Ghostbusters Doom Patrol
"marooned"
The setting red sun was tuned like a television; it was set to a dead channel as it faded over the horizon of Chiba City, painting a cascading orange and yellow rhythm as it faded, giving way to night sky. The seaport was beginning to come alive, too, as the usual pimps, hookers, users, and winos all crawled from their homes to slowly convene upon the Chat. Nocturnal creatures of the night left their own dwellings in order to arrive on the scene, their voices a mixture of Japanese, Chinese, English, and Spanish.
"Hey man, it's not like I'm using!" James Gilmour heard as he shouldered his way through the crowd around the door of the Chat. "It's like my body's developed this massive drug deficiency!" Gilmour heard the laughter and paid it little mind. It was the voice of a young dockworker he'd known for a few months now, cocky at best with little sense to know his head from his asshole. All around him, he saw the dregs of society all come together, socializing, not within their own peer groups, but that of people with whom they intended to do business. That was the Chatsubo's main reason for existing, as a bar for which one could hear not two words of Japanese in the hours and weeks they spent here.
Shinji was not tending bar tonight, Gilmour noticed, which was odd since the old Spaghetti-eater was fond of keeping a tight schedule. As he settled in at his usual place, Gilmour saw an African woman in Shinji's place. She was tall, her most distinguishing feature being that her face and cheekbones were ridged with the usual signs of traditional scars and tattoos of whatever no-name village she hailed from. Her eyes were as heavy-lidded as his was, save for the fact she could look through the haze that was blocking his own vision, seeing past the disguise that many of the patrons wore in order to leave their previous lives at the door. She did her duty silently, pouring Gilmour tall glass of sake that he drained quickly, but gave no indication of re-filling the glass and she gave him none either as she shoved another round of drafts over to Nunzio Hayasaka, the Italian-Japanese Foreman that Gilmour knew fleetingly and preferred to keep it like that.
"Well, well, look who it is." The voice was silky, almost dripping with unintended malice as a lithe man saddled in a seat next to Gilmour. His face was ugly, as he flashed all of his teeth in front of Gilmour, showing two complete rows of rotten, yellowed implants within. Dulo ruffled Gilmour's dark hair as he sat, attempting to get a rise out of Gilmour which failed.
"I thought I'd find you here. Don't you have a wife to go home to?"
Gilmour shrugged. Despite being a married man himself, Dulo came to the Chat simply to mess with one of the whores Lenny Krauz brought over. Though he wasn't looking at Dulo, he could see that Dulo's eyes were trained over Gilmour's shoulders and at the giggling triumvirate seated in one corner of the bar, nudging each other as Dulo eyed them hungrily.
"What you need partner is a woman in your life", Dulo said as the African filled his glass and refilled Gilmour's. "What good's a man's life if he don't have a Trixie behind him?"
That caught Gilmour's attention. "What's a Trixie?"
"Trixie. You know, Speed Racer. It's like this: whenever Speed was in danger, Trixie would always hop in the Mach 5 and save his ass. She was honest, dependable, unimaginative, and was always there when the chips were down." Dulo lit a cigarette as he finished with, "Trixie."
"That's a lot of bullshit and you know it", Gilmour said as he focused on his drink now. The Triumvirate had now moved over to Dulo and Gilmour, two of them beginning to nudge Dulo. The third was a ganguro girl, her hair dyed red in order to match the dark shade her skin been tanned. But Gilmour wasn't interested in what she was attempting to offer.
"Vanish", he said harshly. Jesus, what kind of creepjoint was this, he thought. Sure, this same thing happened every night, but lately it was beginning to grate on Gilmour's nerves. The woman looked at Gilmour confused for a moment, then eased her way over to the now happy-as-a-lark Dulo.
"Hey Gilmour, you are the master of the comedy verities."
Gilmour smirked. "Someone has to be. Sure the fuck ain't you." He picked up his beer and as he was about to drink, the African put her hand over the glass, cupping it. Gilmour looked at her quizzically. "What the…"
"You are troubled, sir", she said suddenly, looking at him.
"I'm just a little too drunk a little too early. One's my limit but…"
"Something else. I can feel the aura coming off you. Like you've…lost something that you need back." The two stared at each other in the naked silence, oblivious to the shouts and screams of the Chat. The African appeared to be looking into Gilmour's own soul, stripping away the layers hidden underneath his façade, trying to find the reality of the real man among the fantasy. It unnerved Gilmour to be out in the open like that.
"You have a sense of destiny about you. One that you're not ready to accept."
"I don't need this", Gilmour said as he rose from his seat. Once again, he found himself shoulder to shoulder at the edge of the door going out. Dulo's small brown eyes looked at the departing man, but said nothing. Let him go, he thought to himself. The guy's an asshole anyway.
He passed several yakitori stands and considered stepping into Daicon Coffee, just to sober up a bit if he needed to. His senses were not yet dulled, but he could feel the timpani drum solo of a headache cuing up, an early indication that in, perhaps the next fifteen minutes, he'd be face down in the gutter swimming in his own puke like he was some goddamned parody of Elanor Powell.
He walked underneath Chiba's monorail and gazed up as the rolling thunder roared above him, its lights glistening against the concrete night, and in seconds was gone, leaving Gilmour thinking the same thoughts that had drifted across his core since he'd arrived here. He compared those that ride monorails as living like bees: they were never caught up in the moment. They existed simply to exist, never questioning one goddamn why they move from place to place without so much as an explanation. Was it because someone told them to? Perhaps. If that was the case, then the whole world had wasted it's time in fighting the Germans. We'd all become Fascists, in one way or the other.
Yeah. I'm definitely drunk.
Through the haze and the nightmare, he began to think back on a strange man he had encountered the week before, when he was in Night City with Dulo. Not so much encountered. Stalked, would be the proper word. He first saw the man brush past him on the subway, and, maybe out of common courtesy, Gilmour thought, focused his eyes intently upon Gilmour. Unless you were friends or even the remotest of acquaintances, the Japanese would never be this rude. Although the man did not ride all the way with Gilmour and Dulo, the image was a difficult one for Gilmour to shake. There was nothing remarkable about the man that he could remember. He didn't have any tattoos, bore no facial trademarks, and had nothing memorable in his gait. But it was his eyes that remained with Gilmour. Those dark, black pupils that were like...
Black holes in the sky? Heh, yeah, that's a good one.
It didn't make much sense, but then, everything in his life hadn't made much sense. Up to that point, at least. But that was all behind him, back home.
What was it I said? I wouldn't come back till I learned how to stand up like a man again? Gilmour just shrugged as he stepped into a railyard. Empty, save for the lone shack of the Fireman, who had apparently gone to bed. It was just as well. Everybody crossed the tracks at some point or other.
He found himself staring down at the steel worms when he heard in the far distance a scream. He felt the muscles in his legs tense up and the muscles in his reacted similarly. But he calmed himself down. You're probably just hearing things. Not like you haven't before. Nah, you're just crazy from the liquor. You'll have to stop...
He heard it again, louder and more pronounced this time, an unusual cocktail of Tarzan and Wilhelm. Gilmour allowed himself a moment to locate where it was coming from, his eyes shifting towards a row of cars no more than twenty-seven steps from where he was standing.
He felt his legs move, taking one baby step at a time towards the cars, every muscle in his lithe and yet well-built body tightening up within him as his boots crushed rocks underneath.
You gotta be out of your mind. There is nothing here but some asshole doing the bum's rush to his girlfriend. That's all you're gonna find. That's it.
He was not prepared for what he saw.
At his feet, lay a shoe. He bent down to pick it up and examined it. It was a penny loafer, typical of what the thousands of Japanese schoolgirls wear around here. But that was not what fascinated him, no; the shoe itself was normal. The shoe, however, was covered in a thick green secretion that, as Gilmour picked the shoe up, hung from it like mucus. He heard the scream again, coming from the other side of a rock hill. His heart pounding in his ears, Gilmour dropped the shoe and walked towards the hill and climbed it and stood atop it.
There, sandwiched between a warehouse and another hill, was a girl. Probably no more than fourteen or fifteen with short hair and a fair complexion. Even in the dark, Gilmour noticed the tiny pimples that dotted her face from too much pizza and soda, a common affliction affecting post-Hiroshima Japanese youth of today. Her glasses had flown from her face and were lying underneath her.
Suspending her in midair was a creature that, upon first glance, would have driven a weaker man to insanity: it was twelve feet end to end, it's mid-torso impossible to even guess, but Gilmour supposed it had radial symmetry, almost like an octopus or a squid. Eight thin stalks spread out evenly on its body were attached to the mid-thigh, of them only one insanely moved to and fro, the one that held the girl in it's grips. These same stalks began their own stalks. The green secretion that Gilmour had found upon the shoe rolled off the creature's body as though it were sweat. A stench that reached into the pit of Gilmour's stomach rose from the creature.
Gilmour realized he had been right in one regard: the girl was being raped. But the more he stood, looking at the scene unfold in front of him, the more he saw that what he was watching went far beyond a simple rape. The creature and the girl were glowing. One of the creature's stalks had gone through the girl's mouth, while the other...well, Gilmour left that up to his own imagination, but he knew it was not pretty.
So.
So what?
What are you prepared to do? Stand there like Gomer Pyle and gawk and beat off to this later?
In her mind, Taki Hayashibara knew she was going to die.
She rolled back each and every second that had led up to this moment, the moment of her death.
She was walking home, late as usual and as usual late at night. Her stepfather would undoubtedly be waiting up for her, intending to give her a lecture about being a good girl and not staying out late with her friends. She laughed as she imagined the things the Old Man would have dredged up. Taki knew that the railyard was a shortcut that she and her friends often took...and mostly because, being underage, they were almost certainly guaranteed a chance to get a smoke without having the Fireman come down on them.
That was one reason why she stopped through the railyard. She had reached into her purse for her lighter, her Marble Bros. cigarette hanging defiantly from her mouth. Taki knew that no one would be out this late anyway to catch her.
And...she didn't know much after that, except that she suddenly found herself bound by this...thing or whatever it was. At the time, she found it kind of funny, that she, Taki Hayashibara, would end up the victim of some otaku's porn fantasy. Except for the little detail that no, this wasn't a fantasy, and yes, this was really happening.
She screamed in pain as the creature went right to work on her, penetrating her as though it's stalks were swords and she nothing more than a pin cushion. The next sensation she felt was that of her own fluids being drained from her body, starting with her stomach contents.
A chill began to sweep itself across her body.
Is this what it feels like when you're dying? she thought. A tear (one of many that she had shed from the start) rolled down her cheek as she said a silent apology to her mother and stepfather, for being so stupid and callous this whole time. She could only hope that whoever found her body would at least have the decency to cover it up for her parents. Just to be courteous.
She suddenly heard a whistling sound through the air and opened her eyes. Something glinted in the darkness as it sailed right towards the creature's stalks, slicing it cleanly in half before embedding itself in the warehouse. A second one followed, this one aimed at the stalk that held Taki. It too found it's target, dropping the girl on the ground.
The creature made no sense but was in obvious pain as it's severed appendage wriggled about on the ground like a lizard's tail. At that moment, Gilmour stepped in front of it, sliding down the rocks. In his hands, he was holding two more shurikens.
He was grinning.
The creature moved towards Gilmour, shooting off one of its stalks, but Taki saw Gilmour step coolly to the side. In fact, as Taki noticed, it was almost as if the creature was moving in slow motion. Gilmour shot another shuriken at the creature, keeping his eyes trained on the vital parts while also hoping to distract the thing.
What the hell am I doing? This can't actually be happening. I'm not even sure I'm really here. Hell, I really might have passed out at the Chat and I'm sleeping off a hardcore hangover that I'm gonna feel tomorrow.
Whatever fallacy he may have had, Gilmour let them roll of him when the creature grabbed him in one of its tendrils, lifting him from the ground. He could only imagine what would happen next, and he wasn't going to let it. Shifting his right arm slightly to his baggy workpants, he grabbed a black-covered band from the pocket and held it front of him. He hammered his thumb on a button located at the top and automatically a blade shot up from it, slicing the creature's stalks and freeing Gilmour, as he landed on the ground on his feet like a feline.
He prepared himself for a second attack by the creature, when his vision was obscured by a bright light from overhead. He backed off for a few seconds, covering his eyes with his arm. From he could gather, it was a helicopter, though his first clue was the familiar whirring of it's motor. Voices soon followed and in the next instance he felt someone grab him.
"Come with me, Mr. Williams."
"Wha..." He still could not see anything, but the voice...it was familiar. A woman's voice, of that he sure of. Though he couldn't honestly be too sure. After tonight, he'd need to get a hardcore drink on to be sure about anything anymore.
Did she just call me...she couldn't have...nah, she couldn't have...
"The girl", he said. "Get her. Leave me alone and get her."
"We're working on that now", the voice replied.
Suddenly, he felt a tiny prick on his forearm, followed the scent of...honey?
"What the hell?"
"Go to sleep Mr. Williams. You'll know everything when you wake up."
Gilmour tried to protest by raising his sword. But to his surprise, he suddenly found it to be numb. Deadened. The rest of his body began following suit as his motor skills shut down one by one and he fell to the ground.
"Wha...what the...h-hell did y-you d-do..."
God, I can't even talk right!
"Rest. That is all anyone can ask for."
The next morning, Gilmour awoke angry.
The headache he'd been suffering from since last night had increased to Keith Moon levels. He felt like throwing up and drinking a whole bottle of bourbon at the same time. Maybe he'd do one first and the other later, and the way he felt right now, he needed that bourbon.
His body ached as he tried to move it, his bones and muscles cracking as he stretched his long limbs. His brain felt numb too as he tried to form a conscious estimation of the last fourteen hours.
I don't think I left the Chat at all last night. I probably did and passed out maybe ten steps from the door. Dulo probably found me and took me back inside and tossed me in the backroom so that I can sleep it off. Yeah, sounds about right. It's happened before so it's gotta be the logical answer here. Someone probably even brought me back to my apartment and...
It was then that Gilmour's eyes cleared up and he took notice of his surroundings. He was in a hospital bed, his clothes having been stripped from his body and laid neatly in a chair nearby. There was a window in one corner. The blinds were drawn, revealing the early morning sun as it beat down on Gilmour's tired body like an animal. He finally found the strength to rise from his bed, but found he couldn't move his legs, no matter how hard he tried.
Jesus, James, Mary, and Joseph Christ! What the hell happened to me!
"Good morning."
Gilmour turned around and rubbed his eyes. Standing in the doorway was the African, the temp bartender for Shinji at the Chat. She was dressed in a simple brown dress and wore sandals on her feet, with her long black hair pulled back to form a ponytail. The same tattoo pattern that streaked across her face was also found dotting her arms and legs and feet. She was holding a tray, the contents of which, as its scent drifted towards him, were bacon, eggs, and toast. A glass of orange juice was on the side. It reminded Gilmour that he hadn't eaten in almost two days and he'd forgotten how hungry he was.
The woman walked towards him, smiling, stretching her tattoos as she did so. She placed the tray on the table next to Gilmour.
"I hope you're feeling okay", she said as she sat next to Gilmour. "I've never administered that to a human before."
"Administered? Lady, what the hell are you talking about? What's going on here? Where am I? And why can't I move my legs?"
Startled by this last claim, the African lifted the sheets of Gilmour's bed and examined his legs, testing the reflexes first and then taking a look at the blood flow. Pulling out stethoscope from one of her dress's pockets, she placed the bell on a vein and then looked at Gilmour and smiled. "Nothing to worry about", she said. "The dosage I gave you was balanced. You should be fine in another hour or two."
Gilmour took several deep breaths in, trying to calm his nerves. As he opened his mouth, the African brought the breakfast tray over to him. "Hungry?" she asked pleasantly. Gilmour looked at the plate and saw the steam and grease roll off the three strips of bacon that had been placed on top of the eggs, which were over-easy. Butter and jelly melted off of the toast, the smells wrapping themselves around Gilmour's nose and not letting go. He grabbed a fork and dove in, voraciously stuffing the egg into his mouth like an animal, followed by a bite of the bacon and toast. The African laughed. "You did have an appetite."
After chugging down half the orange juice, Gilmour faced the African. "I'm thinkin' clearly now, thanks. I haven't eaten in days."
"Why is that?"
"It's complicated. I'm not really a guy who gives a damn about himself."
"Is that why you were in the Chatsubo last night?"
"Last night, the night before, the night before that." Gilmour stopped and looked at the African. "So. You were in the Chat after all. I wasn't thinking I was seeing things." The African stood up, away from Gilmour.
"Yes, I was in the Chatsubo. I am surprised you remember me."
Between bites of egg and toast, Gilmour responded, "Lady, it'd be hard as hell to miss you with a puss like that." For a second, the African felt offended, but then she suddenly cracked a smile.
"It is a tradition that my family has carried for generations."
"Really? Now that's interesting. But you know one thing I'd really like to know?"
"Hmmm?"
"Be honest with me. What is really going on here? Unless I've had a nervous breakdown and imagined everything from the moment I left the Chat up till now, I'd really like some answers. Can you help me?"
Gilmour saw hesitation dot the African's brow as she frowned. She sat back down next to him. "There are things here that are complicated Mr. Williams."
"Mr. Williams, Mr. Williams. Why do you keep calling me that?"
"Because that is your name, Andrew James Williams." The voice boomed from the doorway. Gilmour looked to see a new face, a tall lean Japanese man with a square Dick Tracy jaw and furrowed eyes. He wore a brown suit and kept his arms behind his back as he walked towards Gilmour and the African. "That will be all Miss Monroe", he said as he put a hand on the African's shoulder. The African looked at Gilmour once and then left.
"Now Mr .Williams, we have a few things to discuss."
"I'm not this Andrew Williams guy you keep calling me", Gilmour said coldly. "My name is James Roger Gilmour, Jr." The man laughed.
"Why do you insist on this false charade? We figured it out months ago hunter."
"My name is James Gilmour. I'm nothing but a pensioned worker who's a little drunk and hungover but pretty sure everything that might have happened last night did happen."
The man sighed as he reached into his coat pocket and revealed a paper which he promptly handed to Gilmour. "We all live our own little lies Mister Gilmour. It's part of the Jungian theory of creating fantasies for ourselves so that we may end up happier and much more content in our Middle-Earths and kingdoms than we are in our frail realities. You are willing to accept the story, so I shall relate the fable to you. It's the story of a man who came to Chiba, bearing no identification, no money, and a work visa, a shoddy one I might add, and no passport. That should have been an indication to his employers that something was amiss, but nobody asked questions in this complacent reality. This man worked for fourteen months uninterrupted in his duties during the day and spent his nights drunk, despondent, contemplating what lies on the other side of the wall, looking past the wall, through the wall, destroying the wall. Feel free to interrupt. I do tend to get long-winded."
Gilmour said nothing. The man smiled.
"This man had something he was running away from, believing himself to be safe on one corner of the earth, in a dead-end city where nobody gives a crap about your name or past. He was damned by something he did, and was paying for it every time he woke up in the morning. It hung over him like a stink. Do you stink, Mister Gilmour. Do you stink of your own past?"
"I came here legally, on a visa from..."
"New York. We checked. Believe me, if it hadn't been for that Visa, we wouldn't have been able to ascertain that the wino in front of me is actually THE Andrew Williams. Ghostbuster."
The color drained from Gilmour's face at the name.
"We know everything about you Mr. Williams. It doesn't take a detective such as myself very long to find how far a man's stink can reach back. Your little performance last night was all the evidence I needed."
Something clicked in Gilmour's—now, Andrew's—brain.
"The girl."
"What about her?"
"What do you mean, 'what about her'? That thing was killing her last night."
"And?" The man lit a cigar.
"Goddammit man! Is she alive, dead, or what?"
"Have a cigar", the man said holding out one for Andrew. But Andrew slapped it away. The man smiled. "Guess that does prove one thing about your legendary temper in my report from my contacts in Europe. Well, Mr. Williams, you should be glad you stepped in as you did. The girl was almost dead from dehydration when we got to her."
"'We', who's 'we'?"
"We're a small off-shoot of the JSDF son."
"The Japanese Self-Defense Force?"
The man nodded. "We were formed on the eve of the arrival of the Overfiend into our world, for the research and defense against the paranormal. You might have heard of that little business, back in 2004, from an associate of yours, Robert Statler?"
Andrew's mind, still groggy, attempted to generate a cohesive thought and memory as it slagged through the gallons and gallons of alcohol he'd had. He did remember Rob telling him and Bri about it, and how it had, inadvertently, led to the Ghostbusters Doom Patrol having a division in Tokyo. But that had been between Rob, CJ, and...
"So? Yeah I know about it. You guys fucked that up hardcore till we had to come save your asses."
The man laughed. He knew what to expect from Andrew and was prepared for every volley the young man could dish out at him.
"Since then, we have mostly been on the fringe of what we swore to do. Kind of like investigations, much like what you do."
"Used to do", Andrew replied, draining the last of his orange juice. "I'm retired. And no where in my job description did it say that I kidnapped people and fuck with their bodies like some kind of Gen13 experiment."
"Fair enough. In my estimation though, you have considerable skills and talents that may be of some use to us. You saw the thing last night, didn't you?"
"Saw it? Hell, I fought the thing! What was it?"
"We believe remnants of the Overfiend's watchdogs I should say. I place the blame on your other associate, Dr. Cedric London for not closing the gate in time as he should have. The girl would have been the fifteenth victim in a month had you not stepped in."
"Fifteen?"
The man nodded. He again reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a vanilla envelope and handed it to Andrew. Upon opening it, Andrew was slightly taken aback by the candid color photographs in his hands, each one showing a Japanese girl much like the one he'd saved last night, looking as though their very lives were sucked from their bodies.
"Fifteen."
"Fifteen. It seems almost fortunate that I believed strongly enough in your identity to start having 'shadows' follow you."
The guy on the subway. "So you've been following me for a month? Why should I not feel the urge to kick your ass when I get feeling back in my feet?"
"Because I'm going to make you an offer, Mr. Williams, and as cliched as it sounds, it's one that you can't refuse."
"I'll be the judge of that."
"We have been able to contain the creature you fought last night. Not kill it. It was the first break we've had in this case in over a month thanks to you."
"Why do I not feel a sense that I deserve that?"
"Because you also walked right into us. We're not truly capable of handling these...things. We've never encountered something of this magnitude that is, partly, your fault."
"So I'm supposed to pay for something CJ should have double-checked on?"
"Not really. The Tokyo division of your company does random...scattered checkups but this is not their district and, well frankly I don't want them here."
"Then do yourself a favor and call them, because I ain't doing squat for you."
"As I said, we're not used to this. We need help from somebody who has seen it all and done it all, I should say. Someone like you."
"Then you better get started finding him, cause you ain't getting me."
"That's for sure?"
"That's for damn sure."
The man sighed as he stood up and turned away from Andrew. "Mr. Williams, how familiar are you with the laws of Japan?"
Andrew shrugged. "I know the difference between right and wrong."
"Do you know what the penalty is for working without a Visa. Or for that matter no passport?" Andrew was now grinning. So. He's going to play that game is he?
"Officially, James Gilmour died last night in a tragic fire. He left no wife nor any immediate family."
"What about a body? Did you supply that too?" The man looked back at Andrew and smiled.
"You know me too well already. They can't do a DNA test on a charred corpse after all. So now, officially, you have no passport, nor a work Visa, nor any forms of identification other than what you will tell to the courts. Should you walk away from here now, you will have no money nor a place to live. All of James Gilmour's personal assets have been liquidated, his bank account wiped."
"Good God, you guys are scarily efficient."
"It comes with being a government spook, Mr. Williams. Now, I hope you understand that you have no real choice other than joining us and hoping I find it within my heart to issue a proper passport for you back to New York."
Andrew laid back down in his bed. "And if I refuse?"
"Then you know very well what will happen."
Sighing, Andrew turned his head away from the man. "Can I just ask one thing?"
"What is that?"
"In all this giving me shit and stuff, you never once told me who you are?"
The man smiled as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Takayama", he said and shook Andrew's hand. "And you are Andrew Williams, are you not?"
Andrew said nothing but nodded.
"Good", Takayama replied as he left the room. "Miss Monroe did illustrate that the sedative she gave to you would wear off completely in a couple of hours?"
"Just leave me alone."
Takayama obliged and left the room. Before he did so, he turned back and said, "Take any special precautions you may need", and then exited.
"I know you're there so you might as well come out. I'm already pissed as it is." The African peered around the corner of the door, timidly, trying not to disturb the intense aura that had engulfed the room.
"So, you will help us?"
"I got no choice, now, do I?" Andrew said.
"We all have choices, Mr. Williams. There is no such thing as a good choice or a bad choice. They all end up coming back to haunt us sooner or later."
"Sounds like you've got a story behind that."
"For later Mr. Williams. Mr. Takayama would like you to rest for a while."
"What for? I'm still a cripple for the next hour. I'm useless!"
"He wants you to be ready for when we go out."
Andrew leaned his head back against the pillow.
It had been one year since the events of Philadelphia, one year since everything that had ever mattered in his life had blown up in his face. He couldn't bring himself to think another moment of the life he had led once. Then, he'd been a messed up man, one who tried vainly to fix every mistake he'd ever made. But he made more and more along the way, until he found himself stable enough to start over again. And then he messed up again and ran like a little child.
"Mr. Williams? Are you okay? Do you need anything?"
"Just...let me have a few minutes by myself. Can you do that uhhhh..."
"Grace", the African said. "Grace Monroe. And I will do that, Mr. Williams."
Andrew nodded in gratitude. "Thanks." As she left, Andrew knew he could not dwell, at least now, on his current state of affairs.
He knew that if he was going to be back in the game, if he was going to ride in the saddle again, he had to prepare himself.
He was going to be Andrew Williams once again.
And he realized that if he was going to do that, he'd need some supplies.
"Grace", he called out. She popped her head through the door. "Takayama said for me to take any 'special precautions' or whatever. That means you have to help me make sure I don't get my ass kicked. Right"
Grace nodded.
"Good. Now here's what I want to know. When's the next train to Tokyo?" Grace looked decidedly uncomfortable answering the question. "It's alright, I'm not gonna run or anything. I'm just taking some 'special precautions'." Grace said nothing as Andrew sighed. "Believe me, if I wanted to get away, I would, but I'm not. I just wanna know when the next train leaves for Tokyo."
"Three hours. You'll be able to walk at that time."
"Thank you. Tell your boss that I'm gonna take a little trip up there whether he likes it or not." Andrew expected a voice of protest from the African, but was surprised when none came. Instead, with her hazel eyes, grinned at Andrew as she left the room. Andrew reclined back in his bed, thinking that, for the moment, he'd at least cooperate with whatever these creeps wanted of him.
Tokyo
"Man, this is sooo cool! I've heard a lot about you but I never thought I'd actually meet you!" Amy Hibiki could could hardly contain her glee at seeing Andrew standing right in front of the doorway of the Tokyo Ghostbusters' warehouse headquarters, located oddly enough behind the National Diet Building. It reminded him of the GBDP's highrise back in Pennsylvania: a small collection of furniture decorated the warehouse, with a couple of desks and chairs shifted to one corner of the room they stood in. Disney-styled table lamps were neatly perched upon a coffee table that separated Andrew from Amy. A random collection of knik-knaks and whatever reflected the various member's personalities almost as well as the team back home.
Amy's cheery round face examined Andrew up and down, but he was not offended. CJ had long told him how friendly most of the Japanese were and having lived in the region for a year, he was used to it by now. They were especially curious of all Americans, and Amy Hibiki failed in hiding her own curiosity.
They moved upstairs, which is where Amy explained contained the group's small Ecto Containment Unit, which had been designed by Rob but built by the team's resident smart guy Kaz Mahera, who apparently was in the process of checking the the ECU. "Pleasure to meet you Mr. Williams", Kaz bowed.
"Yeah, likewise", Andrew replied. "I hope I'm not disturbing anything."
"Nah", Kaz said shaking his head. "I just hope Amy didn't scare you away."
"KAZ!" Amy said as her face turned crimson red. She smacked him in the arm as the bespectacled Kaz grinned.
"So, what can we do for you Mr. Williams?"
"For starters, call me Andrew. I'm not my dad."
Kaz nodded. "Okay. Andrew."
"Good. Second, I need to talk to you guys. You've heard about this whole business of girls getting killed by blobs down in Chiba City, right?"
"Gives me shivers just thinking about it!" Amy said as she disappeared downstairs. "Anybody want some tea?"
"Yeah, I'll take a cup." Kaz looked at Andrew, who shook his head. "Yeah just me. We've been monitoring the situation for several weeks now. It's not just in Chiba either." Walking over towards a chart that showed a map of the major cities in Japan, he pointed at several colored tacks, red for Tokyo, blue for Chiba, and so on. "As you can see, Chiba is just a small part of the larger problem. What's making this more difficult is that we can barely pinpoint when and where these will strike."
"Well then, that sort of defeats the purpose of being prepared if you don't know where it's gonna hit."
"Not necessarily. They have no real pattern. One victim was found outside Tokyo, so we figure that she was on her way out of town when it struck her."
"Did you know that there was another one last night that the JSDF is trying to cover up?"
"They're not the JSDF. They're JaiTei, the Japan Paranormal Research and Defense group. They just share offices with the JSDF, but have nothing to do with them personally."
Andrew scoffed. "They way this one guy, Takayama, was talking, you'd think that he was running the whole government. He's more than halfway there, especially with his head up his ass."
"Takayama?" Kaz said. "You've met him? Then you must be in trouble."
"I live in it twenty-four hours a day. I'm used to it by now. Why? You know something about this dickhead?"
"Not much. Takayama assumed control after the Overfiend incident and made it his mission to personally make the JaiTei into an efficient squadron of paranormal investigators and eliminators. Basically, he wanted to ensure that our own existence was meaningless when the people have the JaiTei to trust."
"They cause less damage I guess?"
Kaz grinned. "I told you, they're efficient, but eliminators they're not. The group's mostly just a bunch of sorcerers and spellcasters who temporarily extradite the ghosts and ghouls from our dimension and into another. Exorcism basically."
"That is pretty efficient, but where's the fun when you can't blow shit up?"
Kaz and Andrew shared a laugh. "I don't know", Kaz said. "But I digress. Takayama and his group are fairly dangerous once you cross them. I'm guessing you were shanghaied into this case? Am I right?"
"Exactamundo", Andrew said as he turned away from Kaz. "It's funny though, when I walked away from it all, I didn't even want to look back. I left everything behind me and now it feels like everything's being thrust back in my face. I should be freaking out, but I'm not. It almost feels..."
"Normal?"
"Exactly."
"Andrew, I've only been with this company for two years, and let me tell you that my perception of what's normal and accepted has indeed changed dramatically. I don't know what situation you were in to walk away from your job and I'm not going to ask. But I do feel as though that by some kind of cruel fate you've been given a second chance to make it right."
Andrew was silent for a moment as he thought about it. Then he said, "Yeah right." Kaz just shrugged. He really was as stubborn as Rob and Salina made him out to be.
"In any case, I guess all anyone can do is make the best out of a bad situation."
"These JaiTei guys know a thing or two about where these things are popping up. Maybe you two can work together?"
"Wouldn't work", Kaz said shaking his head.
"Yeah", Amy said, climbing the steps with a piping hot kettle of tea in her hands. "They don't really like associating with us too much, not after the stuff with the Overfiend. What was that that Takayama told us?"
"Something like 'I'll eat your reputation if you get in my way again'", Kaz laughed, imitating Takayama's deep voice. "You're probably taking a risk even talking to us right now, you know."
"I don't care", Andrew said. "They've given me shit since last night, I figure I might as well dish some out myself. What I do need from you guys though is a proton pack, a trap, and a PKE."
Kaz and Amy looked at each and grinned. Pushing his glasses to the top of his head, Kaz strolled over to a cupboard and opened it, removing a proton pack from within. It was the standard Mark IV's that was used by many of the various Ghostbusters teams, retired in 1997 though it continued to make appearances. The GBDP had been given four on their first case, Andrew remembered, and had kept them, as backups should the newer, Mark VI's ever fail on them.
"I still can't get over how heavy these things are!" Amy said. "How'd you ever handle it?"
"Practice", Andrew said strapping it on. He grunted once before he shifted the straps for comfort. My God, have I really missed this? "What about the trap and PKE?"
"Ask and you'll get", Kaz said holding up a typical Ghost-Trap. "We also got some Ecto-Balls if you'd rather those."
"Forget it. I never did like those things. Too easy to lose, you know."
"Yeah. Oh, and here's a meter. It's the old one from '83, but it should do the job all the same."
"Kaz, didn't Takeru tell you that it won't have the same power as the newer ones?"
"Anyway, you'll still be fine, though from what we've been getting, these creatures are registering pretty high so keep the setting low."
"Gotcha", he said, then added, "How do you guys get away with keeping this stuff on public transports without getting shit from the cops?" He was remembering how much red tape and meetings with the mayor of Philadelphia that, in this post-9/11 era, made sense but were still frustrating as hell.
Amy shrugged. "Dunno. We just show the conductor our badge and he lets us on. They have weirder stuff to deal with than us."
"Oh yeah, I've heard. Whatever perv thinks he can get his jollies on a train has got to be as sad as that Miyazaki clown."
As he stepped out of the team's HQ, carrying his equipment in a large suitcase and amid thoughts about how eccentric both Kaz and Amy were (yet for all their eccentricities they seemed oddly familiar to him), and embracing the summer heat that was beaming down on his head, Andrew knew someone was on his ass. And he didn't like it one bit.
He was not paranoid. Paranoids usually think they are hearing things that are not there, but Andrew knew that it was a mild form of tame paranoia, an art that had taken years to perfect and the suppression of every surge of energy and fear within his body. As he rounded the corner, he stopped at a shop window as they displayed ancient weapons from the Samurai that caught his eye. He put his hands in his pockets and pressed his face against the glass, allowing condensation to form. But his eyes were continually attracted to the person shadowing him, and he made pretensions as to who it was. "I know you're there so you might as well come on out", he said, not taking his glance away from a shuriken.
Grace walked towards him and stood beside him, her head bowed. "I am sorry", she said.
"Takayama told you to follow me, to make sure I didn't do any funny business. I know. I knew it the minute I stepped on the train. I knew you weren't far behind me, but I let you follow me, just to prove a point."
"And that was?"
"That Takayama's full of shit and you know it."
Beyond the sun-baked glow of downtown Tokyo, Andrew and Grace walked up and down the streets, through neighborhoods and watched children play soccer, through alleys and empty backdoors. They said nothing for awhile, just walked. Soon, the sun began to set and the air grew slightly stale as a wind began to pick up. Rain was coming, evidenced by a drop that landed on Andrew's forehead and made a path down the long end of his nose.
"We should leave", Grace said as she opened an umbrella. "Takayama is expecting us both."
"Takayama can kiss my ass. What's he so important that you have to report to him all the time?"
"He is my better."
"Nobody's better than anybody."
"I know that."
"So why do you accept what he says?"
"It's complicated."
"So?"
"You would not understand."
Andrew laughed as he heard this.
"What is so funny?" Grace demanded, agitated. Saying nothing, Andrew reached into his shirt and pulled out a necklace, of which several sharpened teeth were strung to it.
"Do you know what I used to do before I became an alcoholic?"
Grace shook her head.
"I understand a lot of things. I just like to play stupid and let other people talk, just to figure out how full of shit they really are."
"So am I full of shit?"
"Eh?"
"Am I full of shit, as you say."
"You haven't told me anything about yourself."
"And you have not done the same."
Andrew sighed as he turned away from Grace. She was an interesting woman, piquing his curiosity with every comment she made. Leaning back against the fading light, Andrew looked up at the sky. Stars were beginning to dot across it. "I've got nothing to say. Are you wanting to hear my great adventures like I'm some old dog of war? Or are you interested in why I choose to live the way I do now?"
"I want to know", Grace began, "more about the man who owns a necklace made out of werewolf and vampire teeth. That man was not two-steps away from a full-blown alcoholic."
"One step. It's only one step."
"Nonetheless, that man I've heard about. The one I met last night was no better than the dealers that he faded against as he stepped away from my bar. The same one who showed a flash of his former self saving that girl."
"And look where that got me. Gangpressed into something I have no real heart to do."
"Then what do you expect yourself to be doing Mr. Williams?"
Andrew had no answer. He did not face Grace.
"I think you really are running from something", Grace continued. "What is it?"
"It's none of your business."
"Was it bad?"
Andrew sighed. "I should have been more responsible", he said. "I was always trusted to do the right thing, you know. Always being there for anyone and everyone. The great big hero. And then, all of a sudden, everything started to go to shit. I couldn't save anybody and it was all my fault." He then reached into his pocket and pulled out something that glistened against the fading light. It was a necklace, strung with fading brown beads, several of which were missing.
"I've made plenty of mistakes in my life. Some small ones that I was able to correct. Some hardcore ones that I can't fix. Each one making me into the man you see now."
"A bitter, broken human who feels his best friend is the bottom of a bottle?"
Andrew was looking at Grace now. The grim complexion he had worn on his face had melted, surprising her. Why was he...suddenly looking...human? Grace thought. She'd heard all about Andrew, and was prepared for someone so cocksure of himself, yet deadly serious when he had to be. This person had all the same
Then, smiling, Andrew said, "Enough with this introspective BS. I think I've made my point to Takayama. Don't you think?"
"Y-yes", Grace said snapping back to reality.
To be continued...