Jenny Calendar: You want to throw in praying, be my guest.
- [first lines]
- Moloch: [translated from Italian] Carlo, my dear one... Do you love me? I can give you everything. All I want is your love.
- Rupert Giles: [carrying heavy tome] Does this look familiar to either of you?
- Buffy Summers: Yeah, sure. Looks like a book.
- Xander Harris: I knew that one.
- Rupert Giles: In the Dark Ages, the souls of demons were sometimes trapped in certain volumes. They remained locked within the book, harmless. Unless the pages were read aloud. Unless I'm mistaken, this is Moloch, the Corruptor. A very deadly and seductive demon. He draws people to him with promises of love, power and knowledge. He preys on impressionable minds.
- Xander Harris: Like Dave's?
- Rupert Giles: Dave and who knows how many others.
- Buffy Summers: And Moloch is inside that book?
- Rupert Giles: Not anymore.
- [the pages are blank]
- Xander Harris: You released Moloch?
- Buffy Summers: [with sarcasm:] Way to go!
- Rupert Giles: I didn't read it. That dreadful Calendar woman found it, and - and it all went blank.
- Buffy Summers: Okay, so a powerful demon with horns is walking around Sunnydale, and nobody's noticed?
- Xander Harris: If it's so big and strong, why bother with Dave? I mean, why didn't he just attack Buffy himself?
- Rupert Giles: I don't know. And I don't know who'd have read that book, it wasn't even in English.