GHOSTBUSTERS CARDINAL LAW
by Gunman
Disclaimer: I do not own Ghostbusters 1984, or their characters.
Summary: An extended version of the Ghostsbusters scene in City Hall.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
(Mayors Office, New York City, 1984)
The city of New York was in chaos.
Following a massive explosion at the Ghostbusters firehouse-headquarters, the four supernatural investigators had been arrested and jailed.
But with ever-emerging ghost sightings and pandemonium spreading across the huge metropolis, the quartet had been sprung and brought to the Mayor.
The Mayor, Lenny Clotch, who was having a hard time trying to contain or even understand what was going on, was demanding answers for everything that was happening.
"The Ghostbusters are here, Mr. Mayor." one of his aides said.
"The Ghostbusters. Okay, the Ghostbusters. Hey, where's this Peck?" Lenny asked.
"I am Walter Peck, sir, and I am prepared to make a full report." a rude man with ginger hair and a beard barged into the room, brushing past the Ghostbusters in the process. "These men are consummate snowball artists. They use sense and nerve gases to induce hallucinations. People think they are seeing ghosts. And they call these bozos, who conveniently show up to deal with the problem with a fake electronic light show."
"Everything was fine with our system before the power grid was shut off by dickless here." Ray Stantz said.
"They caused an explosion!" Peck declared angrily.
"Is this true?" Lenny asked the men.
"Yes. It's true. This man has no dick." Peter Venkman stated in a deadpan voice.
Peck, overly annoyed by Venkman already, lunged at the man. A small brawl ensured, which was quelled by the Mayor's staff.
"Break it Up! Break It UP!" Lenny shouted.
"Alright, Alright!" Peck said as he backed down, lead off to the side of the room.
"Well, that's what I heard!" Peter said.
"This is City Hall. Now what am I going to do here, John? What is this?" Lenny asked.
"All I know was that was no lightshow we say this morning. I've seen every form of combustion known to man, But this beats the hell out of me." the police chief said.
"The walls in the 53rd Precinct were bleeding. How do you explain that?" another of the Mayors aides asked Peck.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen." the Archbishop said as he entered the office.
"Oh, your eminence." Lenny said as he stood up from his chair and went to greet the holy man.
"How are you, Lenny?" the Archbishop asked after The Mayor had kissed his hands.
"You're looking good, Mike. We're in a real fix here. What do you think I should do?" The Mayor asked.
"Lenny, officially the Church will not take any position on the religious implications of these... phenomena. Personally, Lenny, I think it's a sign from God. But don't quote me." Mike said.
"I think that's a smart move, Mike." Peter said.
"Well, I'm not going to call a press conference and tell everyone to start praying." Lenny said.
It was then that a dark-skinned man who had been standing with the Ghostbusters stepped forward.
"Uh... I'm Winston Zeddemore, your honor. I've only been with the company a couple of weeks. But I gotta tell you. These things, are real. Since I've joined these men, I have seen shit that will turn you white." he declared.
"Well, you can believe Mr. Pecker..." Peter said as he stepped forward.
"My name is Peck." Walter said with annoyance to Venkman.
"Or, you can accept the fact that this city is heading for a disaster of biblical proportions." Peter continued.
"What do you mean 'biblical'?" Lenny asked.
"What he means is 'Old Testament', Mr. Mayor. Real 'Wrath of God' type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and Seas boiling." Ray said.
"Forty years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanos." Egon Spengler said.
"The dead rising from the grave!" Winston added.
"Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, Mass Hysteria!" Peter added and finished his statement.
"Enough! I get the point!" Lenny snapped at the men. He then calmly asked the men, "But what if you're wrong?"
"If I'm wrong, nothing happens! We'll go to jail. Peacefully, quietly, we'll enjoy it. But if I'm right, and we can stop this thing... Lenny! You will have saved the lives of millions of registered voters." Peter said with a knowing smile.
At hearing this, Walter Peck moved up to stand right next to Venkman, facing the Mayor.
"I don't believe you're seriously considering listening to these men." Peck asked.
"Get him out of here." Lenny said.
The mayors aides began ushering Peck out the door, however, Peck would not leave before he got one last dig in.
"Wait! Before I go, I want to know, just what disaster is so terrible that it qualifies as biblical? Can you at least tell me that? Does this disaster have a name?" Peck asked.
"Actually, I'm curious too." Lenny said.
"Um... it's Gozer." Ray said.
Peck immediately scoffed.
However, Mike the Archbishop seemed to flinch and frown as he said that.
"You mean Gozer the Traveler? The Destructor? From Ancient Sumeria?" Mike asked.
"Yes." Ray confirmed.
"But how is that possible? Gozer can't set foot on this planet unless... someone had built a portal for him to enter our world." Mike realized.
"They did. In 1920 a doctor named Ivo Shandor started a secret society of Gozer worshipers. He was also the architect of the apartment building of Central Park West, which he created as the door for Gozer to enter our world." Egon explained.
The Ghostbusters then showed the blueprints of the building that they had with them to the Archbishop and the Mayor. The blueprints spread on the Mayor's desk, everyone, including Peck, looked them over.
"Several weeks ago, one of our first clients brought this to our attention, when some strange and unusual happenings occurred in her apartment. We've been investigating the apartment, which is the corner penthouse of Central Park West." Ray said.
"And what did you find?" Mike asked.
"The structure of this roof cap, is exactly like the kind of telemetry tracker that NASA uses to identify dead pulsars in deep space." Egon said.
"Which could have been overlooked as an aesthetic choice." Lenny said.
"True."
"The building itself is laced with cold-riveted girders, with cores of pure selenium while the roof cap is made of a magnesium-tungsten alloy." Ray added.
"Oh my!" Mike gasped.
"Is that significant?" The Mayor asked.
"It is. Apart from being more toxic than regular steel, it was once mentioned that selenium could be used to attract certain supernatural beings. Like spirits. And magnesium is not a traditional metal to use in building an apartment complex. It would also have made the construction more expensive, which should have been a red flag to anyone." Ray said.
"Obviously Shandor and his people hid this fact from the public." Mike said.
"And why would he do this? What was he trying to do?" Lenny asked.
"After the first World War Shandor decided that society was too sick to survive. And he wasn't alone, he had close to a thousand followers with him when he died. They conducted rituals upon the roof of Central Park West. Bizarre rituals intended to bring about the end of the world." Egon stated.
"And that's what he intended to do, by using this building as a door to Gozer's dimension, to bring him here, and wipe out mankind. Or at least New York." Ray said.
"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard." Peck scoffed again.
"Are you still here?" Peter asked.
"Lenny, I think you should seriously listen to these men." Mike said.
"What?" Peck asked.
"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! Mike... what are you saying? That you believe this? About this Gozer? I've never even heard of this guy." Lenny asked.
"Because you and the public were never meant to know, Lenny."
"But you have?"
"Of course. The church, for centuries, has kept documentation of these ancient cultures and beings. Ancient Sumeria was rife with these prehistoric deities. Gozer was one of the worst. Hundreds of different cultures were wiped out because some genocidal fool decided it was a good idea to use a god to destroy his enemies rather than a standing army. The Sumerians, The Lumerians, The Babylonians, they all worshiped these deities, and each of them were systematically wiped out by Gozer or one of his 'associates'."
"And I suppose this Gozer wiped out Atlantis as well?" Peck mocked.
"No, that was Cthulhu." Mike said with a deadpan expression.
The group looked at the Archbishop in shock.
"And you never bothered to tell us about this, why?"
"Because under Cardinal Law The Church chose to keep the existence of these beings a closely guarded secret in this modern age." Mike explained.
"But now you're saying that one of them is coming to start tearing the city to pieces?" Lenny asked.
"Lenny, you don't understand. These ancient beings like Gozer, they don't live on Earth. They live in their own realms and domains, far apart from our world. We were never concerned that they were going to one day wake up on the wrong side of the bed and suddenly decide to wipe out mankind. For all their power, the only way they can harm us is if someone actually summons them to Earth, and builds a portal for them to arrive in our world. It is for this reason that the church chose to keep these deities and their existence a secret, including the rituals to summon them. So that people like this Ivo Shandor didn't get it into their heads that summoning them was a possibility. If you don't know they exist, you can't summon them to cause harm. Knowledge, Lenny, is truly power."
"But this Shandor guy knew. You said he started this secret society in 1920, to bring this Gozer to Earth, and now more than 60 years later we're going to be attacked by something that we didn't even know existed?" Lenny asked.
"They're called secret societies for a reason, Lenny. The church didn't know what Shandor and his bunch were doing, otherwise we would have stopped them." Mike said.
"But why wait so long? I mean... this was 64 years ago. If they wanted to summon this Gozer guy to Earth to wipe us all out why is this happening now instead of 1920?" Lenny asked.
"Shandor created his society in 1920. Realistically, it would have taken them some time to construct a proper door for Gozer to use to enter our world. One that no one would think was a door to the other realm." Egon said.
"Not to mention that time means nothing to these ancient deities. They have existed since before there was life on our world. But for this to be happening now, and we know about it, it is something we must deal with. And these men seem to be equipt to handle it." Mike said.
The Mayor looked at the Ghostbusters and sighed. He then noticed Peck.
"I thought I sent you out!" he said to Walter Peck.
The Mayor's aides successfully ushered and astonished Peck out of the office.
"Alright. We got work to do. What do you need from me?" Lenny asked the Ghostbusters.
"Well, first and foremost we need our equipment and our car." Ray said.
"And we need to get to Central Park West with all haste." Egon added.
"Which means we're gonna need a police escort to get there and military back-up for crowd control would be helpful." Peter added.
"Done."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Authors Notes:
One of the things that gets me about these movies is that there are some times no explanation about all this.
When the Ghostbusters were in jail they explain who Shandor is and what Dana Barret's building is and what is going to happen. But they don't explain all this to the Mayor and his aides when they are in City Hall. I get it, they don't want to repeat all of this to the audience since it might seem repetitive, but The Mayor and his people want answers and all they get are a few vague explanations about what is going to happen.
They are never told about Shandor, the building and Gozer is never mentioned.
Also, I thought it would be interesting if the Ghostbusters got a little more help from someone who might know something about all this. The Archbishop actually supported the idea of letting the Ghostbusters go and stop this threat. But what if he knew more than he let on?
That was how I came up with this.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed the read.
Happy Halloween.