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The Damocles Solution 11

Peter grabbed a chair and flipped it around, breathing heavily and wiping his quickly-dampening forehead. Sitting backwards on the chair, he threw his arms over the tall chairback, and leaned heavily, trying not to think of where he was.

"Hey," he panted. "Hey. Fiero."

Not getting an answer, he dared to look up. No physical manifestation as of yet.

"Hey! Fiero!" he called again. "I know you're a smart guy, and…you've had it pretty rough. So…talk to me, Fiero. What happened?"

A moment of silence. The lab still produced no spectre.

"Fiero! Talk to me. You sound like a guy that was down…on your luck for a long time, buddy. Made it to the top, then it came crashing down? Sound familiar?"

"Yessssssssssssss…" replied a haunting voice, congealing its energy and forming into a ghostly image in front of Peter.

Peter's attention immediately focused on the spectre, and it helped him strengthen. "I heard the whole thing. Wasn't long you…were in this place before the carpet was pulled out from under your feet. And…and you're angry that this was done. And now you can't leave your anger that you have…pent up from this place and rest easy."

"Yessss!"

In the meantime, Ray took the opportunity to walk around the room, examining the various items and organs, preserved in various color liquids and containers, that lined the cupboards and walls.

Stopping by a preserved stomach, he cocked an eyebrow and began to tap his mouth in deep thought.

Winston strode aside of him and whispered. "Ray. You're lookin' at that thing like it's a candy apple from the faire you were just at. Cut it, cuz it's creepin' me!"

Ray broke away and smiled. "Heh. Sorry Winston. It's just that this reminds me of…something….someone."

Winston's eyes went wide. "Reminds you of someone? Who the heck gets that reward!"

Ray turned again to the organ, floating in greenish liquid. "Reminds me…of…" His eyes went wide, and he snapped his fingers. "Aha! I got it!" He turned to Winston quickly. "I'll explain later. Let's just keep a close check on how Peter's doing."

In the center of the room, Peter continued, now walking around cooly, and looking much better than he did when he first walked in.

"You know, anger is one of the most destructive forces on Earth, Fiero. You gotta channel that anger into something productive. This place is…extremely valuable for posterity. Who knows, maybe some of your kids or their kids might benefit from this place in the future."

The spectre glared angrily. It didn't like the suggestion of relenting its rage.

Peter held his hands up. "I'm not saying you should move on when you're not ready. We ALL…can move on…but only when we're ready. I'm saying…re-channel that anger. I'm sure you've had more than enough people from all walks of life that probably ticked you off beyond belief. No man is driven to actions such as yours if they're not desperate. Am I right?"

"Yesssss," said Fiero, looking a bit placated at Peter's understanding.

"So, instead of a place such as this, where you duck and hide, and the limit of your involvement is pretty much fiddling around with the goop in a coupla test tubes, let loose. Take your anger out on something…bigger."

Fiero turned his head slowly, confused. And so did Winston and Ray.

"You got caught and charged with embezzlement right before you died. So…" and he grinned a most devious, impetuous grin, "…why not take it out on, I dunno…the justice system?"

The spectre's hollow eyes widened, as if it had never thought of this.

"We have looots of courthouses in Manhattan…let's say, ya start with…Midtown?"

"YESSSS!" roared Fiero, holding up his fists, roaring into the air. Ribbons of energy swirled around him, and soon enough, he collapsed on himself, and disappeared from sight.

With a wink and a pointed finger, Peter grinned. "See ya at the Midtown Courthouse."

Winston blinked in the empty silence of the lab. "No way, man," he whispered. "He just sent that ghost to the courthouse…for himself."

"WOW!" cheered Ray. "You shifted his center of anger from one location to another, and, in essence, rechanneled the anger, changing the location of where he was bound!"

Winston just sighed, hoping this would not somehow get them in further trouble with the court system.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," finished Peter as he ran toward the door all too swiftly, "rechannelled his anger blah, blah, blah…bye guys!" Reaching Ray and Winston, he only paused long enough to hold up his hands, tickling the air with his fingers. "Psyyyychologyyyyyyyyy…" he intoned deeply, and ran out the door.

"I still can't believe he just did that." Winston tapped Ray on the arm. "Let's call ahead to the courthouse and clear it out before either we, or Fiero, get there, man! It's gonna be messy!"

The Ecto-1 squealed to a halt in front of the Midtown Courthouse. Already the guys could hear sounds of tearing and thrashing inside, and the people who were previously inside now lined the streets, worriedly keeping an eye on the building.

Winston and Ray leaped out of the car, and ran towards the doors. Peter, on the other hand, got out calmly, and leaned against the car door, taking his time inspecting his gun.

"Hmmm. I'm gonna have to tell Spengs to put a new layer of paint on this thing. All this action and adventure is really hard on a glossy coat."

He looked up to see the collective scowl from Ray and Winston.

Winston spoke first. "Hey! Aren't you gonna get over here and do this with us?" he yelled.

Peter sighed. "C'mon guys! What's a little bit of payback for all those ridiculous court appointments? I say we let 'im have a lil' fun and redecorate the place a bit. Every time he trashes a room, that's one less stack of cases we have to go to."

Winston and Ray's only answer was to glare even harder.

"So…no one's for that idea?" Peter asked, his hands out in supplication.

"NO!" shouted Ray and Winston together.

The three men ran to the most logical place for the ghost to reside—the courtroom. There was no need for the PKE meter; all they had to do was listen and watch for the room with the most destruction.

Outside the courtroom, they fired up their packs.

"Kinda neat, though, to actually know where the ghost'll show up for once instead of playing hide-and-seek with them!" Ray said.

Winston couldn't get over what Peter had done earlier. "Yeah, kinda neat, as long as no one finds out he was the one to get the bright idea to send the ghost here!"

Peter brought a finger to his mouth. "Winston! Shhhhhh! There's no way the papers are gonna look at us kindly if ya keep sayin' that as if I did something wrong."

"That was just wrong, man!"

The ghost inside the courtroom screamed and roared in rage, throwing large pieces of wood all over the courtroom.

Peter waved a hand dismissively. "Think how grateful you'll be when you're out doing something…I dunno, interesting, and not stuck for hours in a courtroom defending our completely clean business practices."

Winston groaned. "If he has clean business practices, I'm a Lysol Scrubbing Bubble."

"So, what's the plan?" asked Peter, as a large piece of the jury box flew out the doorway, and by his head.

Ray contracted his brow. "Well…we're short one, obviously. We'll try to contain it using three packs on max, low dispersion. If that doesn't work, Winston, change 'er over to single shot and we'll hit it while it's stunned. That's equal to about six and half packs!"

Peter shrugged. "It's bound to this room, so it should be easy!"

Ignoring him, Ray counted down to their assault on the ghost. "Three!…Two!…One!…after 'im!"

"See? I did choose the right location after all!" continued Peter. "You can thank me later, guys!"

Running in, they took a quick asessment of the situation.

Watching the spectre, it seemed to appear in and out at will, popping in, then out, then in again, in different locations, roaring and raging the entire time.

"We can't get a lock on it! It's moving too fast!" yelled Ray, annoyed.

"Watch the motions…maybe we can predict where it's gonna pop up next!" said Winston.

"I motion that we break for some pizza!" yelled Peter.

"Motion denied!" yelled Ray in return.

Winston lowerd his brow. "Doesn't seem like we can predict it. It's just going in and out anywhere it wants!" Part of a heavy wooden bench flew past, and Fiero's spectre paused momentarily to scream in rage. They all ducked the bench just in time.

"Hit it now!" said Winston.

They arose, shot at the ghost, and just as their beams were about to reach Fiero, he popped out of sight again. Appearing and disappearing, the guys were bathed in what compared to a slow strobe light.

"I think we oughta just hang this guy! He's messin' with an important building! A lil' prosecution'll do 'im good!" yelled Winston.

"Oh yeah? In his defense, he's really saving us a lot of lost nap time!" answered Peter, glaring at Winston.

"Defense! This guy doesn't need a defense! He's ruining public property! The damages are unbelieveable! He's—"

Ray ran between them. "Guys! Order in the court!"

Peter's face went white as he looked up. "WHOA guys! Part of the damage is gonna be us if we don't get out of the way!"

Winston and Ray looked up, and their mouths dropped.

Three more benches were falling from the sky. "MOVE IT!" yelled Peter inbetween flashes of light. They all scattered, and the benches smashed into the floor.

"Phew," said Peter, wiping his brow.

Winston had to move fast again as the New York State flag flew by him like a javelin, and with a hard thock! became impaled in the wall behind him. "Hey! That's worth an indictment or two!"

Peter put a hand on a hip. "Hey! For every opened letter I can ignore, I'm THAT much more willing to get this guy a plea bargain! Why, I'm sure in his life he couldn't have been so bad that—"

"Are you kiddin' me, Peter?" Winston persisted. "Why, I betcha I'll hear all kinds of horrible things that he did!"

Ray waved a finger at Winston. "Inadmissible! Hearsay!"

Fiero stopped for another short time, and the three of them took the moment to their advantage to let another trio of streams loose. But, Fiero was too quick for them, and vanished out yet again just in the nick of time. Again he began to fade in and out, creating an entire room of rapidly pulsing light.

Winston scowled. "Best thing to do with this guy…is start gettin' down to gettin' this room of justice back exactly as it was when we're done!"

"Objection! I'd rather make this courtroom into a dance hall while he's got the light show going!" yelled Peter.

Ray and Winston yelled "Overruled!" in tandem.

Peter made an angry fist. "Too bad a direct examination won't produce the method of how to send this guy into the containment unit!"

Winston nodded. "I'd say also that it'd make a particularily cross cross-examination!" He turned to Ray aside of him. "We gotta continue this until the job's done! What do you say?"

Ray gave a cold glare to Winston. "I'll let ya know what I think, when I do…THIS!"

To Peter's and Winston's shock, he broke away from the two of them, running toward the miraculously still-intact judge's bench, dodging and weaving large pieces of wood and metal in the process.

Peter's eyes widened, and he shouted across the destroyed courtroom. "What the heck are you doin', Tex? Tryin' to get yourself a plea bargain with Mephistopheles or somethin?"

Ray turned back for just a moment. "If I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do it RIGHT!" he yelled back. "Winston! Prepare single shot! We can't afford to lose this guy because we're one gun short!"

"Roger!"

Ray approached the bench, rounded the side of it, and grasped the gavel, white-knuckled, with gritted teeth. He raised the gavel high in the air, and with finality, yelled, "Continuance not only granted…but necessary!"

He brought down the gavel. It hit on the wood beneath it with a resounding wooden knock.

All was silent for a moment.

Peter was the first to speak. "Hey…guys," he whispered, while pointing toward a corner of the courtroom. "No more light show, if ya noticed!"

Winston looked up, and Ray turned his head, his hand still gripping the gavel.

Sure enough, there was Fiero in the corner, clutching his head and moaning.

Peter winked. "Justice was served the first time around, so it worked the second time around, too!" He slowly held up a thumb.

Winston shot up to a knee where he was. "Time to wrap this up, because Ghostbusters court is now in session!" he announced, bringing the gun up to his eye and quickly focusing on Fiero.

He let a shot loose, and Peter heard the familiar sound of low-pitched lightning. He saw Winston flinch from the kickback, but the spring-set shoulder setup between the gun and his joint kept the kickback at bay.

One shot hit Fiero with lightning speed, and Ray threw a trap out, then gave the OK to hit it with all they had. Ray and Peter fired, holding the spectre at bay, but not disabling it enough until Winston adjusted back to stream, and added to the fire that was already on Fiero, still burning from the single shot.

The equivalent of six and a half streams almost obliterated Fiero had they fired for much longer, but before he could have been destroyed so, Ray slapped on the pedal of the trap, and the spectre was sucked inside with a whoosh! And a snap!

"Bail…denied!" said Ray, smiling and trying to catch his breath.

Peter raised his fists in exhuberant victory. "WOOHOO! Ya know what we should do, guys?" he asked as they headed out into the streets of cheering people, "We should lock Spengs in a tiny room. And then…make him make us these proton packs like Winston's until he can't keep his eyes open! And then…make him make more!"

Ray wiped his brow. "Well, for once, I'm glad you didn't include me in that. You can have Egon do that on his own. You know how cranky he gets when he voluntarily refuses to get any sleep!"

Winston waved to the throngs of admiring fans. "Guys, what Peter suggested-he does that to himself already."

Ray nodded. "Yep, that he does."