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[gone_byebye]

Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Mustique Island
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Mustique Company Private Airport

"Hey, Ray?" said Peter, peering out the small plane's window as it rolled towards the end of the runway. "The natives are restless."

"That's not funny, Peter."

"No, seriously, have a look."

Ray squinted out the window himself. A party of about twenty people had gathered near their jetway. Several of them were carrying what looked like protest signs. "That's weird," he commented. "Anti-American protests, you think?"

"Ray, this is one of the most exclusive private resort islands in the hemisphere," Egon commented from his seat. "I doubt those signs read 'Yankee go home'. This is something else."

"What do you-"

"This island and at least six others in the Grenadines, not to mention five others elsewhere in the Caribbean, have all been plagued by massive supernatural activity in the past year, spiking in the last several weeks. The area has no coordinated anti-paranormal response plan of any kind. If anything, they're probably demanding to know why we're only showing up now."

"I don't think it's that simple," muttered Winston. "Check 'em out, guys, they're all old..."

Comments

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"All old?" inquires Jhalak from its perch on Ray's right knee, raising an arm to peer through the window. "Old, old, old." "What are criteria to determine 'old' in human?"

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"Grey hair's usually but not necessarily indicative," Ray says. "Uh, wrinkled skin, stooped posture, slower movement, certain styles of clothing, hair loss... see that one guy towards the front, with the nose like Egon's? He's old."

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"Okay." "All right." "Thank you." "What's it mean?"

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"Means they're probably not the usual folks you think of who live on this island," Winston murmurs. "This place is where rich people go for vacation. These folks look like the just work here, or something."

The plane comes to a halt, and Ray unbuckles himself. "Ready to meet the locals, kiddo?"

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"Yes!" "Okay all right!" "Ready to meet the locals." "Approve."

It squints two-armed at the protest signs as it climbs up to Ray's shoulder, arguing with itself in a low murmur about what letters are visible at this distance.

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Oddly enough, most of the signs seem to be referencing religious freedom in some way. Winston looks a lot less happy once he spots that fact- not that he was all that thrilled before.

The crowd stays a respectful distance back as the Ghostbusters and Jhalak exit the plane, a fact which leaves Peter looking just a bit disappointed. Nevertheless he rallies. "Well, hi there, people of Mustique!" he calls out. "We're-"

"We know who you are," says the old man towards the front of the group. "We figured you might show up."

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For once in its life, Jhalak remains quiet.

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"Uh, okay," says Peter, who has yet to be entirely stymied by a conversation in his life. "Then you mind telling me who you guys are?"

"We work for Mustique," says the old man. "All of us in different capacities. I'm Stanley Wolcott, and this is my wife Gladys. We run the Firefly Resort. You boys sent a Russian fella down here a while ago."

"Dr. Tsybenko was doing vitally important survey work for us," says Egon; Peter puts up a hand.

"Guys, guys, guys, I'd love to stay and chat, you know we all would, but we're kind of on the airstrip. Any chance we could take this indoors?"

"Yeah, okay," says Stanley. "Come on. There's a restaurant..."

"Day's looking up already," Peter comments.

As they start to head out, Winston moves up close behind Ray and Jhalak. "Keep an eye on the protesters," he mutters. "I don't like it. We're not doing anything religious, are we?"

"Not that I know of, no."

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"Religious?" asks Jhalak. "What's it mean?"

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"It means dealing with gods and church... es..." Ray trails off and looks over at Winston. "They're just about the right age, aren't they."

"That or they're real damn close to it," says Winston.

Ray sighs. "Jhalak, do you remember any of the stuff I've been reading about Ivo Shandor and his followers?"

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"Ivo Shandor," it says, bobbing its central body mass up and down. "Built an apartment building to call Gozer." "That right?"

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"That's right," Ray says, still following the others, albeit at a bit of a distance. "Ivo Shandor had close to a thousand followers when he died in 1925. Nobody's ever really tracked them all down, but there were some architectural projects that cropped up in this part of the world a few years after he died that had very similar traits to his building."

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"Followers." "Gozer is Sumerian god." "Religious?" "Old people like Ivo Shandor religious?"

...Its syntax could use some work.

Tact, too.

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"I'd bet my paycheck on it," says Winston. "Don't let 'em get between us and the door."

This is kind of important, as they're heading into what may possibly be the swankiest tiki bar-styled restaurant any of them have ever seen. Mustique is, after all, an island for the very, very rich, and they have their preferences.

(One of which appears to be for fruit in the table decor. Lots of fruit.)

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"Kiwifruits!"

Jhalak perks up, wiggling its digits excitedly.

"Can Jhalak have fruit please?"

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Okay, see this?

O__O


That's pretty much the look on the faces of the twenty or so people who've filed into the room along with the Ghostbusters. Guess who didn't notice Jhalak as anything but an extension of Ray's carry-on baggage?

In the awkward silence that follows, Ray quietly grabs a couple of kiwifruits off the table and passes them up to his daughter.

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"Thank you!"

It resettles itself and starts to eat, very carefully so as not to get undue amounts of fruit juice on Ray's clothes.

Two arms holding fruit, two holding onto Ray-- that leaves one with which to wave hello.

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"What the..." begins Stanley, but Gladys elbows him in the ribs. "Oof!"

"I'm sorry, boys, I can't possibly imagine what came over my husband," Gladys says serenely. "He knows perfectly well that you tend to travel with all sorts of beings in your wake. You'd think he'd be more polite."

"You ought to see his other daughter sometime," says Peter. "Anyway. What can we, as the Ghostbusters and representatives of our fine, fine country, do for you today?"

"Well," says Gladys, "we'd like to know just what you intend to do, for starters."

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"Just what do we intend to do?" asks Jhalak, between bites of kiwifruit.

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"Oh, nothing too big," Peter says.

(Egon gets a sudden sick look of realization on his face, and starts trying to surreptitiously shush Peter.)

"We just thought we'd come in here and see what we could do about your little overwhelming spirit and spook problem."

(Nothing surreptitious has ever worked on Peter Venkman without a lot of alcohol being involved, is the problem.)

"Starting with finding the root cause-"

"Oh," says Stanley, "you mean Gozer?"

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Jhalak closes its free hand and tucks its arms closer to its body, finishing the last bite of kiwifruit number one and not quite starting on number two yet.

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"Um, yeah," says Peter, blinking. "How'd you-"

"Peter," says Egon tersely, "think for a minute. Where are we?"

"Mustique Island, but-"

"What's on the island, Peter?"

"A whole lot of rich people?"

"And?" Egon prompts.

"And... a hotel? And a very ni- wait."

"That's right, Peter, a hotel," says Egon. "A hotel built by..."

"... some whackjob follower of Ivo freaking Shandor," Peter finished.

"Excuse me," says Gladys with a sniff, "but you don't hear us making fun of your religion's founder, now do you?"

"That's because my religion isn't out to bring about the end of the world!"

"A man's got to shoot his own dog," says Stanley, and the people behind him start nodding and murmuring in agreement. "Humanity ruined this world in the first place. It's humanity's responsibility to put itself out of its misery, and you can't do a whole lot better than a god like Gozer to get the job done."

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It starts turning the kiwifruit around and around in its hand.

Reading the body language of a non-human alien with no face and no bilateral symmetry is difficult, but you could probably say Jhalak looks thoughtful.

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"You have got to be kidding me," begins Peter. Gladys holds up a hand.

"Anything but, Dr. Venkman," she says, and there's steel in her voice. "We don't joke about that sort of thing, not ever. I know it looks very nice here where we are now, but let's be honest. Just how many times since Dr. Shandor died have we humans risked the whole shebang to prove some kind of point or satisfy some kind of petty ego? It's pointless trying to get over it all. We never get any better."

"Uh," says Winston. "You know, I could point out more than a few people who'd be willing to argue with that."

"Argue all you like, Mr. Zeddmore," says Gladys, "but it won't help much. The Traveler's already on his way and you can run all you like, but you won't be able to stop him."

Stanley laughs, a toothless sort of sound reminiscent of steam pipes. "One thing ol' Dr. Shandor never did get right," he says. "Redundancy. Poor fella, he pinned all his bets on that one building."

"And you've got six," Ray says, his mouth very, very dry.

"Oh, we've got more than six. These're just the ones that've made it to critical, that's all." Stanley smiles, and it's almost kind. "We've got people working at each and every one to make sure that if their building gets there first, there'll be a Keymaster and a Gatekeeper on hand right away."

"That's why Stanley and I've been living here all this time," Gladys adds. "Isn't that right, honey?"

"That's right, sugar."

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Jhalak raises itself up, leans over, reaches out, and daintily sets the second kiwifruit down on the table it came from.

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Winston and Egon look shocked. Ray looks vaguely ill. Peter... well, um, Peter's always been really good at reading faces, and those two are not giving each other the look of people who just plan to turn into terror dogs despite currently being ninetysomething...

"Oh, don't make that face, young man," says Stanley. "We've been preparing for this all our lives."

"You can't keep us here, you know," says Winston. "We'll get out and-"

"And what? Stop us?" asks Gladys. "How? You're going to have to reach all six islands to do that."

"You don't have bombs on that plane of yours," says Stanley, "and anyway, you're the Ghostbusters. You don't have it in you to do that to people."

"Hey! I'll have you know we blow up unsuspecting architecture all the time!" Peter protests. "Egon especially."

"I told you, Venkman, that was an accident-"

"I'm trying to make a case here, Spengs."

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"Big October thing," says Jhalak gloomily.

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Ray reaches up to put a hand where Jhalak can reach it, if she needs to.

"The only way you can stop us now is to destroy all six critical buildings," says Gladys. "That, or you could just find all the potential Gatekeepers and Keymasters and kill us."

"Absolutely not," Ray says suddenly. "I've got too long a track record to start doing that now."

Stanley's smile turns pitying. "If more people had that kind of an attitude, young man, we wouldn't need to do this in the first place," he says. "Too bad it's not gonna happen."

"Hey, whoa, whoa, slow down," says Venkman, putting up his hands. "Time out. You two kids mind if we call a huddle over here?"

Stanley and Gladys look at each other. Finally Gladys says, "I don't see why not. It's not like you boys'll accomplish anything."

As the Ghostbusters gather into a circle at one of the other tables Peter mutters, "Is it just me or are these two the freakiest evil masterminds ever?"

"I don't know if you could call them that," Ray begins.

"C'mon, Ray, they've got a private island and they've taken us prisoner and they've told us all about their plans to end the world. How is that not an evil mastermind?"

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"What are criteria for determining 'freaky'?" it asks, focusing an eye on Peter.

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"They're old, which most evil masterminds aren't, they're sincere, which is kind of weird, and they're not cackling or gloating," says Peter. "That's completely out of line. Ray, if we survive this, Dr. Venkman is prescribing a course of James Bond movies for this kid of yours."

"That's a pretty big 'if', Peter-"

Before Ray can finish the sentence, the cell phone in his back pocket starts trilling A Professional Pirate, from the Muppet Treasure Island movie.

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"Phone ringing," Jhalak says helpfully, and adds a softened but generally accurate imitation of the firehouse phone.

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"Don't answer that, Dr. Stantz," says Stanley in a raised voice before Ray can straighten up. "Not all of us are old here. My grandson's behind you and he's got a pistol."

The phone rings again. Ray hisses to the others in his huddle, "That's Mr. Keller's ring-"

"You make your phone play pirate music for the Secretary of Defense?"

"It seemed to- hey!"

"Sorry, Dr. Stantz," says an unfamiliar male voice. Ray turns just far enough to see a man in his late thirties or early forties, pointing a gun in one hand and pulling the cell phone out of Ray's pocket with the other. "I'll answer this one myself."

Ray winces. "Careful, Jhalak..."

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Two eyes focus on the gun, one on the face of the holder, and the fourth arm takes up a general watch around the room while the fifth hangs onto Ray. Jhalak dislikes being caught unawares.

It also dislikes people threatening Ray.

"Grandson's got a pistol," it mutters. "Grandson points gun at Ray." "No pointing gun at Ray." "Conflict." "Conflict, conflict."

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The grandson gets a 'gah, that's creepy' look on his face and mutters, "I'll make this quick." He flicks open the phone. "Hello?"

Pause.

"He's not available right- hm?"

Pause, and a puzzled look spreads across his face.

"I'll tell him, sir. You're welcome."

He clicks off the phone and says, very carefully, "Does the phrase 'Waller didn't work' mean anything to any of you?"

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"Boom," Jhalak interprets, with undue chirpiness.

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"That's what he said," the grandson reports, since none of the Ghostbusters are currently capable of speech. "'Waller didn't work. It just made him mad.'"

"Never in my life did I imagine I would say this," Ray finally says, "but, um. Gozer just became the least of our worries."

"Of all our worries," Egon agrees- and straightens up. "Mr. and Mrs. Wolcott, you have to let us go. Now."

"Why's that, son?" inquires Stanley, shaggy grey eyebrows going up.

"Someone just beat Gozer to the punch."

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"Big October thing?" asks Jhalak.

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"As big as it gets, kiddo," Ray says. "As big as it gets."