Ghostbusters: Chicago Division
Heat Rising
By Dan Shannon
Chapter 4: The New Stuff
The next day the Ectomobile sat in front of the arrival terminal of O'Hare airport. It had been sitting there for thirty minuets when a Chicago police cruiser pulls up next to the SUV. Dan sat behind the wheel asleep when the Chicago cop knocked on the glass. "Excuse me, sir?" Dan awoke with a start as he looked out his window. He rolled the window down to speak, "Yes?"
The officer looked over the vehicle then looked back at the driver, "Sir, you have to move this..." he looked over the truck again, "...Vehicle. You're only allowed to park here for 15 minuets before we have to tow it." "Officer," Dan explained, "I've been granted emergency and utility parking powers by order of the Chicago Police Paranormal Crimes Unit." Dan pulled out a sheet of paper from his flight suit's sleeve pocket and handed it to the officer. As the policeman looked over the order, Dan continued, "We're waiting for two people who have very sensitive equipment in their possession that we need to load quickly. If they walk out here and I have to do the O'Hare 500 around the arrival terminals, they're gonna be mighty pissed because they're gonna be standing there with their dicks in their hands."
The officer nodded his head, "Okay, Mr. Shannon... I'm assuming you're Mr. Shannon." "The one and only," Dan quipped. The officer handed the sheet back to the engineer as he spoke, "This order seems valid. Just be sure in the future you get those special license plates on before doing something like this again." Dan nodded, "Fair enough." "Have a nice day," the officer said as he walked back to his cruiser. With that, Dan rolled up his window and cranked the A/C.
Inside the terminal, Zach stood holding a sign. Seeing Zach didn't know what the new recruit's names were, Zach just held a sign that had the Chicago Division logo on it. A little girl stopped and pointed at him as she called out to her mother, "Mommy, it's a Ghostbuster!" "Yes, honey," the mother said as she grabbed her hand and started pulling her like she did her luggage, "we don't point and make eye contact!" Zach rolled his eyes and sighed. Now he remembered the downside of this job. Half the populace doesn't believe in ghosts therefore thinking the Ghostbusters were insane. "I hope this changes soon enough."
From the United Airlines gate in the main concourse emerged a crowd of people. Among them was a tall thin man with glasses and spiked blond hair and an average height man wearing a red Bass Pro Shop cap. They carried their carry-ons down the main concourse to the baggage pick up area as they talked, "So in essence, the slime can self perpetuate." "I'm sick of hearing about slime. It makes me feel like a pervert."
"But," the taller man stated, "you are a pervert. You said so yourself."
"I've been stuck on a plane with you for 4 hours and have been stuck with you 3 hours before that. If I have to hear any more about slime, I am gonna..."
"Take it easy! If you exude any more anger, the stuff in my backpack is gonna explode."
They reach the baggage claim as they wait for their luggage to arrive. The belt started moving as the luggage started to unload. A few regular suitcases and duffel bags dropped on the belt as people started to crowd around to retrieve their possessions. There was a sudden "CRASH" as a large olive drab case with a Ghostbusters International logo drops on the belt. People around the belt looked at the case with a sense of tension as it made its way around. People actually backed away as the case approached and passed by. The man in the Bass Pro Shop cap grabbed the case and made an attempt to pull it off the belt, but dropped it back on the belt, "Jesus Christ, what ya got in here? A friggan truck engine?"
The other man helped him pull the case off the belt dropping it on his foot. "AH!"
They walked their way to the claims office to talk to the receptionist, case in tow. The man with glasses talked to the shorter man, "What are doing here?" "We gotta pick up that other case here, remember?"
"What case?"
"The one with Dr. Stantz's new pack design in it?"
"Oh," the taller man stated. As they stood in line, a man in a blue business suit stood at the claims window and was arguing with the woman at the counter, "I'm telling you, you have to get those presentation boards here right the fuck now because if you don't, I will be beating someone's ass!"
The lady behind the counter stood slightly bewildered as she tried to explain, "Sir, we're looking in our system to see if anything was sent somewhere else..." the man cut her off as he screamed at the top of his lungs, "What do you mean it's somewhere else? If I don't have those boards by my 3 o'clock meeting, I will sue your worthless company for all it's worth, and I will hold you responsible!"
As the man screamed, the tall man started feeling a rumbling in his backpack. He realized what was going on, "Oh shit." "What?" the shorter man asked as he saw the look of horror on his companion's face, "Stop him! Calm him down, quick!" "How?" "I donno, tell a joke!"
"Do I look like Krusty the fucking Clown to you?"
"If you don't," the taller man explained, "I have a powderkeg in my backpack that's about to go kaboom! Calm him NOW!"
The man in the red cap walked up to the man in the business suit and cleared his throat, "Sir?" The business man turned around to face him, "What the fuck do you want?" "I'm sure if you just calm down, they can find your stuff. Just give them some time." The business man looked over the both of them and noticed the case with the Ghostbusters logo on it. "Look, you fucking lunatic, unlike some of the people in this world, I work for a living and no lying sack of shit like you is going to tell me what to do!"
The backpack started to vibrate more as the tall man approached the business man and tried his stake at calming him down, "Look, these things happen. They're looking into it now, I'm sure if you give her a minuet, you'll find it was most likely around the corner of the door behind her. Just give her a minuet." "You know what?" the business man asked, "I don't fucking care if it is or not, I want my paperwork NOW!" The backpack shook more. "And as far as I'm concerned, fuck her," the backpack shook more, "fuck this airport," the backpack was shaking violently now as he heard the glass jar inside the bag crack, "AND FUCK YOU!"
As this point the creaking of the glass was a dead give away. The tall man screamed at the top of his lungs as he took the backpack off and threw it to the least concentrated amount of people in the room, "EVERYONE, GET DOWN!" An explosion erupted blowing the backpack to pieces as a slug like creature emerged from where the backpack was.
Zach heard the explosion. His first inclination was to drop the sign, and he did so right before taking off to where the sound emanated from.
In the Ectomobile, Dan awoke again with a start as he heard the explosion. He looked to the computer that was hooked into the detection equipment on the top of the truck to find the PKE levels in the building spiked. "Oh shit!" Dan switched on the truck's emergency lights and ran to the back to grab his Proton Pack.
Behind the claims desk, the two men, the business man and the claims woman hid from the creature that was now destroying the baggage claim area. The business man looked over the counter followed by the others as he asked in a worried voice, "What is that... that... THING?"
"A manifestation of your rage," said the man with the glasses. "Nice going." The beast was looking around for something. It grabbed a piece of luggage from one of the belts and slurped it down as the taller man looked at the case in the line in front of them, "I need to get to that case."
"If that thing sees you..." the shorter man began to state before he was cut off, "It's not going to see me. I found that with negative mood slime, the spirit released from it will search for the person that created it and kill them." Everyone looked at the business man. "No way..." was all the business man in the blue suit said before the man in the red cap grabbed him by the lapels of his suit, "Look, jerk-off, you started this shit, you're bait. Get your ass out there and distract it!"
Zach ducked down behind a souvenir shack as he got a good look at the beast slithering around eating people's luggage. "Whoa, that's different." "Zach!" a voice quietly called out from behind him. He turned to find Dan running up behind him wearing a Proton Pack but also holding another one. "Here," was all he said. Zach put his pack on as Dan took out his PKE meter and started scanning. "Class five. Definitely focused." "On what?" the Occultist asked.
"Based on the ectoplasmic flux pattern it's giving off, it looks... Psychomagnatheric?" "Wait, what?" Zach responded. The both of them looked at each other.
"You said one of them was a..."
"A slime expert."
Dan turned pale, "Aw, nuts."
The man in the suit ran out from behind the desk with his suit jacket off waving it around in the air like a flag screaming like a banshee. The slug-like creature saw him running around doing this and started chasing him. It was a rather slow ghost, so it gave the man ample time to run from it. The tall man behind the desk ran out and started opening up the case in the middle of the line.
Zach and Dan saw the beast coming their way chasing after a man running whipping his suit jacket like a Steelers fan towelette. They stood up as the man screamed at them, "Stop this thing! STOP IT!" Both of them looked at each other as the creature slowly approached them. "You've got to be joking," Dan stated. "Dan," Zach began, "I've never heard of these things working too well on mood slime ghosts."
"Well, we can't stand here with our thumb up our ass! Blast the sumbitch!" Dan got in the middle of the corridor and fired his thrower. The ghost thrashed around as it took the blast of protons. Suddenly the ghost sprouted 3 pairs of legs from it's sides, each arm emerging with a noisy wet "SPLAT". It stood on it's hind legs and stood over the Ghostbuster. Dan twitched as the ghost wound up for a smack, "I wonder if Dave will give me back my job." With that he shut his eyes waiting for the smack.
Zach shot his thrower and was able to catch the beast in a capture stream, but only for a moment. The ghost picked up Zach with his own particle stream and threw him across the floor into one of the belts. Dan snapped out of his uptight state, opened his eyes and witnessed Zach being thrown up the hallway. "You rat bastard!" Dan screamed as he turned the thrower's firepower on full and blasted it. As he did, the ghost whaled as loud as it could before spitting all of it's digested luggage food out on top of the Ghostbuster. Dan hit the ground covered in slime soaked clothes, toiletries, and various other objects including the luggage itself. He was completely incapacitated.
Zach shook off the pain and got back up for another attack. The ghost looked directly at the Occultist as he noticed the mound of clothes moving behind it. A loud bellow was launched from the beasts mouth as he got on all it's legs and charged for the lone Ghostbuster.
Suddenly another particle stream rocked out from behind Zach. He turned around to find a tall guy with glasses wearing a Proton Pack. When he looked at the pack, it wasn't like his. It had a smaller Slime Blower like nozzle on the thrower and was also equipped with a green tank on the power cell side of the pack. "Hey," he yelled out, "you posing for Holy Pictures? Shoot the damn thing!" Zach nodded, spun back around, and fired his stream. While he fired, the man behind him stopped shooting, "You might wanna stand to the side!"
Zach moved back as suddenly a large ball of orange light formed at the end of the other man's particle thrower. As soon as it formed, it launched toward the ghost making contact and throwing it into the front doors of the terminal with a loud, "CRACK!" People screamed and ran away as the beast got up to get it's bearings. The man ran up to the beast and hit a switch on his thrower causing a smaller clear tube to eject from the inside of the Booster tube. From there, the man shot green slime out of the silver thrower nozzle and hosed the large creature down until it started to melt.
"Hey, Mark!" the man called out. The other man that was still behind the claims counter popped his head out from behind the desk, "Yeah?" "Get that Muon Trap!"
The man in the red cap ran to the case in the middle of the claims line and grabbed what appeared to be a Ghost Trap but had more attachments on it than normal. It also had no activation pedal, just the trap itself. Just as the red capped man threw the trap in the open, the tall man with glasses hit a switch again on his thrower and the tube filled with green slime recessed back into the pack and he started firing his Proton Stream again. Zach followed suit and entangled the beast in his stream.
They suspended the ghost, who was now half it's size than it originally was when they started fighting it over the trap. "Up a little more," the man shouted. Zach nodded and helped the man pull the ghost upward slightly. Out of all of it, Zach screamed over the sound of both of their streams, "How do you open the trap?" Without any explanation, the trap's doors opened by themselves and a beam of light shot out like any other trap. The trap's pull was stronger than any trap GB:CD had in their arsenal. As fast as the trap opened, the ghost howled as the trap's doors closed locking the beast inside. The other man walked up and picked up the trap as it beeped. It didn't even smoke, it was just contained. The man in the red cap came over and took the loaded trap from the taller man in the glasses.
"I take it," Zach said while walking up to the other man, "you're our new recruits?"
"Yep," the tall man said as he held his free hand out, "Dr. Aaron Tade. My friends call me Ronny." "Nice to meet you Ronny." Zach responded as he shook his hand. The red capped man held out his hand and started shaking Zach's hand, "Mark Fontanetta. If it's got pistons and rings, I'm the man with the talent." "I'm Dr. Zach LaVoy, and the head of this office is Dan Sha..." that was when Zach realized something, "Shit, Dan!" Dan was still under that pile of slime drenched clothing. He ran in the direction of the pile of clothes. Ronny and Mark followed him to the pile as Zach started to pull clothes off the top of Dan. They all dug until they hit Dan's Proton Pack.
In a sudden jump, Dan pulled himself up out of the slime and took in a deep breath. He still had a pair of panties on his head covering his eyes, "Am I alive?" "Well," Zach started, "you've got party panties on your face. I guess that's a start."
Late night. 444 N. Michigan Ave. A janitor, an old black man wearing headphones, was vacuuming the floor in the office space minding his own business when a hand came down on his shoulder. The Janitor jumped as he turned around to find a man heavily pierced on his face wearing a Man O' War shirt under a black leather jacket. His scraggly hair tied into a ponytail and his beard unkept, his appearance scared the old black man into taking his headphones off and shutting off the vacuum. "Can I help you?"
"Yeah, I was wondering where the crematory is."
The old man looked at his watch and unbuttoned the top buttons on his uniform as he commented, "It's past 9:30, you're not supposed to be here," He panted for a moment, "Is the A/C not working?"
"The crematory. Now." A small bead of sweat ran from his brow down the crest of his nose.
We look at the janitor's face as he unnervingly clears his throat, "7th floor, room 707." All we hear is the man say, "Thanks." There was a sudden burst of sickly orange light as the janitor started screaming.
From Michigan Ave, the floor above the Starbucks lit up like a bonfire then suddenly died down. The people in the coffee shop underneath the light were suddenly greeted with a fire alarm that ran throughout the building.
Dan was down in his electronics lab in the basement looking over the piece of equipment Ronny had brought with him that helped in stopping the ghost in the Airport terminal. He was stumped as he looked over the Proton Pack. He kept scratching his head as Ronny looked over the containment unit with equal curiosity, "So let me get this straight – you and the old physicist that worked here built this completely from recycled parts?"
"You don't need to be so formal," Dan started as he took the thrower of the Proton Pack, "we built it from a pile of garbage picked shit." "What they said at GBI is true," Ronny chuckled, "you're fuckin' MacGyver."
"I'm flattered," Dan stated, turning on the Proton Pack. Ronny turned around and sprinted back to the desk to grab the thrower from Dan's hands. "Whoa!" he shouted, "Don't go turning shit on you're not familiar with!" Dan put his hand's up in a passive stance, "Okay, okay, fair enough. Just tell me how the hell you stopped that thing with this thing while I was under the barf of dirty laundry."
"It was something Dr. Spengler and Dr. Stantz came up with back in 1991. There were other generators and things on the pack, but after field testing they found the other pieces impractical for Ghostbusting purposes when they were able to improve the Boson Dart delivery system."
"Uh..." Dan cocked his head to the side and rose an eyebrow, "Can you run they by me again, chief?"
"Sorry," Ronny started with a grin, "I tend to get a little giddy when I explain this stuff to people. What I mean is, Dr. Spengler spent the last 20 years improving the Boson Dart system so it can be used safely with all the GBI franchises when they got started. They weren't sure this stuff was safe even after their field test in '91, so they waited until 2 years ago to start implementing not only the Boson Dart system, but also the PDS on all packs."
"PDS? I take it that's the mini-Slime Blower on the side of the pack?"
"Yeah," Ronny said, placing the thrower back on the pack, "the slime they used back then was a mixture of base ectoplasm, mood slime from the Vigo incident, and fungi from Dr. Spengler's collection. During that time I was trying to make it possible for the slime to self perpetuate faster and give off stronger positive psychomagnatheric charges thus making... Dan?"
Dan's eyes had glassed over as he stared off into space. Ronny snapped his fingers into his ears making the engineer jump off his stool and onto the floor. Ronny looked over the engineer on the floor as he laughed. Dan looked up from the ground and grumbled, "That wasn't funny, wiseass." Right at that moment, the alarm went off meaning a call had come in.
In the Garage bay of the firehouse, Mark had his head under the hood of the SUV as the sounds of a ratchet emanated from the engine compartment of the vehicle. The man under the hood wasn't bothered by the sound of the alarm going off as he slowly poked his head from under the truck's hood to look at Zach's sister at the desk, "What's the call?"
"Oh no, I wait until every one of you nuts gets to my desk."
"Well, I'd like to know now so I know how urgent I need to get this thing buttoned up."
"Chicago Police call. Urgent enough?" Ashley said with a dry tone of voice.