(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

[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.