Chapter 11: Too Early

5:35 AM

Old Man Dan stood before the bunk room window as he removed his elbow pads from his uniform. He had already removed his wet tattered Blackhawks hat, the dingy gator mask, and his boots to pile on the floor just outside the bathroom door next to a gray duffle bag. The bag was in his Ectomobile among his equipment. He was now removing the top portion of his jumpsuit when Dan and Raye marched their way into the room, Dan beginning by softly but firmly address the older version of himself, "What in the blue fuck is wrong with you?! Where do you get off kicking any of my team in the chest?"

Old Man Dan shook his head and rolled his eyes as he began removing his tool belt, "Would you rather me rip his throat out?" He bundled up the belt with all of his still attached gear and tossed it next to his Proton Pack by the bed as Dan retorted, "I'd rather you not go around assaulting people! Garrett may be a dick, but he's my responsibility."

Old Man Dan scoffed, "Ooooh, responsibility!" he began removing his undershirt, his back still turned to the two in the room. Before he pulled the shirt over his head he sarcastically asked, "How's that been working out for ya? Sounds like every other fuckhead in GBI; that Special Olympic participant sounds like he hates your guts."

"Dan," Raye grabbed the arm of the man beside her, "There's something strange about this guy's energy."

The older version of Dan got his shirt off and threw it into the clothes pile as he turned, "You mean my aura?" Upon facing them Raye and Dan got a good look at his abdomen. Raye gasped and covered her mouth as Dan's eyes widened, "Holy shit!" There was a large coverage of scar tissue over the central part of his torso that ran up to just under his pectoral. Old Man Dan looked down after he noticed where their eyes were centered. He sighed, "Oh. Yeah," he looked back at them as he pointed to the scar, "the result of going into Argonne National Laboratory by myself and having a radioactive demon drop on me from a tree. He tried to microwave me," he began pulling off the rest of his suit revealing he was wearing a pair of carpenter jeans under his suit, "Lucky for me I was wearing a ziolyte treated radiation suit and that he was only emitting alpha particles. Anything else and I would have been buried in a lead box. Can't say the same for those poor Illinois National Guardsmen."

Dan and Raye looked at each other. It was very clear this man before them went through a lot in his time as a Ghostbuster. His encounters were odd, but Dan wasn't sure how much stranger his other self's life was beyond that to even leave a scar that bad on him. He could only imagine what mental scars were left on him, "Sounds like you've been through hell."

"Hell's the Universe's garden spot next to where I've been," he turned to the bathroom and began walking his way to the room when Raye called out, "Wait, why do you…?"

"...Glow like Cherobyl?" he stopped and turned to the temple priestess, "I didn't think you were a normal kid. You must be psychic. At the least, vaguely clairvoyant."

"He's me, alright," Dan put his hands on his hips and looked at Raye, "He speaks in nuclear euphemisms."

Raye was confused, "How did you know?" "I'm something called 'Ecto-Activated'," the old man explained, him leaning against the bathroom door jam, "When one of us reaches an excessive level of annual psychokinetic exposure a dormant part of our brains reactivate. Sometimes it's telekinetic; sometimes it's telepathic; in my case I can see ghosts below class 3 without Ecto-Goggles and see people's auras. The pained screams of the dead make it hard to sleep at night."

Raye nodded, having seen rather disturbing visions herself, "I know how that feels."

"It's not just auras," he explained, walking back to his equipment and pulling a device from the belt, "I can see if people have been exposed to external energies," the black object in his hand suddenly activated with a pair of silver wings raising from the sides of the housing with lights flashing on said wings. They went all the way up and he pointed the device at the two of them, "and my PKE meter confirms that."

Dan's eyes widened again. He realized what his other self just did.

"Looks like I stumbled on something here." he said, a look of annoyance on his face. He deactivated the device and threw it at his younger image, him catching it. Dan looked over the device and quickly realized that yes, this was another universe's version of a PKE meter. He had to say it, "Great, this thing looks like a shoe polisher, but it burned us."

"Everyone in this building with the exception of Dr. Spengler, Ms. Melnitz, and that goth girl has a similar energy signature. You and that young lady on the bed over here are giving off the same general energy frequency," he pointed to Lita who was still unconscious on the bunk nearest to where he stood. "Let me guess: you have powers of an elemental nature?" Dan and Raye looked at each other briefly before looking back to the older Ghostbuster. They both attempted to speak but were having difficulty. All Raye managed to get out was, "How?"

"We have offices all over the place," he said, once again leaning against the door frame, "I read the field reports of teams from all over the world, but mostly from the Midwest. Chicago Division is the hub office for the Midwestern sector of the US, so I approve major reports to the main office after assessing priority. I've seen reports of elemental wielders having a commonality in PKE accumulation. If my memory serves," he pointed to Raye, "you and Wheeler down there are pyromancers," she blanched in surprise as he then pointed to Dan, "Then there's you and Gina Carano over there," he moved from Dan to Lita, "the two of you are electromancers. Different energy types have different muon arrangements."

Raye was lost, "Talk about word salad!" Dan sighed, "What he means is, depending on the element you're utilizing it has a different energy pattern. I guess he has so much field experience and it's happened enough he can tell just from the reading alone." The old man nodded, "Exactamundo. Look," he pushed off the door and approached them, "I don't intend to press you why you all have these signatures. At this point in my shitty life, I've seen stranger. Just promise me you're not gonna get me killed with these powers."

It was a reasonable request. This man had enough happen to him to see a certain level of outcome to the situation. It could be said he was bleeding, but he was clearly not done with his fight. This just seemed like another day to him. Dan and Raye nodded, Raye concluding, "We'll do what we can. Just one thing." The old man nodded as he looked to the Sailor Scout, "Don't hurt any more people. I can tell you've lost a lot in your life and I know you're angry, but please, no one wants to hurt you here. Respect that."

Old Man Dan sighed, "Fair enough. I am sorry about what happened down there, but hesitation has gotten a lot of our guys in the hospital. Every time I commanded someone to do something, they refused to listen to me. I don't exactly have the most stellar of reputations back home and that's been more a detriment to my guys than these things could throw at us."

Dan cocked an eyebrow, "Why's that?"

Old Man Dan looked uneasy. He sighed again as he began to pace, "I made a mistake. Rather, several mistakes. Between former members - whom I had an infatuation with - telling overblown lies about me to being charged for…" he stopped pacing and hung his head, "manslaughter, no one trusts me."

Raye gasped as Dan's eyes squinted in confusion, "Manslaughter? What?"

"It doesn't matter," the old man turned to them, "Point is, I'm aggressive when no one listens because all I'm trying to do is attempt to stop another accident from happening. When I don't get cooperation we're gonna either lose someone to the hospital, or worse, the morgue." Dan understood that way too well. His confrontations with Garrett showed he was rather abrasive with people when they didn't listen. There was no doubt this was the result of many people also being difficult with him as he attempted to command them.

"If you don't mind," the old man stated, "I'm gonna clean up. It's been a rough couple of days. That PKE Disrupter should stay on indefinitely, so everyone should be able to get sleep." He walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. Dan looked at the extradimensional PKE meter in his hand, turning it on then playing back the data. The device was rather advanced, having the screen look more like a PDA. Turning the device on its side a menu came up displaying information on several creatures scanned. One of the last things captured by the device was a field exposure phenomenon that looked to be recorded without his older self's knowledge. The reading jumped out at him, "Whoa."

"According to this, what opened on the other Dan Shannon was a pan-dimensional gate desynced from temporal cohesion," Egon had the other PKE meter in his hand as he scrolled through the other entries shortly after, "that would explain why he appears older, but seems to be from 20 years in the future rather than just that 10 years I originally assessed." By this time everyone else went back to sleep with the exception of Eduardo and Garrett on guard duty, and Dan, Raye, and Amy parsing through Old Man Dan's PKE data. Dan heard the explanation and disseminated the information for Raye, knowing she was lost, "So, what you're saying is he was born 10 years later, but comes from 20 years into the future of another dimension?"

"Correct," Egon spun in his chair to face them, "Perhaps because of you being Jupiter Knight, you were artificially placed 10 years behind in the timeline to be old enough to protect Sailor Jupiter. Aside of that, the two dimensions run at two different speeds."

Amy picked up after Egon, "That would also explain why your other self stated he's been fighting the Man-Bat creatures for 3 months while in this dimension we've been fighting them for a week."

Raye scratched her head in confusion, "Why would they be fighting these things in another dimension anyway? Are there Sailor Scouts there, too?" Dan shook his head, "No. It's obvious. At the exact moment the trigger to bring my other self into this world happened on this side, it opened 3 months into their past."

"Exactly," Egon scrolled through more of the information on the PKE meter, "according to the records on this meter the same phenomenon happened several times throughout the weeks and finally grew enough to envelope a vehicle of sufficient mass with a driver and several pieces of equipment. Wherever these things enter our world from, they became rerouted into this other dimension when the first flicker took place."

Amy retrieved her computer from her pocket as she again booted it up, "As the earthquake took place my computer was running and captured this." She handed the device to Egon to again compare the two readings. He nodded, "Hmmm."

A sense of dread came over Dan as he rolled his eyes and groaned, "I hate it when he goes, 'Hmmm.' Okay, Doctor, what's the problem?" "These are definitely the same pulses. Filtering the information on this meter's database the exact pulses take place weeks apart from each other where on Amy's computer it reads within a few seconds of each other. There is something else about it."

Raye looked back and forth to everyone as she could feel the tension rise in the room. She barely understood what was going on with the readings and whatnot, but there was a horrible feeling coming over her she couldn't shake.

Old Man Dan stepped out of the shower and grabbed his spare clothes from his duffle bag. Stepping out of the bathroom in a clean shirt and jeans he began gathering his dirty uniform and other clothes when he heard cooing from right behind him. He turned and saw the woman he identified as an electromancer beginning to wake up. He knelt down to check on her. He had a feeling there was something important about her so he attempted to check and see if she was in need of anything, "Hey, kid, you okay?"

The girl before him slowly opened her eyes and moaned, the green in her eyes slowly becoming visible in the darkness. She looked up at him and softly spoke, "Dan…" She reached up, grabbed the back of his head, and started pulling him in. Before he knew it, she was kissing him. Old Man Dan started flailing his arms around in a panic and pulled away from her, gasping in surprise. The sheer shock of the situation made him stumble back and hit the floor.

Lita turned on her bunk's light and looked at the man on the floor. When he turned over she saw the appearance of the man before her, "Dan? Oh, no!" she weakly slid to the side of the bed then knelt down in front of him, "Dan," she caressed his wiry beard, "What happened? What did the healing do to you?"

Old Man Dan grabbed her wrist and very slowly took her hand away from his face, the look of surprise yet to leave his face, "Lady, I'm not the Dan Shannon you think I am." Lita saw the look on his face and finally realized something was very wrong with this situation…

Artemis jumped onto the bunk Lita was asleep in, yawning, "Hey, what's going on? I thought I heard the alarm going off a while ago," Old Man Dan saw the white cat talking, his eyes going wide as the cat sat on the bunk. Artemis noticed the woman on the floor kneeling next to the Ghostbuster, "Lita! You're back, and you're okay! We were worried for a while there."

That alarmed the grizzled Ghostbuster. He very softly spoke as he kept his eye on the cat, addressing Lita as he began reaching out for something, "Don't move. I've got this under control." Lita looked at him with a raised eyebrow, "Have what under control?" Before anyone knew it Old Man Dan grabbed the pistol he had on his equipment belt and started it up. He aimed at Artemis.

All the cat could utter was, "Uh oh…"

In the Lab Egon explained the final theory as to why things happened the way they have. Raye was beyond floored, "You mean, this Jeremy Whittington guy woke Beryl up because of a broken flute note?" "When we were going up against Jeremy," Egon opened his spirit guide to the dark entity page he showed Amy before and placed in in front of her on the work table, "Jeremy had attempted to reverse the spells he cast on the world when the entity in the sky - The Negaforce - attempted to strike him down to stop the Song of Life. Shortly after we pushed the Negaforce back into the gateway in the sky, Jeremy started playing again to find that the recorder was broken. In order to allow Jeremy to finish the song, all of us lent some of our lifeforce to him so he could repair it. When he played that note, it likely awoke Beryl and the rest of her court, but only had so much energy to function. Depending on the temporal disconnect between the Negaverse and here, that might have been the moment Beryl awoke and decided to attack you in 1994."

Raye picked up the guide and looked at the illustration within. The chills ran up her spine as though an old memory surfaced, "No way!"

"If the note could have opened a secondary doorway that allowed Beryl to come through," Dan was thinking out loud, "then you're thinking whoever played the recorder…" Before he could finish his thought he heard a plinking sound followed by a thump. It was familiar, "That sounded like a Destabilizer discharge…" he heard it again and it suddenly clicked, "Oh, shit, it is!" Dan ran to the lab door and opened it to the spectacle beyond.

He saw several Ectoplasmic Destabilizer bolts fly out of the bunk room door and strike the wall across the hallway. Artemis ran out of the room in a mad panic, screaming at the top of his lungs, "Look out! Madman with a gun!" Everyone in the lounge woke up… again… at the sound of the chaos. Serena sat up from her sleeping bag and rubbed her eyes yelling in the process, "What is with all the noise?! We're trying to…" A destabilizer bolt flew past her causing her to scream and fall backwards scaring her awake. Old Man Dan ran out of the bunk room and stopped to search for the white possessed animal. He saw Artemis panting and running around the lounge. He took aim and tried to lead his target, "Stop moving, you dumb son-of-a-bitch!" he squeezed off another round hitting the floor.

On the top floor Garrett was hearing the commotion going on one floor below, "What the hell's that?" He quickly grabbed his radio and keyed it up, "Hey Eddie, I'm hearing a lot of noise on the second floor!" "I hear it, too," Eduardo's voice responded back, "I'll meet you there!"

Artemis was jumping around dodging fire as the older Dan continued aiming the weapon around the room. He finally managed to trap the cat in a corner by the entertainment center, "Look, I donno what I did to make you angry, but I'm sorry! Please," the cat pleaded with the man, "don't…" Artemis leaned to the side looking behind Old Man Dan, "Hey look!" he yelled as he pointed behind the man with the weapon, "It's the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man!" Old Man Dan looked behind him and responded in a confusing voice, "What?" Artemis scrambled while his back was turned and started darting for the laboratory door.

As soon as Old Man Dan realized he got duped, he looked back to see that the cat ran away again, "You smartass lil' shit! Get back here!" Artemis ran past Garrett's PlayStation 2 as the man took another shot. Garrett had just rolled into the lounge just as Dan's extradimensional self fired at the cat, missing and hitting his PlayStation on the floor. Garrett's eyes shot open as the device blew apart.

Artemis charged through the lab door and lept into Dan. Dan yelled out, "What in…?! Oof!" The cat bowled Dan over knocking him to the floor. Dan groaned as he picked his head up, "Artemis? What the hell's the deal?" Artemis shook his head and looked at Dan almost suddenly being thrown in panic again, "Wait a minute, how'd you get ahead of me?!" "What ya mean ahead of you?" Almost right after asking he immediately knew what he meant, "Oh, hell!"

Dan stood up and held onto Artemis as Old Man Dan rushed into the room with the pistol pointed up to the ceiling, "That cat's mutated! Put it down!"

Dan screamed, "The cat's on our side, you fucking nimrod!"

Old Man Dan shook his head in confusion, "He is?" Suddenly a set of arms wrapped around his legs as another set grabbed him from behind and pulled the pistol from his grip. Garrett kept him immobilized as Eduardo pried the weapon from his hand. As this happened Artemis looked back and forth between the two Dan's as he realized what was happening, "Wait, there's two of you?" "Yeah," Eduardo grunted as he pulled the gun loose, "welcome to the party, pal." Garrett - while still holding Dan's counterpart - yelled in anger, "What is it with you clowns? Does every version of Dan Shannon have to shoot my goddamn PlayStation?"

By this time everyone else in the firehouse started to gather around the Lab door as Old Man Dan retorted back, "Oh, boo fuckin' hoo, wheel your decrepit ass down to the local GameStop and buy another one, you whiney cunt!" Garrett looked up to him surprised, "Say… what?" "You heard me, you crippled shitstain! No one cares about your fucking console!"

Egon got in the middle of the situation and began yelling, "That's enough!" Everyone's attention was now squarely on the senior Ghostbuster in the room as he projected his voice, "We have enough issues at present as it is!"

Lita just then entered the room in a stumbling manner as she looked to Old Man Dan, "What is the matter with you? Why are you trying to kill Artemis?" "Uh… Lita?" She heard Dan speak, but it wasn't coming out of his mouth. She turned to her side to find Dan standing there with Artemis in his hands. After a moment she began looking back and forth between the two Dan's like everyone else had before her, but she did something no one else did.

She fainted.

Dan dropped Artemis and grabbed Lita out of the air. Artemis fell and landed face-first into the lab floor with a thud. Right after Dan caught Lita he realized what he did, "Oops! Sorry, dude!" Garrett released Old Man Dan and quickly rolled to Artemis to check on him, "Yo, Artie, you okay bro?" He bent down and picked him up to look at him. The cat was still clearly dazed as he responded in a cracking voice, "I'm fine. I can still count to potato."

Old Man Dan shook his head, "I'd be more impressed if he could count to schfifty five." Eduardo got angry and slapped the old man in the back of the head hard, shouting as he did, "You just shot off guns in a building with people in it and you're concerned with jokes on the internet?!" Old Man Dan rubbed his head as he looked to the latino Ghostbuster as he continued to shout, "Are you freaking mental?! You could of hit someone!"

The older Dan looked around the lab and in the doorway behind him. The sea of faces of both annoyance and fright caught his eye, a horrible guilt coming over him as he watched the faces focus on him. He looked down for a moment, "I'm sorry. I honestly thought the cat was a threat," he looked back up to the crowd around him, "Those things have been causing weird mutations in people and animals," he looked to Egon specifically, "Those are the only things that can get through that shield outside."

"Mutations?" asked Egon.

Amy gasped as she remembered, "That's right! I nearly forgot!" as Amy grabbed her computer and drew up an energy comparison chart, Old Man Dan spoke out, "Yeah, like that cement plant guy you were briefed on. We have tons of people like that in my dimension in hospital isolation. After the whole COVID-19 thing hit, the hospitals are more short staffed than ever." Amy had handed Egon her computer again and showed what else she discovered. Old Man Dan concluded, "I'm not sure why, but these things started infecting people and animals almost immediately. It was like they had no goal."

"But," Dan said, finally getting Lita lifted into his arms, "here they are coordinated. They attacked us two nights ago. They were after her." He lifted Lita up slightly to illustrate who he was referring to. "Huh," Old Man Dan stated with interest, "They can't operate on their own. Someone in the R&D tank said something about them acting like a hive that lost their queen."

A hand came up and brushed Dan's face. He looked down to see Lita regained consciousness, but was very weak, "Dan, it was her." "Who? Who was her?" "The woman in the cloak. It was the woman from the restaurant," Dan was shaking his head not understanding what she was talking about. She was fading fast as she tried one more time, "The drunk woman who knew you. She… She's…" she went limp again, her hand dropping off the side.

"Goddamnit!" He faced the door and started walking toward it with her in his arms, "Make a hole! Get outta the way, damn you!" The crowd parted as Dan made his way through and headed back to the bunk room, Lita in tow. Old Man Dan watched as his counterpart entered the room and closed the door. He looked back to Egon, "What's with the girl?"

Egon was still looking at the small computer as Amy answered, "It's a bit of a long story…"

"And it's still unfolding," Egon looked up from the device with a very concerning look on his face. He looked the otherworldly Ghostbuster in the eye as he spoke in a haunted voice, "Tell us all you know about these mutations."