Chicago

[gone_byebye]

The door opens onto a construction scene as the sun is setting. "This is Navy Pier," says Ray. "The Robert Mackenzie was supposed to come in here back when it was still a serious commercial facility. We're kind of assuming that's where it's trying to come back to."

Comments

[gone_byebye]

There'll be a third tossed his way before Ray leads the way back to the elevator and thence to street level. "That was incredible," he says. "I don't think I've ever seen anybody pull off that kind of PKE manipulation that quickly."

[mago_sonriente]

He gives Ray a grin.

"That's cause you've never worked with me. Or, you know, a Council-level wizard. You don't get to be a part of the club for collecting bottle caps, you know what I mean?"

[gone_byebye]

"No kidding," Ray says. "Man, we really could've used someone like one of you guys in that one universe where Ivo Shandor summoned both Namtar and Ereshkigal to try and wipe New York off the map. What a mess that was."

[mago_sonriente]

"That's a whole lot of Mesopotamian to be flinging at a guy who just did what I did," he points out.

[gone_byebye]

"I didn't say it was only going to be you," Ray answers. "I meant as backup. This was a universe where my colleagues and I had never lost our grant, so there were no Ghostbusters, so I had to get us some outside help in a hurry when things went to pot. And when I say 'in a hurry' I mean 'after getting thrown off the top of the building'. I'm just lucky there's a portal to Milliways off floor 23 of that building in all the universes I've been to so far- anyway."

[mago_sonriente]

Blink.

Blink blink blink.

"After the beer, man. After the beer."

[gone_byebye]

Ray nods. "All right," he says, and keeps on walking.

The darkness is drawing in close by the time they reach the pier again. "THERE you are," says Venkman. "We were beginning to wonder if you got eaten or something."

"No, no, we're fine," Ray assures the other Ghostbusters, and the slightly suspicious-looking Coast Guard types. "Just settling a few matters that were feeding into the Mackenzie's situation. Does everybody wanna introduce themselves?"

He figures, as Peter and Egon and Winston lean over to make introductions, that it's probably safest that way.

[mago_sonriente]

Carlos puts out his hand.

"I go by Ramirez," he says to all and sundry. "Hi."

[gone_byebye]

There's handshaking, and an introduction round of "Pete Venkman, Winston Zeddmore... Egon..." before Ray can warn Peter off giving full names. Then Egon steps forward. "We've got about half an hour left before the Mackenzie usually manifests," he says. "I've been monitoring the incoming psychokinetic energy flows, though. Ever since whatever it was you and Ray did at the Palmer House, the incoming energy's slowed to a trickle. I may be wrong, but it looks as if the ship isn't likely to make its appearance until significantly closer to the time of its original foundering."

He doesn't sound as if he's wrong.

"Whether or not it manifests, we were hoping to put the spirits of the Mackenzie's crew to rest once and for all," he continues. "If you have any advice on the matter, we'd be glad to hear it."

[mago_sonriente]

"I don't want to step over the bounds," he says. "If you guys know what you're doing dealing with the ghosts now that I've fixed the weird energy mess, I won't stick my nose in."

"Personally? I've never done an exorcism that big."

[gone_byebye]

"We don't normally deal in capturing sentient ghosts," Egon says. "When we encounter them we usually have to talk them into vacating the plane of the living."

"In fact, the only one of us here who's even come close to that kind of exorcism is standing right next to you," says Peter, nodding meaningfully at Ray. "In Paris, remember?"

"That hardly counts, Peter. A, we had the Eiffel Tower to work with, and B, the mechanics involved were mostly Egon's idea."

"Still. It's not like we've got Yuna here."

"Don't I know it," Ray says wearily. Then he turns to Ramirez. "Sorry. There's a young lady in the Bar whose particular specialty is the sending of bound or reluctant dead into the afterlife. She was there to help out last October when the Baron showed up- anyway, ignore the stuff about Paris. The situation's completely different here. As far as I can tell, this is a simple Chinese ghost dance writ extremely large. I honestly think that if we can work out a way to dispel the majority of the manifesting storm's strength, the Mackenzie should be able to break out of its loop and finish what it started all those years ago. Like it says in the song, if I don't come home tonight, I will make it home someday."

Winston's not commenting just yet. He's holding out one hand and looking up to the sky. "Rain's coming," he murmurs.

[mago_sonriente]

Carlos nods.

"I can feel it."

He feels the energy of the storm. The--

The energy of the storm. If he can loop the energy of the storm to stop the storm.

"And I think I can do it. If, uh, you guys don't mind."

[gone_byebye]

"By all means," says Venkman, backing up with an elaborate gesture of one arm. "Anything else you need from us for this?"

Ray is talking intently with one of the higher-ranking Coast Guard officers on the scene, a stout woman with iron-grey hair and blue eyes. It's a rare occasion when that kind of conversation from him doesn't leave the other person's eyes glazed over, but apparently the Coast Guard's people are made of sterner stuff than most.

[mago_sonriente]

Carlos looks at all of them for a moment before breathing in and wincing.

"Uh, either I can pull this off or I can't. That's about it."

[gone_byebye]

( Thirty-two men on a Great Lakes boat quit the pier at Thunder Bay
Twenty-eight thousand tons of coal on a cold November day )
"Okay, no problem," says Peter. "Spengs, there anything you think we need to be doing?"
( Eight hundred feet and ten more long, eighty feet across
Navy Pier Chicago, our destination through the frost )
"The best we can do right now is monitor, Peter," says Egon. "Ray?"
( At two AM on the second waves were runnin' up to forty feet
Winds were blowing sixty miles, our engines crankin' heat )
"Huh?" says Ray, looking over his shoulder. "Oh- sorry, Egon. Captain, are we set?"
( At 3:13 we took a wave, our wheelhouse left behind )
"I could use another radio operator, frankly," says the grey-haired woman. "We're a little short in that department right now."
( The radar slipped beneath the waves and we were runnin' blind )
"That'll be me," says Winston, stepping forward. "I wasn't a signal man in the Army, but I know my stuff all right."
( Hear me call across the waves
If I don't come home tonight )
As the Coast Guard captain leads Winston over to the nearest still-functioning radio she's got on hand, the skies begin to rumble.
( I will make it home some day )

[mago_sonriente]

Carlos looks at the oncoming storm and wonders if he's done something very very stupid. He considers a few idea for channeling the storm before deciding to just use his staff, for better or worse.

Please don't let me die a virgin.

[gone_byebye]

( Steel boats and iron men)
There's a peculiar quality to the storm, difficult to put one's finger on. It has the feel of something that ought to have been more dangerous- a thin, threadbare sort of feeling, for all its sudden onset and terrible size. Some vital component that should have been there, isn't.
( Thirty-two down on the Robert Mackenzie)
Further up the pier, on both sides, uniformed men and women are hunching over their radios and listening intently even as the winds begin to surge.
( Steel boats and iron men)
Outside of Carlos' range, three of the Ghostbusters are clustered around the fourth. Winston apparently knows more than he let on; he's working the Coast Guard radio as if he were born to it.
( Thirty-two down on the Robert Mackenzie)
"Come on," Winston mutters, fingers moving deftly over the radio controls as the others exchange worried glances or peer out over the growing waves on the lake. "Come on, I know you guys are out there, I know you can hear me- Mackenzie? Captain Phillips, of the Robert Mackenzie? Can you hear me?"
( Steel boats and iron men)
And as the storm, threadbare though it might be, gathers itself to break... out on the waters, there is a ship in the darkness where there hadn't been one before.
( Thirty-two down on the Robert Mackenzie)
"-mayday, mayday- I repeat, this is the Roberth Mackenzie-"

[mago_sonriente]

He starts in Spanish, speaking prayers to slow the storm and to still the spirits behind it. It's mostly for his own comfort, for something to believe in and something to settle himself. Then he switches to Latin, praying again, the old prayers of the Catholic church, those part of the Rite of Exorcism, words he'd learned from books too old for most people to know of let alone to read.

There were perks to being an apprentice to a venerable old wizard, after all. The library was one of them.

Then he opens his eyes, looks out to the storm and puts out his staff, sticking it in front of him on the ground. It stands there, as if jammed into the ground.

That's when he starts in on the Nahautl, the true magic, his bread and butter. Words, built in chains as the language required, making connections and rearranging energies, his hands moving as well. He was going to attack this from two ends: use the energy from the storm to settle the storm.

If he could pull it off. Either way, it's going to hurt.

[gone_byebye]

As the storm begins to stammer, Winston leans forward a little more sharply. "Captain," he says firmly, one hand on his microphone. The other is gesturing to Ray, or the Coast Guard captain, or anyone who- oh, there we go, there's the chart he wanted. "My name's Winston Zeddmore. I'm at Navy Pier along with a whole bunch of Coast Guard sailors who'd love to see you into port safe and sound. Do you have a current position for me?"

"Wish I did, Zeddmore, but we lost our radar and our other navigation's shot to hell."

"Figures," says Winston dryly, looking up to the Coast Guard representative. "You got anything for me?"

"Soon as we can get our chopper down through those clouds, he'll be able to pinpoint the ship," the captain says. "How are you getting the radio to do that? Nobody else is even picking the distress call up!"

Winston silently points at the PKE meter that Egon loaned him; he's rigged several of the radio's wires to interface with the signal arms of the meter.

[mago_sonriente]

He pulls off his sword and sticks it into the ground behind him. He didn't want metal on him when he did this. It just wouldn't be good. Especially not that sword.

Then he reaches out a hand and grabs the staff, banging it two times on the ground, then a third, before raising it to the sky.

"Ilhuicaxitiatletleco!"

And that... that was either going to do it or--

Holy shit this is gonna hurt--

[gone_byebye]

There's a moment when everything seems to hold its breath, and the smell of ozone fills the air. Ray and Egon, who've had some experience with this kind of thing, step backwards swiftly.

Then the lightning strikes, knifing its way downward towards Ramirez' staff with unstoppable force. When the blue-white levin light clears and people can see again, the winds've picked up once more- but they're spinning upwards, scouring into the clouds and pushing them apart in every conceivable direction.

"What the hell was that?"

[mago_sonriente]

The Witch of November versus the Wizard from Los Angeles.

The energy courses through him, burning so good he's laughing, grinning wild and mad and it hurts, dios mio but it hurts and every cell in his body feels like it's going to explode from the strain of it but he adjusts it, reaches back and grabs the sword and grounds himself between the two impliments as the winds begin to tear at the storm, tear the clouds apart, breaking up the low pressure systems and all.

[gone_byebye]

"Captain," says Winston, "I think we're gonna need some people-"

"Already on it, Mr. Zeddmore," says the Coast Guard captain with a grin. She points a little further up the pier to where a slew of midshipmen and lesser officers are preparing the dock for the ship's arrival.

Winston grins, looking up at the sky; the sound of helicopter blades can be heard. "Mr. Phillips," he says into the microphone, "here's what I'm gonna need you to do..."

[mago_sonriente]

For his part, as the storm finally clears, Carlos promptly falls over.

...he's cool.

...and he's good.

But he's not that good.

[gone_byebye]

It takes a moment or two for that to be noticed. Most everybody's attention is focused on either the faintly flickering (if mostly solid) ship slowly veering this way and that among the still-whipped-up waves on the lake, or on Winston as he reads off the Coast Guard's chart to the spirits at sea.

( hear me call across the waves: )

Most everybody- eventually Venkman and one of the junior Coasties, who's considerably younger and more attractive than her captain, spot Carlos and move to haul him out of the way to somewhere more comfortable.

( if I don't come home tonight, )

The storm is rapidly blowing itself out as the ship eases its way around the deadly six-fathom shoal and sets a course straight for the pier.

( I will make it home someday... )

It's fairly glowing as it slows itself down for the final approach.