(no subject)

Sunday, February 17, 2008 / November 20, 1905
14 North Moore Street
Manhattan

Ray made it out of bed first, an unusual circumstance on a Saturday. He had his reasons. One of them was his desire to get the newspaper first; the papers yesterday had been preprinted when the timewave hit. Today's papers would've been written up and assembled by hand, and would include news about the goings-on.

He wasn't disappointed. The boy on the corner, a cranky-looking youth who had tied his suspenders together and knotted them around his waist rather than spend one instant looking any more like a stereotypical newsboy than he absolutely had to, sold him a copy of the broadsheet version of the Post. The usual crew must have been on front page duty, because the headline read, in forty-eight point type:

WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT
IT'S 1905

Yup. It was still the Post he knew.

A quick read-through confirmed that most of the articles were purely local news. Other stories had to be phoned in from the outer boroughs or New Jersey, since the National Guard still hadn't lifted the Governor's quarantine of the island. There were vintage fax machines in some of the businesses around the city, especially in the financial district, but one of the articles confirmed that no, they weren't compatible with the devices used in 2008. Neither were quite a lot of the telephone circuits, for whatever reason. The MTA said in another article that the subways and elevated train lines would be running today, but only within Manhattan. A notice from the Red Cross sprawled across most of an entire page, saying that the Greater New York Chapter was mounting an effort to get people situated wherever possible; there was housing on the island for over two million people despite there only being a million and a half residents as of 2008, but most of it was cramped, overloaded, and substandard beyond belief. And the hospitals...

If Ray was reading the paper correctly, the hospitals were reporting an apparent absence of AIDS patients. On the other hand, the polio wards were practically overrun. And there were a fair number of other diseases, all emergent since the 1950's, that no longer appeared to exist- but each and every case had been replaced by something modern medicine had all but conquered.

Huh.

He'd have to look into that later. Right now, the rooftop was calling. His second reason for making sure he was the first Ghostbuster awake was that he'd stuck his hand under his pillow the night before, and his lightsaber was still there... sort of. Certainly there was something metallic and cylindrical under his pillow. Whether it was still the device he remembered remained to be seen. And if it wasn't, he didn't want anybody else around to see.

Ray crept up on to the roof, deliberately not looking around any more than he had to. The lack of familiar buildings was exactly as weird as he'd feared, and he didn't want to jinx this. The 'saber handle had gone a good deal more ornate, with multiple tiny control panels and settings he certainly never installed. One end had developed a bronze-colored finial studded with green shiny bits, and the other had several prongs sticking out of it, bending first outward and then inward around the space where the blade would normally be. He wasn't sure he liked the look of it, but it probably wouldn't take his hand off, and they might need it, and he really really really wanted to know, so...

The noise it emitted when he switched it on was nothing at all like the familiar snap-hiss, but a deeper, louder vvvworrrmmm sort of sound. Which stood to reason, because what leapt into life was nothing nearly so precise or refined as the saber blade, but instead an odd sort of loosely looping fount of green energy some three feet long. It held an approximately bladelike shape, but it shed greenish sparks when he swung it, and if Ray squinted enough he could just about make out the circulation and motion of the blade's energies through the loops.

He was just about to find himself some kind of loose debris to test the odd blade's cutting power when something downstairs made a violent fzzash! sound. Hastily, Ray switched off the saber and ran for the stairs. The noise had come from Egon's lab, a fact Ray deduced not so much by its direction as by the fact that the lab door was half off its hinges and the air nearby stank of ozone. When Ray poked his head in, alarmed, Egon looked up from the awkward heap in which he sat against the far wall. "Ah, there you are, Ray," he said. "I thought I'd test the proton packs for functionality on the lowest setting." He gestured over his shoulder to the mahogany box and its assemblage of tubes, wires, and cables that had put a sizable dent in the wall. "Apparently in this time frame we've managed to produce shoulder-mounted man-portable Tesla cannons-"

"That's why the meter looked familiar!" Ray exclaimed, trying and failing to snap his fingers. "I saw something with almost the same design in that exhibition of artifacts from Wardenclyffe two years ago! It was supposed to be for detecting electrical field variance, wasn't it?"

"I wasn't at the exhibition with you, so I couldn't really say," said Egon. "Can I get a hand up, please? My clavicle's starting to complain."

Ray hurried over to help Egon to his feet. "Sorry. Listen, I'm going to take Lenny and head downtown to see if I can't find the approximate source of the timewave one way or another. Did you want to come along?"

"Do I have to acknowledge that thing's existence?"

"Considering that he's our only source of comprehensible PKE data, yes. You can wear a pair of smoked glasses and pretend he's a very short intern if you want, though."

"I'll take it," said Egon. "Let's go."

(no subject)

"This is weird, Daddy," said Ecto as she trundled down the street, maneuvering now and again to avoid less nimble drivers and the occasional spooked horse.

"Is it? I would have thought you of all people would be used to hunting with a companion entity by now, what with Francis and all," said Ray.

"No, I'm fine with Lenny," said Ecto. "I mean driving like this."

Ray looked up; he'd been watching the PKE imp's expression of concentration. "With the streets like this, I can certainly see how-"

"Not that either, Daddy," Ecto said patiently. "I mean I've finally found my diagnostics."

"Wouldn't that be a good thing?" said Winston, who was seated in the ostensible driver's seat. "I mean, now you know what's going on with yourself, right?"

"Yeah, and I don't like it at all," Ecto said. "It's all mechanical. I've hardly got any diagnostics. All my processing's being done with those wheels and rods in the back."

Egon (who had held Ray to his promise about the smoked glasses and not having to talk to the imp) glanced over his shoulder at the boxy part of the ambulance. "Don't tell me," he said, "let me guess. You're a Babbage engine."

"Uh huh," says Ecto. "And I can't pick up on signal. I don't have any kind of wireless anything in my systems."

Ray winced. "I'm sorry, kiddo. I promise, we're doing this as fast as we can-"

"If I can interrupt the family moment," said Peter, "you've got an imp trying to get your attention, Ray."

"Whoops. Sorry, Lenny."

"Eh." The imp shrugged. "I picked up on something. Not the spirit's presence, but one heck of a lot of its residue."

"Do you think it's the place where it spent all that time building up for the power discharge?" Ray asked.

"Sure feels like it," said Lenny. "Take the next left, willya?"

"Okay," said Ecto. There was an aaooga. "Cripes. If you can't figure out how to drive an unfamiliar vehicle, mister, leave it at home and get a horse!"

Ray covered his mouth with one hand, trying not to laugh.

A few more turns later, Lenny held up a hand. "Here," he said. "Right here. That building. it's in there."

Winston frowned. "You sure? We were just down here yesterday morning."

"And did you have me with you then? No? Then you wouldn't know."

"I think what my colleague is trying to say is that you'd kinda think City Hall would notice that the timewave came out of One Police Plaza, what with them being, you know, across the street from each other and all," Peter said.

Lenny fixed Peter with the world's smallest dirty look. "Listen, buddy," he said, "I don't know humans, okay? My job is to say, oh, hey, will you look at that, there's supernatural energy in the area, and what kind and how strong. You take it from there. Not me. I don't know what any of these places are, even. All's I know is, the same energy that ripped through you guys' place the other day is still hanging around in there like thaumic radiation after a wizard gets the words wrong and explodes."

"All right, all right. Jeez," said Venkman.

"Actually, Peter, it occurs to me that there may be a valid reason for City Hall not having noticed," said Egon. "Aside from the incident having occurred at an extremely inconvenient time of the morning, the proximity of the building to the timewave's epicenter may be responsible itself." He glanced meaningfully at Ray.

"Egon's right, Peter," Ray said. "According to the interviews I conducted yesterday, the timefront passed through the Lower Manhattan area at speeds of at least several hundred miles an hour, and it certainly didn't slow down to any appreciable degree as it got further north. A phenomenon like this could easily pass through City Hall so quickly that the people inside would've been pretty hard pressed to say that it wasn't instantaneous."

"Preciesly." Egon gave a thin-lipped smile of satisfaction. "Of course, there's the matter of it being City Hall. I wouldn't trust the average New York City bureaucrat to accurately assess whether the sun had risen in the east."

"Well, okay then," said Peter. "What are we waiting for?"

The scene inside was one of chaos on a short leash. Having been stripped of their radio communication and a hefty chunk of their telephones, the police in Manhattan were making do with runners, telegrams, and couriers both wheeled and mounted. The desk sergeant on duty looked as harried as Ray could remember ever seeing a police officer, although her face brightened when she saw the Ghostbusters approaching. "Tell me you know what's going on," she said. "Please."

"We're on top of it, ma'am," said Ray with a smile. "As a matter of fact, we have reason to believe the answer to most of the major questions of what happened today lie right here in this building."

"Oh, thank God," said the sergeant, a dark-skinned woman whose desktop sign proclaimed her to be Sergeant Derrina Watkins. "The archive room's right down the stairs- I'll get you an escort."

"That's not how I mean it, ma'am," Ray said. "I mean we think the phenomenon originated here."

"We'd like to sweep the building for parachronal energies," said Egon. "Has anyone delivered anything unsusual to the building lately, or threatened any kind of unspecified action against the premises?"

Sergeant Watkins blinked. "Nothing's been delivered, no," she said thoughtfully. "Not that I know of, anyway. And we get threats all the time, but we follow up on those and they're usually either crazies or guys with guns, not-" She nodded towards the cluster of her fellow officers in front of the messenger duty board. Like Lieutenant Chen yesterday, they were dressed in the winter duty uniforms one would expect. Most of them had the high helmets of the time jammed on at awkward angles. "The only unusual thing I can remember happening here in the past couple of weeks is the thing with the cornerstone?"

"What thing with the cornerstone?" Peter interrupted, leaning forward.

Sergeant Watkins barely even batted an eye as she glanced at Peter. "The building's been under renovations lately. When the crews started working in the area with the old cornerstone, there was a rumor going around that something might be inside it. Somebody said it used to be really common to put time capsules in building cornerstones."

Egon, Winston, and Ray exchanged glances; Peter frowned. "So what happened? Did you guys wind up opening it or what?"

"Well, it was decided in the end that we weren't going to, but I honestly don't know," said Sergeant Watkins. "I can get someone to take you down there if you like."

"That would be fantastic," said Ray. "Thank you very much, Sergeant."

"No problem," said Sergeant Watkins. "For you guys, whatever you need."

"Actually, I have one last question," said Peter.

"Shoot."

"Everybody else I've met since this whole thing started's made a comment about my personal appearance. How come-"

Sergeant Watkins snorted. "Dr. Venkman, several of the officers on duty here were born in China," she said. "They woke up with half-shaved heads and queues. Your little clump of facefur ain't nothing next to Officer Tsai having a braid down to his ass."

She rapped a bell on her desk sharply and signaled the officer who appeared to take the Ghostbusters down to the renovation area. Ray took the opportunity to flip Lenny's box open. "Well?" he asked the imp. "Are we getting warmer?"

"!*(&) yeah," said Lenny. "We're practically on top of it."

"Is the spirit responsible still here?"

"Nah, I don't think so," said Lenny after a moment's concentration. "Betcha I could come up with a trail once we find its old nest, though."

"if you could, that would be fantastic," said Ray. "Thank you."

"Y'welcome," said Lenny. "Oh- thirty feet up ahead, through that door on the right."

"You heard the imp," said Peter to the officer. "Is that where the cornerstone is?"

The officer frowned. "I don't think so, Dr. Venkman," he said doubtfully. "That's more of a staging area for the construction crew."

"Let's see it anyway, okay?"

"Sure thing." The officer opened the door and started to reach for a light switch, then stopped. "Sorry," he said ruefully. "It's all gas down here."

A few fumbles later, there was light in the room. It shone on toolboxes, shovels, picks- "I think those used to be jackhammers," the officer said- and a table on which a number of items were laid out. Unlike nearly everything else of 1905 the Ghostbusters had seen in the city so far, the things on the table looked old. The envelope was yellowed and ancient-looking, the silver box's engraved patterns were covered in tarnish, the photographs were curled up at the edges, and the police officer's badge looked much the worse for wear. "Huh," said Ray, moving forward. "Looks like this stuff took the blast head-on."

"Are you kidding?" said Lenny. Something in the imp's voice made Ray look down at him; Lenny's expression was deeply disturbed. "That wasn't the blast. That stuff's been marinating in the spirit's power all this time. Ever since they put it in the ground." He pointed. "Especially that thing, there, the silver thing. What the @#%$ is that?"

"Officer?" Ray asked. "I don't suppose you happen to have a pair of rubber gloves on you?"

"Afraid not, Dr. Stantz."

Ray glanced at Egon, who nodded fractionally. "That's all right," he said, and picked it up anyway. It was surprisingly heavy and a little bit warm to the touch- not as warm as Ecto's resting temperature, but warm enough to be noticed. As he turned it over in his hands he frowned a little. "Hey, Spengs?" he said. "I don't think this stuff is tarnish. It sort of looks like ... almost like some kind of galvanic corrosion. Like it's been accidentally electroplated, although I couldn't really say with what."

Egon frowned. "Let me see that," he ordered, adjusting his pince-nez.

"What's going on?" the officer asked. "What is that thing, anyway?"

"Difficult to say," Egon answered. "But Dr. Stantz is right. This discolored stuff's been accreting on this box for years. It's been precipitating out of the limited air supply in the capsule and adhering itself to the device, if I'm not mistaken."

"Okay, I might not be Captain Engineering here," Peter said, "but doesn't that kind of thing need electricity to happen in the first place?"

"Or another power source, yes," Egon answered. "Potentially one ionizing across a poorly constructed planar barrier."

Ray had been examining the envelope where it lay; his head came up sharply at that. "You're kidding," he said.

"I wish I were, Ray," said Egon. "Look at this. I've seen these patterns engraved on the box before, and so have you."

Ray squinted at the box, and then whistled. "Babylonian geomatic sigils," he said, awed. "Layered on top of one another like someone was trying to stack Armor Class bonuses."

Egon nodded grimly. "And not layered very well, either. The interference patterns the resultant stabilization fields set up must've been-"

"Hey!" snapped Peter. "Do you mind? Some of us speak English."

"It's a primitive ghost trap, Peter," Ray said. "Made by somebody who only had a vague theoretical idea of what he was doing, unless I'm very much mistaken."

"So wait," said Winston. "Am I hearing you guys right? Somebody in 1905 managed to trap a spirit in that thing and it's been sitting under One Police Plaza ever since?"

"Pretty much," said Egon. "Officer? Is there any chance you have the provenances of these items?"

"Only if it's in the envelope," said the officer, and very carefully undid its fastenings. "Let's see... newspaper clippings, a couple more photographs, some money fastened to cards... oh, here's a letter to the good people of 2005. Guess we were supposed to open it a while ago, huh?"

"What's the letter say?" said Ray. "It could be important."

"Uh... huh. 'Greetings and felicitations from the citizens of New York City...' yadda yadda yadda, understanding and the common good, building on the foundations of the past just as on the foundations of the building... okay here we go." He gestured to the Ghostbusters to gather around. "The badge belongs to an officer who died in the line of duty-"

"That kind of artifact's a pretty powerful spirit anchor," Ray suggested to Egon.

"The newspaper clippings are the most important events of the year to date," the officer went on. "The money's just a couple samples of the currency of the time. The pictures are the mayor and other city officials in 1905, and the box... huh." He pulled at his bottom lip. "That's interesting. Says here the box was a gift to the city from Nikola Tesla, straight from his labs at Wardenclyffe."

Egon's eyes widened; Peter whistled. "Okay," said Peter, "so Tesla was a ghostbuster too?"

"Hardly, Peter," muttered Egon. "I would have heard something about that."

"Or I would have," Ray added. "Believe me, I read enough about the man. What else does it say?"

"Uh... basically? It didn't come with an explanation. It just arrived from Wardenclyffe one day and they assumed it was meant for the capsule. They hope the people of the future can explain it," said the officer. "Is that thing really a ghost trap?"

"Apparently so," said Ray. "I never would've imagined it, but it could theoretically hold a spirit in a primitive form of restraint. The containment capacity would be temporary at best, though. Especially if the spirit inside were capable of exerting enough power to ionize across the planar barrier like this, since that kind of electrical activity would've been what caused this schmutz to adhere to the box and build up-"

"And that would've distorted the sigils," said Egon, "and completely invalidated their ability to hold a spirit in check."

"And then it would've escaped," Ray said. "Lenny?"

"Hm?" said the imp, who'd been eyeing the silver box with all the loathing a human might reserve for a rabid rat. "Oh. Yeah. That thing's where the spirit's been, all right. Could you put it away? It gives me the creeps."

"Sorry," said Ray, and looked to the officer. "Any chance we could take this with us to investigate?"

"Lemme ask upstairs first," the officer said, "but I doubt they're gonna say no."

"Thanks."