Chapter 4
During the daytime hours Columbia University presented quite a different face from that lonely and desolate battleground of the night before. Under the afternoon sun the campus glowed with life -- the ceaseless bustle of activity which resembled nothing so much as total chaos to those unfortunates uninitiated into that unique microcosm of the University.
Peter strolled the campus casually, in no hurry to reach his destination. He breathed deeply, filling his lungs with the familiar air of academe, relishing every sensation. Well over a decade of his life had been spent in these hallowed halls; they had been sanctuary from the tumult of the streets, stability against the emotional upheaval of his youth, and, most of all, the place where he had first made the acquaintances of Egon Spengler and Ray Stantz, the two closest friends Peter had ever had.
He had waved at an ex-student-cum-teacher, sneered nastily at an older antagonist, and signed autographs for several pretty co-eds who recognized him from newspaper articles, before reaching the relatively new structure part of which Professor Samuel Cage had appropriated for his project.
Peter entered the building unchallenged and made his way to the psych lab. The door was closed but unlocked and Peter opened it with a touch. "Hey! Yo!" he called, sticking his head inside. "Anybody home?" Obviously not. The room was empty save for the banks of equipment and monitors lining two walls. He scanned them quickly, nodding his satisfaction at the readings. "Heartbeat ... blood pressure.... Looks like she's in decent shape, considering." He picked up a scratch pad from the desk, skimming the notations there with a frown. "Hmmm, chemical changes growing more pronounced," he read aloud. "Not dangerous yet, but...."
"May I help you?" a cool voice inquired from behind.
Peter spun, nearly dropping the notepad. He recovered instantly to flash the blonde beauty in the doorway his brightest mega-watt smile. "I sincerely hope so," he returned smoothly, running a hand through his already flawless hair. "I can certainly use some ... help, I mean."
Deep blue eyes scanned his lean figure once, finally settling on his face with evident approval. She stepped forward, and Peter's eyes automatically traced the lines of her trim figure through her white uniform.
"I'm Doctor Peter Venkman," he began, offering a hand which was instantly accepted. "I'm here to talk to Sam about Marie D'Loeffier."
"Peter Venkman.... One of the Ghostbusters?" Peter nodded and widened his smile. "I've certainly heard of you," the woman went on, gently disengaging her hand from Peter's. She returned his smile, then cast a worried look over her shoulder toward the glass enclosure housing the sleeper. "But what brings the Ghostbusters here? Is Marie in any danger?" She blushed slightly at Peter's raised brow. "I'm Lucy Robbins," she explained, tossing long blonde hair over her shoulder. "I'm one of the nurses Professor Cage hired to take care of Miss D'Loeffier while she's asleep."
Peter nodded wisely. "I'm sure she needs a great deal of care," he acknowledged, returning the papers to the desk. "She's lucky to have someone as efficient as you to take care of her."
The woman brightened perceptibly, perfectly willing to be flattered by this handsome stranger. "Well," she began, allowing her hand to be retaken. "She does--"
"That will be all, Lucy."
Lucy stiffened at that disapproving voice and hurriedly withdrew her hand again. "Yes, Professor Cage," she told the newcomer. "Good day, Doctor Venkman."
"See you later, Lucy," Peter promised, waiting until she'd disappeared into Marie's room before turning to the portly figure. "Hot stuff there, Sam," he remarked with an amiable leer. "Improves the scenery no end."
Cage sighed. "I was wondering how long it would be before you decided to darken my door again. What is it this time? You get your kicks by making my life miserable?"
Peter perched casually on the edge of the desk, swinging one sneakered foot. "Hey, man, it got me through my first doctorate, didn't it?"
"You got your doctorate," Cage retorted, "by rough-shodding your own projects through over everyone else's."
"You mean," Peter flared, stilling his foot, "that the Board agreed that my research deserved a higher priority than yours did. And more grant money, too," he added, twisting the knife.
Cage snorted and turned his back on the younger psychologist. "Which is why Dean Yaeger had you kicked off campus."
"We grossed a quarter of a mill last year," Peter returned sweetly. "How much did you make?"
That ended that. Shoulders stiff, Cage activated one of the free-standing computers against the wall and called up its main menu. Supremely indifferent to insult, Peter contented himself with retrieving Cage's big notebook, and settling down to read. Cage, noticing this, surrendered on the spot.
"What do you want, Venkman?" he sighed, twitching the notebook out of Peter's hands and clutching it to his thick chest.
Venkman toured the lab again, occasionally bending to examine more closely a softly humming piece of equipment, once flicking a gauge with his fingernail and frowning at the result. He ended his circuit back at the observation window overlooking the still form of Marie D'Loeffier.
"I've seen a lot of strange things since I started Ghostbusting," he began in a different tone. "Gozer, for example; he was actually worshipped as a god by the ancient Summerians, did you know that? I, for one, have no reason to dispute his claim, either."
"What do you want, Venkman?" Cage repeated.
Peter ignored him. "But out of all the weird things I've faced, there's nothing weirder than the human mind." He paused, tilting his head quizzically at his impatient companion. "I've even seen a strong enough psyche prevent a human being from really dying -- well, passing away, at any rate." Peter rapped his fingers lightly against the glass. Marie slept on unaware in her electronically-induced dream world though Lucy looked up and smiled. "We've even been forced to trap the ... well, the echoes for want of a better word, of several people who were too stubborn -- or evil -- to completely let go when their bodies died. Lot of theories on that one, let me tell you!"
"I'm a psychologist," Cage growled, crossing to stand by the distracted Venkman's shoulder, "not a spiritualist -- or even an occultist like that Stantz kid you hang around with. I deal with the vagaries of the human mind; you want to talk life after death, Professor Mater is our resident theologian."
"Life after death is not the subject, Cage," Peter corrected him calmly. "Life from life is."
Cage leaned wearily against the observation port. The glass creaked a protest but held against his weight. "I assume you're leading up to something?"
"The campus murders." Cage reacted to this pronouncement with patent disbelief and Peter hurried to continue. "The human mind produces a great deal of psionic energy, most of which is released during waking hours -- burned off, so to speak, in the form of thought, intuition, emotion...."
"I did mention being a psychologist myself, Doctor Venkman," Cage growled. "Make your point."
Peter rubbed eyes red from thirty-six hours without rest. "When someone sleeps, there's no way to burn off that energy except by dreaming, and that's only low level psi -- not the more powerful wave emanations." He grinned cheekily at the other man. "If you'd read my second thesis, you'd already know that!" Smile fading, he reached across and tapped the notebook Cage still held with a forefinger. "Seven weeks can produce quite a build-up."
Cage cast a startled look at the sleeping woman beyond the glass, his intelligent mind already leaping ahead to the obvious conclusion. "You think Marie is murdering those people in her sleep?"
Peter shrugged. "Not her exactly, but some construct of her subconscious or perhaps even a nether-being using her psi energy to access our reality. Whether it's under her control or not...." He raised both hands, palms up. "Final line: either wake Marie now or risk more people dying when the M'Tumba appears tonight."
Cage drew himself up angrily. "You certainly don't expect me to believe a far-fetched theory like that! M'Tumba, indeed!" He paused, a sly look on his face. "You've got proof of all this, I presume?"
"Proof?" Venkman rubbed his eyes again and then his neck. "The monster we fought last night -- the M'Tumba -- is a superstition native to Haiti. Marie is Haitian."
"Coincidence," Cage scoffed. "That's not evidence."
"No?" Green eyes scanned the lab, finally lighting on a series of graphs neatly stacked in one corner. He selected one marked November 6 and turned to the third page. "This is the electro-encephalograph from last night and early this morning. My friends and I were attacked at 5:00 am." He traced a jagged line until he reached an inked time notation. "Ah-HA! Look at that!"
Cage reluctantly accepted the sheet and followed Peter's pointing finger. "There was unusual brain activity at five o'clock," he admitted, interpreting the information at a glance. "But that doesn't mean...."
But Venkman had already pulled out a second graph, this one marked November 5, and was hurriedly turning pages. "And here.... That policewoman was attacked at 2:15. What do you see here?"
"More ... unusual brain activity." Cage's voice dropped lower and lower until the last words were barely audible.
"What do you want to bet," Venkman concluded pitilessly, "that we'll find a correlation between all of the slasher deaths and the times of Marie's strongest brain activities?"
Cage made no reply for a long moment. Finally, he nodded. "What ... do you want me to do, Venkman?"
"What do I--?" Peter's eyes widened in surprise. "No arguments? No discussion? No protest? No...."
"Knock it off, Venkman," the older man snapped. "Just because we can't stand each other's guts doesn't mean I'm too stupid to recognize a definite connection when I see it. You've evidently given this a great deal of thought; what do you want me to do?"
Peter stopped gaping and jerked his head towards the glassed-in enclosure. "Wake Marie," he pronounced succinctly. "Now."
Cage shook his head. "Can't do it." He forestalled Peter's angry protest with a raised hand. "I would like to, but Marie's sleep is being controlled by direct stimulation of her sleep centers and has been for seven weeks. Waking her abruptly could result in severe psychic damage."
"Suggestion?"
Cage pursed his lips. "I'll begin reversing the procedure immediately, of course, but it won't be completed for at least eighteen hours. Marie won't be awake until 9:00 tomorrow morning."
"A lot of people can be dead by the time the sun rises," Peter stated flatly. "I'll hook Egon's psionometer up to your monitoring equipment, but that won't save...." He slumped, leaning tiredly against a bank of equipment for a moment, lost in thought. When he straightened, there was a determined light in his eyes, making them glitter like emeralds in the artificial light., "Only one thing to do."
"What's that?" Cage asked, following him into the glass room.
Peter smiled wryly as though the solution were obvious. "Give M'Tumba a specific target. Stand over there out of the way, Lucy." He waited until both Cage and a confused Lucy Robbins had complied before bending over the still form of Marie D'Loeffier.
"Marie," he crooned in a soft voice. "Marie, this is Dr. Peter Venkman. I'm here to destroy your nightmare, Marie." He paused, and when he resumed speaking his voice was harsh. "Do you hear that, M'Tumba? I'm talking about you, boy! This is Dr. Peter Venkman -- your worst nightmare -- and I'm going to destroy you. Tonight."
With that he straightened, giving Lucy a saucy wink. "At least this way we'll know who the next victim is."
"Who?" Lucy asked, echoing Cage.
Peter smiled wearily. "Me."
***
During the daytime hours Columbia University presented quite a different face from that lonely and desolate battleground of the night before. Under the afternoon sun the campus glowed with life -- the ceaseless bustle of activity which resembled nothing so much as total chaos to those unfortunates uninitiated into that unique microcosm of the University.
Peter strolled the campus casually, in no hurry to reach his destination. He breathed deeply, filling his lungs with the familiar air of academe, relishing every sensation. Well over a decade of his life had been spent in these hallowed halls; they had been sanctuary from the tumult of the streets, stability against the emotional upheaval of his youth, and, most of all, the place where he had first made the acquaintances of Egon Spengler and Ray Stantz, the two closest friends Peter had ever had.
He had waved at an ex-student-cum-teacher, sneered nastily at an older antagonist, and signed autographs for several pretty co-eds who recognized him from newspaper articles, before reaching the relatively new structure part of which Professor Samuel Cage had appropriated for his project.
Peter entered the building unchallenged and made his way to the psych lab. The door was closed but unlocked and Peter opened it with a touch. "Hey! Yo!" he called, sticking his head inside. "Anybody home?" Obviously not. The room was empty save for the banks of equipment and monitors lining two walls. He scanned them quickly, nodding his satisfaction at the readings. "Heartbeat ... blood pressure.... Looks like she's in decent shape, considering." He picked up a scratch pad from the desk, skimming the notations there with a frown. "Hmmm, chemical changes growing more pronounced," he read aloud. "Not dangerous yet, but...."
"May I help you?" a cool voice inquired from behind.
Peter spun, nearly dropping the notepad. He recovered instantly to flash the blonde beauty in the doorway his brightest mega-watt smile. "I sincerely hope so," he returned smoothly, running a hand through his already flawless hair. "I can certainly use some ... help, I mean."
Deep blue eyes scanned his lean figure once, finally settling on his face with evident approval. She stepped forward, and Peter's eyes automatically traced the lines of her trim figure through her white uniform.
"I'm Doctor Peter Venkman," he began, offering a hand which was instantly accepted. "I'm here to talk to Sam about Marie D'Loeffier."
"Peter Venkman.... One of the Ghostbusters?" Peter nodded and widened his smile. "I've certainly heard of you," the woman went on, gently disengaging her hand from Peter's. She returned his smile, then cast a worried look over her shoulder toward the glass enclosure housing the sleeper. "But what brings the Ghostbusters here? Is Marie in any danger?" She blushed slightly at Peter's raised brow. "I'm Lucy Robbins," she explained, tossing long blonde hair over her shoulder. "I'm one of the nurses Professor Cage hired to take care of Miss D'Loeffier while she's asleep."
Peter nodded wisely. "I'm sure she needs a great deal of care," he acknowledged, returning the papers to the desk. "She's lucky to have someone as efficient as you to take care of her."
The woman brightened perceptibly, perfectly willing to be flattered by this handsome stranger. "Well," she began, allowing her hand to be retaken. "She does--"
"That will be all, Lucy."
Lucy stiffened at that disapproving voice and hurriedly withdrew her hand again. "Yes, Professor Cage," she told the newcomer. "Good day, Doctor Venkman."
"See you later, Lucy," Peter promised, waiting until she'd disappeared into Marie's room before turning to the portly figure. "Hot stuff there, Sam," he remarked with an amiable leer. "Improves the scenery no end."
Cage sighed. "I was wondering how long it would be before you decided to darken my door again. What is it this time? You get your kicks by making my life miserable?"
Peter perched casually on the edge of the desk, swinging one sneakered foot. "Hey, man, it got me through my first doctorate, didn't it?"
"You got your doctorate," Cage retorted, "by rough-shodding your own projects through over everyone else's."
"You mean," Peter flared, stilling his foot, "that the Board agreed that my research deserved a higher priority than yours did. And more grant money, too," he added, twisting the knife.
Cage snorted and turned his back on the younger psychologist. "Which is why Dean Yaeger had you kicked off campus."
"We grossed a quarter of a mill last year," Peter returned sweetly. "How much did you make?"
That ended that. Shoulders stiff, Cage activated one of the free-standing computers against the wall and called up its main menu. Supremely indifferent to insult, Peter contented himself with retrieving Cage's big notebook, and settling down to read. Cage, noticing this, surrendered on the spot.
"What do you want, Venkman?" he sighed, twitching the notebook out of Peter's hands and clutching it to his thick chest.
Venkman toured the lab again, occasionally bending to examine more closely a softly humming piece of equipment, once flicking a gauge with his fingernail and frowning at the result. He ended his circuit back at the observation window overlooking the still form of Marie D'Loeffier.
"I've seen a lot of strange things since I started Ghostbusting," he began in a different tone. "Gozer, for example; he was actually worshipped as a god by the ancient Summerians, did you know that? I, for one, have no reason to dispute his claim, either."
"What do you want, Venkman?" Cage repeated.
Peter ignored him. "But out of all the weird things I've faced, there's nothing weirder than the human mind." He paused, tilting his head quizzically at his impatient companion. "I've even seen a strong enough psyche prevent a human being from really dying -- well, passing away, at any rate." Peter rapped his fingers lightly against the glass. Marie slept on unaware in her electronically-induced dream world though Lucy looked up and smiled. "We've even been forced to trap the ... well, the echoes for want of a better word, of several people who were too stubborn -- or evil -- to completely let go when their bodies died. Lot of theories on that one, let me tell you!"
"I'm a psychologist," Cage growled, crossing to stand by the distracted Venkman's shoulder, "not a spiritualist -- or even an occultist like that Stantz kid you hang around with. I deal with the vagaries of the human mind; you want to talk life after death, Professor Mater is our resident theologian."
"Life after death is not the subject, Cage," Peter corrected him calmly. "Life from life is."
Cage leaned wearily against the observation port. The glass creaked a protest but held against his weight. "I assume you're leading up to something?"
"The campus murders." Cage reacted to this pronouncement with patent disbelief and Peter hurried to continue. "The human mind produces a great deal of psionic energy, most of which is released during waking hours -- burned off, so to speak, in the form of thought, intuition, emotion...."
"I did mention being a psychologist myself, Doctor Venkman," Cage growled. "Make your point."
Peter rubbed eyes red from thirty-six hours without rest. "When someone sleeps, there's no way to burn off that energy except by dreaming, and that's only low level psi -- not the more powerful wave emanations." He grinned cheekily at the other man. "If you'd read my second thesis, you'd already know that!" Smile fading, he reached across and tapped the notebook Cage still held with a forefinger. "Seven weeks can produce quite a build-up."
Cage cast a startled look at the sleeping woman beyond the glass, his intelligent mind already leaping ahead to the obvious conclusion. "You think Marie is murdering those people in her sleep?"
Peter shrugged. "Not her exactly, but some construct of her subconscious or perhaps even a nether-being using her psi energy to access our reality. Whether it's under her control or not...." He raised both hands, palms up. "Final line: either wake Marie now or risk more people dying when the M'Tumba appears tonight."
Cage drew himself up angrily. "You certainly don't expect me to believe a far-fetched theory like that! M'Tumba, indeed!" He paused, a sly look on his face. "You've got proof of all this, I presume?"
"Proof?" Venkman rubbed his eyes again and then his neck. "The monster we fought last night -- the M'Tumba -- is a superstition native to Haiti. Marie is Haitian."
"Coincidence," Cage scoffed. "That's not evidence."
"No?" Green eyes scanned the lab, finally lighting on a series of graphs neatly stacked in one corner. He selected one marked November 6 and turned to the third page. "This is the electro-encephalograph from last night and early this morning. My friends and I were attacked at 5:00 am." He traced a jagged line until he reached an inked time notation. "Ah-HA! Look at that!"
Cage reluctantly accepted the sheet and followed Peter's pointing finger. "There was unusual brain activity at five o'clock," he admitted, interpreting the information at a glance. "But that doesn't mean...."
But Venkman had already pulled out a second graph, this one marked November 5, and was hurriedly turning pages. "And here.... That policewoman was attacked at 2:15. What do you see here?"
"More ... unusual brain activity." Cage's voice dropped lower and lower until the last words were barely audible.
"What do you want to bet," Venkman concluded pitilessly, "that we'll find a correlation between all of the slasher deaths and the times of Marie's strongest brain activities?"
Cage made no reply for a long moment. Finally, he nodded. "What ... do you want me to do, Venkman?"
"What do I--?" Peter's eyes widened in surprise. "No arguments? No discussion? No protest? No...."
"Knock it off, Venkman," the older man snapped. "Just because we can't stand each other's guts doesn't mean I'm too stupid to recognize a definite connection when I see it. You've evidently given this a great deal of thought; what do you want me to do?"
Peter stopped gaping and jerked his head towards the glassed-in enclosure. "Wake Marie," he pronounced succinctly. "Now."
Cage shook his head. "Can't do it." He forestalled Peter's angry protest with a raised hand. "I would like to, but Marie's sleep is being controlled by direct stimulation of her sleep centers and has been for seven weeks. Waking her abruptly could result in severe psychic damage."
"Suggestion?"
Cage pursed his lips. "I'll begin reversing the procedure immediately, of course, but it won't be completed for at least eighteen hours. Marie won't be awake until 9:00 tomorrow morning."
"A lot of people can be dead by the time the sun rises," Peter stated flatly. "I'll hook Egon's psionometer up to your monitoring equipment, but that won't save...." He slumped, leaning tiredly against a bank of equipment for a moment, lost in thought. When he straightened, there was a determined light in his eyes, making them glitter like emeralds in the artificial light., "Only one thing to do."
"What's that?" Cage asked, following him into the glass room.
Peter smiled wryly as though the solution were obvious. "Give M'Tumba a specific target. Stand over there out of the way, Lucy." He waited until both Cage and a confused Lucy Robbins had complied before bending over the still form of Marie D'Loeffier.
"Marie," he crooned in a soft voice. "Marie, this is Dr. Peter Venkman. I'm here to destroy your nightmare, Marie." He paused, and when he resumed speaking his voice was harsh. "Do you hear that, M'Tumba? I'm talking about you, boy! This is Dr. Peter Venkman -- your worst nightmare -- and I'm going to destroy you. Tonight."
With that he straightened, giving Lucy a saucy wink. "At least this way we'll know who the next victim is."
"Who?" Lucy asked, echoing Cage.
Peter smiled wearily. "Me."
***
