Chapter 9: Between Mirrors and Shadows

Somewhere on Manhattan Island

3:50 AM

Ecto-1 was now making its way through the now more earthquake-torn streets. Some buildings were broken and crumbled in the streets as they made slow progress back to HQ. Roland took as much extra care as possible not to roll over broken parts of the street, "This is worse than Chelsea. How bad do you think everything was damaged at the firehouse?"

"Your headquarters should be fine," Amy stated as she looked out her window to the damage, "I scanned the building while I was there and it looks like the modifications Dr. Spengler and Dr. Stantz made to the building after your first containment explosion could handle a great deal of shaking."

Darien looked back and saw Kylie looking out the window, every so often looking back to her meter as they moved slowly. The feeling he had about her back at the cement mill made him feel more and more unnerved than it did before. He couldn't help but ask, "Kylie? Are you gonna be okay?"

"We let someone die tonight," the goth stated as she looked out the window, "We let someone die then let them play the second Stanza. What good are we?"

Roland sighed, "There was nothing we could do. If we interfered we wouldn't have even seen what the heck was going on." "And what if they still had Lita, huh?" she asked back, lashing out, "They would have killed her!" Before they left for the mill leaving the car behind, Kylie was the one to say they were to do nothing. It must have hit her hard to be told what she stated to be done when she suddenly felt the urge to help someone. Even worse, she wasn't exactly sure if Lita was rescued. The whole thing left her wondering… wonder if she was…

Darien had to set her straight, "You can't blame yourself for anything that happened tonight. Even you told us not to do anything. That was a very unfortunate, but smart, move. All we can do is prevent anyone else from paying that price." Kylie didn't look over. Darien watched her face as she kept looking out the window, seeing it through the reflection of said window. She soon after closed her eyes, the words hurting her in a way she couldn't express. Darien knew the look. It was one of self-disappointment. Here was a student of Dr. Egon Spengler; someone who believed in the good of his work and wished to be exactly like him. It was a low point for her.

The woman was unique. She had high expectations of herself and worked hard to achieve her goals, but she was one of those types that if she made a mistake even one time, it ate at her. Judgement was a huge part of her character, mostly turned inward wondering what her peers would think of her. She saw a dark reflection of herself if she failed. It bothered her that she couldn't help one person, even if it looked like they were one of the cultists.

Amy looked to Darien and saw the look on his face, knowing he couldn't say anything more for fear of backlash. He turned to her with a look that expressed that if she had anything to add, it would be better if it came from someone other than himself. She turned to Kylie beside her and put a hand on her shoulder, "Darien's right. We did the best that we could do. Had we done anything, who knows where these people would run away to. We don't have that kind of time. All we can do is get this information to Dr. Spengler and hope whatever happened tonight doesn't get any worse."

"Speaking of," Roland reached for the radio, "we'd better let them know we're on our way. I'm sure they're getting a little worried." As soon as he turned on Ecto-1's radio, he heard someone talking over the band. "Delta-Sierra-Two-Seven-Two-Foxtrot to Blue Team, is anyone listening?" "What the…?" The mysterious voice was heard on the radio, gruff and annoyed, but also nervous, "Who is that?"

Kylie crawled over the back of the front seat a bit as the radio repeated the message, "This is Delta-Sierra-Two-Seven-Two-Foxtrot on main channel, someone - anyone - talk to me." "If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was a military transmission."

"On our frequency?" Roland asked rhetorically, "This is a civilian channel." "Blue Team, this is Blue Leader - Delta-Sierra-Two-Seven-Two-Foxtrot. Is anyone out there?"

The mysterious blue SUV rode through the city streets, windshield wipers active to clear away the rainfall from it's driver's sight. He kept radioing as he traveled the streets, "Come on, this is Delta-Sierra-Two-Seven-Two-Foxtrot, please respond." The man was becoming more unnerved as the silence from the radio continued, "You guys are starting to scare me. Blue Team; Red Team; Gold; anybody! Delta-Sierra-Two-Seven-Two-Foxtrot to Sierra-Hotel-Niner-Niner-Six-Queen, do you read?" He checked the radio again to see if he was on the right channel and frequency. As he looked, a horn blared at him from the street. He immediately stomped on the brakes as he saw a car with no headlights approaching, him blowing a redlight.

"Son-of-a… I'm lit up like Buckingham Fountain, and THAT shitstain can't even turn on his headlights?!" He was about to throw the microphone before he stopped and took a deep breath. He got out of the intersection and parked the truck on the side of the road, "Get it together. Remember: It may be the truck's ionization exposure. Gotta find Zero." The man looked out the windows of the vehicle and found a few people walking down the street in the rain. He wasn't too fond of doing it, but he rolled down the window and called the people out, "Hey! I need some help!"

There were three men - one hispanic and two white - in the group of men standing around on the street. They looked to the truck, the one guy turning to his friend beside him and patting him on the arm, a smile creeping on his face. The man in the truck already didn't like where this was going, but he was in a bad place. As expected one of the men split from the group to go to the passenger side, another to stand in front of the vehicle, and the one with the smirk approaching the driver side. The man looked into the vehicle and saw the man with the green mask over his face, "Well, good morning, fellow citizen! A wet day to be on a morning drive, wouldn't you say?"

"Look, don't start any shit with me," the man in the mask stated outright, "I just need to know where the hell I am. It's been a really shitty day."

"A shitty day, huh?" he started laughing, the others laughing along with him. The man in the truck rolled his eyes because he knew what was coming, the man at his vehicle's window inched in closer, "If you think your day's bad now, I'll tell ya exactly where you are," he pulled out a switchblade, the blade extending out, "You're at the corner of, 'Dead' and 'Fucked'!" He lunged toward the vehicle's driver…

The masked man grabbed the man's arm and pulled it into the truck, pulling his attacker's face into the top threshold of the vehicle's door. The knife-holding man dropped the knife inside the truck and went slightly limp as he tried to reach for his aching mouth that made contact with the truck. The driver let him fall back slightly then pulled him into the threshold again. The second strike caused him to yelp in pain causing the man to release his assailant, him falling into the street.

Putting the truck into gear, he slammed the gas just enough to lurch the vehicle forward to strike the hispanic man with his vehicle's brush guard and throw him into the back of another car. With the second thug rolling in the street in pain, the masked man proceeded to step out of the truck and face the last man on the passenger side. He was wearing a navy blue set of coveralls, a white toolbelt, white elbow pads, and tan boots. The last thug produced a pistol and pointed it at the masked man before him as he rounded the vehicle. He spoke out, "Come near me, I'm gonna smoke you, cocksucker!"

The man didn't slow, "I can see your aura; you're piss scared of using it. You know damn well if you shoot me, the cops'll get your ass. Besides, I wanna run an experiment: How much does a man's aura change," the man proceeded to pull a very large pistol with lights on it from his belt. It was black in appearance with a green canister on top and a large silver heatsink on the barrel. He pointed it at the thug, "when the gun used against him is bigger?"

The thug's face was drained of all color. He dropped his gun and started running down the street. The masked man put the large pistol on his side, then reached back inside the truck's passenger side to grab a different pistol. It was much smaller and had an almost similar design; it was reminiscent of a water gun. The lights activated on the smaller brighter green tank's status box as he took aim for the man's back. Pulling the trigger, what looked like a string of green translucent ooze launched out and struck him in the back with the other end still attached to the pistol. The man turned around and aimed the pistol at a telephone pole, pulling the trigger again. The end of the ooze launched off the pistol's nozzle and struck the pole.

The string of ooze suddenly contracted like a bungee cord and pulled the thug by his attached shirt back toward the pole. He flew across the sidewalk until he struck the pole, hitting the wood pole hard knocking the wind out of him. After a moment, the man walked in front of the downed thug and knelt down, "Okay, let's try this again," he grabbed the man's head by his hair to look him in the eye, "How do I get to the corner of North Moore and Varick?"

Back on the road. The man tried to use the flat handheld device from earlier as some kind of aid, but it kept saying it needed a signal from both a cellular tower and GPS satellites. Grunting in anger he threw the device on the dashboard before him, it becoming wedged between the dash and the windshield. That punk took too much time to regain his breath and give him directions, "This isn't right! I can't call anyone; no one is responding on radio… Wait! The hell?"

The man stopped the truck again as he took notice of the street he was on, "Wasn't there a McDonald's on this corner?" he turned his head and looked more intently, "And wasn't that Starbucks burnt down?" He started to creep the vehicle down the street as he took notice of changes, but was soon interrupted by a sudden drop in the road, "Dah!" He looked out his driver side window to see a giant sinkhole in the street, "Goddamn, and I thought Lake-Cook road was bad. This hole wasn't here before, either." Putting the truck in four-wheel drive he backed up and attempted to go around the hole to find several fissures in the middle of the street.

"I gotta watch where I'm goin'," he commented, taking off his hat to expose his short blonde hair, wiping his forehead of sweat and rainwater before replacing the hat on his head, "last thing I want is to buff more dings outta this damn thing."

The truck finally reached its intended destination. Parking in front of the doors of an old firehouse the driver took notice of what was present and what wasn't, namely the black pickup truck just past the main doors, "Who's truck is that? I don't ever remember another division with that design truck." Throwing the vehicle into park he stepped out and walked to the main doors to notice something else that was out of place, "Wait, they replaced these doors with a roll up!" The man in the green gaiter mask grunted in irritation, "Oh, I gotta get some answers here! My memory can't be getting this bad!"

At the back desk, Janine sat as she checked her computer. After the second earthquake she wanted to make sure the new system she was using didn't up and crash when she heard the door open. She saw a man in a blue jumpsuit approaching the desk while slowing down to look at Roland's Mustang. After looking at Janine's old desk that was destroyed, he walked to the back of the office area of the garage, "Hey, whose truck is outside, where's Dr. Stantz, and why in the hell is no one responding to my calls, among other questions?"

Janine poked her head from behind the monitor with an eyebrow raised, "What are you doing out of bed, and why are you wearing that goofy mask?"

The man took a hard blink, "Ms. Melnitz? What're you doing at Zero? I thought you never left the main office."

"I work here," Janine said slowly, confusion in her voice, "I have for years."

"Really?" the man asked, "Then why haven't you been in this building for the last 25 years? Have things gotten that bad? They needed you to handle calls here?"

Janine stared at him blankly, "Are you okay? Did Lita hit you in the head that hard?"

Back outside Ecto-1 came to a stop just before the doors to find their way blocked by the blue SUV. The truck was still running. Roland got out and walked to the car's driver side window to look in. He turned back, "There's no one in here." Kylie also stepped out of the vehicle into the rain and looked the truck over, "That's weird. It looks like Ecto-1, but all the equipment on the roof is smaller."

"It's a newer Ford Explorer," Roland stated as he walked around the car, "Sounds like it has a 302 small block in it." Kylie looked at the mud on the doors and saw a letter "G" peeking out from behind the mud. Taking her hand, she started rubbing the mud off the side where the light blue stripes were and started uncovering the lettering on the stripes, "'Ghostbusters'…?" She uncovered the logo on the door…

Around the front of the car Roland looked at the licence plate, "This says it's an Illinois vehicle, but I've never seen this design plate before. It says, 'CHI ECTO'." It took a moment, but it registered in his brain, "Chi Ecto? This is an Ectomobile?"

"Um, Roland?" He heard Kylie call him. He rounded the car back to the driver side and saw the side of the door. The two of them looked at each other confused.

"Look, I don't have time for this, Ms. Melnitz," the man in the green mask was growing impatient now, "now explain to me where Melody disappeared to, and why my team decided to not respond, let alone all the other teams?" "Why do you keep calling me, 'Ms. Melnitz'? I don't know who this Melody is, and you know Ray's been in Idaho for the last 4 years! As for the teams…" the main door opened again with Kylie and Roland in front, Amy and Darien coming up to rear. They walked toward the desk as they noticed the man in blue there. The man in the green mask turned to see them approach, "Who in the hell are you?"

Roland stopped along with Kylie just short of the man. He looked the man over and looked at the clothes he was wearing. He settled on his arm where a familiar logo sat, but there was something off about it. He pointed, "Look! Same as the truck."

"Guys, I think something's wrong with Dan," Janine stood and rounded the desk, "I think he's starting to get delusional. Whatever Lita did to him tonight left him not right in the head."

"Janine, I don't wanna alarm ya, but," Kylie said as her and Roland exchanged looks then looked back again, "that's not Dan!"

The man raised an eyebrow, exacerbation in his voice, "What? Yes I am! The better question that's already been asked is who the hell are you?!"

There was a skidding sound on one of the poles. They turned to the pole and found Dan dismounting. Shortly after they heard three more people sliding down behind him; Eduardo, Serena, and Mina dismounted the pole behind Dan. Dan stumbled a bit as he walked to the desk, yelling loudly in anger, "We're all trying to sleep around here! What is with all the goddamn noise?! First Egon is screaming about an earthquake, and now you people can't be quiet to save… What?! Why are you all looking at me like that?!" That was when he noticed the guy in the green mask near the back desk. He stopped short and pointed at him, "Who the fuck is this? The Green Hornet?"

The man's eyes were wide. He reached up and pulled the gaiter mask down off his face…

An older Dan Shannon was staring back at him.