I don't own Ghostbusters.
I own Kitty and Angie Reed, and Remy Safar.
Kitty enjoyed the silence this late at night. When everyone went home, the computers and phone put away for the day, the Echo-One tucked away under a canvas car-cover to protect it's new paint job from dust, the lights out along the office space, besides the red "EXIT" sign that hung over the garage door in case of emergency – it was when Kitty was at ease. To see the extreme contrast in day and night in the Firehouse was in creditable. The hustle and bustle of the office / garage was too energized, too much going on at one time. But when you saw the office /garage at night, it became eerie, spooky almost.
Kitty's job was not over, not by a long shot. Just that afternoon, after days of straight cleaning, she'd finally made it to the first floor. The dust in common room was disgusting, how they all didn't die from suffocation from the massive dust bunnies was beyond her. But, just earlier today at 1:40 PM she'd made it down the long stair case and began to work on the first floor. As bad as the second floor was and as much as she dreaded working on the office, she the thought of cleaning the basement sent chills down her spine.
The bright red "EXIT" sign over the door gave Kitty only a sense of the objects in the room, giving the amorphous shapes a bit of a red outline, helping her navigate through the minefield of scientist's toys.
Slowly, she began to make her way through the firehouse, squeezing passed the Echo-one as it lead her to the Exit door. Her hands guided her across the body of the car, the rough canvas brushing against her finger tips as she slowly made her way back to the large garage door.
Under the muffled tones of the streets outside, she could hear cluttering upstairs. It sounded like something in the lab, messing around and moving. Kitty's brows furrowed when she racked her brain over who could possibly be here still. Janine and Louis left early, Louis wanted to get out as quickly as possible after his encounter with Slimer the other day, leaving quiet a bit earlier than normal and only after Janine promised to walk him home. Paranoid.
Peter left earlier than Louis even, saying that he was going to head to the Manhattan Museum of Art. After a quick change of clothes and a fresh spritz of a nameless cologne that gave Kitty a headache, Peter was off to go bug Dana at her place of work.
After, slowly the boys went home. Winston left to take a long subway ride back home, Angie around noon and Egon and Ray could not possibly still be up there.
Another bump upstairs rang out as Kitty groaned, the boys were still here.
Weary of the creaking floorboards on the stairs, Kitty walked up the staircase, following the light as it got brighter and brighter with each step closer. Kitty could hear the beginnings of a scary movie, the violin playing speeds up and gets louder; the audience at home is shouting 'Don't go up the stairs! The ax wielding murderer is up there!' Rounding the railing of the stair case, Kitty peeked her head around to watch carefully. The boys weren't aware she'd climbed the staircase yet or that she was even still in the firehouse.
Egon was busy with a container strapped over his shoulder, tinkering with the wires or bolts on the canister while Ray was busy with... something else…
Ray, for some reason still left unknown, had an EEG cap on his head, the different sensors and wires protruding from it linked right up with the slime in the litre sized beaker on the table. Ray's eyes were closed as he sat next to the slime, his hands on his knees, his back straight, and not a single word escaped from his lips. Besides the metal-on-metal sound from Egon's tinkering, there was virtually no noise.
Kitty stood up from the crouching position on the stair case, resting her elbows on the wood railing as she watched them. Being crouched on the staircase hurt, as evidence from the oncoming Charlie-horse on her left calf muscle.
Egon looked over briefly, tearing himself away from his new toy as he looked towards the staircase. He almost didn't believe his eyes as he looked back to the staircase, again seeing the figure of Kitty on the stairs, poking her head over the railing and watching, humorously as Ray tried his experiment.
"Kitty." Egon said, nodding his head and breaking the silence in the laboratory.
"Egon." Kitty nodded, pointing her thumb over at the comatose scientist propped up in the corner. "What's up with him?"
"He's testing a new experiment that suggest that the plasm may be influenced brain waves instead of sound waves, implementing it's not talking to the slime, but the thought behind it."
"So it truly is the thought that counts." Kitty said, cringing as she heard her bad pun outside of her head. Egon tried not to laugh, only shaking his head before going back to silver canister.
Kitty looked at the silver canister in curiosity, slowly moving from behind the divide, she asked "What are you doing?"
In no nonsense terms, Egon explained the best her could. "We believe that the slime could be positively charged, and possibly neutralize the negative slime. We're running some tests on it now." Ray hadn't moved, besides the rise and fall of his chest she wasn't even sure he was still alive.
"Do we need to be quieter around Ray?" Kitty asked, a little bit louder than she wanted. Without looking from his research, Egon shook his head. "No. He has ear plugs deep in his ears. He can't hear anything."
Ray's eyes opened wide, taking in the previously blocked out world around him before taking out each of his fore mentioned ear plugs from his ears; the strange cap still on his head. He shook his head, slightly pulling on the wires to the slime before he smiled at Kitty. "Hi!" He said, cheerfully despite his failed experiment. "What are you doing here?"
"I didn't leave. I actually thought I was alone in here until someone made a whole bunch of ratchet." Kitty said, pointing with her head at Egon as his shoulders lowered slightly. He didn't think he was making that much noise.
Ray just smiled, running his hand absently over his jaw. "Well, glad you're not all alone. This place can get kinda spooky after hours."
The phone rang in the corner. Ray's brows creased at the lateness of the call, but didn't think otherwise as it was 'just another day in the office'. He stood up off the couch, groaning at the pops in his back as he made his way over the ever-ringing phone.
"Hello?" Ray said, tucking the receiver under his ear.
"Ray." Peter's voice rang from the receiver.
"Hey."
"Yeah, Dana just came over to my place."
"Is she okay?"
"Well, actually, her bathtub tried to eat her."
"What? Are you serious? That's great! - " Ray shouted before flinching. There had to be a better way to say that. " – I mean, that's terrible, but it's great for what we were… - Yeah, I will. Sure, we'll get right on it."
Ray hung up the phone quickly, his eyes a glow with the information in his head. "Spengler!" Ray exclaimed, ripping the wired cap from his head as he turned to Egon. "Major slime-related psychokinetic event."
"What happened?" Egon said, looking up briefly from the container strapped over his shoulders.
"Something came out of Dana's bathtub, tried to grab her and the baby." Ray said, repeating Peter's words. Kitty's ears perked at the sound. "Are they alright?" She asked, suddenly finding herself in the middle of the investigation once again.
"Yeah, well, she got out of there and went over to Venkman's"
"Most interesting, Ray." Egon said, slowly slipping into a curious stupor. "Remember that painting Venkman mentioned? Well, I ran the name 'Vigo the Carpathian' through the Occult Reference-Net." Egon typed, one handed, along the keyboard, bringing up the page on this Vigo guy. "Look what came up."
Ray and Kitty both looked over Egon's shoulder, spying over as they quickly skimmed over the page. Kitty winced at some of the things he was known for. How could on man be so evil?
"Ooh… Nice ugly history." Ray said, earning an enthusiastic nod from Kitty as she continued reading through, pressing the 'down' key on the keyboard to read more. "Think there's a connection between this Vigo character and the-" Ray paused, slowly looking over his shoulder at the pink goop on the table that his earlier his brain wave where trying to effect. It bubbled at the thought of being useful. "-Slime?"
"Is the atomic weight of cobalt 58.9?" Egon asked as panic started to flood over Ray's features. "We'd better get over to Dana's apartment." In a fury, Ray rushed to the coat hanger in the corner held his gently-loved leather jacket, throwing off his lab coat and replacing it with the cold leather over his shoulders. "I'd like to check out the bathtub."
Egon followed, setting the heavy metal container on the wooden desk in front of him as he reached for his own jacket, throwing it over his shoulder. "It might be a good idea to go to the museum in the morning and get a look at that painting."
"What do you want me to do?" Kitty asked, watching as their momentum slowly crawled to a stop. The boys hovered in the door way, thinking of a way to say 'go home' with out being too rude to the point she wouldn't come back. "Maybe you could stay here, do some more research on Vigo before we got to the museum in the morning." Egon suggested, looking to Ray for some help on the matter. Ray nodded his head. "That would actually help out a lot. If you don't mind, there are some books on that shelf-"
"I know." Kitty said, turning the bookshelf, organized by subject with Astral Projection at the top and Zoroastrianism at the bottom.
Ray slowly nodded his head. "Right, forgot." He laughed lightly. "Well, since you know where everything is more than we do, if you don't mind doing some research before you go home. We'll pay you over time – or, Peter will pay you overtime." Ray said, adding a cliff note that Venkman wouldn't be happy with. "If you don't mind, that would really help."
"'Course not." Kitty said, beaming a wide smile. "Now get over to Dana's! You're wasting both your own and my time." She scalded, teasingly waving the boys down the staircase. Egon and Ray began the descent down the staircase, shunned from their own lab. Accompanying the sound of heavy boots of creaking floorboards, Kitty heard as she was pulling one of the books from the bookshelf,
"I'm glad Venkman hired her."
"Me too."
Maybe she was useful after all, she mused, grinning from ear to ear as she pulled down a few heavy books from the bookshelf. If only Angie were here to help. She lives for this stuff, research and what not. Kitty thought that she could call and maybe get Angie to come over, but looking at the analog clock in the corner, the little hand on the three, she doubted Angie would be conscience, much less willing to help research.
With a tired sigh, Kitty sat down in the rolling office chair that Egon had seat up and placed the three heavy books on the rickety wooden desk, causing it to wobble slightly from the extra weight. She turned to the computer screen, reading more about the "Scourge of Carpathia" as he was 'lovingly' known.
His long and gruesome history was too much for Kitty to deal with all at once; she had to take breaks often to stop herself from becoming too depressed.
One of those breaks, Kitty and laid on the couch, resting her eyes for just a minute before a barrage of snores echoed through-out the firehouse.
I hope you enjoyed it!
Happy 2013 to all!
~pure.