A.N.: Same warnings abound for language, sci-fi violence, and intense situations. I think I might have a sexual reference in this chapter (nothing graphic, nothing shown). And I still don't own the characters (see chapter 1 for full disclaimers and credits).
4
"What Happens in Switzerland"
Holtzmann took a moment to process what Kevin had just said. "I'm what?" Rationally, she knew that explained the telekinesis, the sudden ability to see Arthur's ghost, the ability to walk through walls and vending machines. In the fury of fighting with Artie, the rational part of her brain hadn't stopped to put the pieces together. She was a ghost. That meant she was-?
Abby hissed, resisting the urge to smack the receptionist in his head. "Kevin! She's not a ghost! Stop saying that! Jillian, don't listen to him."
Well, that was a relief. "Abby…what's going on?" she asked.
"No, remember, she can't hear you either. Or see you," Kevin reminded her.
"But you can?" Holtzmann asked him.
Kevin nodded, grinning.
Holtzmann started pacing the hallway. "Great. That's just...fan-freaking-tastic. Okay, Kevin, ask her what happened for me."
Kevin obliged. "Holtz wants to know what happened."
Abby directed her words in the general direction that Kevin was staring. "There was a ghost at your apartment, Jillian. You don't remember? You got hit in the head pretty hard, and you almost drowned in your bathtub-"
"What?!" Holtzmann most definitely did not recall that part.
"- but the doctor says you'll be okay…you know, except that you're having an out of body experience, apparently," Abby explained. She wished she could see her friend's reaction. "Kevin, how's she taking this?"
Holtzmann considered all this…then broke into a grin. "Awesome! I have always wanted to have an out of body experience! We have to document all this…tell Abby to get a notebook. We've got to do some tests…"
"She's taking it really well," Kevin reported. "She wants you to get a notebook so she can take a test."
"A test? Tests?!" Erin made a noise of exasperation. "She doesn't need to do experiments. She needs-" Erin paused, wondering why she was telling Kevin. "Holtz, we are not doing tests! You need to try to wake up. Dr. Menken said the longer you're in the coma …."
The mention of Menken sent Abby thundering into the cafeteria, where the doctor was directing the clean-up and making sure no one had been injured by the melee. When he saw the Ghostbuster coming, he scolded: "That's it…I was afraid of something like this. You and your friends are-"
He was cut off when Abby seized him by the collar and backed him against the wall.
"What do you think you're doing-?" he protested.
"You need to take Jillian and run every test you have on her. Whatever machines you have in this place, you put her in them. Because something is wrong and you missed it!" Abby demanded, her tone brooking no argument.
Abby grabbed Erin and Patty's attention. They wait for her explanation.
Menken was used to dealing with erratic, frantic family members. He assured her: "Ms. Holtzmann's vitals are steady. We are monitoring her, her condition is stable. Serious, but stable-"
Abby saw that her friends were waiting for an explanation as well. "Do you guys not see it? At the apartment, Jillian was unconscious. After she gets here, she's in a coma. A few hours later, she manifests and starts blowing silverware around and tossing the furniture like an F1 tornado. Hell, she's a stronger apparition than Artie right now! Connect the dots. She's getting worse, not better." Relenting, she let go of Menken. In a calmer tone, she told him: "You missed something."
Menken straightened his jacket. "We'll run some more tests…just to be sure this ghost of yours isn't interfering with our monitors. Then, your friend is going to be moved to a more isolated part of the hospital, where there's less chance of a bystander being hurt by your ghost."
The Ghostbusters retreated back to Holtzmann's hospital room to wait, deciding it was best to have their conversation in private. Rorke and Hawkins had put the room back together before they sheepishly resumed their places at the door.
Abby retrieved her chair and resumed her place at the head of the hospital bed, Erin sat on the opposite chair, while Kevin and Patty plopped on the sofa. Holtzmann stared at her own body lying in the hospital bed, fascinated but deeply unnerved.
Wanting something else to focus on, Holtzmann tried concentrating on not manifesting in the hospital gown. She tried visualizing herself in her overalls. "Okay, Kevin, can you still see anything?"
Kevin shook his head. "Nope, you're good. But, you have nothing to be ashamed of, you've got a lovely bum. If you made a porno, I'd definitely go see it."
Holtzmann blinked. "I'm not sure 'thanks' is the word I'm looking for, but I'm flattered."
"Kevin, please," Abby said.
"Why do you suppose ghosts are always wearing whatever clothes they died in?" Kevin wondered.
"Kevin-!" Erin tried. "-that's not appropr-"
Kevin was already down the rabbit hole. "If you can look however you want, wouldn't you want to go Armani or something? Or why bother with the clothes at all? We come into the world naked, why not go out that way?"
Abby waited for Erin to answer, however she noticed that Erin was kind of staring into space.
"You're picturing Kevin naked now aren't you?" Abby asked her.
Erin admitted, "A little." She shook it off and took a stab at answering Kevin's question, if only so they could change the subject back to the more relevant concerns. "In theory, when ghosts manifest, they project the image of themselves that they carried into limbo. A kind of psychic imprint."
"Or maybe they don't want freaky receptionist-slash-actors trying to recruit them for ghost porn," Holtzmann suggested.
"Oh, if we could corner that industry, our financial problems would be solved. Who wouldn't pay to see ghost porn?" Kevin said.
Holtzmann tapped out. "I have absolutely no response for that."
Patty was trying to concentrate on calling up information on Arthur Klein with her cell phone browser. "How did we get on the subject of naked ghosts?" She looked at Erin and Abby. "Why do you suppose Kevin can see and hear Holtz and we can't?"
Erin had already been thinking about that. "Well…Kevin's always been on a slightly different plane of reality that the rest of us, so in a way it kind of makes sense. Unless Kevin can see her because of some kind of telepathic connection, in which case the image of Holtzmann is nothing but her psychic imprint on Kevin's mind and not really manifesting."
"Girl, you are sailing on the river Denial. Psychic imprints don't rearrange the furniture," Patty disagreed.
"Ask her if a 'psychic imprint' can do this…" Holtzmann waved her hand at the fire extinguisher that hung on the wall behind Erin. It squirted her on the back of the neck, making her jump from the chair.
"Hey!"
Kevin pointed to the nightstand where Holtzmann's ghost was sitting. "She did it."
"I'm just considering all possibilities!" Erin protested. "We follow the scientific method, remember?"
The conversation paused as the orderlies arrived to take Holtzmann down for the tests that Abby had demanded. The tense silence returned.
Finally, Patty cleared her throat for everyone's attention. "Okay, so you were right, Erin. Artie Klein is not a ghost, he's still in a coma. Definitely a disembodied spirit, not a full on ghost. According to this—" She wagged the cell phone, indicating the news story on the tiny screen. "-his sister had him transferred from the long-term care facility in Switzerland to a hospital upstate, which is probably why he suddenly manifested here. There's a picture of him back before the accident…helllooo Liam Neeson!" Patty made an involuntarily growl in the back of her throat. "Damn, Holtz, I know this is wildly inappropriate but I gotta know, did you hit that while you were in Switzerland?"
Kevin saw Holtzmann's ears turn red and grinned. "Ah…yeah, she did."
"Kevin!" Holtzmann swatted at the back of his head, succeeding only in passing her hand harmlessly through his skull. All she remembered about that night was that the whole CERN team had gone out to celebrate finishing the upgrades to the collider. There'd been a lot of drinking, an insane amount of drinking, way too much drinking…and the next thing she remembered was sneaking out his bed, cursing herself ""Mistakemistakemistakemistake…" all the way back to her apartment.
"So, what, he's still in love with her? Romantic attachment preventing him from crossing over? Or is he still blaming her for the accident?" Erin rattled off theories.
"We can rule out romantic attachment. He's too passionately in love with himself," Holtzmann said.
They were driving each other insane.
Arthur Klein craved quiet to concentrate while he worked. Jillian Holtzmann seemed dependent upon music and motion in order to work. He kept his work station meticulous. Her area looked like the nesting place of a junkyard rat (strictly his opinion, but if he actually complained about it, she seemed to take great delight in lugging in a fresh box of junk the following morning). Worse, the laboratory where they were assembling the new equipment for the Hadron Collider was small, crowded, and the close quarters only exacerbated the tension.
Worse, the impudent American girl argued with Artie's every suggestion for the upgrades.
"We need to tweak the power flow."
"No, we don't."
"Would you listen for a minute to someone else's opinion? We have to amplify-"
"Black Hole of Switzerland, remember? Leave the power settings like I have them, don't touch the linear accelerators, the equipment will function fine-" Holtzmann was adamant.
Artie decided that he'd had his fill of the woman undermining his authority in front of his team. He snatched the wire strippers from her hand, forcing her to at least stop and look at him. "Ms. Holtzmann, I realize most of us don't share your astounding I.Q., but does it occur to you that the rest of us have far more experience and every bit the same education as you…that we might actually have something worthwhile to contribute to this project? Your insights are appreciated and considered, but the final decision about every aspect of these upgrades is mine. And please stop referring to doctors Rand and Coleman as 'TweedleDum' and 'TweedleDumber'."
He handed the pad to Dr. Rand. "Take these updates to Dr. Ingersol and tell her to install the new components I asked for."
For added measure, on his way back to his workroom, Arthur picked up the remote and switched the satellite radio from the 80s station Holtzmann favored to the classical music channel on his way out.
Holtzmann's ears were bright red when she marched back to her workstation. The rest of the team—particularly Rand and Coleman-avoided her (more so than usual) for the remainder of the day, fearing to become collateral damage for her wrath.
She retreated to her favorite club in Geneva, drowning her sorrows in drinks and horrible dance remixes of her beloved old 80s tunes and generally tried to get over feeling like a sidelined child. It was becoming her nightly routine since working with Klein.
That particular evening was different. She returned to her tiny apartment to find a demand for a video chat from Dr. Gorin. Holtzmann would have hesitated to talk to her mentor on the phone, much less video conferencing when she must look like day four of a three day bender. However, she knew better than to ignore the call.
"What the hell is this, Jillian?" Gorin keyed up an email Klein had sent her that evening-details of his changes to the Super Proton Synchrotron and the other sections that Holtzmann was overseeing. "Is this a joke? These are safe, uninspired…in other words, these are Klein's schematics. These are the rantings of a simpleton. What happened to your plans?"
"Dr. Klein disagrees-"
"Jillian, I didn't send you over there to make friends with the team, and I damn well didn't send you to play nice with Arthur Klein. I sent you to be a giant, painful hemorrhoid in his pompous ass, to make sure this gets done right. Stop trying to impress him, and definitely stop trying to be him. Go back there and do the job your way. Make some magic." Gorin arched an eyebrow in dismissal and hung up without another word.
When he stepped into the lab the following morning Artie was greeted by ZZ Top's "Gimme All Your Lovin'" blaring from Holtzmann's beloved 80s channel on the satellite radio.
The indignities didn't stop there: A Lucite cube had been left at his workstation. Encased within was the programming chip he'd sent to Ingersol the previous day. Holtzmann had tagged the cube with a post-it note that simply read: "No."
The remote control for the satellite radio was safely tucked into an identical cube right beside the one containing the chip.
He didn't need to glance through the window to the adjoining workstation to know she'd be dancing.
Arthur was frustrated. They were never going to make progress on the LHC so long as he and Holtzmann kept having these pointless rows. The woman had to fall in line or Arthur would have to risk Dr. Gorin's wrath and send her back to the States.
The rub was that Arthur couldn't afford to send Holtzmann back to the States. She was truly the most infuriating chore of a woman he'd ever worked with, but without question she was also the most brilliant of any scientist he'd encountered. These upgrades would progress so much faster with her help than without her.
He didn't care to say such things in front of the team, so that evening, after the group went their separate ways for the weekend, Arthur had trailed Holtzmann to her favorite club. She was difficult to spot among the throng of people, but he finally spied her in the crowd. She was dancing, no surprise there. He wondered if she were capable of sitting still for more than a few minutes at a time.
Realizing he was staring like some sort of creepy stalker, Klein slowly made his way down the spiral staircase into the heart of the club. By the time he'd navigated his way through the crowd, Holtzmann had abandoned the dance floor in favor of a seat at the bar. He hurried to grab the seat next to her before one of the other blokes who'd been eyeing the blonde beat him to her.
"Buy you a drink, Miss?" Arthur tried his best Yankee accent just to mess with her a bit.
"Really not looking for-" Jillian began, until she turned to see who was offering. "Aw, shit, it's you."
Arthur chuckled. "That's charming." He waved over one of the bartenders and orders two American beers.
She was working up a pretty decent snit, he could tell by her scowl. "How'd you find me? I'm off the clock."
"It's the only club in town that favors your dreadful 80's music." He made a face, indicating his disapproval of the selection that was currently deafening him.
Holtzmann rolled her eyes. "Hey, this is 'Brass in Pocket' by the Pretenders. It's a freaking classic."
"The Pretenders," Artie chuffed. "Quite well named. If you want classic 80's…Cat Stevens…"
"Oh hell no," she shook her head.
Arthur defended. "No? 'Wild World'? That's a classic. My favorite song, in fact."
"For one thing, that was the 70s. For another…" Holtzmann made a show of putting her finger down her throat and uttered a gagging noise. "Poison. Bret Michaels. 'Every Rose Has It's Thorns'."
"The cowboy? That figures. Fine, how about The Doors? 'Break On Through'?"
She actually didn't argue this time. "Still not the 80's. Not even close. But-nope, I can't insult Morrison."
He grinned. "Ah-ha, got the last word with you for once. 'Dear Diary'…"
She did a double-take. "Did you just make a joke, Klein?"
Arthur raised an eyebrow. "I'm known to do that on occasion—when someone isn't constantly interrupting me."
"And another one! So, you do have a sense of humor. See, now I feel bad for sticking your Blackberry in the liquid nitrogen tank before I left the lab…" The bartender delivered their drinks. Holtzmann took a long pull from her bottle. "…but in my defense, who still carries a Blackberry?"
Arthur thumbed the label of his own bottle. "I wouldn't feel too badly about that. You'll find all twelve of your Munchkin socks are currently adorning the hooves of several prize mares at an Equestrian Center outside of town."
Holtzmann nodded, in fact, she held out her beer bottle to show her approval. "Nice one. Respect."
Artie clinked her bottle with his own.
She asked again. "So, why'd you follow me-?"
Artie's phone beeped. "Pardon me for a moment," he apologizes before answering. "Klein here. Harry! How's London? Has your aunt got you registered for class yet? Splendid! Yes, I should be able to take a holiday in a few weeks. We're a bit behind schedule, but I have a feeling we're about to make some progress. I'm looking forward to seeing you soon. Harry, I can't hear you, it's rather loud in here. I'll call you later. Mind your aunt. I love you, too, son." He hung up, pocketing the phone. "My apologies."
"Not a problem. So, why'd you follow me?" she repeated.
"I need your help solving a problem."
She waited.
"My problem is that my ass is on the line to complete the upgrades to the Hadron Collider and it's my neck if anything at all goes wrong. Currently, half of my team think your barking mad and the other half believe that Dr. Gorin sent you as some sort of wicked joke on us all."
Holtzmann took another swallow of beer. "I think her exact words were 'be a hemorrhoid in his pompous ass."
"Sounds about right. The only point they agree on is that they're all utterly terrified of you. So, tell me, how am I supposed to finish a project of this scale with this much chaos?"
She stared at the bar for a minute, spinning her coaster in circles with one finger. "They think I'm crazy. What do you think, doc?"
Arthur took a stab at complete honesty. "I think you're a bloody genius, and the rub is that you are very aware of it. You're actually the only person on my team that I fully trust, Jillian, because you're neither a fool nor an ass-kisser, and, incidentally you're not wrong about Rand and Coleman. They'd rather I sent you back to the States. I'm not sure I agree. I need a problem-solver, a real problem-solver. We could do remarkable work here if we could just figure out how to work together. In that spirit, I promise to put the specs back the way you designed them if you promise to stop-how do you Americans say it?-'busting my balls'?"
Holtzmann actually swiveled her seat to look at him. She held out her bottle again. "To Détente?"
"Détente."
"I give it two days."
"Three at most." Arthur hid his grin around another swallow of beer.
The on-site tests went south almost as soon as the power began to flow.
Alarms began to blare, the energy spiked out of control. Holtzmann wasn't able to shut it down from the control center, so she headed down the access tunnels to shut the junction down manually. It was tricky work with the building shaking, threatening to come down around her. They'd installed two identical, redundant systems meant to shut down the flow of power to the collider during an emergency. Artie went to manually shut down the second one.
Holtzmann walked away with only a couple of bumps and bruises, a broken thumb and a nasty electrical burn on her hand. She'd managed to shut down the chain reaction before it took out more than a couple of the magnets and a section of the southern side of the building.
Artie had taken the access tunnel to the south. It had collapsed on him. It was miraculous that he was still alive by the time they dug him out. The coma, the doctors determined, was most likely irreversible.
Holtzmann had tried to figure it out afterword. She'd been so certain—the synchrotron should have worked. The accelerators should have worked. The magnets should have held. There was no reason why the power levels should have spiked out of control.
In the end, it didn't matter. Dr. Klein was in the hospital, unlikely to ever leave, and someone had to take the blame for the disaster. Globaldyne had put on a good show for the media. They arranged for his care at the finest medical facilities in Switzerland, as well as paying off the college tuition for his son, Harry, who was essentially orphaned by his father's accident. Harry ended up in the custody of his aunt in England.
The company sent the team for grief counseling, which graduated into a psychiatric evaluation and extended hospital stay for Holtzmann after most of them filed reports describing her behavior as "irrational", "unstable", "borderline hostile" and her work as "dangerous" and "reckless". Globaldyne kept it quiet in the media to avoid public accusations of allowing a 'madwoman' access to the Large Hadron Collider. Even Dr. Gorin wouldn't return Holtzmann's calls after that.
"Cured" after several months of therapy for anger management and what her doctor called "survivor guilt" (along with a laundry list of other psychobabble diagnoses she didn't bother memorizing), Holtzmann had been living in Grand Central Station when she found Abby's flyer advertising for a research assistant ("experience with applied paranormal physics and engineering preferred, apply at the Kenneth T. Higgins Institute").
Kevin broke into Holtzmann's troubled thoughts. "What about possession? You can't possess people like that Rowan ghost dude, can you?" He sounded a little nervous about this, but she figured he was still creeped out about being possessed by Rowan.
She was game to try. "Dunno. Let's find out."
"The 'why' is important. Holtz said he asked for help." Erin stood up from the couch and started pacing back and forth, which meant she was going into full 'professor mode'.
Holtzmann couldn't resist: She put herself in Erin's path and gave the 'possession' thing a shot. Erin walked right through her.
Jillian shrugged. "Nope. Can't do that. That's disappointing, cause there's nine or ten people I'd be visiting tonight."
Erin gave a shudder. "Hey! I felt that!" It was a creepy sensation, like a blast of cold right down her spine. "Holtz, did you just try to possess me?!" Erin looked to Kevin. "Did she just try to possess me?!"
"All in the name of the scientific method, Professor," Holtzmann went back to her spot sitting on the nightstand.
"She said it was the scenic method," Kevin relayed.
Patty rubbed her chin. "The scenic method? Oh, great, Kevin's going to translate what Holtzmann says for us. That's going to be like translating Latin to English using a Klingon Dictionary."
There was no sidetracking Erin once she was on a roll. "As I was saying, Arthur asked for Holtz's help. Holtz, did he say anything after that?"
"Nope. He just did his best impersonation of Linda Blair in 'The Exorcist' and went out the window," Holtzmann said. Kevin repeated it to Erin.
"Assuming we can rule out romantic attachment, what would he want Holtz to help him with?" Erin wondered.
"He's been in a coma for three years. I'm pretty sure he wants to wake up," Patty offered.
"Or maybe he needs help crossing over," Abby added.
"I still have his copy of 'Eat. Pray. Love'. He might just want that back," Holtzmann said.
Abby keyed in on something else. "He's been out of body for three years. Three years of no one being able to see him or hear him. Complete isolation. Erin, you and I did some papers on the effects of long-term isolation on a disembodied spirit."
Erin nodded. "At a certain point, the spirit reaches a kind of a 'critical mass', where it's caught between the pull of humanity and the pull of the spiritual plane. The internal conflict becomes a kind of psychosis-if those spirits don't cross over, they become things like poltergeists."
"Ew, there's a disturbing Coming Attraction," Holtzmann shuddered a bit. "Although…I think I could be an awesome poltergeist..."
"Abby, you said that Holtzmann was with Arthur when he had his accident. Maybe she's the last person he remembers from his humanity. Maybe he's fixated on her as his link to the living world."
"If that's true, why did he crack open her skull? Why rip apart the hospital?" Patty wanted to know.
"That's the pull of the spiritual realm…the dark part of the spiritual realm," Abby said. "Holtz fought back. The spectral part of him perceived her as a threat and counterattacked."
"Like Jekyll and Hyde?" Patty supplied.
"Close enough."
"Well, we can't let him keep coming after Holtz," Abby insisted. "So, we have basically three options: Get him back into his body somehow, get him to crossover, or get him contained."
"So, let's assess," Erin continued. "We know that the proton accelerators and the grenades definitely do not work on Artie and the PKE will only read the most extreme activity on his part, which makes sense since he's technically not a ghost. He's out of body like…" She noticed Abby's glare and didn't finish that sentence. "Anyhow, it's probably safe to assume that the traps won't hold him either."
"Great, but we don't have a special trap for disembodied spirits," Patty pointed out. "Do we?"
Holtzmann smelled a challenge. "I could build one…if I was back in my body." She frowned at her useless ghost hands. It was her turn to jump up and start pacing, feeling her mental wheels are already turning.
"And if we had one, we couldn't use it anyway without risking Holtz getting pulled in, too. Abby's right," Erin conceded Abby's point.
Abby nodded. "Which is why we should focus on how to get Jillian out of her coma and then deal with Artie."
Holtzmann was ignoring them, getting wrapped up in her own rapid thoughts. "…I mean, a disembodied spirit isn't a 'ghost' in the sense that they lack any sort of physical or metaphysical substance. No ghost flesh, which means no ectoplasm…but there has to be something, some kind of energy that the trap could latch onto..."
Erin heard the tension underlying Abby's words. "Abby, the doctor's doing all he can. They're running every test they have. She's got a pretty severe concussion, she probably won't wake up until the swelling in her brain goes down. Meanwhile, she's a sitting duck waiting for Artie to try to kill her again if we don't figure out how to contain him."
Patty shook her head. "Man, I don't know what channel you're tuned into, but there is nothing about that girl that's a 'sitting duck'. They'll be finding hospital utensils in Jersey for the next two months." She smiled proudly. "That's why I love Holtz: She reminds me of my baby sister, Jo Rita. They're both this big-" She held her finger about a hair's breadth apart. "-and bat shit crazy. Anyway, I heard you can use music for coma patients. Stimulates neural activity or something like that."
Holtzmann snapped her finger. Light bulb! "…Yes! Patty, you beautiful genius! It's so simple! I don't need to build a new trap. It's like tuning a radio, I just have to figure out which 'frequency' is Artie's and program the trap. I just need to…I just need my body. Or a competent translator who could help me tell Abby how to recalibrate the traps. No offense, buddy," she told Kevin.
Kevin blinked. "Hmm? Oh, that's okay, I stopped listening after you started talking about ghost Metamucil."
"I said metaphy-never mind," Holtzmann wasn't going to waste her breath trying to correct him.
"I heard about neural stimulation heal-" Abby paused, mid-though, and gave Kevin a quizzical stare. "I'm sorry, sweetie, but what is Jillian saying that you head 'ghost Metamucil'?"
"She probably said 'metaphysical'. Kevin always gets those two mixed up," Erin had observed.
"I think she wants a radio or something," he answered.
Holtzmann sighed. "Yeah, that's not even close to right…"
Erin tried to second guess Kevin's translation. "Radio? What would she want with a radio?"
It didn't sound too weird to Patty. "Holtz does like her music."
"But that can't be what Holtz was talking about."
Kevin was slightly insulted by their doubt. "No. She said that ghost Metamucil is like tuning a radio."
Patty wanted to cry or start ramming her head against the wall. "Yeah, that makes way more sense."
Once again, the conversation stopped as the orderlies and nurses brought Holtzmann back and got her resettled in the bed. Holtzmann watched herself, still extremely creeped out by the whole situation.
The nurse informed them: "Dr. Menken will be in as soon as we have the results."
"Thank you," Abby said.
Erin was stuck on the request for the radio. Obviously, Kevin had garbled Holtzmann's words, but there had to be just a kernel of accuracy in what he'd said. "No, wait, wait…tuning a radio? That makes sense. Disembodied spirits…superficially, they're like ghosts, but there are major fundamental differences. If you think about the spiritual realm like a radio, ghosts and disembodied spirits would be on different frequencies."
Holtzmann could have screamed. "Which is what I just said, if you could just hear me…"
"That's a way oversimplified analogy, but I think I follow what you're thinking, Holtz. You're talking about finding the specific energies generated by a disembodied specter versus a full-on apparition and using that to reprogram the proton packs and the traps to work on Artie." Erin was pleased with herself for figuring that out. "Except, I have no idea how to do that. Holtzmann's the one who built the gear. I'd be afraid of hitting the wrong wire and vaporizing Brooklyn or something."
"Yeah, that could happen. I'd love to explain how to do it if I didn't have Forest Gump for my interpreter." Holtzmann complained. "If I had my hands…wait, I think I have an idea. Kevin, tell them I need to go to the firehouse."
Kevin obliged, "Holtz is going to the firehouse."
Abby, Erin, and Patty all moved to block the door, futile though that effort might be when Holtzmann could just walk through the wall if necessary. "What?!" they chorused.
Holtzmann explained, "I need my tools."
Kevin repeated, "She wants her tools."
"For what? Ammunition? Kevin, where is she now?"
Kevin pointed to the nightstand.
Abby turned towards the table, "Where? Here? Am I looking at her?"
"Slightly left," Kevin said.
Holtzmann couldn't resist waving Abby over like a runway worker guiding in an airplane. "Here comes the lecture…"
"Holtz, you can't go to the firehouse. We don't know how distance from your soul affects your body…" Abby paused. "…she's making that face at me, isn't she?"
Kevin checked. "Not anymore."
"Snitches get stitches, Kev," Holtzmann warned. "Tell her Artie's manifesting miles from his body. Doesn't seem to be slowing him down."
Kevin scratched his head. "Something about Artie," he relayed.
"Ah, Kevin," Holtzmann hung her head in exasperation. Three years of this and she really would go as nuts as Artie…
Patty had a suggestion: "We could bring her tools here."
Erin gave that some thought. "Yes. Well, no, there's no room. Plus, I don't think Menken's going to go for that. He's still pretty mad about the kitchen."
"…besides what are you going to do with your tools? It's not like you can use them. Knocking down trash cans with psychokinetic energy is one thing, but delicate engineering is something else," Abby said.
Holtzmann looked at Kevin. "I could literally go to the firehouse and back in the time this conversation is taking. They'd never know I was gone…"
"Doesn't the hospital have a basement? Maybe Holtz can just give us the instructions and we can go do the work. Abby's a pretty good engineer when she needs to be," Patty thought that was a good solution.
Abby recapped: "So, let's have Holtz tell Kevin tell me how to make Ghost Metamucil. Yeah, what could go wrong? And, supposing she somehow manages to get her point across with Kevin so that we can understand how to modify the equipment-what then? How do we test it? The only disembodied spirit we have is Holtzmann. You want to test the gear on her? Put her in the trap?"
Certainly, Erin and Patty weren't keen on that idea. Holtzmann, on the other hand, found the notion intriguing. "I hadn't thought about that! Can you imagine the chance to see what it's like inside the trap?"
"It's kind of small," Kevin pointed out. "How would you fit?"
Erin interrupted. "Sorry, you two, I'm not crazy about the idea of Holtz leaving the hospital either, but I doubt anyone else can makes heads or tails of her gear, except maybe that Dr. Gorin lady."
Patty could see that Abby was in danger of having a serious freak out over the whole field trip idea. "Tell you what, Erin, Abby, both of you go with Holtz. I'll stay here and, if it looks like the separation's having any effect on her, if those tests Menken show anything, any sign of trouble, I'll call and you three haul it back here. We're wasting time arguing about this. That Artie creep is gonna be back here as soon as he pulls his tail out from between his legs after the ass-kicking Holtz gave him."
Holtzmann clapped. "Always did like how you think, Patty. Right, then. Kevin, let's go. Come on. Run, Forest, run!" She ushered him to the door.
Erin followed, but Abby balked. She glanced at the hospital bed hesitantly.
Patty moved to stand beside her. "Abby, I'm scared, too. But, I'm not going to let anything happen to our baby girl. You know that, right?"
Abby requested: "I need a minute alone with Jillian first, guys. Both Jillians. Please?"
Erin and Patty nodded and quietly slipped out into the hallway, tugging Kevin along with them.
Holtzmann settled herself at the foot of the bed, bracing for a scolding from Abby. Abby sat back down in her same seat next to the bed. She had no idea where in the room Holtzmann was standing, but that would probably make it easier to say what she had to say.
"I know you, Jillian. I know you're probably having a blast exploring telekinesis and all this coma ghost stuff. I'll bet you've always wanted to have an out-of-body experience just to see what it's like."
Holtzmann was glad Abby couldn't see the guilty look that must have crossed her face at the spot-on accusation.
Abby reached over the rail and once again took up Holtz's hand, which was still too cold for Abby's comfort. "That's one of the things I love about you-you can always find the joy in any situation, no matter how bad things get. I know you get all squirmy and uncomfortable with the big emotions. So, I'm glad that you have to listen to me this time, because I'm going to get real with you. Here it is: I need you to come back. I need you to try. And you need to know, it's not because we can't be Ghostbusters without you-but we can't. Nobody can build the machines you can build. I mean, you're either an authentic genius or a certified wacko."
Holtzmann beamed. "Aww…my therapist used to tell me the same thing."
"Even if we could do it ourselves, I wouldn't. I'd close the doors, toss my research in the dumpster, and never look back. I don't want to do any of this without you. That day you showed up to apply to be my research partner…you came along at the absolute worst time of my entire life. I had nothing. If you hadn't showed up when you did…you got me through it. I'd lost my best friend, my job, my credibility. Hell, my own parents wouldn't return my calls-" Abby quirked her eyebrow. "Of course, they won't return my calls now since you had to make a Taser out of that turkey fork and zap my cousin Barbara at our family reunion."
"Barbie was being a little bitty bitch." Holtzmann fumed at the memory. She'd do it again in a heartbeat.
"You gave me my confidence back. You gave me my hope back. You were my friend when nobody else gave a crap. Nobody else would Taser my cousin just because she called me 'fat'. Yes, I knew. I love Patty to death, and Erin's back and I love her, too. If I lost either of them, I'd be devastated because I'd be losing my best friends. But, if I lost you…that'd be it. I'd be losing my sister. I'd be losing a part of me I couldn't ever get back."
Abby brushed impatiently at her eyes. She hated to cry. "So, if you don't quit screwing around and get your ass back where you belong and wake up, I'll…well, I don't know. I'll—I'll take every piece of junk in that lab of yours, weld it all into a fountain and…set it out in front of M.I.T."
Holtzmann's eyes widened. "You wouldn't dare…"
Arthur Klein still remembered the last day of his real life.
He recalled climbing into the access tunnels side-by-side with her as the walls of the facility threatened to come down on both of them. He hadn't been afraid—not of dying, though if the tunnels collapsed, he surely would die. He'd been afraid of a cataclysm of global proportions, a possibility he would have dismissed as ludicrous as recently as that morning.
Arthur thought briefly of his Audrey, gone these five years now. If his foolish pride got him killed today, he would at least finally get to see her again. He thought of his son back in England, probably engaged in some tedious classroom, ticking away the minutes to his freedom for the day.
Jillian's voice had been in his ear the entire time Arthur had been in the access tube, conveying shut down procedures over the radio in an icy calm tone when he finally reached the first of the modules. This time, he listened without questioning her for an instant. Jillian had built every component of the upgrades, she knew what to do.
She'd been gone before he woke up this morning. Arthur hadn't had the chance to apologize for letting things go too far last night. He hoped she didn't think he made a habit of drinking too much and seducing his colleagues.
Jillian was going to be furious with him when she investigated the accident and discovered what he'd done, but he would deal with her wrath after they were safe. Arthur didn't care if he lost his job, he didn't care if he had to die as long as Harry would be safe.
Her voice in his ear was the last thing he remembered before the crush of mortar raining down when the weakened tunnel wall finally gave way.
Arthur sat in a corner of the trauma ward, staring at the wreckage of the hospital, watching the janitors clean up the mess from his fight with Jillian. He smiled despite himself. Her wrath should not be underestimated…
She didn't know what was coming…the madness of complete isolation from humanity that would soon ebb into her psyche and eat away at her own humanity. It would be worse knowing that he had been the cause of it. Truly, he had never anticipating the situation getting this far out of hand. Ripples on a pond, he mused. Alter one tiny component on a schematic, switch one circuit board…now look what had happened.
Arthur didn't want to go anywhere near her again. He knew he shouldn't, knew that it was beyond his ability to control the beast within anymore. Yet, what other choice did he have? He would have to find a way, beg her forgiveness, and hope she'd know what to do just one last time.