Poughkeepsie Attacks!!!: Team Big Blue

[gone_byebye]

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.

Comments

[stilljustandrew]

*Andrew's mouth opens, and nothing comes out. No curse in Elvish, Entish, or the tongues of Men...*

*And then it closes with a snap.*

Oh, you're dead, Peck.

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

"I'll second that," agrees Tilda from a few feet away.

She's wishing desperately for the ability to see through solid objects and magnify her vision at will.

Because if she had it, she could disable that EMP generator safely and then drop Walter Peck from a great height.

There is glaring going on. At an empty patch of ground, because she's not sure she trusts herself to glare directly at Peck without involuntarily throwing him backwards a few hundred feet or so.

[wellthrownstone.livejournal.com]

Threatening a child (and size doesn't make Ecto any less Ray's child in Garion's eyes)...

There are very few things that will get up his spine more than that. And the fact that the man is doing this to someone that Garion calls friend, calls brother, has made a part of his family.

Well, that has him wanting to do something unpleasant with the shadows. Or involving root vegetables. Or a number of other imaginative things that even he was mildly surprised to find in there involving slow, painful deaths.

Some of them with oil even.

But when it came right down to it, venting his rage wasn't the important thing. It wasn't what was necessary. It wasn't what was needed.

If it comes down to it, Ray, I'll make sure Ecto is protected. I'd try to disable that thing if I had even the first clue about it, but I won't risk it.

And when this was all over, Peck would find out how terrifyingly practical the Rivan King could be about making someone pay their penance for what they'd done.

[basic_powers]

Tyler stares, and stares. And gets a face put on that would make Zodon's cursing be put to shame.

This man goes beyond villian, right into the territory of evil bastard with a side order of slime and a large order of DIE YOU GODLESS SON OF A CAMEL DIE. Right now he's actively wishing that he had the powers that the Landlord gave him for Halloween.

"I'll third that. With lighting and painful things." Tyler mutters gripping tightly onto his grappling arm.

[gone_byebye]

Oh.

Oh hell.

Bitch, you did not just say that.

"I'm waiting, Dr. Stantz."

... apparently he did.

Ray closes his eyes and rubs at his face with both hands. "Just a moment," he says. "Ecto?"

"Yes, Daddy?"

"I'm going to need my gloves now, if you can reach them. The extra-heavy-duty, big thick rubber ones in the glove compartment. Please. Assuming that's all right with you, Peck?"

"Oh, don't let me stand in your way."

"Duruna," Ray mutters. "Ecto, my gloves, please."
The black rubber gloves hit the pavement nearby. Wordlessly, Ray picks them up and pulls them on, watching Peck the whole time. When he's finished he flexes his fingers and steps forward grimly. "Let me at it," he says. "Most of you guys know how this goes. The rest of you, just... keep your eyes shut. Ecto, deactivate your optics."

Peck is too busy sniggering to comment on that, although he does make a point of leaning over to offer Ray a hand up onto the flatbed. Ray initially spurns it, as a man who has at least some pride, but the part where he can't pull himself up onto the flatbed without flailing leaves him no choice. "Right this way, Dr. Stantz."

"Stick it in your ear, Peck," says Ray and stomps up to the Ark. Briefly, he wonders if he can do th is with crossed fingers, but that's... yeah, no, not going to happen. So. "To the attention of the entity known variously as God, Yahweh, Jehovah, YHVH, Adonai, the Tetragrammaton, and the Big Beard in the Sky," he says aloud, "on my honor as a scientist, I mean no disrespect or harm by this. Please don't melt me. Amen."

With a wince and a grimace, he gets his fingers under the seam between lid and box and pries the lid open. Nothing happens.

He's seen the movie, so he waits, eyes squinched tightly shut.

Still nothing happens.

Very, very, very cautiously, he opens one eye and peers at the Ark.

Nothing, as they say, continues to happen.

This... was not in the script.

[basic_powers]

He's got his eyes scrunched up tight, he remembers what happened in that movie. Which is why he's stick his head out from behind Ecto's leg to 'look' with his eyes closed in the direction of Ray's voice.

"...Is it broken?"

He's still waiting for the shoe of godly wrath and doom to drop on all of them.

[gone_byebye]

Peck is staring, his brows knitting together in a frown. "Something should've happened by now," he mutters.

"As much as I hate to say it, just this once I think I agree with you," Ray says. Carefully, carefully, he cracks one eye open and leans forward. "Huh."

"What? What 'huh'?" Peck demands.

"There's something in here," Ray reports, opening both eyes. "And it's not glowing or anything. It's... huh." He sticks his left hand in and starts to rummage around. "Half-buried, but- there we go."

It's not a stone fragment. It's not part of a mummy. It's not gold, or jeweled, or the Urim and Thummim. In fact, it looks like paper. "Guys?" Ray says as he unfolds it. "You can open your eyes, I think..."

Peck starts to make his way over, but Ray throws him such an absolutely filthy glance that the ex-bureaucrat stops in his tracks.

"Thank you," Ray says before peering at the paper.

And beginning, very slowly, to laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

[stilljustandrew]

Okay, that? That's a good sign.

*Silently, he adds "I hope."*

[wellthrownstone.livejournal.com]

You haven't gone insane, have you? Because I can fix that, but I'd rather not have to.

[gone_byebye]

Ray doesn't answer Garion, exactly. He straightens up, looks at Peck with a barely-restrained snicker, and begins reading aloud:

"Betreff: Wen's was angeht!

Hallöchen. Übrigens, ihr habt verloren. Wir wissen nicht wie viel Anstrengung es euch gekostet hat das hier zu finden, es sei nur gesagt: es ist eine Fälschung. Ernsthaft, dies ist nicht die echte Bundeslade. Die echte Bundeslade haben wir so versteckt, das ihr sie niemals finden werdet. Schade aber auch.

Wir würden euch ja mehr Erfolg in der Zukunft wünschen, wären wir nicht so mit lachen beschäftigt. Das hier haben wir übrigens selber gebastelt. Oh, und das was da drin ist stammt aus J. Edgar Hoover's Katzenklo.

Mit freundlichem Gruß

Präsident Roosevelts Eliteeinheit



(Die übrigens nen ganzes Stück intelligenter ist als die vom Führer)."

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

...Oh.

Oh.

About eight words in, Tilda lets out a giggle and starts giving a running translation for those in the audience who don't speak German.

"To Whom It May Concern:

Hi there. You just lost the game. We don't know how much effort you put into finding this thing, but you've found a fake. This is not the Ark of the Covenant. The real Ark is somewhere that you'll never find it. Too bad, huh? We'd wish you better luck next time, but we're all laughing at you."

(Tilda, too, is laughing pretty hard by this point, although not with sufficient hysteria to render her interpretation unintelligible.)

"We built this one ourselves. Oh, and the stuff inside? We got it out of J. Edgar Hoover's cat's litterbox.

Signed,

President Roosevelt's top men

(who are way smarter than the Fuhrer's top men)"

The last bit is what does it. She's overcome by a spate of the giggles so furious she has to sit down lest she get dizzy and fall over.

[gone_byebye]

Peck is staring at Ray with the sort of horrified expression normally reserved for "Congratulations, ma'am, you've given birth to a bouncing baby Chthonian". Not that Ray notices; he's back in the box up to his shoulders, prying the interior panels off. "Yep," he says, lifting his head. "Hey, Peck, come here and have a look at this. This thing's all rebar."

"What?"

"Well, technically not rebar. More like interior framework with gold plated wood paneling. Built, I might note, out of cold riveted dowels with what looks very much like cores of pure selenium- Andrew!" He lifts his head and shouts. "Andrew! Who do we know who builds things out of cold riveted girders with pure selenium cores?"

[stilljustandrew]

*Andrew, who has just managed to stop laughing, starts afresh.*

... Oh you have GOT to be putting me on.

[gone_byebye]

"No, sir," says Ray, "I am not. GARION! DO SOMETHING NOW!"

Because they might be laughing their asses off, but Peck? Still has that switch.

[wellthrownstone.livejournal.com]

All it takes is one word.

"Rock."

Not that it was an especially elegant word, but elegance is overrated.

...and while that stalagmite now standing next to Peck might in fact have a lovely pattern of limestone, it is not an EMP generator anymore. Nor can it function as such.

[gone_byebye]

Peck?

O____O

Because really, what the hell else is he supposed to do?

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

Matilda has an excellent idea of what he's supposed to do.

It starts with shooting twenty feet up in the air in under three seconds.

And then being shaken like a rug, upside-down, for another quarter minute or so.

When he's feeling sufficiently like a rag doll in the hands of a temperamental child - and really, it's an apt comparison - she holds him perfectly still at roughly Ecto's head height.

[gone_byebye]

Ecto isn't grinning, exactly, although she's coming very, very close. She's also tilting her head to one side and peering at the screaming man. "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings," she says, "but I kinda think you abused yours just a little bit." She does something complicated behind her back and produces a very, very small object in one hand, and a jug of water in the other.

(In the distance, the observant will note that there are approaching sirens. Peck's remaining henchmen are not observant. This is not entirely their fault. THey were so busy watching the goings-on that they failed to notice that they were being backed into corners by Ray's pseudo-shoggoths.)

Ceremoniously, Ecto punctures the jug of water and pours its contents into the tiny object on her hand. Then she puts the jug away. "Garion?" she says. "I hope you picked a really good species."

One huge robotic hand snakes out and snatches Peck out of midair, and holds him head-down over the palm of her other hand.

[wellthrownstone.livejournal.com]

"I like to think I did," he says with a smile that really shouldn't look so wolfish. He looks so nice usually.

Then he turns to Peck.

"You know, when my Aunt did this, she also made the woman immortal."

He scratches at one ear.

"Except I really really don't like you."

Then he points at the man above the bowl, focuses his intent, and speaks.

"Fish."

And what drops into the bowl but the most surprised beta fish ever to swim around in a tiny tiny bowl.

...while there might be a special hell reserved for child molesters and people who talk at the movies, Walter Peck's will involve a quart of New York's best tap water and a tiny fluorescent pink ceramic castle. And Garion is pretty damn pleased with that.

[stilljustandrew]

*Andrew's grinning.*

And that, gentlemen and ladies, is how we do that.

*He raises his voice a little and addresses the nearest of Peck's people, who by now are staring rather pop-eyed.*

And guys? When your boss gets turned into a fish, I think that means you can go home now.

[basic_powers]

Tyler approaches the bowl, tapping the side of the glass lightly.

""Mr. Walter Peck? As the Representative of ps238, and one of Ecto's friends, I would like to heatily welcome you to the rest of your life as an ornamental fish. You deserve much worse, jerkface."

There may be some truly grosteque face-making at this point, before turning to stand next to andrew and add. "Unless they'd like to participate in a superhero training program. I've still got 7 tazer shots left."

[gone_byebye]

The fish does this. It's hard to give a kid the finger when you haven't got fingers any more.

"I wouldn't worry too much, Andrew," says Ray, who's still standing up on the flatbed next to the fake Ark. "The cavalry's arrived."

And sure enough, it has. Those sirens in the distance are here, at every street and path and aperture leading to the park, and men with guns and uniforms- decent uniforms- are pouring out of cars and vans in every color, shape, and size. One such van discharges an apparently unarmed, un-uniformed man instead... "Yo, Ray!" shouts Peter Venkman, clambering up onto the van roof. "I brought the state troopers!"

"FBI over here," calls Winston, surrounded by angry-looking men in suits.

"And the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms wants to ask some of these gentlemen a few questions, too," says Egon from a third pathway, pushing his glasses up his nose.

Ray smiles and looks to the others. "I think," he says, "that we'll let these guys take it from here. Come on. Let's get you back to the Bar. I'll be there as soon as I've introduced Mr. Peck to our Federal friends."

And that, as they say, is that.