The sound of "Space Jam" playing loudly woke Hogarth up from his sleep. He was having a dream where he was in Venice on a date with Sam Molgan.
Grumbling under his breath, he groped around until he found his cell phone and pushed the answer button on the screen.
"Hello…?" he croaked.
"Hogarth! Where are you?" Constance demanded.
"Do you have any idea how early it is?"
"Not early enough. I thought you were sticking with us."
"I am."
"Well, get your butt over to Chinatown's Dragon Gate right now. We need to start looking for a place to set up shop."
"Chinatown?"
"Just get down here, Hogarth!"
With that, Constance hung up.
Hogarth quickly slipped out of bed, got dressed, and did his chores. When he went downstairs, he found his mother sipping coffee at the table. She was in uniform and ready to start her job.
"Today's Saturday, Hogarth," she pointed out.
"I have work, not school," Hogarth explained.
"Is it that demanding a job?" Stephanie asked.
"When you have a record, Mom, beggars can't be choosers. I'll see you when I get home."
"When will that be?"
"Wish I knew."
With that, Hogarth grabbed his jacket and left the house. He caught a bus to Chinatown. Getting off at the corner of Bush and Stockton, he walked down the block to where the Dragon Gate stood. He found Constance and Jefferson standing under the gate.
"Why of all places did you have to pick Chinatown?" Hogarth asked.
"Because we found the only place that could fit in our budget here," Constance told him, already getting annoyed by his remarks.
She pointed. Turning in the direction of her hand, Hogarth saw an old building across the street with a garage door and a normal door right next to it. Above the garage door was a faded sign that read: "Jon Jiffy Repairs."
"You bought an old mechanic's shop?"
"It was all we could afford. Besides, it comes with living spaces on the second floor. You could play video games up there."
"My dad didn't allow me to bring my video games to San Francisco with me."
"With how much work we're going to be doing," Jefferson said, punching in digits on the calculator he was holding, "I doubt you'll have time to play video games anyway."
"So what do we need to do?" Hogarth asked as he followed Constance and Jefferson across the street towards the building.
"We need to renovate the building, build our equipment, find additional staff members," Constance said, "as well as get a car and make it suitable for our line of work. You said you were a street racer, right?"
"Yes. I can take a car, pull it apart, put it back together, and make it a real mean racing machine."
"In that case, you can work on the car when it gets here."
"Fine, I - wait a minute, go back a bit. Did you say we have to build our equipment? I thought this Dr. Stantz character was going to provide us with it."
"No, he only provided us with the parts," Constance said, opening the door and stepping inside. "We still have to put them together. Do you have any idea how hard it is to ship unlicensed nuclear accelerators?"
"Do I want to know?"
"Only if you want to be an accessory to illegal transportation of such objects," Jefferson answered.
"And here's your equipment," Constance added, handing Hogarth a heavy box. "Inside is your standard proton pack and uniform. There's also parts to build a trap in there, too."
"You don't expect me to put this together myself, do you?"
"You said you could take a car apart and put it back together. A proton pack shouldn't be harder than that."
"Great."
~GB~
The uniform Hogarth received was an ugly beige. It had his surname stitched above the left breast pocket, and on the upper right sleeve, the Ghostbusters "No Ghosts" logo was stitched on. Hogarth pulled it on and thought he looked ridiculous.
The worst part was assembling his proton pack. Several times, he looked at the schematics that came with it and realized that he had put some of the parts on the wrong way. This agitated him and he had to remove the parts and start over.
But just when he thought things couldn't get worse, he heard a car horn just outside the building. Stepping out, he saw a busted 1966 AMC Ambassador 990 station wagon parked outside. The car's paint was either scraped, faded, or gone completely. A few of the headlights were missing. The engine sounded like it was about to explode.
Hogarth swallowed a scream of rage and ran outside just as Constance got out of the car.
"What on Earth is this?!" he cried.
"Relax, I found a car for us," she said.
"This isn't a car! This is a pile of scrap! We need a working motor vehicle, Constance!"
"It was all we could afford with what we had left of funding. You can fix it, can't you?"
"Pop the hood."
Constance reached inside and pulled a small lever. Hogarth grabbed the hood and heaved it up. Smoke billowed out and he fanned it away, coughing.
"Jeez," he said. "This engine needs to be replaced, it's practically toast. The battery's no good, and the fluid lines are ripping, along with bad spark plugs. And that's just what's in here."
"Can you fix it?"
"I can, if you get me the parts. But you should wait until after I've checked everything. It's probably gonna cost more to fix this thing than you paid to buy it."
"Well that's just great," Constance said.
She left Hogarth as he climbed inside the cabin and walked into the building. Amy Wilde sat at her desk, reading a magazine.
"Any calls, Amy?" Constance asked.
"No."
"Any messages?"
"No."
"Anything?"
"No."
"Keep up the good work."
"That's the plan."
Constance rounded on the stairs and headed down into the basement. At the bottom, she saw Jefferson standing next to a large, silver unit. Multiple gauges and lights covered its surface. To the left next to Jefferson was a computer and keyboard, along with a square shaped port and lever.
"How's the containment unit coming?" Constance asked.
"Just about ready," Jefferson asked.
Reaching over for a lever on the wall, he grabbed it and flipped it upwards. A loud humming sound filled the room, and Constance saw several of the lights coming on.
"Are we good?"
"From this point on," Jefferson said, "if the containment unit is shut down, it will be disastrous for San Francisco."
"That bad?"
"Only after we put our first ghost in there."
Constance heard the sound of boots stomping on steps and turned around and saw Hogarth coming down the stairs.
"Okay," he said, "I've put together a list of all the things we need to fix the car, along with the price tag for each. Anything below the price will not be sufficient for repairs."
Constance took the list from Hogarth. Her eyes went wide when she looked at it.
"Hogarth, this is nearly twice what I paid for the car in the first place!" she shouted.
"I told you that would probably be the case! But you wanted me to fix it, this is what I need to do that!"
Constance groaned and shook her head. "Fine! Just get out of here, please!"