Room 2342 - It's Where The DOOOOOOM Is

[gone_byebye]

Ray was really, really, really starting to loathe the sight of Sumerian- sorry, Sumero-Akkadian- spirit containment gridding on the walls. Cuneiform got old fast if you had to stare at it for eight hours a day, every day.

He blinked a few times and wondered whether the fact that the patterns were swimming a bit was necessarily a bad thing.

Then he caught sight of Danny's grinning face and realized the answer was yes.

Comments

[fryertuck]

Jazz started smearing the cuneiform, angrily. She was definitely going to be using the Anti-Creep Stick on the creep.

"These symbols look Sumerian, I think. They must be used to bind spirits, although I've never seen anything like this actually work."

That left just one shield left, although Tucker was having a hard time with it.

"Oh, let me do it," said Jazz stubbornly, after smearing the symbols as best as she could, bat in hand...

[gone_byebye]

The sleep compensators were nothing short of a miracle, Ray decided. Yeah, there'd be a hangover. he knew that. Nothing worked this well without a humongous price to pay. But he now felt like he'd had a full night's sleep, despite having had less than half that. He could think straight, he could see straight- damn, he was gonna owe K big-time.

He trotted down the hallway at a much more cheerful clip and opened the door to 2342....

And there were PEOPLE in there.

Kids.

Meddling kids.

He stared at them, too shocked to speak, but it would not be far amiss to say a whistling sound nevertheless rang through the air.

[goinghost.livejournal.com]

"Tucker, Jazz, take out the generator, quick!" Dan yelled at them.

[gone_byebye]

.....ooooh!&(@*&)!&@)(.

(Wait, when did he lose the ability to think swearwords?)

Deep breath, concentrate, pull it all together, it worked on John and Snowball-

"Don't do that! That would be Bad!"

And yes. He pronounced the capital B. The one that meant total protonic reversal. THAT kind of Bad.

[bringnewjokes]

Tucker and Jazz immediately froze, even though they didn't actually want to.

Sam, however, didn't, as she was completely resistant to all forms of authority.

"Bad because we'd be setting your ghost-boy, meat puppet for the government free? You don't trap innocent beings in cages! Particularly when one of them is our best friend!"

"And brother!" Jazz chimed in.

[fryertuck]

"Yeah!" Tucker chimed in because there really wasn't anything else he could add.

[gone_byebye]

He was going to have to ask Master Qui-Gon about that. This was the third time now. It was starting to get scary.

"What the heck are you talking about, the government? I don't have anything to do with-"

His head turned, almost of its own accord, and he caught the edges of what might've been a suppressed smirk on apparently-normal Danny's face.

"Oh," he said. "Oh, damn- no, listen, it's not like that-"

[goinghost.livejournal.com]

That was a bit of a smirk he saw, yes.

"Don't waste time arguing with him; he's just going to try and trick you. Take out that generator and let me out!" Dan implored them.

So close now...

[gone_byebye]

Ray gulped. Usually if he had to bring someone to heel he explained things to them until they keeled over and gave in just to make him stop talking, but there wasn't time. If they took down the magnetic bottling the bar was doomed.

He had exactly five seconds to convince them of his absolute sincerity and he didn't know how-

Somewhere in all of that his brain lost control of his larynx, and what slipped out was the heartfelt exclamation, "I swear to you on the grave of Nikola Tesla that I mean neither Danny nor you any kind of harm whatsoever."

[fryertuck]

Tucker's hand hesitated over the button.

"Tesla?" His brows furrowed in thought. "Only a really huge geek would even know who that was."

It just didn't seem like an evil scientist thing to say.

It just sounded dorky.

[gone_byebye]

Ray raised both hands. "Guilty as charged," he said. "And may the ghost of Charles Proteus Steinmetz make it impossible for me ever to use alternating current again if I'm lying."

[goinghost.livejournal.com]

"Tucker! What are you doing?" Danny exclaimed, voice cracking with nervousness.

Tucker was his best friend--why wasn't he obeying?

[bringnewjokes]

"...Yes, Tuck, that is a very good question!" Sam exclaimed.

[fryertuck]

"Why did you put Danny in there?" Tucker asked Ray.

They'd been fooled once by someone who hadn't really been the Danny they know. What if that was happening again?

[gone_byebye]

"Because one of the Bar patrons, a woman named Blodwen Rowlands, basically reached into Danny's head and yanked the Evil Switch," Ray answered. "He went over to the Dark Side faster than you could say 'boo'. I've been keeping him here all this time because I can't get to your world from the Bar unless someone from your world opens the door for me- and I haven't been doing anything to him, I swear!"

[ilovebearbert]

Jazz looks back and forth between Ray and Danny.

Because if that's not really her brother, she should know, right?

"Danny? Is that really you over there?"

She turned to Ray. "And how can you prove that it's not?"

[goinghost.livejournal.com]

"He's lying! It's me!" Dan said frantically.

He turned to Sam, eyes pleading. Sam was the one he should use, Sam was...

She was the one he ought to keep, afterwards. He'd...he'd keep them all alive, certainly. Not Ray, but Tucker, Jazz, and Sam. And Sam he'd keep close because...because...
Like her.
He wasn't sure why.
Care about her.
In any case, she would be the most gullible, and that's why he appealed to her.

"Sam...Sam it's me. Remember, in eighth grade, when Dash nearly drowned me in the toilet? And you and Tucker had to practically carry me out, and then I got e.Coli poisoning and was in the hospital for weeks? I never told anyone what happened, not my parents, not even Jazz--I said I ate a bad burrito or something, remember? It's me, it is, I swear--he's trying to trick you, trying to keep me here, because he just wants to keep me all locked up, trapped--"

[gone_byebye]

"Villain-baiting? Right," Dan's own voice interrupted. "I'm going to lose my temper and let my weaker side through just to prove you wrong, therefore becoming good again. Newsflash: I was a hero. I know how the psychological games work, Peter."

Anyone who looked up would have seen Ray standing with his thumb on the 'play' button of Egon's tape recorder and an unmistakable expression of distress on his face.

"Yeah? But I got a doctorate that proves I know more about it than you. So if he's so weak, why don't you? According to you, he's not a threat anyway so him coming out ain't gonna make a big difference right? What are you so afraid of?"

"Because I've seen overconfidence take down more than one villain..."

[goinghost.livejournal.com]

"Don't listen to it! He just-just synthesized my voice--that's not me!" Danny shouted, but in his anger, his eyes were looking startingly red.

[ilovebearbert]

Jazz, who had been watching Danny, said "No! Keep playing it," and kept her eyes on him.

If anyone was going to notice a difference, it was going to be her. He was her brother. She knew him.

[gone_byebye]

Ray nodded silently.

"Fine, don't want to play that way, we don't have to. Let's put you in the spotlight then. Sure you'd love that. Because speaking of confidence, you got it in spades. Yet Danny supposedly doesn't. Verrry interesting."

"I have power--I am his power. He's a weakling. End of story."

"Well, this critic thinks that story sucks. Where's the plot, the characterization, the freaking drama man? How you supposed to top the New York Times bestseller list with that garbage, huh? C'mon, sell it!"

"You're even more of an idiot than Ray."

[goinghost.livejournal.com]

Danny's hair was startle to crackle as he lost his temper and all eyes were on him.

"I'm telling you! It's a trick! Who are you going to believe, him or me?"

[doc-venkman.livejournal.com]

And the owner of that other voice spoke, "Mellon, hello, Avon calling?"

In walked Venkman to check up on Ray. He paused at the sight of the kids in the room.

"Ray, what's with the tour group?" He eyed them curiously.

[gone_byebye]

Ray's free hand went up in a 'if you value your life YOU WILL BE SILENT' gesture.

"Shut up, kid," said Peter-on-tape's voice.

And then Dan's... "The way he dodders around trying to fix everything--as if a fool like him could--is completely laughable. He's like a child."

Ray clicked the 'stop' button, and looked wordlessly over at Jazz.

[ilovebearbert]

For a moment, Jazz just stared at Danny, aghast, the Fenton Anti-Creep stick hanging limply.

Eventually, she said, "We removed some of the runes over there -" she pointed. "I'll help you fix them, if I can."