"Hey, guys… you got any coffee around here?"
She had been wandering around the remodeled firehouse for a good fifteen minutes, and there wasn't a coffee maker to be found in any of the usual places a work environment might have one. Not that this was a normal work environment, mind you. But they seemed to be doing work, now that they had gotten a couple of calls in... and how does work get done without coffee?
The lack of a clear source of hot, caffeinated beverage baffled her especially, because she had noticed that the Ghostbusters (particularly the two resident super-geniuses) were rarely without a mug in hand. On occasion, a mug had even been dropped off at her desk. She had thought nothing about this little miracle, about where the coffee had come from, until today. Ten in the morning on a Monday after a burst pipe that had kept her up until three (And she had to be out the door at six thirty to get anywhere even remotely on time.) and no magic coffee to be found.
Anxious to get back to her desk and seem busy, though she had already finished and filed all of the paperwork, she decided to make one last stab at getting caffeine into her system. She had poked her head upstairs again and timidly questioned the two men sitting on a couple of stools, backed by racks of intimidating technology and discussing the guts they had pulled halfway out of one of those blinky hand-held meters they toted everywhere.
It was her third week on the job.
Ray fetched her a beaker full of something that at least looked like coffee, that had been sitting over a low flame in a corner of the lab side of the lofty space. His eyes loomed huge and proud at her behind a pair of lit magnifying lenses. He blew out some cigarette smoke carefully away from her, down and towards the "Stantz" name tag on his khaki flight suit.
"Okay… this is an experiment, isn't it?" She joked nervously, eyeing the dark liquid. "What is it? What's it supposed to do to me?"
In response, Ray looked at the beaker uncertainly, sniffed the contents, and held it out to her again. He pushed the goggles up past his forehead, into his spiky hair.
"Instant coffee, hot off the Bunsen!"
She stared at him over the top of her plastic framed glasses, even less certain than before that the "coffee" was actually coffee.
"A simple olfactory examination will, in most cases, confirm whether the contents of a beaker are in fact coffee." Egon pitched in, helpfully. He was as intimidating as the technology surrounding them... more so. He wasn't especially taller than his companion, but he seemed to be. Everything about him was long. (And she refused to follow that thought further, for the moment.) His face was long, and his hands. His hair stood tall off his forehead. When he stood, he loomed at least a head over her, (Sure, she was petite. It was something she'd come to accept, and didn't even notice most of the time anymore.) but that wasn't what unnerved her. It was more the way he adjusted those wireframes at her and made her feel like she was being dissected. She wasn't sure she disliked the feeling.
"Most of the fluids we work with don't share the same viscosity and gustatory properties as coffee." He continued, lifting a corner of his upper lip in the expression she recognized as the closest he ever got to a friendly smile. He wiped the crumbs of the snack food he had just eaten onto his sweatervest. "Any we come across that do, we will mark with a large X using red tape."
She didn't move to take the pyrex from Ray's hand. He gestured emphatically with his lit cigarette.
"If you still have doubts, just ask." Egon continued. They had obviously thought this out. "Raymond and I have come up with a simple series of tests to confirm whether a substance is, in fact, coffee.
"It's fine, though. I had a mug of it just ten minutes ago."
"Yes, as did I. It's a bit weak," Ray shot him an injured look. Obviously this "pot" had been his handiwork. "but I assure you, it's completely potable."
Janine stared at both of them. She let the hand that was holding her mug drop to her side. "Ahh, I think maybe I'm just gonna bring in a coffee maker." She said. "Tomorrow."
Ray and Egon looked at each other as if this was an option they hadn't considered.
"We used to have one," Ray admitted "But we used part of it when we installed the containment unit."
"Right" she said. She considered the day ahead of her. Considered the stuff in the beaker Ray was still holding out to her that looked iffy even in coffee terms. Considered interacting with Peter Venkman, if he ever woke up, (A snore drifted in from the next room.) on three hours of sleep and without caffeine in her system. "Okay," she said, "I'm going to lunch."
Lunch. Coffee. Lots of coffee, made by a professional. Maybe even a slight doze if she could find a warm chair to curl up in somewhere.
"It's ten twenty three in the morning." Egon observed, not bothering to check his watch.
"Yeah, it is, isn't it?" She said defiantly, just daring him to write her up. (It was a silly thought, but she'd had her pay docked for less at other places.) She considered briefly whether this place - as bizarre as it was - was worth it just for an actual salary with benefits. It wasn't much, but it was full time, and she didn't have to work with kids or food.
She wondered briefly if she should even come back after lunch.
She eyed the two men before her - the stout one with the warm, open face; the long one with the deep, sharp eyes - who were each looking at her with a refreshing lack of guile. Who seemed confused, but not angry, at her sudden need for a non-regulation lunch hour. Who had been really decent to her, honestly, in their own distinct ways. (Egon reserved and detached, but with polite curiosity. Ray warm and enthusiastic, with just a touch of playful sarcasm when it occurred to him.) Decent enough, even, to make up for their business partner, who wasn't conscious to defend himself. And she decided maybe it was worth it… just barely.
Besides, she still had to pay for those new pipes somehow.
"You guys want me to bring anything back for you?"
They both considered for a moment. Ray shifted his gaze to the half-cooled beaker, looking as if he was mentally reevaluating his skill set.
"Well..." He said.