Chapter 23
Peter glanced to his left to see his adoptive son Oscar walking next to him. It was Monday July 6th and he was headed back to Vatican City with Oscar.
When they had left NYC on Wednesday it had taken them nine hours to get to Rome. Thursday morning Peter had gone to see the crater size hole left by the Sistine Chapel.
Visitors and tourists are not permitted to drive inside the Vatican, so Peter had to walk through Saint Peter's Square to the steps of St. Peter's Basilica to be met by a Swiss Papal Guard. The Swiss Papal Guards are posted at the entrances to the Vatican City and provide security and protection for the Pope.
Peter smiled as he remembered the colorful uniform the guard had worn that was similar to Renaissance era clothing.
Peter looked ahead of him to see the same uniformed guard from last Thursday waiting for Oscar and him. Dressed in blue, red, orange, and yellow the guard wore a doublet over a white tunic and breeches. The breeches were knee-length and loosely-fitted, from thigh to knee. They were gathered under the knee by a fitted band. Striped boot covers, white gloves, and a black beret completed the look.
"Benvenuto Dottore Venkman," the guard said as Peter and Oscar came to a stop before the young man outside St. Peter's Basilica.
"Piacere di conoscerti," Oscar said extending his right hand to the guard, "Come sta?"
"Grazie, va bene cosi," the guard said shaking Oscar's outstretched hand, "Come va?"
"Ci sentiamo bene," Oscar replied releasing the guard's hand.
"Now wait a minute," Peter said, "Thursday you were speaking English to me. What gibberish are you talking now?"
"Dad," Oscar said pulling Peter aside, "He's speaking Italian. Please don't be rude. Let's get the readings that Uncle Egon and Ray need and try not to start a political uprising."
"It's okay," the guard said in English to Oscar, "I find your father's antics refreshing."
"I'm sorry," Oscar said turning his attention back to the guard, "it's just that my dad can be…,"
"Overbearing," the guard finished for him, "I have a father like that at home. I'm called Giuseppe by the way."
"I'm Oscar," Oscar said as he waved an arm towards Peter, "I see you have met my father, Peter."
"Yes," Giuseppe said as he beckoned for the two men to follow him, "I especially liked how he cursed at his little black box," Giuseppe finished as he pointed to the black rectangle shaped box that hung from a strap across Peter's shoulder.
Peter rolled his eyes as he followed Oscar and Giuseppe around the south side of St. Peter's Basilica through the Arch of the Bells. If he had only gotten the "Ghost Sniffer" to work the first time they wouldn't be here now.
The rugged and rain resistant equipment had been created by Bacharach United Technologies and had been modified by Egon and Ray. The slender, high-impact thermoplastic case with a built-in handle and trigger switch, was originally designed for measurements of combustible gas and oxygen deficiency. Egon and Ray had modified the equipment to test for ionized traces left by PKE activity.
"Basically an Ectoplasmic vapor trail detector," Ray had told Peter, when he handed Peter the gear back in 1984, and Peter had gone to Dana Barrett's apartment for the first time with it.
The "Ghost Sniffer" hadn't picked up anything when Peter had first used it on Thursday, but the PKE Meter had. The "Ghost Sniffer" had also sounded a bit noisy to him. So when Peter had gotten back to the hotel, where they were staying at, Oscar and him had "skyped" Egon.
"It's more of a rattling noise," Peter said trying to explain the problem to a very sleepy Egon back home.
"Sounds like something came loose inside," Egon replied stifling a yawn, "you are going to have to open up the casing."
"Will do Uncle Egon," Oscar replied as he left the hotel room to go and find a screwdriver from the hotel staff.
An hour later Oscar and him had the casing open to find that indeed a part had come loose.
"You are not going to be able to fix it," Egon told them when Oscar had emailed the video to him, "I'll overnight a new circuit board in the morning. You can try again on Monday Peter."
"Dad?"
Peter was pulled out of his thoughts by Oscar's voice.
"Yes."
"Just wanted to make sure you were still with me," Oscar said as he slowed down to walk next to Peter.
"I'm here," Peter replied as they walked passed the Church of Santo degli Abissini on their left and he placed a hand on Oscar's shoulder, "just a bit slower these days."
"Yea, what are you now, sixty-two?"
"Don't make me older than I am Oscar," Peter replied dropping his hand from his son's shoulder, "I'll be sixty-one in October."
"I'm sorry Dad," Oscar said as he turned to look at Peter.
His father was a tall man, six foot two inches in height and around 200 lbs now, as Peter was a bit overweight. Peter once sported a full head of dark brown hair and a beautiful face. Now his face was a ball of crumpled newsprint, framed by a trim gray beard and a thinning, but still unruly shrub of hair, yet Oscar still loved him.
"Here's the place," Giuseppe said as he stopped before a rather large hole in the ground.
Oscar stopped behind Giuseppe and turned his attention to where the Sistine Chapel had been.
Normally to gain access to the Sistine Chapel required walking through many halls and buildings as there were no outside doors to the building.
Before Oscar sat a large open hole with a large blue tarp hanging over what had been the entrance from the Apostolic Palace, 134 feet away in front of him. To his left he could see the top rung of a ladder that went into what had been the basement of the chapel.
"You weren't kidding Dad," Oscar said letting out a long, low whistle.
Thursday night, when Oscar had come back to the hotel from working with the Rome Symphony Orchestra, Peter had told him what he had seen.
"It's a really large hole Oscar," Peter had said as he dried what little hair he had left with a towel from his recent shower, "I was only able to cover one-third of it and I only got PKE and Giga Meter readings. The "Ghost Sniffer" didn't want to work for me."
"Are you sure you were using it correctly?" Oscar had asked him.
Peter had smiled as he took the towel from off of his head, "Your mother said the same thing to me when we first met."
Oscar followed his father over to the ladder and watched as Peter carefully descended into the hole.
"Oscar," Giuseppe said as he watched the young man prepare to step onto the ladder, "I can only give you two hours today. I will return at noon."
"Thank you Giuseppe," Oscar said as he stepped onto the top rung of the ladder, "arrivederci."
"Arrivederci Oscar," Giuseppe replied as he watched Oscar climb down the ladder before he returned to his post.
Oscar pulled the Giga Meter from his tan, canvas travel bag he had slung over his left shoulder and turned it on.
The hand-held black unit, with its large sensor 'dome' mounted to the front underside at a slight angle, was indeed picking up something. The two electronic probes swayed back and forth as Oscar scanned for psychomagnetheric energy at the base of the ladder.
"Dad!" Oscar called out to his father who was a third of the way down the length of the hole, "Where did you leave off?"
"Over here," Peter motioned with his left hand, "I placed a stick in the side of the dirt wall."
Oscar walked across the dirt, that had once been a stone floor, to see a stick that his father had placed into the hard packed earth on his left. Stopping next to his father Oscar turned around to face south. It was going to take them more than two hours to scan the place and Oscar let out a sigh.
As Peter stepped forward with the "Ghost Sniffer" Oscar followed behind him. After a few minutes of scanning the place with no results Oscar started to let his mind wander.
Oscar had moved out of his parents' house when he had turned twenty years old. It had been his choice. His parents would have let him stay, but unlike his cousin Echo, he had needed to find his own path. Or so he thought.
Oscar knew he wanted to be a conductor since he first stood in front of his mother and directed her in a cello piece she had been practicing on.
The piece had been Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Nocturne (No. 4) Op. 19. Originally written as a piano solo, Tchaikovsky arranged the piece for cello with orchestra in 1888 for his friend, a Russian cellist named Anatoly Brandukov.
The music was extremely tuneful and filled him with emotional fervour directed to the heart rather than to the head. When Oscar had heard the piece, with the full orchestra, the next month it had came off to him as a colorful score that had embedded into his heart what he had wanted to do with his life.
Oscar loved the piano ever since he had climbed up onto the bench as a toddler and had pounded on the keys making his father mad and his mother happy. It was one thing to play the piano day in and day out, for hours on end, practicing until late into the early morning hours to get just one passage perfect, but he had wanted more.
His mother, the principal cellist for the NY Philharmonics, had carefully labeled the old Spinet upright piano with masking tape. A different color for each note on the keyboard. Seven different colors, placed up and down the white keys, that Oscar had learned how to play by matching each color on the paper with the corresponding key on the piano. Almond was off white; Blue; Cardinal was red; Daffodil was yellow; Eggplant was purple; Fuchsia Rose was deep pink; and finally Green.
After a month or so his mother had labeled the colored tape with letters. Oscar realized that it was the letter that each color stood for; A, B, C, D, E, F, and finally G. He had learned once again to read from the paper and match the keys up on the piano. After that there had been no turning back.
By the time he was fourteen years old he was playing piano duets with his ten year old cousin Echo, as she had needed an outlet after her mother had died. Oscar couldn't have imagined how he would have coped with the loss of a parent at that young of an age. But somehow Echo did.
He knew that Echo would come to see his father, Peter, once a year in September. She had always entered his parents' apartment hesitantly and Peter would meet her at the doorway and pick her up, carrying her into his study until she grew too big to be carried. Oscar knew that she had personally seen the North Tower come tumbling down to the ground. He had been spared that awful memory because he had been in the kitchen at the time. When he had returned Echo had been plastered to the window, that faced the Twin Towers, screaming and crying at the same time.
His mother had known what to do that day, even though he didn't understand at the time. No matter what he tried, he wasn't able to get Echo to stop crying. All he could do was go over to the old Spinet piano and beat his frustrations out by playing Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# minor very loud. He had done this again when Echo had been in a coma four years ago and he felt like doing so now.
Oscar had thought that he needed to be on his own to find what defined him as a young man, but what he had discovered had turned his world upside down.
Oscar looked towards where his father had gone to. Peter was ten feet away from him and busy taking readings with the "Ghost Sniffer". Peter was the only father that Oscar remembered as a child. He was certain that Peter was his real father until April of this year.
Oscar had been in London at the time, celebrating his 27th birthday with a few close friends of his. They had gotten front row tickets for the London Symphony Orchestra. The principal violinist, who played a Guadagnini violin, had mesmerized him. An older gentleman, with a mustache and goatee, with short light blond hair, and blue eyes; the right one which seemed to be drooping in his old age, had watched Oscar out of the corner of his good eye during the second half of the program.
Oscar had heard Niccolo Paganini's Caprice No. 24 for solo violin before. Daniel, Echo's boyfriend, played it often. The Caprice No. 24 is widely considered one of the most difficult pieces ever written for the solo violin and Oscar knew that Daniel regularly returned to the piece to polish it. Trying to prefect it more.
The man who had played it in London had been flawless. The piece required many highly advanced techniques such as parallel octaves and rapid shifting covering many intervals, extremely fast scales and arpeggios including minor scales in thirds and tenths, left hand pizzicato, high positions, and quick string crossing. Oscar had been drawn into the violinist expressive way in which he played. Especially the Caprice No. 13, nicknamed "The Devil's Laughter", that the violinist had played first before the Caprice No. 24.
This piece started out with scale like double-stopped passages at a moderate speed. The second part consisted of high speed runs, that exercised left hand flexibility and position shifting, and right hand high speed string changing and detache bowing. The piece then repeated back to the beginning and ended right before reaching the second part for the second time.
The violinist had played the pieces effortlessly and had bowed to a standing ovation keeping his eyes on Oscar the whole time.
After the performance Oscar and his friends had been standing outside deciding where they were going to go for dinner when the violinist had approached him. Oscar had seen the gentleman pushing his way through the crowd, ignoring requests for autographs and pictures, out of the corner of his eye.
"Oscar!" the violinist had shouted at him when Oscar and his friends had started walking away.
Oscar had stopped when the violinist had caught up with them and had taken him by the arm to keep him from crossing the street.
"Oscar," the man had panted, clearly out of breath, "you finally came."
"Excuse me?"
"Don't you know who I am?" the violinist had asked Oscar.
"No."
The violinist had studied Oscar, tilting his head to the right to get a better look with his good left eye. Oscar had slightly wavy, medium length, blond hair and blue eyes. The same blue eyes as the violinist Oscar noticed.
"I don't understand," the violinist had said to him, "your mother promised me that you would come to see me perform after your 21st birthday, and here you are."
"What's my mother got to do with this?" Oscar had questioned back narrowing his eyes at the man.
"I was married to Dana Barrett in 1986."
"You lie!" Oscar had replied stepping back from the man, but the man held onto his arm refusing to let him go.
"Dana Barrett has only been married once and that's to my father, Doctor Peter Venkman!" Oscar had spat out.
"You're wrong," the man had sighed, "I was married to your mother and we divorced in 1989 when you were seven months old, son."
"Son?" Oscar had questioned clearly freighted at where this conversation was headed.
"Yes," the man had replied releasing Oscar's arm and looking the young man in his face, "I'm your real father Andre Wallance."
Oscar stopped walking and dropped his head to the ground letting the tears fall freely from his eyes. He had punched the man named Andre Wallance in the face calling him a liar. When the police had come Oscar was sure that Mr. Wallance was going to press charges against him, but he had not.
"It was a misunderstanding," Mr. Wallance told the police as the paramedics attended to his blooded nose that Oscar, thankfully, hadn't broken.
"He looks exactly like my lost son," Mr. Wallance had finished as they placed him in the back of an ambulance to take him to the hospital, "I'm sorry I confronted you Oscar Venkman."
Oscar Venkman. How Oscar had known that name all of his life, but now was it all a lie? Was he really Oscar Wallance? He had been silent in their trip to Wyoming and the Grand Teton National Park musing over what the man had said to him.
When Oscar's lease was up in June, right after they had returned from their trip, he had asked his parents if he could move back home with them. His mother, and what he had always considered to be his real father, had agreed.
Oscar had discovered the truth a week later when he was storing his stuff into the storage unit that his parent's rented. As he placed a large heavy box onto the metal shelf it had collapsed and sent two other boxes on the same shelf crashing down, spilling out their contents of paper onto the floor. After cleaning up his belongings Oscar had started on the other two boxes.
One box said bills, which was easy to separate out from the scattered papers on the floor, and the other was marked miscellaneous stuff. As Oscar sat on the cold, hard concrete floor and sorted the fallen papers back into their correct box he came across his birth certificate.
There in black and white, with a raised seal, was the truth.
Oscar Lee Wallance, male
place of birth, New York City
date of birth, April 7th 1988
Name of father, Andre James Wallance
Maiden name of mother, Dana Sue Barrett
Oscar sat on the floor staring at the paper in his hands for what felt like eternity until some force compelled him to dig through the papers more closely. A few minutes later Oscar had what he was searching for. A divorce decree and adoption papers.
So his mother had been married to Andre James Wallance after all and he had been born to him. Another man's son. Peter had officially adopted Oscar after he had married Dana in June of 1992, but ever since Oscar had been little he had been called Oscar Venkman. He never knew another name, nor had his parents ever talked about his past with him. Why?
"Oscar?"
Oscar looked up to see Peter standing in front of him.
Peter saw the tears in Oscar's eyes and knew that something was bothering the young man.
"What's wrong son?" Peter asked placing a hand onto Oscar's shoulder.
Oscar had about as much deception as he could take. When he had asked his mother if she knew Andre Wallance she had asked him how he knew the man.
"I found an old program in the storage unit when I was storing my stuff," Oscar had lied to her, "It listed him as a violinist."
"Yes, that's right," his mother had replied, "he was the principal violinist for the NY Philharmonic's before you were born. He happens to be one of the finest musicians in the world but he doesn't like guest conductors. So you had better not take a position with the London Symphonic Orchestra if they ask you."
"Yes mother," Oscar had replied.
Now here he stood before a man that he had always known as his real father. Oscar was becoming angry. Angry enough to punch Peter in the face because he had lied to him all these years, yet something held him back. He loved Peter like a real father and he wanted answers. He knew that if he asked Peter the man would give it to him straight. He had always done so when Oscar was growing up, so why not now?
"I'm not your son am I?" Oscar said bitterly to Peter.
Oscar could see that Peter's face was confused as Peter dropped his hand from off of his shoulder.
"What are you saying Oscar? Of course you're my son."
"No…," Oscar said taking a step back and reaching into his travel bag.
Pulling out a piece of paper Oscar tossed it at Peter, "…not your real son, at least."
Peter looked at the crumpled paper on the ground and bent down to pick it up. As he smoothed out the birth certificate that belonged to his adoptive son he quietly answered Oscar's question.
"No, but I should have been."
"What happened?" Oscar spat at Peter, "You didn't tell me the truth growing up, so why now."
"I promised your mother," Peter replied looking into Oscar's angry face.
"Your mother and I started seeing each other in 1984, but we grew apart because I had a fear of commitment and took Dana for granted."
"So my mother dumped you?"
"Yea," Peter stifled a laugh, "only Dana said she was protecting herself. I wasn't very good for her then."
"What are you saying?" Oscar questioned Peter, "You have been the kindest if not the most unusual man mother has ever had in her life."
"You are very much like your mother Oscar," Peter pointed out, "more than you know."
"So," Oscar questioned, "why tell me the truth now? When I questioned mother about it she lied to me."
"What did she say?"
"I asked her if she knew Andre Wallance."
"And?"
"And her reply was to lie to me," Oscar said turning away from Peter, "She told me he played in the NY Philharmonic before I was born."
"She told you the truth Oscar," Peter said, "That's where she met your real father. If I hadn't been so 'pigheaded' we would have been married in 1986 and you wouldn't have to be standing there right now questioning me about it."
"There is something that you don't know about your real father Oscar," Peter continued as he turned his back to his son.
"What?" Oscar replied as he turned his head to see Peter's back towards him.
"If I tell you what happened to your mother," Peter said turning slightly to face Oscar, "you can't ever say a word to her for the rest of your life. That's the promise I made to Dana when I married her."
"Fine," Oscar sighed, wishing that the conversation was over with already.
Peter turned his back to Oscar once again and looked at the birth certificate that he held in his hands. His name should have been there not Andre's. Andre who had yelled at Dana for three years of their marriage. Peter knew that Dana had wanted to forget those years of her life. The pain, the broken promises, the name calling, the unwanted pregnancy of not one but two children in Andre's eyes, the physical abuse, the miscarriage of Oscar's sister.
Dana had finally come around to trusting men again but it had taken three long years of counseling for her. A time in which Dana longed to be a woman again. To be beautiful to those around her. To be loved.
Eden had been there with Peter ever step of the way. Somehow Eden knew what Dana had been through, although when Peter asked Egon about it the man never said why.
Now here was Oscar asking him about his real father. A jerk of a man who had walked out on Dana the first chance that he could get. Never sending any money or child support. What was Peter going to say now? Oscar wanted the truth, but was he ready for it?
"Oscar," Peter finally said, "Andre is not the nicest of men in my book. He verbally abused your mother and told her that she had better get an abortion when she was pregnant with you."
"What?!"
Peter continued on knowing that Oscar might not like what he was going to say.
"Before you were born your mother was pregnant with another child," Peter stated, "but there was an accident."
"What kind of accident?" Oscar asked turning around and narrowing his eyes at Peter's back.
"Dana fell down a flight of stairs at the "Met"," Peter said softly staring at the paper in his hands, "She said it was an accident to the police and paramedics, but I know the truth."
"I had gone to the "Met" to see your mother in concert," Peter continued, "I knew that she was married and I knew that she was pregnant at the time too. But somehow I had to see her. I had to find out if she still loved me, like I loved her. If she didn't, I'd have left her alone."
"When the concert was over I waited for Dana at the top of the stairs that led to the lower lobby. You know where the marble statue sits at the top of the stairs in the middle?"
Oscar knew that the outer lobby of the "Met" was a contemporary version of Charles Garnier's Paris Opera House and featured a grand, double staircase with bronze-hammered railings that curved up to the inner lobby. The steel-reinforced, pre-stressed concrete stairs were covered in carpeting, as well as the walls in red velvet with the occasional rhinestone-bejeweled sconces.
At the top of the stairs, on the Grand Tier, was a set of three nudes in bronze by Aristide Maillol. Of particular interest was the statue called Kneeling Woman: Monument to Debussy. The statue was a homage to Claude Debussy and originally created for a monument for Debussy's home town of Saint-German-en-Laye, and was Maillol's only direct reference to music.
"Yes," Oscar replied, "go on."
"Well," Peter sighed then continued, "when I saw Dana walking out of the theater below me I called her name. She came up the stairs to see me. While we were talking Andre came up the stairs to confront Dana."
Peter stopped talking, having been taken back to that moment in time. He remembered it all to well.
Dana stood before him in a satin green, scooped neck, drop-waisted dress. The flared skirt was ankle length in the back and mid-knee in the front. The fitted bodice had princess seams and short sleeves. A tucked band, with a fabric flower, ran around where the bodice connected to the skirt. The band fell around Dana's hips. This showed a small bulge where her belly was, slightly swollen from being pregnant. She was exquisite looking to Peter.
"Ah!" Andre bitterly remarked to Dana that day, "the truth be told and he stands before you now."
"What are you talking about Andre?" Dana asked.
"I knew that child you are carrying wasn't mine. So, when did you sleep with my wife Mr. Venkman?" Andre spat at Peter.
"I didn't sleep with YOUR wife," Peter replied emphasizing the word 'your', "and that's Doctor Venkman to you," Peter finished pointing a finger at Andre.
Andre stepped closer to Peter, his right hand balled up in a fist.
"Lies!" Andre hissed under his breath to Peter, "Dana is pregnant and I certainly don't remember sleeping with her five months ago."
"You were drunk at the time Andre," Dana bitterly replied back, "And you forced yourself on me."
Andre turned his body towards Dana, "Then you should have gotten that abortion like I told you to," he spat at her.
Dana stood there in shock. Andre had said something in passing when he had had one too many drinks one night. She had brushed if off and thought nothing more about it, but now she knew he meant what he had said.
"You want me to kill 'our' child?" she quietly choked out between sobs.
"It's not 'our' child is it?" Andre said pointing a finger at Peter's chest, "It's his!"
"I don't know where you get off accusing Dana of doing anything wrong," Peter replied stepping in front of Dana to try and protect her from Andre's rage.
"Like I said before I didn't sleep with your wife," Peter replied as he felt Dana slide up behind him.
"Liar!" Andre shouted and swung his right arm aiming for Peter's face.
Peter instinctively ducked the blow that was coming his way, but realized too late that Dana didn't know what was happening because she was crying. Andre's fist connected with Dana's lower jaw and knocked her off balance. Peter watched as she lost her balance, tripped on the back of her long skirt, and then went tumbling down the red carpeted stairs, head over heals, to the lobby floor.
"What happened?" Oscar asked when Peter had been quiet for a long time.
Peter turned his face behind him to look Oscar in the eye. Should he tell him the truth? Oscar did have a right to know what had happened to his mother and sibling.
"Your father went to punch me in the face but I ducked out of the way. Dana was right behind me."
Peter turned around to look at the ground in front of him when he heard Oscar suck in a breath.
"She didn't see Andre's fist coming. Your father hit Dana instead of me. She lost her balance and fell down the stairs."
"She never pressed charges," Peter continued softly, "I guess she was frightened about what Andre would do to her."
"The accident caused Dana to give premature birth to your older sister. The baby only lived for two days before she died."
"I had a sister?" Oscar questioned quietly.
"Yes."
"What did mother name her?"
"Hope," Peter replied looking up from the ground, "Dana was hoping that her baby would live, despite what her father thought of her, but she didn't."
"Dana became pregnant afterwards with you. She was hoping that it would be different this time, but it was only more of the same. After you were born Andre moved out. He filed for divorce when you were seven months old."
"There was only one thing that Andre wanted and that was when you turned twenty-one years old that you would go to see him."
"Dana agreed, knowing that when you turned twenty-one that you were free to do what you wanted to do. No one could force you to go see your real father."
Oscar thought this over before he quietly said, "If all this is true, then I don't feel so bad about punching him in the face."
"You punched Andre Wallance?" Peter asked turning around to face Oscar, "When?"
"When I was in London back in April of this year," Oscar replied.
"I can't believe you punched 'The Stiff'?"
"Stiff?"
"My pet name for your father," Peter said waving his hand in the air, "Andre gave off an air of stuffy pretentiousness when I first met him, but never mind that. You met your real father and I see he didn't leave a very good first impression on you either."
"No," Oscar said turning around so his back was towards Peter, "not at all."
Peter looked at Oscar's back and knew that the young man had a lot to think about. Peter turned his own body around so that the pair stood back to back.
"For what it's worth," Peter said reverently, "I'm sorry that you had to find out about this."
"Yea me too," Oscar sighed, "I need some time to think."
"I know. I'm here if you need me," Peter sighed then added softly, "Son."
Oscar didn't reply and Peter heard him start to slowly walk away from him. He knew that Oscar was hurting, much like his mother, and the young man needed time to sort through his feelings.
"Doctor Venkman?"
Someone was calling his name. Peter turned around expecting to see Oscar in front of him, but he wasn't there. Peter quickly glanced to his left and then to his right. No Oscar. Where did he go?
"Doctor Venkman!" the voice called again.
Peter looked in the direction of the voice and saw Giuseppe standing at the top of the hole next to the ladder.
"Time's up Doctor Venkman!" Giuseppe shouted at him.
"Is Oscar with you?!" Peter shouted back.
"No!"
Where was Oscar? Peter turned around thinking that maybe Oscar had passed him and was now behind him, but no one was there.
Peter shoved Oscar's birth certificate into his pocket and started walking slowly towards the ladder. In front of him, half buried in the dirt, was the Giga Meter. It's domed face partly sticking out of the ground as Peter stopped and picked it up. He could see that the meter had picked something up as its two electronic probes were swaying back and forth. Turning the meter over Peter saw that it read 2.5 GeV's.
"Oscar!" Peter shouted, looking around the place for the young man, but the only reply was from the lights of the Giga Meter.
Oscar was gone.