Eyrie Productions, Unlimited - FI: The Other Side (Part 1 of 2)

And before you facepalm about the multi-parterness, don't worry; the other part will be along later today or, at the outside, tomorrow. It's done apart from some finish carpentry.

Monday, November 1, 2410
Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense Headquarters
Avalon County, Zeta Cygni

Coraline Jones was eating lunch in her office on the third floor, re-reading the Spates Catalog of Nameless Horrors, when one of her Bureau colleagues poked her head around the door.

"This is my break," Coraline replied. She marked her place, put the book down, and regarded the cover thoughtfully. "That's really a stupid title," she observed. "I mean, obviously it's not a catalog of nameless horrors, because that would be impossible. You can't catalog things that don't have names."

"Yeah, well, they can't all be Spengler's Guide to Madmen and Prophets," 'Lise remarked. She swung through the door, perched herself in the straight-backed chair next to Coraline's desk, and asked, "Did you hear about last night?"

"That's newsworthy? I mean, I know she's a witch, but they do eat like everybody else. For the most part."

"I haven't finished yet," 'Lise said. "She had a date with her. A Class II demon, no less."

Coraline whistled. "Wow. Going on a date with that's like using a keg of gunpowder for an ashtray stand. Especially on Halloween, I would imagine."

"Yeah, well, somebody else thought so, too. Bunch of wanna-be PIs crashed the place thinking they were rescuing her."

Coraline snorted. She knew Annalise meant "paranormal investigator" - nobody around the BPRD ever used the initials "PI" in any other context - and the thought of a group of them witless enough to try and capture a Class II demon in a built-up area without any prep was enough to make her want to drop her face into her palm and write a letter to the Daily Telegraph.

"You can say that again," said 'Lise gleefully. "They damn near torched the place and got their asses handed to them. A couple of them hit Raven with a strobe stunner and dragged her off to their van to 'deprogram' her. When she came to? Not amused. Time it was all over, they had half the NAPD and somebody from SA11 down there trying to sort out the mess."

"You and everybody else in the building," 'Lise told her. "Anyway, the cops dragged them off to jail - without their gadgets they're just regular schmoes - and the Chief'll probably just have them shipped back to wherever they came from. I hear tell he's really pissed off. Etrigan's got his approval to be in New Avalon."

Both of Coraline's eyebrows went up at that. "I thought Hellboy was the only demon in the Bureau."

"Etrigan's not with us," 'Lise told her. "He's got some kind of status with one of the SA branches. Not sure which one. Seven, probably."

"Well, I hope he's got good supervision. Hellboy was raised by humans, that's why he's such a stand-up guy. I bet the son of Belial's not quite so cuddly."

Coraline grinned. "Trust me, compared to any other pit fiend you might ever meet? He's J. Smilodon Hugglesworth. Usually the only Standard they know is You will perish in flames, subcreature."

Smirking a little, 'Lise got to her feet. "Okay, you and 'Yana," she said. "And people call me a weird chick. Anyway, I gotta head out. Nosferatu says I gotta go downtown and pick up the gear the cops took off those demon hunter bozos. The head shed's Tech Section is looking it over now, but Manning wants it in our vault when they're done with it."

"Probably. With those ears, I've always assumed he heeeeaaaars evvvverythiiiing," 'Lise added, making spooky-voice quotes with her fingers. "See you later. We still on for Wednesday?"

Annalise went down to the motor pool, checked out one of the generic black sedans ("MIBmobiles", in the Bureau's argot), and drove into the city. As usually happened when she visited the main IPO headquarters building on Allard, she didn't bother going from the parking structure up to the main lobby on the ground floor, instead opting to head straight down to the Tech Section warrens in the subbasements, and from there spent about ten minutes utterly lost before finally wandering into a lab where someone could point her toward her actual destination.

Memo to self: Dr. Banner is seriously cute, she thought as she left the Getter Ray lab, took a left, then a right, and found herself in what appeared to be a closet. In any case, a small white room, completely featureless apart from a security camera up in one corner.

'Lise was just about to turn around and try another door when a disembodied voice spoke from no apparent source.

"Oh 'ello! Welcome to the International Police Technical Section Computer-Assisted Enrichment Center," it said. "Please state your name and business."

"Uh... Annalise Fleming, BPRD equipment and artifact analysis," 'Lise said. "I'm here to see Dr. Ravenhair."

"Just a moment," said the voice. It was clearly synthetic; its metallic timbre and the occasional oddity of its cadence made that plain, even if it was speaking with a pronounced West Country accent. 'Lise was something of a computer specialist - something of a complete computer nerd, actually - but she'd never encountered an AI or expert system that spoke like that.

"All right, authorization confirmed," the voice said a moment later. "The portal will open in three. Two. One." On the white wall opposite the door, a glowing oval of blue energy sprang into existence with a soft "pop", then seemed to iris open until it was a blue-edged hole leading through into another, larger white room.

"Please proceed through the portal," the mechanical voice continued. "You'll find Herself in the room to the left. Thanks for visiting the Enrichment Center!"

'Lise stepped through the opening, then realized that the room she'd just entered didn't conform to what she knew of the hallways surrounding the one she'd just left. She turned around to look behind her, but the portal had closed, leaving behind only a blank wall.

"Well, that's different," she mused. Entering the room on the left, she found Skuld Ravenhair, lab-coated and goggled, blasting at a holographic target with what looked like some sort of hobbyist-built phaser rifle. It had a backpack power unit connected to a rifle-like wand with a heavy cable and was spewing a bright orange stream of energy that Skuld seemed to be having trouble controlling. In fact, she looked like she was wrestling a fire hose, and at the far end of the range, she was hitting everything but the target.

Seeing 'Lise enter, Skuld did something to shut off the flow of energy, causing the pack to wind down with a muted electronic warble. She pushed her goggles up on her forehead and grinned.

"Phew!" she said. "I'd forgotten what a workout that is." Seeing 'Lise regarding her with a blank expression, Skuld tilted her head curiously. "Annalise?"

'Lise blinked, seemed to shake herself from her reverie, and then pointed at the device Skuld was wearing. "I've seen that before," she said, "but I can't remember where."

"History book, most likely," said Skuld. She slotted the wand into a port provided for it on the right side of the pack, then unbuckled the belt and shrugged out of the straps. There was a metal storage rack, a bit like a giant toast rack, on a table next to her; she stood the pack in this, then flipped a switch on the back of it, causing the glowing lights and cryptic readouts that cluttered its surface to go out.

"No," Skuld said. "It's something from my collection. I dug it out because the stuff you're here to get reminded me of it - which shouldn't be the case. Follow me." 'Lise followed her through a side door into another, larger room, this one dominated by a bit square table on which rested several pieces of equipment, still sporting their orange NAPD evidence control tags.

"This is the gear the team from Infernal Interventions, Inc. was using at Allard's last night," Skuld said. "Look familiar?"

'Lise nodded. There was a bunch of other random paramilitary-looking junk on the table, including a few pairs of what looked like cheap Novy Rosskiy night vision goggles and a couple of things that resembled electrician's multimeters, but the centerpiece of the collection was clearly the pile of four backpack-looking devices. At first glance, these did look like evolved versions of the thing Skuld had just been using - but only slightly evolved, with a little more attention paid to aesthetics in their casings and readouts.

"Because I had the only one of those left," Skuld said, angling a thumb back over her shoulder to indicate the device she'd left in the other room, "so there's no way these clowns should've been able to build knockoffs - and that's obviously what these things are. Which means somebody at III or their parent company has technical data they shouldn't have."

"What is that thing you were using?" 'Lise asked, then repeated, "I'm sure I've seen it before."

"Like I said, probably in a history book. That's a Spengler-Stantz protoncaster pack. The last one in the universe, or so I always thought."

Skuld nodded. "Yeah. The 20th-century originators of the Spengler- Stantz Equations - the basis of all modern paraphysics. Though serious students of the history of paranormal investigation - and there aren't many of those - would know them better as - "

"The Ghostbusters," 'Lise filled in, her voice dropping into a register that conveyed something not far short of awe. Then, in a more normal voice, she added, "Or half of them, anyway."

"Yup. I'm actually a little surprised you're familiar with them. I mean, I know you're a PI, but they were a long way before your time. They're pre-Contact."

'Lise grinned. "My great-great-some-ridiculous-number-of-greats-grandmother was Dana Barrett, or so Dad always claims. The Ghostbusters' first case is kind of a family legend."

Skuld looked impressed. "Huh. Fancy that." She shrugged and gestured to the table-load of gear. "Well, this stuff's all yours, and welcome to it. I'll have a couple of the guys take it up to your car. I've learned all I need from it - now I need to have a little heart-to-heart with somebody over at Triple-I. They shouldn't be running around with knockoffs of Egon's inventions. It's obvious from the way this stuff is built that whoever made it doesn't even really know how it works. It's like cargo cult ghostbusting gear. If they've been using equipment like this in the field for any length of time, it's a wonder they haven't crossed the streams and blown themselves to Yith by now. I'm glad Tom's planning to lock it away somewhere - though personally I'd be happier if we just melted it."

So saying, Skuld left the Triple-I gear where it sat, turning her back on it with a finality that put 'Lise in mind of an offended artist shunning some hack colleague's commercial work, and went back through to the firing range where the BPRD agent had first found her. Her curiosity roused, 'Lise followed.

Skuld put a hand on the old proton pack, a wistful smile playing on her face. "A little," she said. "Only from afar, though. They didn't know me. I was only a kid back then." She let her fingers trace the cooling fins and the multicolored ribbon cable on the back of the pack. "Egon really was a genius, though. I mean, look at this thing. It's ahead of its time now, and he built the originals in 1984. Nineteen eighty-four! I know it looks like a complete bodge job, but think about that. That was fifteen years before First Contact. Earth didn't even have working laser weapons then, let alone fusion-powered portable proton colliders."

"Yes," Skuld said, returning the grin. "He didn't know it, of course. I never tried to make direct contact with him. He didn't believe in gods. Funny for the man who scientifically proved the existence of the supernatural, but there it is. I always figured I'd get to spring it on him whenever the day finally came to take him to Valhalla... " She trailed off, looking sad.

'Lise wanted to ask further, but it was obvious that Skuld didn't want to talk about it, and 'Lise knew better than to push one of the gods, however friendly. They stood in silence for a few moments, 'Lise not sure what to say instead, Skuld looking gloomily pensive.

"Don't sweat that," Skuld said. "Egon built these things to last, and I've looked after it. Kind of my way of... keeping his memory alive." Her grin becoming only slightly sad, she added, "I don't think he'd mind if I let one of Dana's descendants have a go."

"Well... sure. Heck, I... wow, yeah," said 'Lise, her usual facility with words deserting her. She turned around and let Skuld help her on with the pack. It was as heavy as it looked, but the straps were nicely padded and the whole thing mounted on a well-designed frame; once the straps were adjusted and the belt fastened, it was a strangely comforting presence on her back. 'Lise wasn't the type of girl who was generally to be found in heavy combat gear, but something about this old piece of kit felt right to her. It was like getting a hug from an old friend you'd lost track of for years.

Then Skuld said, "Okay, switch on," and the lower part of the pack vibrated against the small of 'Lise's back as the collider powered up with a sound that was unlike anything else she'd ever heard. "Grab the wand," said Skuld. "It's safe, the front end is still powered down."

'Lise reached back and unracked the wand, cradling it like she'd been taught to hold a shotgun back in Basic Field Investigations at Miskatonic. The glowing display on top was surprisingly intuitive, and it took Skuld only a few seconds to confirm her impressions of how it was supposed to work. She flicked the thumb switch that energized the wand, producing a second iteration of that powering-up sound as the pack shifted from standby to full power, then held it in both hands and leveled it at the holotarget at the far end of the range.

"Okay," said Skuld from behind her, the smile plain in her voice. For all her momentary melancholy, she truly did love to share her toys. As a confirmed technophile herself, 'Lise could definitely relate, and she was grinning too as she braced herself for the fight she knew was coming as Skuld clapped her on the shoulder and said, "Throw it!"

'Lise took a few moments to catch up with herself, then refocused on Skuld's face and remembered who they both were. "Uh... hi. Yeah. I'm here."

"What was that?" Skuld asked. "You went totally blank. Still standing up, but completely unresponsive."

"Hmm." 'Lise frowned thoughtfully at the proton wand she still held in her hands; Skuld had shut it off as a precaution. "I think I had a psychometric episode."

"Really!" said Skuld, sounding more interested than concerned now. "I didn't know you were prone to that kind of thing."

"Neither did I," 'Lise told her. "Never had one on my own, but I've tripped with psychometrists before. It was the same kind of thing." She returned the wand to its rack on the proton pack and stood while Skuld helped her off with it. "That was wild."

"I saw them," 'Lise said. "The Ghostbusters. I think I was one of them. It was all... confused." She shook her head. "I can't get it back now."

"Well, the amount of action these old packs saw, in close proximity to major psychokinetic events, I suppose that's not really surprising," Skuld said, patting the pack as she slotted it back into the storage rack. "Probably all kinds of psychic echoes rattling around inside there. If you get any more of the image later on, let me know? It's probably not going to happen, but it might... "

'Lise nodded. "Sure thing. In the meantime, I ought to get back to the Bureau. Thanks for letting me try out the pack... for a PI that's kind of like getting a chance to throw Captain America's shield."

Skuld smiled. "Not a problem." She gestured to the III equipment. "This stuff'll be waiting for you when you get back upstairs. When you get to the lobby, just tell Wheatley you want a portal to Main Reception. It might take him a couple of tries," she added ruefully, "but you'll get there eventually. Be patient with him... he's a prototype."

Back at the office, 'Lise spent the rest of the week obsessively researching the Ghostbusters. She had already known more about them than most people, even most paranormalists, of her generation, but by week's end she could probably have written a Ph.D. thesis on them and their equipment. Naturally - if you wanted to get technical, preternaturally - gifted with technology anyway, she took only hours to understand the working principles of the proton packs, ectoplasmic traps, and other hardware they had used in their fight against the supernatural in 20th-century New York, which gave her the rest of the time to study what information was available about the men themselves.

Most people in her field knew Egon Spengler's name, since, in addition to the fundamental mathematics of paranormal activity, he was the author of Spengler's Guide - still the definitive reference to the psychos, prophets, and psycho prophets of pre-Contact Earth, which was a topic that had retained surprising relevance into the Galactic Era. There, too, they knew Ray Stantz as the other half of the Spengler-Stantz Equations, Peter Venkman as the originator of Venkman's Law (an abstruse bit of psychophilosophy that basically proved the existence of karma), and Winston Zeddemore as the coiner of Zeddemore's Razor ("if someone asks you if you're a god, you say yes"). Beyond that, though, even relatively few PIs knew more than that.

What 'Lise discovered over the course of the week was that the Ghostbusters were more intimately connected with the foundations of her profession than most of its practitioners had ever dreamed. The three founders, in particular, were the Isaac Newton, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and Adam Smith of the paranormal, seminal establishing figures who deserved to loom like gods in the estimation of all those who followed them. Their primitive equipment was, acknowledged or not, the basis for much of what modern BRPD agents packed today as a matter of course, and the principles on which it operated were just as valid now as they ever were. If she were a field operative, she'd be glad to carry it into action tomorrow.

By the end of the working week, 'Lise felt she knew the Ghostbusters as well as anyone who had never actually met them could know them, and she could've built a basic, functional proton pack in a cave with a box of scraps if she had to. The time was as right as it ever was for her to move on to the next phase of her investigation - and go in search of the Ghostbusters themselves. They had disappeared in 1994 under mysterious circumstances, and it was high time someone found out where they had gone and why.

The hardest part about arranging a hallucinogenic spirit voyage, 'Lise thought, was waiting for the mescaline to kick in. There was always that just-slightly-overlong delay while you sat in your circle, listening to your trance playlist tick by, trying not to fidget and thinking that your dealer must've ripped you off, even though you knew this always happened and you just had to wait for it...

So it was with a familiar sense of relief that she felt the beat of the Professor Enigma theme subtly shift toward the ultraviolet and the constraints of the flesh begin to fall away. Now she'd get some answers.

Iä! Iä! My own id fhtagn, 'Lise thought wryly as she began the simultaneous journey both into and out of herself. Some people, she knew, could simply go to sleep to examine their inner truths in relation to the cosmic entirety. Such people tended to sneer at tripwalking as nothing but a chemically assisted form of dream diving, but what the hell - their loss. 'Lise valued the clarity she got from the precisely calibrated cocktail of pharmaceuticals she'd devised over the years. Dream divers had to contend with layers of metaphor and hidden meaning thrown into their paths by their own unconscious minds as well as the basic nature of the dreaming plane. She didn't have time for all that post-Freudian crap.

Since her strange experience on Monday, she'd dreamed fragmentary outlines of that same vision every night, which led her to believe that the rest of the story was in there somewhere; she just had to dig it out. The research that enabled her to feel confident in making the attempt had taken the rest of the week, but she'd have had to wait for the weekend anyway. Though the powers that be at the BPRD knew about and even encouraged her talent in the area of chemically assisted parapsychological exploration, they did prefer that she not stagger into work still grappling with the aftermath of a really serious trip.

Now she perceived the shadowy shape of the dream version, transparent and insubstantial like a movie projected onto glass, playing out around her as she plunged through the layers of her self toward the hard, glowing core that always remained constant. Her hand moved without her conscious involvement, prompted by a particular point in the music, and slipped a tab of chlorozaphrexadine under her tongue. The frex was essential at this point; without it to sharpen everything up, she'd probably just slide off the beam and have a nice, but completely unproductive, time with the mescaline.

In this setting, the Cortex Bomb acted like an usher in the theater of the mind, shutting off the house lights so she could see the picture better. Everything suddenly sprang into much sharper relief, losing the fuzzy, unreal dream-quality and becoming, as it had been in Skuld's laboratory, a fully waking, fully consistent hallucinatory experience. Asleep, it was just chaos - people running, shouting, flashes of light, sizzling electrical sounds, culminating in an almighty explosion that tended to catapult her straight out of bed. 'Lise couldn't work with that. This, on the other hand, she could ride all the way to the end of the line.

There are four men here, all wearing proton packs and grey jumpsuits. The right-angle flashlights attached to their pack straps illuminate only flashes and bobbing flickers of what looks like damp stonework, and only intermittently; most of the time, the dazzling glare of their proton streams, and 'Lise's own, blot out any visual trace of their surroundings. She has the undefinable impression - or maybe it's a memory from whatever persona she's inhabiting - that they're underground, deep underground. The place smells old and foul, a relic from some ancient past, buried and forgotten.

Maybe buried and forgotten on purpose.

It suddenly registers on 'Lise that there are four of them. She can see four Ghostbusters. But she is one... and there are only supposed to be four. She can't get any further into the problem than that right at the moment, though, because it's clear she's "arrived" within whoever her borrowed persona is just in time for the climax of a truly kinghell supernatural slugfest.

"On your left!" yells Ray Stantz, adjusting his PK goggles. "Winston, look out!"

The man he's warning is tall and handsome, with cocoa-colored skin and an Errol Flynn mustache. Even if Stantz hadn't called him by name, 'Lise would have known he's Winston Zeddemore. "Shit!" cries Zeddemore, ducking a screaming swoop by some kind of skeletal phantom. "How many of these damn things are there anyway?"

'Lise, half herself and half some unknown other, pivots and uses her proton stream to cut away a moldering old chain that was holding open what appears to be a steel fire door, then kicks the door shut and welds it to the frame, trimming the stream expertly to do so.

"I got the door, I got the door," she declares, not in her own voice - it's lower, mellower, bit of throatiness to it. Sexy, she thinks irrelevantly. Kind of voice she'd like to have. "That oughtta hold the rest of 'em."

"Venkman, vent your pack, you're about four seconds from overheat," Egon Spengler - also unmistakable with his glasses and that regrettable punk bleach job, like someone's math-teacher uncle trying to be cool - barks.

As Peter Venkman ceases fire and moves to comply, his eyes go wide. Pointing, he yells, "Hell, here comes that big one again!"

"Cover me!" Stantz cries.

'Lise opens up on the minivan-sized spectral... thing Venkman spotted, which is now charging, shrieking, out of some dark corner. "I got you, I got you - "

"Not good, not good... " says Zeddemore, aligning his fire with 'Lise's.

Venkman's pack comes back online. "All right, I'm up, rock 'n roll!"

"Pin it down - " Stantz calls.

'Lise adjusts her stream to keep it from crossing Venkman's. "I got it - Egon!"

Spengler braids his stream deftly with the others', the five of them dancing an intricate and dangerous dance to maximize their firepower without causing a crossrip. "Doubling up! Containment streams are holding, let's reel him in!"

"Ray!" Venkman takes a Mark V trap from his belt and throws it to Stantz, who, in the same motion, catches it, uncoils its cable, and kicks it across the floor, perfectly judging the kick so that it stops sliding immediately underneath where they've got the giant spectre penned in their streams.

"Trapping... now!" he cries, stamping on the actuator pedal.

The pyramid of white light shoots upward, bathing the whole room briefly in its brilliant glow and leaving 'Lise with the distinct impression that they're in a subway station. She feels a tug on her proton stream and shuts it down, knowing that means the trap cycle is committed. The monster howls with what sounds like rage as it's sucked down and away... and for a moment, all is silence.

As the Ghostbusters blink in the sudden darkness and accustom themselves to the idea that there's nothing else left to fight in here for the moment, Venkman ambles to the trap, crouches down, and checks its status panel, then straightens up. "Okay, guys, I got good news and I got bad news. The good news is, we bagged the Class VII."

"And the bad news is, that was our last trap?" says Stantz.

"Ooh, he's good, ladies and gentlemen. Dr. Ray Stantz, everybody."

'Lise - or whoever she is right now - leans against a wall, panting. Now that the fireworks have stopped, she has a chance to look around a little - not that there's much to see. It's still pretty dark in here, but now that the proton beams aren't dazzling her eyes she's starting to adjust, and it's clear that they are in a subway station. An old-timey one, like some of the stops on the Gold Line on the New Avalon N are designed to resemble. It's beautifully and intricately tiled, but looks as dusty and abandoned as it smells.

Winston Zeddemore walks toward her, limping slightly, and leans against the wall next to her. With a grin, he takes a pack of Marlboros out of his top pocket, shakes a couple out, puts one in his mouth and offers her the other one. 'Lise doesn't smoke - not many in the 25th century do - but it seems like the neighborly thing to do, so she takes it. Zeddemore lights it, then his own, and puts his lighter away.

"You picked a helluva week to join the Ghostbusters," he says wryly.

"Tell me about it," 'Lise replies. She wonders again who she "is"; she's never heard of a fifth Ghostbuster being brought onto the team.

She's casting around for a way to ask what's going on without giving away that she's just dreamriding the psychic echo of the incident - breaking the fourth wall like that tends to end the ride - when off in the distance, up the pitch-black abandoned train tunnel that empties into the station from their left, there's a muffled howl that makes the sound the trapped Class VII phantasm made seem like the mewing of a kitten by comparison. The Ghostbusters freeze, then eye each other warily.

"I think Daddy's home," says Venkman.

"You better get out of here," Zeddemore says.

"Winston's right," says Stantz. "If we're going down, we'd just as soon not take you with us."

"Hell with that," says 'Lise, because she feels like it's the kind of thing she would say, whoever she is. She takes a last drag on the cigarette Zeddemore gave her, flicks it away into the darkness, and points to the international no-ghosts symbol on her shoulder. "I bought the ticket, I'm takin' the ride."

Stantz and Venkman glance at each other.

"Kids these days," says Venkman with a shrug. "They never listen to their elders." Then he readies his proton pack and turns to face the oncoming noise. "Lady and gentlemen," he says, "it's been a pleasure."

Before anyone can say anything else, something indistinct but very like 'Lise's inner image of insanity itself comes hurtling into the station, the Ghostbusters open fire, and everything goes white. 'Lise feels herself as if in freefall; for a moment she thinks she's crashed out of the vision, and then she realizes it's just that her hallucinatory self has been knocked flying. A moment later she hits something solid but crumbly and punches right through it, comes down hard on her side, and skids a short distance before fetching up against something a lot sturdier than the first thing she hit.

'Lise wavers on the edge of blackout, the vision shutting down around her. Hands moving automatically again, she reaches to the side table and shotguns a hit of a popular OTC cold medicine that has the interesting side effect of sharpening immediate dream recall. Then she picks up a yellow legal pad and a fine-point Sharpie and starts writing everything down as the last 20 seconds or so of the vision rewind and play back in slow motion.

The entity, bigger by far than the one they had thought was the big one, sweeps into the station like Satan's private subway car. The Ghostbusters open fire. Shrieking, it rakes the platform with a spectral - claw? tail? - impossible to focus on, like one of those 3D puzzles that's not quite aligned correctly. 'Lise tries to dodge - too slow - an impact like getting hit by a car. (Which she knows because she did it once in high school; not recommended.) Up, up, back, crashing through what she now recognizes as a brick wall, sliding across a polished marble floor - upper station level? Not sure. Vaguely surprised to be alive, the mystery woman whose astral echo she's riding struggles to her feet. In the real world, 'Lise scribbles wildly on her legal pad, gives up on words and goes to rough, cartoony sketches, as if she's storyboarding the scene. Dark, shadowy room, but fresher-smelling than the dank abandoned subway below. It does in fact appear to be a ticket hall. Turnstiles, empty cashier booths, all in an archaic and ornate style.

'Lise shuffles forward - glint of reflected light off to the left - she turns and is shocked to see "herself", full-length, in the glass of one of the ticket booth windows. Elbow and knee pads, sturdy boots, equipment belt, proton pack. She's younger than the other Ghostbusters, not far out of her teens. Red hair in a wolf cut, held out of her eyes with a (now slightly skewed) headband, body that won't quit even in a baggy grey jumpsuit. She's familiar-looking, but it's all starting to get dark now: dark and fuzzy, like a video signal that's starting to detune. 'Lise hangs grimly on - this is important - who is this woman?

Just before she loses it completely she sees it. Her name tag. All the Ghostbusters have name tags, black nylon tape with bold red capital letters on the upper left chest of their coveralls. Obviously it shows up in the mirror backward, but 'Lise can read it plainly in the second or so of altered consciousness she has left.

The fifth Ghostbuster's name tape says MORGAN.