The next afternoon, Gabby ate lunch in the breakroom. She was surrounded by the other guys at a table while she pecked at her rice and beans. At this point, she could be considered "one of the guys" since they had accepted her as one of their own. Could "guy" be an honorary title regardless of gender? Maybe it could.

"So, the guy says, 'Waiter, there's a fly in my soup,'" said Peter, "'What's it doing in there?' And the waiter takes a pair of binoculars, looks through them and says, 'From the looks of it, the backstroke.'"

Everyone at the table laughed at the clean joke. Gabby rather liked Peter. Sure, he was opinionated and a bit dim at times despite his PhD but he was charming and knew just what to say. He had a way of making even the most groan-worthy jokes bring laughter. The fact that he was chiseled didn't hurt, either.

The one person at the table who didn't laugh was Egon. He was busy reading a textbook in between taking bites of his sandwich.

"Wasn't that funny, Egon?" asked Ray.

"Yes," said Egon, "Very entertaining."

"You've been working awfully hard lately," said Winston, "What's gotten you working through lunch?"

"I figure that it would be good to catch up on some paranormal knowledge. It's not like I can take these books with me when fighting ghosts."

"You've been reading that same page for the past fifteen minutes," said Peter, "And it's about a type of ghost that we've fought dozens of times."

"Like I said, it's always good to catch up." Once he finished his sandwich, got up and took the book with him. He moved to the kitchen counter and leaned against it before continuing his reading. He was far enough away from the rest that they could talk about him in hushed voices.

"I admire his work ethic," said Gabby, "My parents would like him."

"He wasn't always like this," said Ray.

"He wasn't always a hard worker?"

"No, he's a hard worker all right, but not to this extent. He seems particularly obsessive right now. In fact, he started working harder than usual around the time that we hired you on and he's only been working harder since then."

"I mean… it can't be something that I did, right?"

"Oh, no. It's definitely not you, Gabby."

"It's almost like he's doing all this work in an attempt to avoid something," said Winston.

"Is he trying to avoid us? Was it something we did? Is he angry that I didn't clean out the lint in the drier during all those times when I said that I would do it?"

"Let's ask him," said Peter. Peter turned around in his chair and faced Egon. "Hey, Egon!"

Egon looked up. "Yes?"

"Are you giving us the silent treatment because you're angry with us about something?"

"No."

"Do you generally feel okay?"

"Yes."

Peter turned back to the group. "I guess we got our answers. There's nothing to worry about." He then ate some more of his potato chips.

Gabby looked at Egon as he had his eyes glued on that particular page of the book. She knew that she wasn't getting the entire story from either Peter or Egon.

Later on, Egon called everyone into the reading room for an important meeting. Gabby stood next to Egon with her hands behind her back as she prepared to listen to her mentor. Peter was leaned back in his chair with his feet resting on the table like an unruly teenager. Winston and Ray were seated normally.

Egon clapped his hands once before speaking.

"All right, everyone," he said, "I've called you in here to announce some important developments in my research, particularly relating to the sleep paralysis demons."

"About time," said Winston.

"I, as well as the rest of us, have determined that these demons are not, in fact, the result of mass-psychosis but are actual demons that have been terrorizing New York City for at least a few months now. The experiment we did at Tully's proved to be important to my research, even if you guys managed to get stomachaches in your attempts at attracting them.

Peter stuck his index finger into the air while closing his eyes.

"Worth it," he said.

"Now that I have a good idea of what they look like, I've looked through my demonology books and have discovered that what we are dealing with are Alps," said Egon. He opened up the large demonology tome to the correct page.

"Like the mountain range?" asked Ray.

"No, not the mountain range. Alps are a type of sleep paralysis demon that not only give people nightmares and inhibit their movements but also cause all sorts of mischief." He placed the book on the table. The two beige pages that were displayed had text describing the gargoyle-like creature. It also had centuries-old illustrations depicting the creature sitting on a sleeping woman's chest. There were also illustrations of them riding horses and suckling from the teat of a cow. "Among the mischievous things that it's known to do is ride people's horses out of their stalls and steal milk from nursing animals and people."

"Like Janine," said Winston.

A looked of concern weighed on Egon's facial muscles. "Yes. Like Janine."

"I should let Janine borrow my label maker so that she can stick a message across her boobs saying, 'Casey's milk, not yours,'" said Peter.

"Lucky for us, they haven't been doing anything else besides influencing people's dreams. In fact, these alps seem to be slightly different than what is listed in the book. The book says that they give you nightmares. However, these alps seem to be eating them. We have still yet to figure out why."

"People today are different than they were when that book was written," said Ray, "I mean, we drive cars and take all sorts of medicines that we didn't have even fifty years ago. I'm willing to bet ghosts aren't the same as they were back then, either."

Gabby gulped. She knew exactly how and why the alps were eating people's dreams but she couldn't possibly tell them how she found out. They had to figure out on their own that the evil witch in her neighborhood was planning an attack on New York with an army of nightmares on Halloween night. She fiddled with her cross necklace. As far as they knew, she was solely a practicing Catholic and nothing more.

"The most we can do right now is develop that new, better proton pack that can catch these demons before they disappear in their cloud of dark mist. Gabby here will help me with the research. As fleeting as her time is with us, she is an important asset to the company."

Gabby smiled as Egon gestured toward her.

"I can see why you've been so invested in this," said Ray, "You've got your child and the mother of your child to worry about."

Egon's brows clashed into a scowl.

"I keep telling you, he might not be my child," said Egon in a sterner voice.

Oh boy, thought Gabby. This work meeting got personal real fast.

"C'mon, Egon!" said Winston, "You've been saying this for a while now! Whose child could he possibly be?"

Egon paused for a few seconds. "Nathan Corman."

"Nathan Corman."

"Yes."

"The therapist who we hired to lead that team building exercise."

"Yes."

"Who we haven't spoken to since we did that team building exercise two years ago."

"Yes."

"You think he's the father?"

"I have no idea what Nathan and Janine do in their off-time. For all we know, they probably developed some sort of relationship."

"Move over, Cleopatra," said Peter, "We've got ourselves a new Queen of Denial."

"Listen, everyone, I DO care about Janine. I DO care about her child. I contribute as much extra money as I can to her maternity pay. Can we just drop the subject?!"

"Egon, Buddy," said Ray, "If you need someone to talk to, I'm right here. You can talk to me anytime."

"No, Ray! I don't need anyone to talk to! I'm going to the laboratory and I don't want to see or hear from any of you until there's another ghost-related emergency! Meeting adjourned." Egon marched out of the room and slammed the door.

Gabby stood there just as confused as everyone else about what to do next.

Egon came back and opened the door to say one more thing.

"By the way, Gabby," he said, "You can return to your post. I won't be needing you right now." He then closed the door again, not as aggressively as last time but still pretty loud.

"I get the feeling that Egon's gonna be aaaaaaaaaaaaall right," said Peter.

Ray looked at Gabby with concern.

"I'm sorry you had to witness that, Gabs," he said.

"No, it's okay," she said, "The family business that I typically work for has had its own drama but it gets resolved eventually. Everything does."

"We are kind of a family, after all."

Everyone looked at each other with neutral expressions of agreement, namely the agreement to not bother Egon.

"So, who wants to take this book to the library and photocopy these two useful pages?" asked Peter.

Gabby looked at the pages. It seemed that Egon discovered something with his non-magic that Gabby didn't discover with her magic: The type of creature that they were dealing with. But now she knew that, other than her magic powers, she had to be purse-lipped about yet another thing around Egon: His personal life. That shouldn't be too hard.

For those next four weeks, Egon would call up Gabby during times when business was slow and she would help with his experiments. First, it was checking over his calculations, then it was doing the more physical work of setting up cardboard targets for Egon's new proton gun. She trusted Egon's judgement but was also not afraid to add her own input.

All the while, she wondered how these tasks would sound on her resume. If she was going to try and get a position as a scientist or try to get into graduate school for a parapsychology degree, she would need to update that particular document. She just couldn't be shy about working with the only ghost exterminators in the entire City of New York. What would her title be listed as? Administrative Assistant? Secretary? Administrative and Scientific Assistant? No… she could be Administrative and Paranormal Scientific Assistant. That was more descriptive and interesting.

Better yet, maybe another ghostbusting service that didn't yet exist could be impressed with her credentials and hire her on. It was certainly a possibility. Or she could start her own ghostbusting company. It was a stretch, but when it came to daydreaming, one was allowed to get ahead of themselves.

…but not too much. There were other plans in the day that she could focus her mind on.