4.
Yuko Kisaragi slowly opened the door to her apartment. Peter Venkman gently pushed her aside, "I'll enter first and look around," he said, "I've seen this kind of stuff before."
Venkman held the custom built PKE meter up at arms length and watched the LEDs on the two horizontal pivoted arms. Except for a slow ticking sound the meter was quiet. In his other hand he held the squeeze bulb of the ecto sniffer. About once every other second he made a puffing sound with the device as he pumped air into the long sensing tube at the end of the hand held rod attached to the bulb. Other than the air sound, the sniffer was quiet, detecting nothing abnormal.
"This is Deja-vu all over again," Peter voiced. "I can almost feel the presence of something, even though my equipment is detecting nothing."
Yuko entered the apartment and looked around. It felt tranquil at the moment, but she was still uneasy after that night in the place. "I haven't been back here in two days," she told Venkman. "I spent the last few nights in a capsule hotel. Are you sure you're not getting any readings? Why don't you take a look in the refrigerator?"
Venkman grabbed at the handle to the 'fridge and yanked it open. Except for a half full cardboard crate of eggs, a container of milk, and several of yogurt, the inside of the appliance was empty.
"There's nothing here," Venkman said, visions of Dana Barrett's apartment popping up in his head.
"Do you think it's safe for me to sleep here?" Yuko asked.
"Probably," Peter replied, "But maybe I should stay with you just in case, you know to stand guard."
Yuko laughed, "No thanks, I've heard about your womanizing!"
"You don't have to worry, I'll sleep on the sofa in the living room," Venkman quickly replied.
"That's OK, Venkman San," Yuko said, patting him on the back, "I'll get someone else to spend the night and keep guard. Someone who won't fall asleep."
Egan stood in front of a large cork board hung on the wall of the hangar. Attached to it was a detailed map of Metro City and Tokyo, with a number of push pins with colored heads inserted. "What's this for?", Inspector Tawashi asked as he and Dr. O'Shay entered the building, followed by Reno, Astro, and Cobalt.
"I'm marking out all the reported phantasm sightings," Spengler replied. "The blue colored pins are the locations of eye witness sightings. Those in red are were an actual interaction between a ghost and a person can be verified."
"Like someone getting slimed," Ray added, walking over from the other side of the floor.
"The black push pins are the locations where we have been able to capture a supernatural being," Egan continued. "By the way, most of our traps are now full, has anything been done yet on our request for the materials to build that high voltage laser containment storage facility?"
"I just came from our machine shop," the professor replied. "Atlas told me he'll have all of the critical components built by early this afternoon. It should be transported here before the end of the day. The power connections are already installed, and the extra Magnimite line is being made ready at the power station right now."
Egan picked up a roll of thread and began to connect the pins together, forming a spiderweb grid on the map. He looked under the intersection of a bunch of the threads at the map, and asked, "Did you get me the blueprints I asked for, Hakase?"
"Sumimasen, how forgetful of me," the professor replied, handing Egan a large cardboard tube. "Here they are!"
Egan quickly uncapped the container and pulled out the rolled up papers. He laid them flat on a large drafting table, weighing down the corners with several heavy tools. "I was afraid of this," he sighed.
The professor and the inspector walked closer to look at the blueprints. "What's wrong," O'Shay asked.
"These are the blueprints for the prewar tower in the hotel district I asked for?" Egan queried.
"Yes, they are," O'Shay replied. "They were a bit hard to find because they had never been converted to digital. We're lucky that a set had been discovered in a basement storage room of that building during the American occupation and a copy was made by Americans."
"This building has many of the features of one that was built on Central Park West in NYC," Egan explained. The engineer was an Ivo Shandor, who was the leader of a cult of Gozer worshipers."
"What is this Gozer," Tawashi asked.
"He was an ancient Sumerian god of destruction," Spengler answered. "Now as to these blueprints, what stands out is the construction of the roof cap and the upper floors. Here we find cold riveted girders with cores of pure selenium. The entire top of the building is designed to function as a super conductive antenna tuned to pull in psycho kinetic energy. The construction is not unlike some designs that NASA uses to track dead pulsars in deep space. We've run into this Gozer before, and we barely survived his bringing down the traveling destructor, in the form of the Stay Puft Marshmallow man. A similarly constructed building in NYC had acted as a wormhole gate that created a bridge between our dimension, and one in the underworld. We had to take the risk of crossing the streams of our proton beams to force him back across the void and close up the rift."
"Wait, isn't that Yuko's apartment building," Cobalt asked, looking at the map.
"Why yes it is!", the professor gasped. "That explains why Yuko had asked me if I could assign a robot guard for her, she was a bit nervous about going back to her apartment to spend the night, but she was tired of those capsule hotels as well."
"I'll stay with her, Hakase," Cobalt volunteered.
"Why thank you, Coby!," the professor said. "I'm sure that will make Yuko feel much better."
Cobalt slowly pushed the door to the apartment open, while holding the PKE meter at arm's length. "Venkman explained to me how to operate this thing," he told Yuko, "so why don't you wait outside until I've checked the entire apartment."
"Check the 'fridge too, Coby," Yuko said.
"Hai," Cobalt nodded, as he walked inside. He scanned about with the PKE meter, holding it like it was a Geiger counter. The device made a soft continuous clicking sound, but as far as Cobalt could tell, it was only giving a background reading. He pulled the door to the refrigerator open, and removed a container of very sour milk. Other than the spoiled cow juice, the appliance contained nothing threatening. Next he walked into the bedroom. The queen sized poster bed's sheets were pulled loose and sat in the middle of the bed rolled up into a ball, but other than need to be made up, it too was normal. Kobaruto waved the PKE meter under the bed, but still only got the background reading. There were no monsters hiding under there.
"It looks safe in here to me," he yelled.
Yuko slowly padded into the flat. "Arigatōgozaimashita, Kobaruto Kun," she said. "Looks like I'll have to tidy up a bit before I can sleep here."
"I'll help," Cobalt replied.
The two of them quickly filled several 10 gallon trash bags with spoiled food, after Yuko restocked the refrigerator with some items that she'd brought over in a cooler chest. Cobalt vacuumed the carpet in the bedroom and swept the kitchen floor, while Yuko put clean sheets on her bed. A few squirts of Febreze put the finishing touches on their job.
"Boy, I could sure use a hot drink to relax me," Yuko sighed.
Cobalt spotted a metal tin labeled 緑茶 in the pantry, and put a 300ml pyrex measuring cup filled with water in the microwave. He dropped a single teabag in a mug, and poured the boiling water into it.
"I made you some ryokucha," he said, handing the mug to Yuko.
She grabbed the mug by the handle and took a sip of the green liquid. "Arigatōgozaimashita," she sighed, "I needed that."
After rinsing the empty mug in the sink, and putting it into the dishwasher, Yuko walked into her bedroom and closed the door behind her. She undressed, and put on her nightgown. "I'm going to turn in now, Kobaruto Kun," she said. "You can sleep on the sofa in the living room."
"Leave your door open, Yuko Chan," Cobalt told her. "I'll keep one eye open all night, just in case!"
Atlas made a gentle vertical descent in front of the hangar's lift gate door. Like the mythological god he was named for, he carried a huge object on his shoulders which he deposited on the hangar floor with a resounding thud. Venkman turned around quickly when he heard the noise.
"Hey, Egan, Ray!", he yelled, "the containment device is here!"
"You know you could thank me," Atlas huffed, "Me and the entire robot machine shop crew worked our asses off for two days straight getting this thing built to your ludicrously insane specifications!"
" Arigatōgozaimashita," Spengler replied, running towards Atlas, and quickly inspecting the finished product. He examined the welds under an eye loupe, and ran his fingers over the painted surface. "The workmanship is perfect, I've never seen such quality construction in my life."
Atlas glared at Astro, "Well, I'm glad somebody appreciates my hard work."
"Can you please give us a hand moving this closer to the power panel on that wall?", Ray asked, pointing. "Or should I look for a forklift?"
"Well since you used the magic word," Atlas grinned, "I'll do it." The red and blue robot grabbed the heavy steel box, and lifting it over his head, set it down in the space that had already been marked out for it by a painted outline on the floor. He then connected the power cables, as indicated on the schematics attached to the device, and the panel.
"My god, you're strong," Venkman gasped, "That thing weighs several tons!"
"Child's play," Atlas boasted. "Well thanks to you my normal workload schedule has been shot to hell. I have no time to chat with you guys, and I need to get back to my usual grind before things get even more backed up. Have fun with your new toy!" With that he rocketed out of the building and flew away.
Ray pointed to the pile of traps lying in a heap in a corner of the building, their red warning lights blinking. "We need to empty those traps before they melt down, will somebody give me a hand?"
The three ghostbusters each grabbed two traps, one in each hand and carried them over to the containment device. Egan powered up the high voltage laser containment vessel and waited for the green ready light indication before opening the access door and shoving one of the traps inside. He closed the door, and threw the large transfer switch to open the field. The device made a loud electrical whine for several seconds while the status light glowed yellow. The noise then dissipated and the light turned green. Ray pulled the handle on the access door and removed the trap, which was no longer blinking red. "Trap is empty, but needs to be recharged," he announced, tossing it onto the workbench.
One by one the traps were emptied, Astro and Reno also joined in the bucket brigade, carrying loaded traps over to the storage device to be emptied.
"Well that's all two dozen of them," Venkman announced, as he plugged the last trap into the recharging rack. "We're ready for action."
Dr. O'Shay got in early to find Yuko already at her desk, happily humming to herself. "You seem to be in a good mood," he said.
"First good night of sleep I've had in nearly a week," she replied. "With Cobalt keeping guard, I slept like a baby."
"I'll have to ask him how his night went," the professor laughed, as Astro entered the room.
"Heard you coming," O'Shay said looking up.
"I know, my boots squeak," Astro laughed.
"I hope things were quiet last night for the Ghostbusters," the professor said, looking at his computer screen. "Oh dear, there seems to be an email from inspector Tawashi. He attached some items form the police blotter. Seems there were three incidents at onsens, two in a capsule hotel, and a spectral streaker in the subway."
"I know," Astro sighed. "I spent the night in the hanger, though I didn't go out with the guys."
"You need some down time?",O'Shay asked.
"I'll go check and see if Reno is in and can give me a hot oil bath and an ultrasonic degunking," Astro answered on his way out.
'Bleeep Bleeep', O'Shay's video phone trilled. He pressed the answer button to see Egan Spengler's tired face on the monitor. "Can you see me, Hakase?"
"Hai," the professor answered, "I think you got our video phone system figured out."
"Good," Ray answered. "Is Yuko Chan back in her apartment?"
"She slept there last night with Cobalt guarding her. Seems she had a quiet night."
"That's good," Egan replied. "I've been keeping track of the number and location of our calls. It seems we get most of them after sundown, but we did have two at high noon earlier in the week. Most of them have been in a 10 mile radius of Yuko's apartment building, though in the last 48 hours that circle has been growing smaller. If Yuko is going to remain in her apartment, and I really think she should move out until we get things more under control, I'll want Cobalt to maintain a constant monitor on PKE background readings during the night and get her the hell out of there if he notices any sudden increase in those readings Something is brewing, and I expect it to reach a crescendo anytime now."
As soon as he hung up with Egan, the phone trilled again, this time it was the police inspector calling. "You get my email, O'Shay?", Tawashi asked.
"Hai, I just read it," the professor replied.
"Things seem to be getting worse, not better," the inspector barked.
"I know," O'Shay voiced. "I just got off the phone with Egan Spengler. The ghostbusters think things are going to get worse, before they get a handle on it."
Back at the hanger, the boys had set up some surplus army cots with futons as mattresses, and had zonked out. The lights in the huge room had been turned down, and except for the sound of snoring, the building was quiet. The intercom link to the police remained silent all day, and they actually got a good eight hours of shuteye. Peter Venkman was the first to stir, his stomach growling from hunger. He walked towards the closed overhead doors and looked out through the window slits, noticing that it was now twilight. "Hey you guys, anybody up?", he asked. "Seems we've slept all day."
Ray Stantz opened one eye, "Wow, it's been quiet all day," he announced.
Egan Spengler got his feet on the floor and made his way over to the computer screen. "Nothing odd has been reported on the police blotter either," he said, bringing up the status monitor for the containment vessel. "The level of psychic energy has remained constant," he announced, "Something's wrong. We've been having a build up of PKE readings at an increasing rate over the last few days, why has it leveled off?"
"Maybe 'cause we've got the ring leaders trapped in there," Peter said, pointing at the large red chamber near the wall.
"I don't think so," Egan said I a worried voice. "Something's going to happen, and soon, If it remains quiet tonight, I'll really be scared."
Yuko Kisaragi shut down her computer and organized her desk. "I'll see you tomorrow, Hakase," she said.
"Goodnight," the professor replied, reaching for the intercom button. "But don't leave just yet, I want to make sure that Cobalt accompanies your again tonight."
Kobaruto peeked into the office, "I'm here, Hakase." he announced.
"Very well," Yuko laughed. "Coming home with me, Coby?"
"Hai," the lanky robot said, "'night Hakase!"