End of the Future, Part 24

I've Gathered You Here Today Because…

Please Read and Review. I'd like to know what I'm doing right (to keep doing it), and what I am doing wrong (to correct it).

Hill Valley, California, USA
Brown Enterprises Offices
Next Day, 2:56 P.M.

Three former Ghostbusters waited in the long work table. Instead of the nice table in Doc's office, their boss had moved the meeting to the workshop, and asked for more chairs around the scratched, tainted, and well used table. So, they had brought out the folding chairs. Just how many people would attend the meeting? And who were they?

Winston Zeddemore leaned forward on his seat, he was a bit nervous about the meeting. Last night, he and Ray had talked over a couple of beers, and the former Air Force Captain hadn't really liked what he had heard. He felt a little conflicted, the job was good, very good. But until things were more clear, he would be on guard. In case there was something fishy about Brown Enterprises.

Next to him, Dr. Ray Stantz fidgeted nervously with a notebook full of annotations, which ocassionally compared with Egon's, who also had his own notes.

"No changes so far." The bespectacled scientist noted. "Visual inspection doesn't yield any visible chamges. Without further analysis, i can say that at least visually, the stuff is similar to ectoplasmic residue, but it is not completely inert. There's activity, but very low level. Once we have enough data, Ray and I will input it in the computer, and try to project how things develop." He tilted his head towards the computers on the desks. The screens showed the screen savers.

"Guys?" Winston said, "Are we gonna start carrying the proton packs again?"

"I'm not sure, Winston. Egon and I checked all our original packs before closing last night, we put them in their place, back in Ecto-1. Charged and ready, along with eight ghost traps. Enough for a ghost for each container, in case they have a hibernating ghost each."

Winston nodded approvingly, "Good, I'm glad we brought the old gal along."

"Well, you know what Peter would have used it for…" Ray noted, wincing. "After all the work we did on her, it would have been…"

"Yeah, I know. Disrespectful." Winston's face twisted in disapproval.

Egon continued revising his notes.

The workshop door opened, and a big group of people entered. Dr. Brown, his helper, Marty, followed by three girls they didn't know, one boy, and a middle-aged couple.

"Good afternoon." Doc said with his raspy voice, while Marty and the boy connected a VCR and a TV. Doc continued, "We have a lot to discuss, so Introductions are in order. You already know my helper, Marty McFly, of course. This is his girlfriend, Jennifer Parker."

A brown haired girl waved at the Ghostbusters, "Hi!"

"These are Marty's parents, George and Lorraine McFly." The couple shook their hands, smiling. George smiled widely, "Hello, nice to meet you."

"And these are my wards, Asuka Langley Soryu," he waved at a red headed girl, with slight Asian features, "Charmed, I'm sure." She said, with a strange accent, with traces of both German and Japanese.

Next, Doc introduced a girl with striking pale skin, blue hair, and crimson eyes, "Rei Ayanami."

The girl bowed respectfully. "Good afternoon. I'm pleased to meet you."

"And her brother, Shinji Ayanami." The brown haired teen bowed too, before extending his hand awkwardly, "Hello." He said.

"And these are Dr. Egon Spengler, Dr. Ray Stantz, and Capt. Winston Zeddemore." Each one waved at the mention of his name.

After the introductions, everybody sat down.

Doc started the meeting by putting three videocassettes and a messenger bag on the big table.

"This," he said, tapping the videocassettes, "I must stress very much, is information that cannot leave this room." His eyes set on each Ghostbuster.

Ray shifted uncomfortably on his chair, Egon held the gaze with burning curiosity, and Winston stayed still, saying. "Why? What kind of secret are you talking about, Doc?"

"There are several reasons. First, it's unbelievable. You three know how the public perception works. If this gets around, we have a very big risk of ending up in the madhouse."

Ray leaned back, "After dealing with ghosts in New York, we know." The other two nodded.

Egon clarified for the newcomers, "Not the madhouse, per se, but a stay in the pokey. Jail."

Winston laced his fingers in front of his face, looking at the others in silence. For some reason, Shinji looked like he was trying to contain a wince. "What else?"

Now George spoke, "The only ones who would believe it would be eager to put us in the madhouse, or under six feet of dirt."

The Ghostbusters exchanged a worried look.

"Geez, you make it sound like the end of the world!" Ray tried to joke, only to realice the others' eyes were nailing him. The red headed girl's blue eyes reminded Ray of the bad end of a shotgun.

Marty stood up, "You have hit the nail right in the head, Dr. Stantz." He put the tape in the player.

Doc took the remote control. "First thing, for context. A few months ago, I tested, successfully, a time-machine."

Egon and Ray began to talk excitedly. Doc raised his hands, asking for silence. "Later on, we will show you proof. Very importantly, the timeline is not fixed, changing the past not only is possible. It is inevitable. Paradoxes are erased."

"So, should I try to kill my grandfather…" Egon left the rest of the sentence unsaid.

"You could do it, and would be erased immediately." Doc answered in all seriousness. "Just like that. Life would continue for the rest of the world. Your grandmother could have children with somebody else, maybe not, or stay a widow for the rest of her life. But you, as you are, would cese to exist."

"Wait, wait, wait." Winston waved his hands. "From the beginning."

Marty took the narrative. "I met Doc a few years ago, and have been his lab assistant for many projects. Last year, he asked me to meet him at the parking lot of the Twin Pines Mall. He wanted to test his Time Machine, and me to videotape it."

Ray scratched his head, and asked, "Why in a parking lot?"

"The Time Machine is a car. It has to reach 88 MPH to work."

Ray nodded, a weird expression on his face.

Doc pressed the Play button. The screen showed the test, in all its shaky glory.

The Ghostbusters watched in rapt attention.

"You built a Time Machine on the frame of a DeLorean?" Ray asked. "And it worked with plutonium?"

"Yes. The car's design helped solve some problems. And only plutonium could provided the amount of energy needed."

Winston raised a hand. "Marty, you said it had been at the Twin Pine Mall. The sign says Lone Pine Mall."

"Yeah, paradox. When I tried to escape the lybians, I ended up in 1955. Back then, there was a pair of pines where the Mall now stands. I ran over one of the pines."

"Hence, Lone Pine." Egon commented, writing down a note. "Go on."

Marty, Doc, and George took turns to explain the events in 1955. Lorraine added the ocassional note, though it was clear the four were keeping something.

"Okay," Winston leaned back, the fingers of his left hand tapping on the table. "So. You changed history."

Marty nodded. "I wouldn't reccomend it. I was this close to being erased." He showed his index and thumb almost touching.

Winston continued, "Assuming we believe you, and I will need proof to do that, the moral of the story is Thou Shall Not Mess With The Timeline."

Marty changed the tape. He nodded at Doc.

"And I would completely agree. However, after Marty returned to the present, I wanted to see the future. Just to indulge my curiosity without endangering the timeline. I wanted to jump thirty years forward, to 2015; but by mistake, I ended up in 2016." He pressed the Play button again.

The TV screen showed what the time travelers dubbed "Dead Valley". The group watched with rapt fascination.

"I returned to 1985 very badly shaken by the experience, as you can imagine."

Jennifer took the narrative, "Marty and I went with Doc to Dead Valley, to get anything to make sense of what had happened. We saw a… kind of a ghost of Rei there, but we will explain that later."

Doc opened his messenger bag, "These are some of the newspapers I brought back." He passed them to the Ghostbusters. "We also brought back school books."

"This is amazing!" Ray exclaimed, a few minutes later, "Giant robots! Giant monsters!" He waved the newspaper around, until he noticed the looks of the three Asian teens. "Wait, we're you…"

Asuka answered with chilling coldness in her voice, "The pilots. Yes. Mine was Unit-02, the red one. Shinji in the purple one, Unit-01, and Rei in Unit-00, originally orange, later blue."

Shinji added, "And those were not robots, but actual life-forms, lobotomized into slavery."

"What?" Egon dropped his History book, "Impossible! The Law of Inverse Square!" (1)

Lorraine tilted her head, "Um, Doctor Spengler?"

"Organisms of that size couldn't exist. Their mass and weight are too much for the structure." He ripped off a page of his notebook. "Let me show you." He joined four printed dots, forming a square. "This is our base. It measures one unit of measure per side, let's say it's an inch, just for this example." He looked up, to check if Lorraine was following the explanation. She did, along with Jennifer and Shinji. "So, it measures one square inch."

"If you double the size to two inches per size, its surface is not two square inches, but four. For three inches per size, nine square inches, and so on. Now imagine it is a cube, doubling it from one inch per side to two, would mean eight cubic inches."

"Aha, so far I get it." Lorraine nodded.

"Now, imagine the original cube weights a pound, and could stand a maximum weight of two pounds without trouble. That's the limit of the material it is made of." He drew a cube on the paper. "Double the size to two inches, and now the cube at the bottom is supporting double the weight. it is at its maximum."

"I see." Lorraine smiled, "Then, sooner or later, the thing is too heavy!"

"Right!" Egon beamed too. "The tallest human being in recorded history, Robert Wadlow, was 8 ft 11.1 in (2.72 m) tall and weighted 439 lb (199 kg) when he died. He suffered chronic pains and needed braces on his legs. Human bones won't handle that kind of stress easily. Something the size of an Evangelion could not even…" he gesticulated wildly, "couldn't even lay down without getting crushed by its own weight!"

Rei spoke. "The Evangelion units bio components were composed with a kind of exotic matter. I'm no expert, not only impossibly strong by our standards, also very light. Just the wrist ligaments were said to be strong enough to replace all the cables of the old Golden Gate Bridge with a third of the amount. Evangelion Units not only could move, they could fight, at proportional speed and inertia to human-sized athletes."

Egon dropped back into his chair, jaw hanging. Ray had to shake him a bit to bring the bespectacled scientist out of his stupor. While Egon recovered, Ray had his own question. "Um… here it says that Second Impact…" he showed the History book.

"Yes, we caught that too. Too small, to far, too fast to be photographed." Doc shrugged. "Now you see our reaction, Dr. Stantz."

"So, you went to Japan, right?" Winston wiped his face with a big hand.

"Not immediately, no." George said, "We had to gather resources first. Doc and I planned on how to use the Time Machine to do so."

Egon and Ray exchanged a look, and chorused, "Never let Peter hear that."

Shinji and Asuka snickered.

"That was where you entered. A Flux Capacitor needs to generate 1.21 Gigawatts for time travel. We modified the DeLorean and Marty's truck with Mr. Fusion units. We were not restricted to use plutonium anymore." He shuddered, "In Future Japan, we found two survivors, Shinji and Asuka, Rei appeared later."

"And we also met another survivor." Doc looked at the computers. "Miss LeBrook? If you would?"

The computer screen saver stopped, to be replaced by a feminine face, framed by an ever changing background. "Hello, b/b/boys. Just ca/call me Lis/s/sa."

"Lisa is an artificial intelligence, and fully sentient. She is a person, not a program."

"Not an it. Got it." Ray practically ran to the computer. "Are you… um… in the computer? How big are you?"

"Dr. St/tantz! Are you calling me f/f/fat?" Lisa quipped. Ray blushed at his faux-pas.

"Uh… no, no, of course not! It's just that you are my first encounter with a cybernetic life form!"

Lisa smiled mischievously. "Oh, I'm gonna have f/f/fun with you!"

"Back on track, please!" Doc said, "Lisa is our analyst and paralegal helper."

"What do you mean?" Winston asked.

"Lisa created our identities in this time." Asuka and Shinji spoke at the same time. Neither looked particularly surprised.

Doc took over. "Third Impact happened. Everybody, every single human being on the face of the Earth was converted into LCL, the primordial soup from where life evolved. And once dry, it become those orange flecks you saw in the Dead Valley tape."

Rei proceeded to fill the gaps in the narrative, she talked about Lilith, SEELE, NERV, the Angels, Adam, Instrumentality, and her own role in the events.

Even Winston paled.

Egon raised a hand. "Out of professional curiosity, did Instrumentality affect only living people?"

"No. A few animals had sufficiently evolved souls to enter Instrumentality."

"I meant to ask if it did include ghosts."

"Yes. But only the ones who still had most of their souls. The process that converts a soul into a ghost fragments the soul itself. The more self-aware a ghost is, the more soul it has retained."

Egon wrote another note.

"Then, those gel containers have…"

"Complete souls, Dr. Spengler. Each one inside their own version of Instrumentality. They are subject to the same rules a full LCL-soul is. They are, for lack of a more precise word, condensed."

"Can they come back?" Winston rubbed his chin.

"If they want to. Just like Uncle Emmet did."

"Wow…" Ray whistled. "Um, why did you bring them?"

"For study. We want to know if LCL conversion can be stopped during Third Impact. That way, we could save people from being absorbed into Instrumentality."

Egon cleaned his eyeglasses, "Are they aggressive?"

"No. In life, they were soldiers and scientists, but instrumentality would turn them violent. There are souls that would need physical conflict in their False Paradise, but not them."

"I see."

"Can we count on your help?" Doc asked, leaning forward.

Ray looked at his friends, without a word, they reached a consensus. "We are in."

Winston stood up. "I still want to see how that time-Machine of yours works. No offense, boss, but that story is right out of the Saturday morning cartoons."

"None taken." Doc shrugged, "I'd ask for proof myself. Heck, I did! Fortunately Marty remembered what I had told him about how I got the inspiration for the Flux Capacitator. After that, his tech convinced me fully." His enthusiasm was re-emerging after the previous seriousness. "Just imagine! A complete TV studio! In a portable form!" He cleared his throat. "Anyway, we could go to our testing grounds right now, and show you proof about the time travel."

Egon put his notebook in his shirt pocket. "I am very interested in participating in such an experience."

Ray shook his head, "I'll pass, though I'd still like to be an observer."

"Same with me." Winston nodded.

"Well then, shall we go, gentlemen? Follow us in your car."

Author's Notes:

To Halo: Trust me about the ending. I have a plan. its a cunning one.

(1) True. This is the reason why selective breeding has size limits. It could theoretically be possible to breed, say, War hounds or Dalmatians the size of horses, but they wouldn't be viable as mounts. And yes, those are very specific examples. Jack Kirby used the war hounds in the Fourth World stories. The Dog Cavalry of Apokolips debuted in New Gods issue 1 (Mar, 1971). The Giant Dalmatians were used by the Atomic Knights. These debuted in Strange Adventures, issue 138 (Mar, 1962).