Chapter 15: In The Interests of Peace…

Monday June 30th, 2002

Stoneface Masonry Storage Facility

12:50 PM

Matthew watched as Old Man Dan walked through the parking lot toward the Explorer-based Ectomobile, standing in the large bay door where man platform lifts and forklifts drove in and out behind him. He watched intently as the man got into the vehicle and slammed the door.

Inside the truck Old Dan quickly got settled and leaned back in the seat. He slammed his head into the headrest in annoyance, "Yeah, that went real well," he sighed, "Now I know why he was so bothered by that… vampire." He reached behind the passenger seat blindly and started feeling around the back of it to grab the atlas in the seat's pouch.

As he was feeling around the back of the seat Serena's head was mere inches from the lip of the seat's storage pouch. When Old Dan was coming down the firepole she scrambled into the back seat of the truck and tried her hardest to lay flat on the floor. She heard his hand rubbing the vinyl back of the seat making her clench in fear. Old Dan found what he was looking for and grabbed the large atlas book from the pouch to start his way back to the firehouse. She heard him lament as she heard pages flip in the book, "How in the hell do you read these things again? Maybe Chris was right; old skills are worth remembering for an emergency. We're soaking in that right now."

Dan looked until he found the Staten Island map and began tracing his way back to Manhattan. He sighed again as he closed the book, "Damnit, this book is all inaccurate! That's what I get for using a 2015 edition of this thing in 2002." He threw it into the back seat. It bounced off and started for the floor when he heard an uncharacteristic thud followed by a female voice cry out, "Ouch!" Old Man Dan's eyebrows shot up and his eyes widened as he turned around in his seat to see two distinctive blonde buns sticking out from the gray of the truck's interior, "You?!"

Serena scrambled onto the back seat and rubbed her head where the atlas hit her as a look of panic came over her face, "Uh, oh!" "What are you doing in my truck?!" Serena saw how upset Old Man Dan was and began to stutter, "Uh… I-I… Uh…" Old Dan faced the front windshield, closed his eyes, and started breathing slowly through his nose. He was already upset about what happened in the concrete facility, but now he was even more annoyed at his Ectomobile's stowaway. He looked into the rearview mirror at her, "Okay, get in the front." Serena was very scared at the way he addressed her; she knew she was in trouble for this. After a moment of looking guilty for what she'd done, Old Dan repeated himself, "Come on, this isn't an Uber. Let's go; get in the front." She looked to the door handle in the back and slowly made her way out of the back seat.

Matthew watched as a blonde-haired girl with pigtails and buns on her head stepped out of the vehicle. She went from the back to the front door on the passenger side. The hairstyle… It was like a sudden memory came back to him. If those pictures Madame Holly handed him last night were indicative of anything, "So, that's why." He knew it had to be the truth. Why it was so hard for her to figure it out, let alone her minions, was beyond him. He saw it clearly. She watched as the young Japanese woman climbed into the grizzled Ghostbuster's vehicle. Perhaps it was time to throw multiple challenges at them…

Serena closed the door after climbing into the passenger seat. She hung her head and waited for the scolding she knew she deserved. It took a moment of silence, but Old Man Dan finally spoke, enunciating slowly as he did while looking at the dashboard, "What in the hell do you think you're doing?" "Please, Dan, don't be mad at me! I was worried about you," she kept looking to the floor as she closed her eyes, "After you got mad in Egon's lab I wasn't sure if…" "Do you have any idea what kind of risk I'm running right now?" he interrupted her, "For all I knew she could have had thirty guys lined up to use my body like a bouncy house! I was trying to convince that Bautista woman to stop what she was doing." Serena looked at him puzzled, "Why? Why would you risk yourself like that? Why didn't you tell anyone else?" "I'm doing this because I'm expendable."

"Expendable?"

"I knew what kind of person we were dealing with," he explained, "I know because…"

Serena blurted it out, "...It happened to you; what happened with Jen."

Old Man Dan nearly choked before looking at Serena, a mixture of horror and anger in his face, "You were looking through my logbook?!" "You're hurt! I know I shouldn't have done it, but I think doing what you did just now was…" she got lost for words. Old Dan filled the gap in her talking, "What? Stupid? You gonna say it was fucking retarded?!" Serena got stern and yelled at him, "No! Unnecessary! It was unnecessary!" That woke Old Dan up a bit, "If you're like our Dan you've been hurt by so many people you don't know who to turn to. You've become lonely and you started to believe all the bad things people say about you!" Old Dan started to look down as a guilt took him over. Serena continued, "You're not expendable! You may be from another world, but I know good people when I see them. You're my friend and I don't care what other Ghostbusters say! Who cares what 'GBI Internal Affairs' has to say, either! The fact you put others before yourself - in the interests of peace - shows you're not evil! You're not worthless; you're not dumb; you're not selfish; you are a good person! You say anything like that again and I'll be forever mad at you for telling an absolute lie about yourself!"

Serena was out of breath. As she panted Old Man Dan looked at her in the face and saw the stern expression on the young woman's face. She wasn't joking or trying to pander; she wasn't close to patronizing him. She was genuinely upset at what he had said. Her aura was the strangest yet including the gray-haired calm nutjob at Holly's side; something was especially unique about her. It was a love and passion in her he rarely saw in many people. He could feel it; like he could tell her anything.

Serena was still trying to calm herself down when she looked like she was actively jittering. Maybe there was another reason she was so wound up, "Hey, uh…" Old Dan watched as Serena put a hand to her chest, "Are you okay?"

"I'm sorry," now he was noticing she was talking rather fast, "I donno why I'm so hyper, I feel like I'm buzzing with electricity, I was so tired when I started hiding in the truck, but now I feel like I can run around the block a thousand times!" To him it sounded like a jumbled mess of words. He had a suspicion. He looked back to where she was laying on the floor and found two empty 16 fluid ounce cans laying under the back seat. He knew exactly what they were! "Did you drink anything in this truck?"

"Well, yeah I did!" Now it sounded like she was talking even faster, "It was so hot because it's summer so I saw these cans sitting in the back and I was so thirsty I had one but after that I was still thirsty so I drank another one! Why do you ask?" Old Dan reached back and grabbed the empty can to look at. It was a Rockstar Xdurance. The other can it was laying beside had the same labeling. He held up the can and pointed at it, "These things have 300 mg of caffeine each! Did you seriously drink one after the other?!"

"I-wasn't-sure-why-I-drank-another-one-they-were-kinda-gross-tasting-but-its-just-that-I-was-just-so-thirsty-and-I-figured-they-weren't-that-bad-did-you-say-something-about-caffeine-because-I-think-I-can-feel-my-hair-vibrating-is-it-close-to-lunchtime-yet?"

Old Dan looked at the can in abject horror, "To imagine we've been living off these things for months. And here I thought I was gonna need to see a cardiologist!" He threw the can into the back seat and started the truck, "We need to do something about that hyperaction of yours, kid," he put the truck into reverse and looked back as he commented, "I'd hate to see you drunk."

The truck backed up in the parking lot then started heading toward the road out of the industrial area. Matthew watched until the last as the strange Ectomobile left the facility back toward Manhattan. Nearby the garage-like door was a regular handset phone. He picked up the handset and started dialing a number. He put it to his ear and after a moment of waiting he spoke, "Your Gydja has a set of orders for you…"

Old Man Dan and Serena stepped away from a hot dog shack still in the industrial section of Staten, Old Dan carrying a box full of food and two drinks. He forced Serena to get a diet caffeine-free drink to avoid her heart from exploding. To press his point they walked to the table while he explained rather harshly to her, "You really need to be careful about drinking caffeinated stuff on an empty stomach. You could make yourself sick doing that. That's to say you don't vapor lock yourself first."

Serena had already sat down when she grabbed her hot dogs and immediately tore into them. Old Dan had yet to sit down as he watched her chow down, "Damn, skippy. You eat like a fat crack addict." She stopped a moment and looked at him, speaking with her mouth full, "Are you calling me fat?" Old Dan rolled his eyes before addressing her, "No! I've seen actual fat crack addicts! Now that the President of the United States is supplying junkies with free crack pipes, all the excess money they have goes to food," he closed his eyes and groaned, "Ugh, I still can't believe and I can say that and not be joking." He sat down and started with his own food, Serena finally got her food down and proceeded to comment, "Woah, I didn't know your world was so… liberal."

Old Dan had just got his hot dog unwrapped as he winced at the word, "I'd rather not go into that. In my time you're not allowed to question why babies are without baby formula or why Ukraine can get $50 billion dollars in American war aid." Serena tilted her head, "Ukraine? War aid? Baby formula? What?" the older man lowered and shook his head, "Don't worry about it. The next 20 years are gonna be a complete and total clusterfuck. I'm not sure if it'll happen here; I pray it doesn't, but…" There it was again. The older man across from her was stressed out. He was in the middle of saving a world that was doomed no matter if he saved it or not. At least, that was how he was presenting it. She attempted to change the subject, "Look, no matter what happens, things'll get better. I mean, as long as good people like you are around the world will be good again. Evil can't hold out forever!" Old Dan looked up as she snagged a fry from her wrapper and ate it with glee.

Old Dan couldn't help but smirk at that, a small chuckle in his voice, "You know, you're interesting. Here we are on the verge of total global annihilation and there you are enjoying life like any kid would. I doubt you're that ignorant." Serena grabbed her drink as she smirked back, "Like I say: If you didn't have fun in your life, then you didn't live!" With that she took a sip of her drink. After all of his anger, doubt, and depression, Old Man Dan finally let out a laugh. There was something about Serena that became almost infectious. Serena finished her drink, "So, you can laugh! It's nice to see 'Grumpy Mode' has an off switch." That made the old man laugh harder. After a moment he regained himself a bit, "Maybe it's because I'm tired; I've been awake for nearly three days, but after everything I've been through and all the shit I've seen it just feels nice to be with someone that doesn't judge me. Being a Ghostbuster was hard enough."

"Hey, I've seen a lot of the things you have," she said as she put her drink down, picking up a fry in its place, "I know it's hard to get people to believe in you about things others either never see or blame on swamp gas or whatever."

Old Dan scoffed, "Try being one for 20 years," he grabbed his own drink and took a drink. He put it down and spoke again, "The amount of excuses I've heard from city officials, religious figures, government hackjobs, atheists, and just general idiots on the internet, it's like the idea that something beyond death has to be relegated to something only established institutions can declare. The sheer dumbfuckery of my world has made this job waaaaay too hard. There was one saving grace…"

"Jen?" It was an innocent question. Old Dan's smile faded as he looked at the table. He knew the woman before him knew of her existence, but… "Lieutenant Detective Janice Bellum. She was the head of the Chicago PD Paranormal Crimes Unit. GBI Internal Affairs wanted to start a local police cooperation with local Ghostbusters franchises. Chicago was a test city. At the time, GB:CD was in mothballs due to a psychokinetic drought. Jen was on a case…" *See A/N below

After roughly an hour Old Man Dan had explained the whole ordeal. By this time all of their food had been consumed and their drinks empty. Serena had her elbows on the table, her eyes wide as she rested her head in her clenched hands. She was totally captivated, "Cryoka sacrificed herself to save her? After she learned about love?" Old Man Dan nodded. "Oooooh! That is sooo tragic!" He didn't look thrilled about the tale he told. He remembered the day well. Her brother Matt had been a willing host to a demon named Pyrosys. Being convinced Pyrosys was manipulating Matt into doing his bidding, Cryoka - who was using Jen as a willing host as well - attempted to stop Pyrosys from destroying Chicago in a giant fireball. While being convinced Jen was the enemy Matt stole Jen's service pistol and shot her with it. Cryoka was a demon of cold and winter. In the high heat Pyrosys generated Cryoka couldn't heal Jen's wounds without giving up what was left of her own energy. In a last ditch effort to save Jen's life, Cryoka completely expelled the rest of her essence to save the detective.

This version of Dan didn't want either of them to go. Cryoka was an ally that was trying to stop her rogue brother demon from stealing souls to empower himself, lying to willing hosts to gain their bodies as lifeboats - buffers that allowed them to exist in weather conditions counter to their dominion. The story saddened Dan because of many elements in it. At times Serena stopped to cry. This other-worldly Ghostbuster knew he had rough spots and he told her even the worst parts of himself through the story. Even with his shortcomings she watched his face and saw how the things he did… he wasn't proud of a great deal of it. It showed he was human, "Yeah. After she imparted what was left of her energy to heal Jen, I thought it wasn't enough; she wasn't waking. I thought we lost both of them until Jen awoke. That was when Jen told me Cryoka was… gone."

It was hard to watch Old Dan's face. A single tear came down his cheek until it disappeared into his rough beard. Serena felt a connection with this man through all of the horrible sacrifices she and the other Scouts made for Earth. Sacrifice was a horrible, but brave way to go out. This version of Dan was a lot like her world's. It still didn't explain one thing, "But… what happened where Internal Affairs said you were responsible for… Well, what happened with Jen?"

He suddenly became more guarded. She knew; he knew. How the story was gonna end was known. How the story came to that end, that was the part only Old Man Dan knew, and he knew it was going to hurt. He looked to his nearly empty drink cup and picked it up. He nervously sloshed what was left of the ice around and attempted to drink what melted ice lay at the bottom of the cup. It was almost like he had a tick; some sort of twitch that was present as he was thinking about what had happened. After drinking what was left of his ice remnants he slowly put the cup back on the table, "You have to understand, we had an argument about a week before. I was actually very upset with her. She called us out to a location that was still under active investigation and it went completely haywire…"

Right at that moment, the PKE meter on his belt flashed and buzzed. It kept beeping at a rapid pace indicating there was a huge influx of energy coming in. Breaking his train of thought he grabbed the meter and brought it into his view. Activating the screen he saw that the green bars had actively turned red and were filling the entirety of the screen, the silver wings on the sides going all the way up as the yellow lights on the wings flashed at a rapid speed, "What the hell?"

Serena saw the look on his face. She knew PKE meters were very handy and complex tools, but if a Ghostbuster had the face that Old Man Dan had while looking at one she knew that was a really bad sign. She asked, "What? What's wrong?" Before he could answer she began to notice the light from the sun being blotted out. Just like Venice, that horrible creeping feeling started shooting up her spine. She turned around and looked up just as Old Man Dan did the same with his meter. She gasped, the sight rendering her mute. Old Man Dan stood at the sight above him and Serena, commenting with horrific dread in his voice, "We are in serious trouble!" Serena looked back to him and saw he was beyond terrified. She looked back to the sky…

Hundreds of Man-Bat creatures filled the sky.

*A/N: Search for GB:CD Heat Rising on this site for full story.