(no subject)

[gone_byebye]

The door opens, as is usual, onto an alleyway between buildings. "Around the front," Ray says. "I find it easier to use the same door every time. Welcome to New York."

Comments

[mnt_mike]

Mike pauses at the door, hesitant to cross the threshold.

"You know, the last time I left Milliways was to rescue my brother. And the time after that? I was trying to follow Mel into hell. Damn doorway sent me to the New Jersey Turnpike instead. I..."

He looks back towards Bar and nods.

"She'll let Bernard know I won't be gone long."

A big deep breath is all it takes to get his feet moving.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! A New York that isn't mine! I...I will make it mine!"

[gone_byebye]

"You might want to wait until mid-November," Ray says. "October's not a real good time for real estate around here. Just so's you know."

The sky's sort of greyish and the air feels too warm and too humid for the time of year, but it's still the same city it always is. Same buildings, same smells, same-

Oh. Um.

The building across the street? The one that used to have an ad for Stay-Puft Marshmallows painted on the side?

Big ol' faded ad for Keymaster Cologne. Like, a couple of years old, paint fading away kind of ad. Some things it's just not worth the effort to pull down.

[mnt_mike]

"October's just when the weather is starting to get nice though. And the days get shorter and soon there's the possibility of snow!"

He turns to Ray, a wide grin on his face.

"As kids were were only really allowed street-side in the fall and winter. HAH we were like the only kids in New York encouraged to go out after the streetlights went on."

The only thing that stops Mike from giggling is him catching sight of the Keymaster ad.

Fight it, Mike. Fight making the Gatekeeper joke.

[gone_byebye]

"Bundling up makes you just as invisible as every other New Yorker, eh?" says Ray with a smile. "Nice. Me, I grew up out in Mineola- if you can call living on Long Island until you're fourteen growing up. Columbia University was a hell of a shock to a guy who hadn't started shaving yet, let me tell you."

He's just gonna keep right on walking before Mikey makes the-

"Fnerzatz?" comes the faintly slobbery sound from above. Ray glances up in time to see Slimer's green, blobby form descending from the second floor window to see if anybody's brought tasty new snack treats back for him.

"Heads up, Mike."

[mnt_mike]

"Yeah, I bet. They can really get crazy over there. Have to say though the DEK chapter they have over there has by far the best Halloween parties?"

Like the highly trained ninja that he is, Mike stops when given a heads up...and actually looks up.

"great googly moogly."

[gone_byebye]

Slimer doesn't always remember how gravity is supposed to work, which is why he's currently peering at Mike from an upside-down position.

And reaching out to poke him in the forehead with one curious finger.

And his mun is going to strangle LJ for sending its notifications twenty minutes late.

[mnt_mike]

It's one thing to see a ghost.
It's another to recognize that ghost from a movie you loved as a kid.
And it's a totally different thing to have that ghost try and poke you in the forehead.

Mike does the only thing he can do: he stares, jaw dropped.

[gone_byebye]

"Slimer, leave him alone," Ray says firmly. "I brought watermelon seeds."

"PHBLAH!" yelps the ghost, spinning on several axes at once and diving in Ray's direction. As Slimer grabs the wrapped packet on Ray's open hand and flies off with them, Ray smiles wryly. "He came to live with us earlier this year. I'd been wondering if he was going to show up around here- he only lives with one other continuum's worth of Ghostbusters that I know of."

[mnt_mike]

Eyes still bugged out, Mike turns towards Ray.

"THIS. IS. THE. COOLEST. THING. EVER! There was a ghost and he came out of the building and he floated and he tried to tweak my nose! What would have happened? Would he have tweaked it? Or would it have just gone straight into my head? His finger, not my nose."

[gone_byebye]

"He probably would've tweaked it," Ray says. "Or just poked it. He does that sometimes. He's not as bright as I'd hoped, but he does have the ability to make himself coherent enough to poke solid objects if he really tries. We mostly feed him cereal and pizza, since it doesn't seem to do him any harm."

He turns and indicates the main door to the Firehouse. "Are you ready?"

[mnt_mike]

"I..I don't know. I think there's a distinct chance that I could die of extreme awesome overdose."

He eyes the front door. His grin widens.
There might even be a very undignified little dance.

"Okay, let's do this thing."

[gone_byebye]

"You're starting to sound like Foxtrot," Ray says. "Okeydoke."

He opens the smaller door within the front door- the one Dana stepped through in the movie, only repaired in the wake of a certain set of explosions some years back. "I'm home, and I brought somebody with me!" Ray calls.

"Hi, Dr. Stantz!" calls Janine, but louder and closer is- "Hi, Daddy!"

Ecto's forward lights switch on and a blue scanner light wumm-wumms back and forth behind her grille the way the red light did on KITT.

[mnt_mike]

behavebehavebehavebehavebehavebehave.
Mike takes a deep breath.
When he exhales all the vibration due to puppy-like excitement slowly dies away.

The smile doesn't, because willing that to go away would just be too much to ask of a guy in this situation.

Mike gives Janine a little wave in greeting before turning his attention to Ecto.

"Hi!"

[gone_byebye]

One robotic hand- or rather, the underparts of one, the most basic elements necessary for a nimble manipulating appendage- snakes out from under the car, and Ecto waves back. "Hi yourself," says the car; the voice isn't too different from that of a girl just shy of puberty.

"Ecto," says Ray, "this is Michaelangelo; Mikey, this is my daughter Ecto."

"Oooh," says Ecto. "You're the ninja barman. Daddy told me about you."

[mnt_mike]

Mike eyes Ray.

"Only the good things, I hope."

Or at least the age-appropriate things.

"It's nice to finally meet you, Ecto. Your Dad's told me a lot about you too."

[gone_byebye]

Ecto honks happily. "Cool," she says. "But I bet he forgot a lot of stuff."

"Hey!" Ray protests.

"You forgot the dinosaur skull when Tyler came over," Ecto points out, the hand pointing towards the ceiling, where the skull of something probably about the size of a T-rex is hanging. "And Francis, and the other thing." The last is said in a faintly hesitant tone; the scanner light rolls back and forth uncertainly.

"It's okay, Ecto, he knows," Ray says. "You can show him if you want."

"It's kinda uncomfortable to do it here," Ecto says. "I gotta keep my head down too much."

"She means transforming," Ray says to Mikey then. "We've been working on it in here, but we're kind of hoping that once all this business with the Ark is settled, we can go up to Ulster County somewhere and Ecto can work through all the neat new stuff about her form without having to avoid hitting her head on the ceiling."

[mnt_mike]

There's a dinosaur head hanging from the ceiling.
THERE'S A DINOSAUR HEAD HANGING FROM THE CEILING!
This place just gets cooler and cooler.

Not only that but Janine? Totally hotter in person.
Totally hotter.

And Ecto? It's really strange for Mike to hear a young girl's voice come out of the body that once sounded just like Ray.

The world is strange sometimes, thinks the ninja ex-turtle.

"Oooh I always hated that as a kid. Having to stay in side when all I wanted to do was go out and try out my new elite skills. We had to wait until...well, we had to wait until after we moved to North Hampton for things to get fun in the sun.

Trust me though, totally worth it."

Well, parts of it anyway.

[gone_byebye]

"I hope so," says Ecto. "I got to walk around on two feet in Pennsylvania the other day, but that was because of the mice. It wasn't enough."

"Soon," Ray says, patting her on the hood. "Soon, I promise. In the meantime, I was hoping we could all go for a ride- Janine, have we got time for a trip to Floyd Bennett?"

"Just barely," Janine answers. "Make it quick, okay? Egon's gonna be back with the charts all plotted soon."

Ray nods. "Great. Wanna head over to Brooklyn, then, kiddo?"

"Sure!" Ecto chirps happily, and pops open her front doors. "Everybody in!"

[mnt_mike]

Oh yeah, definitely hotter in person.

"Don't worry, I'll keep us on schedule."

Because nothing screams Responsible Time-Keeper like someone who looks like they just left a Jimmy Buffet concert. Oh yeah.

"Supersweet!"

He then starts to humm the theme from Knight Rider. Yup. Totally a responsible adult.

[gone_byebye]

Yeah, well, he's still better than Peter Venkman.

Janine rolls her eyes. Ecto just laughs. Ray gets into the driver's seat and buckles up. "We can't use the siren until we're out at the field," he says while the doors open. "Not unless we're on an actual emergency call."

"And I can't drive myself without somebody in the seat to look like they're driving," Ecto adds from a speaker on the dashboard. "The DMV's a bunch of dorks. They want me to have a license to drive myself and I'm not even two yet."

"It's okay, kiddo," Ray says as they pull out. "We'll get through to them someday. Brooklyn Bridge route okay with you, Mikey?"

[mnt_mike]

"YESPLEASE!...er...I mean, sure. What ever. I have no vested interest either way."

Mike is a colossal failure at aloof, though he's currently winning at SpeedRacer postures.

"If your dad wasn't here I'd point out that I've never driven with a license, because I'm pretty sure Chelonian-American is not choice on the application. But he is here, so you heard nothing."

[gone_byebye]

Ecto giggles as the car wends its way through the complicated, often cobblestoned streets of lower Manhattan. "It's okay," she says. "Daddy, how fast did you go driving that one time with Kitt, before I was born?"

Ray frowns a little, thinking. "Um... oh, gosh. That was ages ago, but... I think that was around two hundred seventeen miles per hour."

"We're going to the same place now, right?"

"Yes we are," says Ray, "but don't get your hopes up, Mikey. Ecto's top speed is only around ninety miles an hour."

[mnt_mike]

"If she goes 88 miles per hour can we go back in time?"

This is a completely logical question, and one that dates him horribly.

[gone_byebye]

"No," says Ecto sourly. "Daddy doesn't know how to build a flux capacitor."

"Ecto, I already promised you that if I ever work out the exact mechanics involved in the suspensor-nullification effect method of point-to-point FTL travel, you can navigate," Ray says. "Besides. If you become a time machine, Romana's going to have to certify you for safety's sake. All in good time."

"That's easy for you to say," Ecto mutters. "You have an organic brain."

[mnt_mike]

Mike gets an idea. This idea makes him squeak, but...he remembers being Ecto's age and how bad it was when people raised his hopes beyond probable grasp... and so he says nothing.

"...wait...what's an organic brain got to do with anything?"

[gone_byebye]

"It's easy for a squishy to be patient," Ecto says as Ray rounds the curve at the bottom of the Bridge. "You guys only think as fast as meat. I have billions of processor cycles every second. Time takes longer when you're a machine."

"She's right," Ray comments. "Just by way of example, Ecto here was about at the cognitive level of a human five-year-old when she achieved speech. That was November twenty-first, 2005. At her rate of mental development, she's had the equivalent of going from age five to age fifteen in that time."

"I hate waiting," Ecto says. "Sorry, Daddy."

"It's okay, kiddo."

[mnt_mike]

Mike thinks about this.

"So, the smarter something is, the less patient they are? Huh. Maybe that's why Don's a Buddhist.

Have you hear the good news? He's achieved Nirvana."

[gone_byebye]

"It's not so much the smart as the speed of thought," Ray says. "They're two different factors. Intelligence relies heavily upon correlation of thought processes, too." Then he blinks. "Did he really? Good for him."

[mnt_mike]

"That's what Don tells me. Or...rather, that's what I tell Don when he gets all Zen on me."

[gone_byebye]

"Close enough," Ray says.

"I don't know if I can achieve Nirvana," says Ecto speculatively. "i can't even clear all my thoughts. That's just stasis lock, for me."

[mnt_mike]

"I used to be able to do it. I mean, I was never really very good at it, but I could if I had to.

Now though? Even harder. Bar's always doing something and Bernard's always worried stiff and so it's always noisy n the noggin...of...

Holy hippo spit! I just realized it's all quiet!"

[gone_byebye]

"What's he talking about, Daddy?" asks Ecto.

"Mike here's got a psychic link to the Bar, and through it to the other Barman," Ray says. "I take it you can't hear either of them right now, Mike?"

[mnt_mike]

Mike has the first two fingers of both hands pressed against his temples.

"No...nothing. I'm not sure if it's because I'm out of range or if the magic just doesn't work here.

this is kinda eerie."

[gone_byebye]

"The world's not inimical to magic, but I've never had anybody attempt to maintain a cross-time, cross-universe link while they came to visit," Ray says. "Let me know if it becomes a problem for you and we'll get you back as soon as possible."

"We're about five minutes away from the Field right now," Ecto adds. "I think the radio-controlled airplane people are gone for the day."

[mnt_mike]

Mike prepares the ultimate test of the link.
Tonks in lacy frilly lingerie.
Tonks naked on a bearskin rug.
Tonks naked save for a red bandana, elbow and knee pads, and a brown belt with a "K" on the buckle.
Then he cringes and waits for the inevitable smack inside the head....which doesn't come.

"Woah. I feel like someone just gave me a blank check. COULD THIS DAY GET ANY COOLER?"

[gone_byebye]

Ray just grins as they crest a hill in the Shore Parkway bridge and pass the Gateway National Recreation Area sign welcoming them to Floyd Bennett Field Park. "This used to be an airstrip," he says. "It's probably the best straightaway we're ever going to get for practicing high speed driving."

[mnt_mike]

"Sweet! Ecto? Ready to help your dear ol' Dad go grey?"

The puppy-like bouncing has returned.

[gone_byebye]

The car, to her credit, does not snicker.

That's a mighty suspicious revving of the engine, though.

[mnt_mike]

That's okay, Mike does it for her.

"OH yeah, that's a NO if ever I heard one.
Punch it, Chewie!"

[gone_byebye]

There are cars that make the zero to sixty jump faster- much faster. And there are cars that make it more smoothly, too, with a great deal more purring of the engine and less feeling of Mr. Gravity no longer being your friend.

But in the eight and a half seconds it takes Ecto to make it to sixty miles per hour, there is no other car in the world that can manage those honking sirens, flashing blue lights, and-

-okay, yeah, Ecto can select her own soundtrack and someone left her alone with Heavy Classix, because she's playing "Ride of the Valkyries" for this.