(no subject)

September 25, 2002
Gun Hill Road, The Bronx
Apartment 4C
Late Night

He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling in the semidarkness of his Bronx apartment. (His, hah; he’d had to cadge his personnel records out of the department secretary to get the address, and what a knockabout round of pure fun that was.) The leaky blinds let through just enough of the orangey sodium streetlight to make a nuisance, but he could live with that. The noise of his own thoughts was something else again.

This was not his New York. 2002, yes, Columbia, yes, but not his New York. He’d known that as soon as he saw the calendar in his office. Late September of 2002 and he and Egon and Peter were still teaching? So not his New York.

Not his Egon and not his Peter, either. Not quite. Not really. He’d stolen Egon’s prototype PKE meter (a moment of serious nostalgia, to be sure) and sneaked a scan on Venkman when he wasn’t looking- nothing. Of course, he’d kicked himself moments later, metaphorically speaking. The old meters weren’t sensitive enough to pick up Peter at baseline, and the guy didn’t have years of exposure catalyzing the fringes of his psyche. What had seriously worried him was the single, lone pleep the meter had emitted as he returned it to Egon. Ordinarily he’d have dismissed it as random, the way a Geiger counter might pick up on a single defiant bit of americium making a desperate lunge for freedom from a smoke detector, but he’d grown awfully familiar with the intricacies of the meter’s reading over the course of the past elapsed year. He’d seen a burst of numbers for a fraction of a second, and they formed a statistically valid blip in the part of the PKE spectrum most commonly associated with psi-coercers in inactive mode.

He hadn’t had the nerve to tell either of his colleagues anything after that.

Tomorrow he didn’t have any classes scheduled after midday or so. He’d go down to Electron Hut and buy a big box of components. That always made him feel better. Besides, he was going to need his own meter if he was going to pay 55 Central Park West a call.

(no subject)

There really wasn’t anything in the world quite like putting together something that went ping! to make a guy feel better sometimes. Especially not when the ping! went off the instant Tavern on the Green hove into sight through the taxi’s window. Too bad it kept pinging.

“You gonna answer that, buddy?” asked the cabbie.

“Huh? Uh, no, it’s not a- that’s my-“ Ray didn’t want to turn the meter off, so he hastily shoved the thing into his briefcase. He could still hear the beeping gaining in speed and frequency, but at least it was muffled. With a sigh he thrust a bundle of bills at the driver and muttered, “Go ahead and keep the change.”

“Yeah? Thanks,” said the driver, who’d just found himself the recipient of a thirty percent tip.

As the car pulled away Ray stared up at the all-too-familiar building. Oh, yes, he knew this edifice, all right. He’d only actually been here the once- twice, really; once going up, once coming down- but you don’t forget a sight like that. The angle of the roof’s construction made it difficult to spot any of the more distinctive temple bits, as he’d feared, and he’d forgotten to bring his binoculars. Oh, well- it was only twenty-eight floors, right?

He nodded to the doorman and strolled into the lobby as if nothing at all were unusual about the situation. A moment later he stopped and turned on one foot. “Excuse me,” he asked, “but I couldn’t help but wonder- by any chance is-“

He was going to say Miss Dana Barrett, but it struck him as the words were forming that asking for a woman- and a woman in the music field, at that- could very easily be construed as stalking to a sufficiently suspicious doorman. So- “Mr. Louis Tully at home?”

The doorman looked him over skeptically. “Why? You a friend of his?”

“No, no, no, hardly that,” Ray said with a laugh. It was true, really. The little accountant’s surge to advertising fame back home had made that all but impossible. “I’m a client of his. Got some papers to drop off.”

This seemed to satisfy the man, who nodded. “If you hurry, you can still catch him. He usually goes out jogging about now.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Ray. “I appreciate it.”

The doorman touched the brim of his cap as Ray headed for the elevator.

It only went as high as the twenty-sixth floor. Twenty-seven required a key to reach, and there was no elevator access at all to twenty-eight. In fact, technically there really wasn’t supposed to be rooftop access at all. An alarm system barred the door. Ray frowned at it thoughtfully, then pulled his meter out. The red sensor arms swung upwards immediately, pointing urgently towards the door; the thing’s display was going completely insane. With a soft whistle he tucked it back out of sight. He was going to have to get past that alarm. At least there didn’t seem to be any cameras. . .

He glanced over his shoulder, then down the stairwell. No one else about.

If it’s as complicated a temple here as it was in our world, I should be able to circle around behind something and get down the stairs before the security people arrive, he decided. With a deep breath, he shoved the door open.

The squee, squee, squee of the alarm was easily ignored. His meter was making even shriller, more insistent noises. But most importantly of all, the temple was not the one he remembered. Not at all. Oh, sure, it was there and it was complicated and it had already attracted so much spiritual energy it made his teeth feel all greasy, but this was no temple to Gozer. There wasn’t so much as a terror dog in sight. On the other hand, it was an absolutely perfect rendition of a temple he dimly remembered seeing not long ago- in his texts on the Sumerian language. Sargon of Akkad’s people had described a complex not unlike this in the old Akkadian cuneiform that had allowed linguists to break the Sumerian written cipher. The picture had been a painting, rendered sometime in the nineteenth century- the late nineteenth century, if he remembered correctly. Just in time for Ivo Shandor to see it fresh and new, he thought.

He moved forward, half wishing he’d brought a camera, and fished his PDA out of one pocket. The engravings on the stones were unfortunately eroded by decades of New York pollution, but he could make out just enough to copy down a few lines before he heard the footfalls- and the cry of “Hey, you’re not supposed to be up here!”

No help for it. He ran. At least he’d been right about one thing- the place really WAS complicated enough for him to outflank the rent-a-cop and bolt down the stairs, at least as far as twenty-six, where he lunged for an open elevator and nearly ran into the person exiting. “Whoops! Sorry, Dana!” he called, pushing the buttons for fifteen, ten, and ground level.

Only as the doors closed did he notice the look of surprise on her face, at the greeting from a complete stranger.

Oh, well.