Poughkeepsie Attacks!!!: Team Big Blue

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The IBM Supercomputer Benchmarking Plant in Poughkeepsie lies at the center of an enormous corporate campus on the northern side of town. As far as Ray can tell, that's where the really hairy readings were coming from, although he could of course be wrong.

He's about to find out. Ecto pulls to a stop just outside the main entrance to the IBM property. "Are we good?" Ray asks.

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Even knowing what these guys are and what they're doing, Ray still can't help but make the face in the icon. That had to hurt.

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The knock the second one gets is a little rougher, just because he had swung.

When he falls on top of his partner, Garion gives a satisfied little grunt before gesturing onward.

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"One day I'm gonna have to study boxing," Ray says. "Just on principle."

But he ducks forward hurriedly and duct-tapes their ankles together, just in case.

Yes, he has duct tape on him. SOMETHING has to take up all the extra pockets in his cargo pants.

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"I've never studied fisticuffs," he admits. "It's just a matter of hitting them hard and fast before they hit you. Most of fighting is like that."

He did watch Ray with the duct tape.

"That's another one of those things that have to get to my world, isn't it?"

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"Yeah, but I can't even throw a proper punch unless the other person is standing still," Ray says. "Having a form to work from is probably a good place to start."

There's been all of two people in his life that he's punched. One was Mike Draverhaven,a fter the second time the man tried to kill him. The other was Walter Peck, at Foliage Census.

"Yeah, it is. It's called duct tape. I'll tell you about it la- is that someone moving on the next rooftop over?"

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Garion nodded.

"Not much I can do with him," he admits. "Since I can't see him. It might be deadly otherwise."

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"Crud," says Ray, who has heard all the curse words out there but never really been very good with most of them. "I think I'm gonna have to call the others in. If he's seen us, they're all going to know."

Then he brightens. "At least we should have the element of surprise. Peck only knows about the two of us being here, right?"

Ecto, who's been listening via the headpiece all this time, just heaves a sigh and starts signaling the others.

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"I couldn't tell you without focusing a little more," he admits. "Aunt Pol's better at that sort of thing."

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"That's okay. Let's just get moving- if we get there we can keep him off balance until the others arrive, as opposed to letting him keep us on the run," Ray says. "Although if that's a stupid strategy you'd better fill me in, because it works okay against ghosts and things but I'm not that good with tactics against humans."

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"It sounds fine to me," he says with a shrug. "I could even create a few diversions if you like."

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"Could you? That would be-"

Ray stops mid-sentence and covers his face with one hand.

"Tyler's gonna kill me for forgetting."

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"What?"

Now he looks worried.

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"I have a few distractions of my own," Ray says, fishing through his other pockets and producing the egg-shaped capsules Tyler gave him before handing Garion a fistful of glowsticks. "Bend these double so that the capsules inside break, but don't break the outer tube until I've got all the eggs lined up, please?"

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He nods carefully before obeying Ray's request, carefully bending the sticks so as not to break them.

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Each capsule that breaks inside the tubes releases a flow of something. The least little motion mixes the two fluids, and the sticks start glowing brilliant green a moment later.

"Okay," Ray says, settling back into a crouch to get a good look at the putty eggs. "I think you can break those open now- I want to pour the glowing stuff into each of these. Wait until you see what these can do..."

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He snapped the first of them in half before doing as told, stepping back afterwards as he knows nothing of what might happen.

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One by one, the putty eggs begin to glow that same green- oh, not so brilliant perhaps, being diluted, but still quite bright. Ray reaches into his jacket pocket and extracts what looks like a video game controller. "Here goes nothing," he says, and starts punching buttons rapid-fire with both thumbs.

At first, nothing appears to be happening. Then, one by one, the contents of the eggs- the glowing green contents of the eggs- spill out, flow together, and begin to swell up to the size of some of the smaller cars that Garion's seen. Each one eventually resolves into a shapeless congerie of protoplasmic bubbles, greenly self-luminous, and with myriads of brighter eye-like bubbles forming and un-forming everywhere.

"Pretty, aren't they?" Ray comments cheerfully. "I almost got eaten by one of those once. I'm going to send them out after Peck's boys..."

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'...that's one word for it," he says weakly. "But I suppose it's pretty. In an odd sort of way."

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"Well, they're absolutely terrifying when they're bearing down on you, and the real things are literally mind-bogglingly revolting, but then the real things are also about the size of one of those subway trains we rode on that one time," Ray says. "These guys are practically cute by comparison. Anyway-"

He starts fiddling with the controls again and one by one, the glowing green mini-shoggoths start gallumphing off. "They're made of Daffy Putty," Ray notes. "One of Tyler's friends came up with it. When they encounter an enemy they can wrap around him and immobilize him, or engulf an explosive device or gun and keep the force from harming anyone. There's no actual creatures involved- these are just controlled shapes of goo, not something living."

One of the mini-shoggoths finds a sewer opening well down the way and oozes into it. A few moments later, there's incoherent screaming from the nearest storm drain.

"I think that one's running."

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"I'll have to keep that in mind," he says quietly, "how those work. I might be able to do something with shadows or maybe--"

For one brief second, he considers a monster like that made out of wool.

He dismisses it.

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The glowing blobs are reasonably quick-moving creatures, for formless protoplasmic (oh, look, that first one oozed out of the sewer, even though there's still screaming dopplering away below!) monstrosities of nanomachine controlled goo. It doesn't take long for even more screaming to start.

"Daddy," says a very startled Ecto through Ray's headset, "I broke Peck's encryption. Where did you get shoggoths from?"

"Tyler, kiddo."

There's a moment of silence, and then the car snickers. Ray looks up at Garion. "We should, uh, start heading in there now," he says. "No sense letting the blobs get ahead of us."

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"Sounds good to me. Follow me?"

And he started if not running than walking quickly. He's got some leg length on Ray, after all.

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Ray starts off at a run himself. He knows just how much Garion can outpace him.

The 'monsters' are doing their job and doing it well. Most of Peck's henchmen (including several battered-looking fellows who had been stationed at the Opera House) are on the campus just now, and a lot of them were milling around waiting for their orders. They're still milling now. It's just that they're milling for their lives, and screaming in the process like giant blind albino penguins hearing the Elder Thing equivalent of the Binford 2000 Vac-U-Lator on their tails. They barely even notice two more guys running through, and if they do, so what? The big one is blond and dangerous looking! Maybe he knows what he's doing!

... never tell him about that part.

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Yeah, no.

They make their way to a park where the employees eat their lunches (or that's what it appears to be, judging by the small tables and the planned gardening) which, for the moment, holds a rather large truck. Garion might be staring at it because it's entirely out of place, even for someone not particularly familiar with trucks.

"It's in there."

Or because it's got the Ark in it.

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There are about ten men in various stages of Nazi uniform armed with such guns as men with no scruples can pick up on the black market standing around the truck. They are the only ones in the green space not screaming or struggling with other people. Even the red-headed, absolutely livid one on top of the truck's flatbed is screaming.

Admittedly, what he's screaming is "STOP ALL THE GODDAMN RUNNING AROUND LIKE MORONS OR I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL KILL EVERY ONE OF YOU," but that's still screaming.

Ray's expression hardens, a thing it doesn't do often. "Ecto," he says into his microphone, "we found him. I think we're gonna need you."