(no subject)

Late December, 2006
14 North Moore Street
Manhattan

"Home sweet Firehouse," said Winston as the doors closed behind him. "Man, is it good to be back."

"DADDY!" cried Ecto, her lights bursting into life and her horn blaring once. "Daddy, Daddy, you're home! And you're okay and and and HIIIIIIIII!"

Ray smiled fondly, patting the car on her front fender. "I missed you too, kiddo," he said. "But yeah, we're back, and we're all all right."

"GOOD!" said Ecto. "Because I was listening to the radio stations and tapping the cable signal and I saw the whole thing on CNN and the BBC and MSNBC and a couple of stations I don't think have names or anything and it was scary."

"Your daughter's a cable pirate, Ray," said Peter. "Nice."

"I am not!" Ecto protested, even as Ray said, "She's not. I pay for her own cable subscription."

"Awww. Spoiling the kids, now, are we?- gack!" That last was the sound of Francis finally waking up and jumping at the Ghostbuster to give him a good thorough sniffing. "Down, boy!"

Egon shook his head. "I don't know about you gentlemen, but I'm going to sleep for eighteen or nineteen hours. I'll see you later."

Ecto made a querying nose at Ray, who just patted her again. "I need to get myself something to eat," he said, "but I'll eat it out here with you and tell you all about it, if you like."

"Sure, Daddy."

---

White House Briefing Room
Washington, DC

"Mr. President, is it just me, or does this look exactly like the answer to our prayers?" said Secretary of State Flaherty as he thumbed through the documents the Ghostbusters had given him in New Mexico.

"I haven't really been able to read my copy," President Winston admitted. "Even the executive summary made my eyes cross."

Flaherty sighed. "Want me to summarize the summary?"

"Please."

"All right, Mr. President." He leaned back in his chair. "Dr. Stantz proposes a two-stage response plan for future supernatural incidents-"

"Ah, ah, ah, Mike, we're not using that term officially."

"Sir, we called in the Ghostubsters and got back an astronaut in a jar."

"We're still not officially classifying anything as a supernatural incident just yet, Mike. You know the rules."

"Yes, sir." He grimaced. "The first stage is a nationwide study of paranormal- Can I say paranormal? Is that officially okay?"

"I suppose," said the President, "although we may have to find something more suitable for the speechwriters."

"Fine. A nationwide study of paranormal activity to assess potential threat areas and risk zones, starting with known, acknowledged paranormally active areas such as New York, Houston, and New Orleans."

"New Orleans? Really?"

"Apparently so, sir- anyway, he proposes a form of monitoring service not too different from some of the activities of the U. S. Geological Survey be left in place following the initial study."

"That could get expensive," the President mused. "Especially if we don't turn up anything."

"Sir? How many times has New York City been hit over the past several years?" said Flaherty.

"Okay, okay. Keep going."

"Right. Dr. Stantz then proposes units similar to his own company be formed and stationed locally in high-risk areas only to minimize expenses-"

"Good man."

"-and that they be the first line of response in case of federally recognized paranormal incidents, with the Ghostbusters or other paranormal investigation and elimination groups being the first NGO's on the list to be tapped to assist."

"Are there other private spook hunters out there?" said the President, glancing up from his absent thought.

"Not.... not really, sir. I mean, they exist, but they're mostly the investigational types. They don't... ah, I don't think we can call most of them anything more than about five or ten per cent successful on the elimination side of things." He grimaced. "At best."

"That's what I thought." President Winston tapped the tips of his fingers against each other. "It sounds pretty sensible to me; what do you think, Mike?"

Flaherty was ready to continue with his summary, as there was a great deal more to Dr. Stantz's plan, but he knew when to quit pushing his luck. "Sir, I think we need to present this to Congress for consideration as soon as possible. The entire orbital incident was covered on every news network there is. Dr. Campbell's not going to go away no matter how hard we try to placate him."

"Even if we give him a go-kart and free Internet to that cannister of his for life?"

"No, sir, not even then. That would probably just make him worse. People want answers. They're going to want to know what their government plans on doing about this kind of thing. Yeah, there's going to be people who think it's all staged, but frankly, I don't think there's going to be enough of them for us to play that angle. We need to show the American people that we take this seriously and that it's not going to catch us off our guard again. Even if nothing else of this scale ever happens, we'll at least have made the effort."

The President pondered this for a while. At last he nodded. "Okay," he said. "Do it."

"Yes, Mr. President."