Chapter 1: When Two Hobbies Collide

"Mistakes are at the very base of human thought feeding the structure like root nodules. If we were not provided with the knack of being wrong, we could never get anything useful done." -- Lewis Thomas.

"Brooklyn Botanic Gardens would like to present the grand opening of the Charles Austin Memorial Garden. Dedicated to the inspiring work of local landscape artist, Doctor Charles Austin, every plant has been bequeathed to us in his last will and testament. A noted botanist, Doctor Austin was considered a pioneer at integrating oriental trees into American urban regeneration schemes for over 30 years until his untimely death from cancer three months ago..." Janine paused and placed the leaflet down, looking at the four faces in front of her. Her carefully manicured fingernails tapped the desk in front of her expectantly.

Three humans and a single Class V free-roaming vapour exchanged dubious looks with each other. "And you want all of us to go with you?" Winston asked uncertainly.

The secretary raised one slim eyebrow. "That's what I said," she replied coolly.

"Well, you know I'll never say anything bad about God's green earth but don't you think I'd be a bit out of place in there?"

"Yeah, Janine." Ray agreed. "Look what happened the last time we hung around plants for any length of time."

"Your apartment nearly got eaten by a geranium," Winston stated.

"Yeah!" Slimer was nodding vigorously.

"Oh, guys. It was possessed. I don't blame you for that!" Janine's head lowered slightly, her glasses slipping to the end of her nose. Her eyes were a barely visible crystal blue crescent underneath her eyelashes and yet successfully managed to pin all three men to the floor.

Ray and Winston squirmed uncomfortably, wondering if she was aware of how devastating that expression was. "We could take Ecto-1," she continued. "You could test out the new engine you gave her."

Obviously wavering, Ray and Winston looked at each other. "She's got a point," Ray said cautiously.

"She's always got a point," Winston complained, glaring at the secretary who artfully looked away. He could see her smile at the sigh that escaped him. "Alright, we've been waiting forever to check out that engine. Now's as good a time as any."

She turned to the unusually silent third member of the little trio, expecting him to be harder to convince than the others.

Peter was leaning against the side of her desk watching the interactions with a steady gaze. There was a flicker of amusement in the far depths of his eyes, a hint of analytical professionalism as he turned his attention to Janine. The woman had no doctorates but she could psych out the four Ghostbusters like a professional shrink when she felt like it. Ray and Winston may not be entirely certain whether her vulnerability just now had been deliberate or accidental but Peter was under no such illusions. Janine might not have had the academic proof but she was as intelligent as any of them and was as good at manipulating people as he was.

Watching her brace herself for the battle she was obviously expecting, he shrugged nonchalantly. "Sure. Why not? I got nothing better to do," he said easily. Pretending not to notice how his unexpected answer derailed whatever argument she had been preparing, he pushed away from the desk and began to walk off. He stopped as he realised four sets of eyes were staring incredulously at him. "What?" he demanded innocently.

"Um... Peter? You really want to come to a memorial garden opening?" Ray asked cautiously.

"It was advertised on TV last night," Peter said in an off-hand tone. "You should have seen the chick who'll be giving the talk. Legs all the way up to her neck!" He grinned like a cat, shoved his hands in his pocket and strolled off to his seat, whistling something that sounded suspiciously like 'Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree.'

Janine rolled her eyes and rose. She should have known that would be his motivation for attending. "I'm going to get coffee," she said tartly and walked off.

The three men watched her disappear up the stairs then looked at each other. "Man, I'd give big bucks to know how Egon can resist that woman. Those eyes of hers are lethal weapons!" Winston shook his head in disbelief.

"Yeah," Slimer agreed mournfully, floating over to Peter. "Big bucks!"

"I'll bet Egon's noticed that." Peter's tone was deliberately casual and he watched with pleasure as they took the bait, both of them suddenly concentrating on him as if he was the only thing in the world that existed.

Many scientists had berated Peter for being a poor scientist, a maverick that refused to adhere to the logical principles and processes upon which his calling was built. Maverick he supposed he was but he had accepted years ago that human beings did not conform to the artificial construct of scientific methodology and so he had made a conscious decision not to do so either. He hadn't trained in psychology because he wanted to learn how people ticked. He had become a psychologist to prove that he already knew.

Plenty of scientists, including Egon, had bemoaned the fact that Peter's scientific training never seemed to switch on but what even his overachieving friend had failed to understand was that Peter had never switched off. To an actor, all the world was a stage. To Peter, all the world was a lab and he played the people around him with the same detached pleasure other scientists only experienced in a sterile room surrounded by gadgets.

While it made Peter a lot better at his job than most people realised he was also distantly aware that was also a weakness. He was now so good at playing the game it had become instinctive; he wasn't sure who the real Peter Venkman was anymore. Sometimes, it even bothered him.

But not today. Today he knew what he was doing and he was enjoying the effect it was having on his friends.

"Okay, what do you know?" Winston demanded.

He shrugged. "Same as you," he replied easily, a hint of mischief in his eyes.

"C'mon, Peter!" Ray tried. "You can't leave us hanging like that. What do you know?"

The psychologist's grin widened, milking their curiosity for all it was worth. "I'll bet you five bucks that if she turns that cute little pout on him he'll cave faster than we did."

"No fair!" Ray protested, knowing full well that Peter was playing with them but unable to resist responding anyway. "If you know something..."

Peter laughed. "I've only seen what you guys have seen," he watched them stare at him suspiciously, as if trying to work out whether or not he was telling the truth. It didn't matter to him that he actually was telling the truth. The secretary's feelings for the physicist were obvious and always had been. The physicist had never discouraged her attention and on numerous occasions he - rather than Janine - had been the one to initiate such gestures. All three men now crowded around Peter's desk could think of many occasions when Egon had been more interested in Janine's safety and well being than in his own. Peter was in absolutely no doubt the interest was there but whether or not the physicist had finally acted on it was something not even he was sure of.

The recent revelation that a Makeoveris lotsabuck had been secretly corrupting their secretary's soul over a period of several years had come as a horrifying shock to them all. Along with the knowledge that they had simply stumbled upon the truth by accident, was the realisation that they had awakened to the threat almost too late to prevent Janine being forever claimed by the creature's twisted snares. None of the Ghostbusters had raised the subject with each other, or with Janine; they were still too shocked, there was still too much guilt that no-one had seen it occurring right under their noses. There had been some kind of private confrontation between Egon and Janine, Peter knew, but the nature of the confrontation and its outcome was currently unknown to him.

Judging by their behaviour, however, Ray and Winston didn't know any more than he did. He wasn't certain whether he was amused or disappointed but he definitely wasn't surprised. The mystery that was Egon and Janine's relationship apparently remained intact and that's all the psychologist had been interested in uncovering. Maybe it wasn't yet time for the subject to be discussed by any of them. He grinned maddeningly at his two friends and then jumped with a curse as Slimer suddenly spun above him, coating the three Ghostbusters and his desk in ectoplasm.

"Eeeeegon!" the little ghost yelled in delight, as the front door swung shut with a loud thump. Egon strolled over to them, eyeing the little green ghost warily. Slimer slid to a stop in front of the physicist. "Hi Egon!" He darted around the physicist's head but didn't touch him.

"How do you do that!" Peter demanded, wiping slime off himself.

"Are you kidding?" Winston exclaimed. "Not even Slimer would dare mess up that hair!"

Ray laughed. "Nah, Winston, you got it all wrong. He's too scared to approach it. I know I am!"

Egon walked over to the filing cabinet behind Janine's desk and began rummaging through one of the drawers with the martyred expression of someone who was used to being teased about his hair. Slimer threw the engineer a reproachful look. "Raaaaay!" he objected.

Ray grinned. "Sorry, Spud. I'm not teasing you."

Slimer smiled and floated up towards Egon's shoulders, babbling excitedly and unintelligibly. Even Ray, who normally had an almost supernatural ability to decipher the little ghost's peculiar speech, couldn't work out what he was saying. The physicist gave Slimer an appraising stare then turned to the others. "You're taking him to the botanical centre?" he asked.

"You understood that?" Winston sounded astonished.

"Not really," Egon confessed. "I made out the word 'plants' however and assumed it referred to this." He picked up the leaflet Janine had been reading to them earlier. Slimer nodded energetically and bobbed in the air in front of them.

"Slimer, you better not be dripping all over my desk!" Janine snapped from behind him. Slimer yelped and dived behind Egon. She put her mug down and glanced suspiciously at her desk and chair. Seeing it was clear of ectoplasm, she relaxed. "Hi, Egon."

"Good morning, Janine." He returned her leaflet with an understated, and rather formal, flourish.

"What do you think?" she asked immediately.

His eyebrows lifted. "Of what?"

"The rest of us are going. You should come too." She had a determined look in her eyes that made Winston and Ray grin. It was obvious she wasn't planning on accepting any excuses from Egon today.

"I have already made plans to attend," he informed her.

"You have?" Peter looked surprised. "Didn't think you were that much of a plant boy, Egon."

Egon frowned at him. "Part of Doctor Austin's donation include several rare Homobasidiomycetae species."

"Oh man, he must be the only guy in New York who would go to a plant show just to see mould," Winston groaned.

"In America," Janine muttered.

"Fungi." Egon corrected Winston succinctly.

"Hey, Janine, I thought you liked plants?" Ray couldn't resist. He had both Winston and Peter between him and Janine; he was fairly certain he would have advanced warning if she tried to attack him.

The secretary rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right. I like plants. That's why I hate fungi!" She suddenly glared at Egon as if he had somehow done something wrong. It caught Ray by surprise and, judging by the mystified expression on the physicist's face, Egon was just as startled.

She stalked across to Egon, eyes dangerous. An instinct for self-preservation kicking in, Egon backed away until he felt the file cabinet pressing into his back. Although he had become used to being pursued by her, he wasn't used to seeing her direct the full force of her wrath at him; he was usually spared the greater part of her mood swings by what the others often claimed was a clear act of favouritism. While he pretended indifference in front of his colleagues, it was a status he privately enjoyed. Having seen how devastating her temper could be on others, however, he was completely certain this was not going to be at all pleasant.

"Man, I know that look," Winston commented casually to Peter and Ray.

"Yeah. Wonder what he's done?" Ray replied, grinning. "It's gotta be bad. She usually reserves that expression for you, Peter."

"Hey, what can I say?" Peter spread his hands. "I'm her boss, it's in the job description!"

"I bet it's not in his," Winston nodded in Egon's direction, eyes twinkling.

"Guys, you aren't helping," Egon muttered. "Janine?"

She stopped just in front of him, close enough to crowd him but far enough away that she could glare at him without his greater height destroying the effect she wanted to create.

"So, Egon. For a hobby you collect spores, moulds and fungi?" Her voice was dripping with venom. "That's not an invitation to answer!" She snapped as he opened his mouth to respond. He clamped it shut again. She leaned forward slightly. "Does that include powdery mildew?"

He eyed her warily and swiftly calculated several responses. Most of his standard scientifically correct answers would probably make her even angrier so he decided for a more casual one. "Yes."

"Powdery mildew that likes begonias maybe?" She continued.

Mentally reviewing his inventory, he nodded. "Several species, actually. Dogwood, melons, petunia, sycamore..." He trailed off as her eyes turned even darker. "Yes, and begonias," he added hurriedly.

"Do you remember the begonia I had on my desk?"

"The prize-winning one?" Ray asked helpfully then cleared his throat and took a step back as both Janine and Egon glared at him. "Just trying to help," he mumbled.

"You might want to stay out of this one, Ray." Winston was beginning to grin. He could see where this was going and his hunch had been right. Egon wasn't just in hot water; he'd probably drown if someone didn't bail him out soon.

"If your fungus was upstairs and my plant was downstairs, would you like to tell me how my begonia ended up plastered in mildew!" she snapped.

"Um..." Egon cleared his throat. "Did it die?"

"No, it didn't die!" She flared. Her eyes narrowed. "But that's only because I'm so good at killing the damn stuff."

"Fascinating," it slipped out before Egon could stop himself. Quickly he pushed his glasses back up his nose and tried to look casual as she turned her glare on him again.

"Here's a scientific fact for you, Doctor Spengler," she said in a tone of voice that reminded Egon of a jail cell door clanging shut in the distance. Thanks to the Mayor of New York, he had more personal intimacy with that particular sound than he cared to remember. "You can fight mildew with one tablespoon of baking soda and a few drops of dish-washing liquid mixed into one gallon of water. If I see your hobby interfere with mine ever again, your lab will end up smelling like a restaurant kitchen on health inspection day!"

Scientific curiosity regarding how good at killing mildew she really was warred for a moment with guilt at having inadvertently upset her. Eventually, contrition won. "I'll... uh... remember that," he promised gravely. "I'm sorry, Janine." He watched with interest as the anger drained from her gaze to be replaced by a more familiar, and welcome, exasperated affection.

"I'll forgive you this time, Egon," she told him in a calmer tone. "But don't let it happen again."

He nodded in agreement and, although he made a careful effort to hide the extent of his relief at hearing that, he couldn't quite prevent a faint, wry smile from flitting across his lips. Although he knew his friends were well aware of the fact he wasn't indifferent to the secretary's attentions, he was fairly certain that was all they knew.

"She forgives him," Peter sighed and folded his arms as if in protest at a world gone mad. "The man destroys her prize-winning begonia and she forgives him." He shook his head. "Only Egon could get away with that."