Chapter 4: There Is No Code

June 30th, 2002

Staten Island University South Hospital

1:30 AM

"It's just… frightening what happened. It goes against all conventional biology!" A set of shadows cast against a curtain as a doctor spoke, "They brought him here after that attack on Friday." With that the curtain was drawn back to show the doctor, Roland, Kylie, Amy, and Darien. Amy gasped and put her hands over her mouth as she saw that sight before them. Roland sighed, "I knew it."

Laying restrained on the bed was a middle-aged black man with a thinning hairline, but something was wrong. His shoulders were bandaged up, but his eyes were glowing green, his skin was pale, and his jowls were covered in his own spittle. He spotted the people coming in and lept toward them, snarling and growling like an animal. His bonds weren't standard hospital paraphernalia, "He's broken through the leather like it was paper. We had to restrain him with industrial nylon tie-down straps," the doctor grabbed the chart, "Mr…"

"Issac Hacker," Roland finished, "Foreman, Stoneface Masonry." The doctor - an older white man with a moustache - looked at Roland surprised. Roland looked at Kylie as she proceeded to pull out her PKE meter, "I didn't think it was a coincidence."

The doctor again proceeded to speak, looking through the chart as he did, "When they brought him in, he was in some sort of coma. Sweating profusely, and where he was slashed, he started to have a caustic chemical-like set of burns on the edges of the lacerations."

Kylie scanned the man as she started asking questions, "Was there a type of black viscous substance in his wounds?" "By the time we got him here, we didn't see anything of the sort." Kylie looked back to Amy and Darien, "That doesn't sound like any ectoplasm I've ever heard."

"No," Amy confirmed, "It sounds more like a toxin." "While he was in the coma," Darien spoke as well, "the toxin must have seeped in and started a type of metamorphosis. It must be fast acting."

"We've run blood tests and haven't seen that," the doctor went back to the charts and started pulling X-Rays, "Toxicology hasn't seen anything that we can detect, but there is this." In the doctor's hand were two sets of X-Rays. He handed them to Roland. He looked at them, "Uh… I'm not sure what I'm looking at here." He handed them to Amy. Amy held them to the light, Darien looking over her shoulder at them.

Darien noticed something. He grabbed one of them to get a better look. He turned to the doctor, "Are both of these recent?"

"The first was taken the day he was brought in," the doctor explained, "The second was taken sixteen hours later. We had tried to call you, but your receptionist kept saying your operations were suspended."

Roland looked to Amy, "I get the glowing eyes, but what can be in X-Rays that would warrant a call?"

Amy and Darien looked at each other, then back, Amy asking, "If a man falls 500 feet out of the air and falls into a building, they would break something of theirs, correct?" The Ghostbuster nodded, confused. Amy pointed it out on the picture she held - a shot of a spine, "You see that dark spot in the vertebrae?" Roland nodded again. "His spinal cord's been severed. Now look at this," Darien handed her the other X-Ray and she showed it to Roland, "See? The injury is gone!"

Kylie heard that. She turned away from Hacker and looked at them, "You mean his spine is healed?" Roland understood now himself, "I thought nervous system injuries of this kind couldn't heal?"

"No," Darien confirmed, "let alone in 16 hours.'' He looked back to the doctor, "Were you able to run tests? EEG; EKG; CT scans?"

The doctor shook his head, "No. The nurses were too scared to approach him. We even assumed the injuries on his shoulders were healed, but we can't get close enough to remove the wraps. He awoke like this after the X-Rays were complete."

Kylie had gone back to scanning Hacker. The man had kept growling at her the whole time, but wasn't at all bothered by it. What did bother her was the scan she completed, "Roland! You gotta see this." Not just Roland approached, but Amy, Darien, and the doctor came up as well, "Look at his metabolic profile!" Roland took the meter and looked at the reading. He blinked at it in surprise, "That can't be right!"

"What?" the doctor asked, "What can't be right?"

"Let me demonstrate," Roland proceeded to take a scan of Kylie with the meter. He switched the meter to oscillation display mode then showed the doctor, "This is a normal biometabolic output - you, me, anyone. This one specifically belongs to Kylie. Now look," he switched from Kylie's to Hacker's. The energy peaks on the display were astronomically higher, "Still a human frequency, but the sheer amplitude has increased by a hundred times."

Darien started to put it together, "This toxin absorbs into the wound quickly, speeds up his metabolism, increases his strength, and accelerates healing."

The doctor finally took notice of the two who were not in Ghostbuster uniforms, "Are you with them?"

"They're Japanese medical students," Kylie explained as she took back the meter from Roland, "They're studying… uh… Xenotoxicology."

The doctor raised an eyebrow, "Xenotoxicology? Never heard of it."

"It's a study of transformative biochemistry by way of physical reatomization," Roland had the words spill from his mouth, shortly after him grabbing the bridge of his nose. Amy's eyes widened when she realized what just happened. She winced when the doctor turned to her, "Is that so?"

"Why," Amy was nervous, putting her hand on the back of her neck, "oh… of course! We've had… many strange things happen in Japan! I mean, the Ghostbusters were in Tokyo…"

Darien clasped onto Amy's shoulders causing her to stop. He also knew what happened as well, "What she means is, because of what's happened in our country, a new field of paranormal medical research is taking place. We've seen this many times before."

In reality, Darien wasn't lying.

Despite Amy's sudden ramble and Kylie's odd choice of words, the doctor sighed as he handed the chart to Amy and walked out. Amy and Darien watched as he walked out, then looked to the two Ghostbusters, Darien smirking, "I assume that happens often?"

Roland turned to Kylie, "'Xenotoxicology'?"

"So," she started as she put away her meter, "Garrett made me watch 'Aliens' with him a while ago and the word, 'Xenomorph' was stuck in my head! Besides, where'd you pull that explanation from? Did you need gloves?"

"That was me," Amy explained sheepishly as she handed the chart to Darien, "I guess Roland said what I intended to and I just didn't know where to go from there."

"Looks like we don't have control of our link yet," Roland commented. He looked back to Amy, "Is this what would have happened to Dan if that stuff got inside him?"

Amy had finally pulled out her computer and began booting it up as she answered, "Starting symptoms sound similar to Dan's; it's definitely possible."

Kylie cocked an eyebrow, "Possible?"

"These creatures are Negaverse in origin, but we've never encountered them before, let alone have a transformation like this before."

"Still, it's familiar," Darien stated. Amy typed on her device as she agreed, "Very. It's almost like the Generals." "But," he looked thoughtfully, "the Generals, or even Beryl didn't act like this."

Kylie had been watching Amy's computer for a bit as she worked, "What in the hell is that thing? It looks like Roland's PDA."

"it's a supercomputer. it has a multiphasic analyzation matrix that can scan almost any energy signature."

Kylie's curiosity piqued, "You mean, it can scan chronometric disturbances; pan-dimensional cross variations; subatomic radiation?" Amy stopped her work and slowly looked at Kylie. Kylie saw the look and realized she was one of the few people Amy was impressed with. The female Ghostbuster smirked, "I guess you don't get asked those questions often, huh?"

She shook her head, "Not by anyone my age. You are truly Dr. Spengler's student." The device beeped drawing her attention back to it, "Scan complete. It's a basic transformation brought on by…" she stopped. A look of confusion graced her face as she paged through the results. Soon after, it was a mild look of horror.

Roland sensed it, "Amy? Amy, what's wrong? You look like someone walked over your grave."

The Sailor Scout looked from the device, spooked, "We need to go back to your headquarters."

At the firehouse, things were quiet aside of the storm. Raye, Mina, and Eduardo slept soundly, Raye in her bunk, Eduardo on the couch, and Mina in a sleeping bag on the floor next to Eduardo. Serena was also in one of the spare bunks, but her sleep wasn't sound. Wearing one of Peter Venkman's old uniforms as sleepware, she tossed and turned, at times violently.

She mumbled as she flipped, "No! Don't hurt them! Raye… Darien!" she whimpered as she squirmed in her bunk, her blonde hair sticking to her sweat drenched forehead.

A figure came into the room. It approached slowly to Serena's bunk, her still mumbling, "I will… stop… in the name of…" a hand reached for her shoulder, clasping gently onto it and shaking her, "Serena?"

Serena promptly rolled over and with her hand open slapped the figure square across the face.

A Proton Gun hit the floor causing Serena to jolt awake. She sat up and looked to the side of the bed to find Garrett beside her, him rubbing a red spot on his face. He uncrossed his eyes and shook his head, whispering as he spoke, "Why is it every time I help one of you, I get whacked?"

Serena finally wiped the sweat from her brow and came to her senses, "Garrett!" she whispered back, "Geez!" she put one hand to her chest and the other to her head attempting to calm herself. She watched as Garrett picked the Proton Thrower off the floor by it's cord.

Garrett put the thrower on his lap and backed his chair as Serena kicked off her sheets revealing Venkman's old suit, the sleeves and pant legs rolled up to accommodate the woman's stature. She swung her lugs over the side and looked to Garrett again, "What happened?"

"You looked like you were having a nightmare there, kid," he rubbed his face again, "Went to get you outta it and got my reward in the end."

Serena stayed quiet. She put her knees to her chest as she looked at the man in the room with her. She looked frightened. She avoided eye contact with him as she sat on the bed. It was clear she didn't feel comfortable around Garrett now after the events of tonight.

Garrett knew. Through Raye's memories he saw how she reacted to certain people. They bonded decently the night before, but after how he treated Dan she was unsure of him. He not only knew she was unsure, but he also knew what made her open up, "Look, I know I've been… Misguided, but when it comes to listening, I'm always willin' to help. Raye knows you're much the same," he backed his chair more, "I know what can help the ol' nerves. I got some cookies stashed," Serena had briefly looked at Garrett before becoming guarded again.

He had her.

"I'm gonna be in the kitchen in a few minutes," he offered, "If you wanna join me, I would love to see ya." With that he backed his chair completely away and headed back to the main hallway.

In the kitchen Garrett had retrieved his stock of cookies from his hiding spot and was heading for the refrigerator for milk. Just as he opened the door, he heard the spiral staircase lightly rattle. A small smile crept on his face as he closed the fridge door. As he moved to the table, he saw two blonde buns break the surface of the floor.

Serena reached the top of the stairs and slowly approached the table. Garrett had finished putting the glasses on the table and was opening the container with the cookies when she spoke, "I'm sorry for hitting you. I know you were just trying to help," she had a hint of guilt in her voice, but was soon stern, "but I can't help but think you're going to get someone hurt."

Garrett sighed. He grabbed the milk jug and started filling a glass, "Talk to me; what ya thinkin'?"

Some time passes. The assortment of cookies have lessened significantly, as well as the milk in the jug. Garrett sat stunned. The story Serena told was one that was more in depth than what was told earlier that night. She spoke of the Negaverse and her fight alone at the end, but she also spoke of Ann and Alan and the Doom Tree; the Dark Moon Clan; The Death Busters - a name similarity that actually offended Garrett; she spoke of all her hardships with Darien and how she was challenged… with her life on the line.

"Sometimes, I just have nightmares," she looked at her last half-eaten cookie on the palate, "When bad things start happening again, they come back."

"After all of that, I wouldn't blame ya for having 'em," Garrett filled his glass with more milk, "I'd also be lyin' if I said I never had nightmares of the stuff we've seen. Even before that, I remember this dream back when I was 15…"

Serena immediately knew what it was about, "You saw a woman. A blonde-haired man killed her, didn't he?"

Garrett took his attention away from the glass and directly looked Serena in the eyes. In doing so he accidently missed the glass and poured milk into his lap, "Oh, for crying out…" he put the glass and jug back on the table and grabbed paper towels from the nearby counter. As he cleaned up he asked - still surprised, "How did you know that? The only one that knows that was my mother!"

"The week before the Ghostbustrers came back to Tokyo Dan had that exact nightmare. His sense was so strong, Lita had the same nightmare, too. Jedite sent it out as a challenge." Garrett heard that and looked at the woman sitting adjacent of him as she asked, "You saw her last night when your headquarters here was attacked, didn't you?"

"Are you saying that's why Raye looks familiar?" the wheelchair-bound man asked, "That is Sailor Mars?" She nodded, her eyes averted as she picked up what was left of her cookie. Garrett's head was swimming, "I can't believe it. This whole time…"

There was a clunk down the stairs. Garrett wheeled to the nearest firepole access and looked to the floor below. A figure walked quickly across the floor toward the bunk room. He backed up and headed to the elevator, "They're back!" Serena, hearing that, dropped the cookie and ran down the stairs.

On the second floor Serena and Garrett met up and rushed to the bunk room door. The noise they made awoke Mina and Eduardo, Mina rubbing her eyes, "Hey, what's going on?" "Dan and Lita are back!" Serena updated them. Mina kicked off her sleeping bag revealing her wearing Ray Stantz's old uniform much like Serena.

Everyone made their way into the doorway and saw Dan putting Lita in her bunk. Raye had also awoken from the commotion, but she sat in her bunk in silence, a look of confusion on her face. He was in the midst of removing Lita's boots when Garrett rolled in and asked, "Dan, you guys okay?"

Dan lifted his head, him no longer wearing his hat. He turned…

His wounds were gone.

The bruising, cuts, and bleeding were gone. His clothing was still ripped in places, but all his blood stains were gone; healed like they never happened.

All Garrett could say, "...The hell?"