A/N: Thank you so much for the kind and supportive messages you've sent me. They were really needed with how much stress I've been going through lately, and you guys are a huge part of how I keep myself motivated for the fic no matter how much I might get fatigued at one point.

I've gotten most of the work on my residency application done, and the rest of it is now mostly waiting for my med school mentors to read through my personal statements and stuff. So now that my schedule's freed up a bit, let's continue on with the next chapter of the Schmidt family's Vacation in Chicago! This chapter's gonna be about one of the museums, and like a few of the other chapters scattered throughout the fic, this one will have the ghost kids split up and explore a Chicago museum.

Also, I've started a Henry Stickmin fanfic called "Burdens of a Timeline Traveler" on AO3. If you're in the Henry Stickmin fandom or even just like the games as a casual fan, I encourage you to read it!

DauntingInferno: Funny where your thought process takes you :P

RicAlbuquerque: Oh wow, Iris really is a cutie, isn't she? Yeah I could definitely see that as a depiction of Charlie. Also, unfortunately, I've never played or even seen Metal Gear Rising and I make it a point not to write about games I know nothing about so that I don't do them a disservice.

HealthInspector: God already set the stipulations for the ghost kids' redemption, He isn't going to change His mind. If you're concerned that the ghost kids are being a little too passive in their redemption, there will come a time when they have to be…more active, shall we say. Not saying any more cause spoilers.

SuperBrian456: I wish you luck in your story! I don't currently have plans to touch on William's backstory at the moment, especially since I already alluded to it during the arc where he (as Nightmare Springtrap) invaded Mike's house and attacked the family.

Ghostlyassassin Jesse and AuroraFlare: Oh wow, thank you very much for setting those up! They're already filling up quite nicely, and I've filled in a few of the entries myself.

Guest: That's the plan if I ever do a rewrite, which I don't intend to at the moment.

slweaver119: You're…gonna have to remind me, sorry.

Jack0Lanterns: A European country is absolutely within possibility, and thanks!

Jack Moseley: I've played Completing the Mission recently, and it's been loads of fun!

Joeylumbey: That and the Science Museum are the two main ones I'm considering. If there REALLY is a high demand, I'll consider doing both as separate chapters.

Properman: The supernatural world can absolutely have huge effects on the living world if they ever directly interacted. That's one of the reasons why Heaven prevents any of its souls from visiting loved ones outside of dreams except for very specific circumstances, and why 99.99% of Hell's demons and damned souls are trapped in Hell (barring very rare security breaches like William Afton's escape). Nightmare is one of the VERY few demons exempt from this, and that's only cause he's wise enough not to mess around and fuck shit up in a way that would get Heaven pissed off with him.

FerMrack: Yeah, unfortunately the only way Mike can accommodate the ghosts without getting MEGA FAT is to let them taste small bites. Maybe if there was another living person they could have more, but right now they can't. That's just the way it is.

sweeting: I'm considering either that one or the Museum of Natural History. If there REALLY is a high demand, I'll consider doing both as separate chapters.

AlexTheMechanicFox: If I rewrote the fic I'd probably have Jeremy Fitzgerald as his own separate character, but right now it's WAY too late and I don't have time to implement that. As for Mike's telepathy, I won't change anything in past chapters but I might do a little something in the future. For now, assume that Mike is always communicating telepathically throughout this arc since he's not with anyone except the ghost kids.

Chapter 110 – Vacation to Chicago Part 3

Mike yawned as he got up from his warm and comfortable bed in his suite. Yesterday afternoon had been just as exciting as the first night, with the family having visited the Shedd Aquarium soon after they had finished Chicago River tour. The ghost kids had been positively delighted at seeing the countless different forms of aquatic life in the aquarium, from fish and turtles to sharks and sea lions (even if Mike had to reprimand and restrain Fritz from briefly materializing in front of a shark to try and spook the poor creature), and they were all thoroughly satisfied with how yesterday had turned out.

But today was another day, and to get the most out of Chicago they would of course need to do something completely different to what they had done yesterday.

"I can still taste those steaks we had yesterday," Jeremy mumbled as he slowly righted himself in the air. "Those were sooooo good!"

"I know right?" Susie immediately agreed. "Can we have more, Dad?"

"I think I'll end up overloading my stomach if I did that, so no," Mike muttered. He had ended up ordering two steaks from the Michael Jordan Steakhouse attached to the Intercontinental Hotel, and it was only the fact that he had skipped lunch that day and his extensive walking around Chicago that emptied his stomach enough to tolerate two full steaks for the sake of the ghost kids.

Needless to say, he was not going to go through that two days in a row.

"Aww…" Fritz groaned, being one of many to share in the disappointment.

"Where are we going today?" Gabe asked, quickly changing the subject.

"Well, today is Museum day!" Mike declared. "We're going to visit one museum for certain, and maybe two if we can fit them both in. Otherwise we'll go to the second one tomorrow."

"You mean those really big fancy-looking stone buildings we've seen?" Liz asked. When Mike nodded, she grinned. "Cool!"

"I really want to see what's inside," Charlie commented with a smile. "But which one are we going to?"

"I've been looking through the possible options," Mike explained, "and I've narrowed down two choices which I think you'll like the most. The Museum of Natural History, and the Museum of Science and Industry."

"We did look them up too," Jeremy replied, "and they both looked pretty cool."

"Honestly," Cassidy admitted, "I have no idea which one to pick."

"Well then, let's decide with a tried-and-tested method of picking between two things when you have literally no idea what to do," Mike declared with a smirk as he put a quarter down on the dining table. "Heads or tails."

Charlie facepalmed. "Really, Dad?" she grumbled as the others snickered.

"Hey," Susie giggled, "if it works, it works."

"Heads will be the Museum of Natural History, and Tails will be the Science and Industry Museum," Mike decided. "First to three wins." The ghosts watched with their breaths held as Mike flipped the coin repeatedly on the table.

Heads. Tails. Tails. Heads. And finally…

"Tails!" Gabe announced. "Looks like we're going to the Museum of Science and Industry then!"

Fritz shrugged. "I'm cool with that!" he commented. "I was kinda hoping we'd go to that one anyway, to be honest."

"I mean we're going to the other one tomorrow anyway, so it's not like we're really missing out on anything huge," Jeremy pointed out.

"How soon can we go?" Liz wondered.

"The museum opens at 9:30 AM," Mike commented. "And right now it's…" he looked at his watch and stared, "…7 AM," he finished dully. "Why the fuck are we discussing this at 7 AM?"

"Wait, what?" Cassidy exclaimed. "That early?"

"Oh, God…" Susie groaned. "We have to wait more than two hours?"

Gabe yawned. "I just realized how tired I still am," he mumbled.

"Fuck it," Mike mumbled as he got up to go back to his bedroom. "I'm going back to bed, it's too early for this shit. Wake me up in two hours."

Two Hours and Fifteen Minutes Later…

"Sleeping in is the best," Mike said to his kids telepathically with a smug look on his face as the Lyft car he was in drove over to the Science and Industry Museum. The ghost kids' eyes bulged as they eyed the majestic building that stood proudly behind a vast green lawn, the many columns and architectural design giving the appearance of an Ancient Greco-Roman structure right in the middle of the city.

"That looks so cool!" Gabe exclaimed in delight. "I had no idea museums look like THAT!" he pointed at the building.

"A lot of them don't," Charlie explained, "but the really famous and cool ones tend to be a lot bigger and fancier than the rest of them. And this one is one of the best ones in the city, from what I've heard."

"Who even MADE this building?" Cassidy's mouth was still hanging open at the majesty of the museum building itself.

"It was made for some expedition or something," Mike explained. "By people who had crazy imaginations and way too much time or money on their hands. Which makes me wonder what this building is going to look like on the inside."

The Lyft driver drove up the roads in the lawn and stopped right in front of the museum. "Enjoy your visit, sir!" he declared as Mike and his kids got out of the car.

"Thanks!" Mike waved as the driver drove off back into the depths of the city. The family quickly made their way into the museum, eager to see what wonders it could be hiding inside.

The Museum of Science and Industry's interior was just as impressive as its exterior, but for entirely different reasons. Though they already knew what the overarching theme of the museum was, none of the children had expected to find themselves in a very modernized, almost futuristic lobby, filled with many lights scattered throughout the room with metal columns extending from the floor all the way to the ceiling. Most surprising of all was the fact that there was an entire golden train sitting in its own little chamber of the lobby.

"What the hell?" Gabe stared. "How did they even get that thing in here?"

"Let's check it out!" Cassidy suggested. The rest of the family readily agreed to his proposition, and they approached the Golden Zephyr Train. Mike ducked his head as he entered while the ghosts phased in through the walls, revealing several old-fashioned wooden cupboards lining the upper walls of the train length and a wooden table in the middle. Mike noticed a button in front of the table and pushed it, triggering a slideshow of a man dressed in the clothing of the time period explaining the history of the train.

"Ooh," Jeremy listened with rapt attention. "This is pretty cool!"

Not everyone shared his opinion, however. "Meh," Fritz muttered, "I don't need to listen to this guy talking all day." He turned around, only to find a large white engine in a chamber that was blocked off by rails. As he approached the engine, he noticed a small chamber to the right that was dimly lit in comparison. He turned around to focus on it fully…and snickered.

"Hey guys!" Fritz called the rest of his family over. "Take a look at this." He pointed down. "It's the bathroom! Look at that little sink and toilet!"

"I feel like you're trying to be funny," Susie mumbled, "and failing."

Fritz stuck his tongue out at her as Mike reached down towards the sink and lifted it up. To the ghosts' surprise, the sink folded neatly into the wall, giving a clearer view of the toilet below.

"Okay…" Liz admitted, "that actually is kinda cool."

Cassidy smirked. "Hey dad, you should go to the bathroom here."

"How about no," Mike deadpanned as the other ghosts tried and failed to hold in their snickers.

"Can we explore the train?" Jeremy asked. When Mike gave the okay to do so, the ghosts raced through the train, eager to explore the locomotive in a way that nobody else could. Unfortunately, there wasn't really much inside the train itself since only a few parts were meant to be seen by the public, but they did enjoy racing through the length of the train and visiting the train cockpit at the very front.

"All aboard!" Cassidy called out, letting out a giggle as she mimicked pulling a lever down. "Choo! Choo!"

"Next stop, somewhere outta here!" Gabe added, letting out a laugh of his own.

"Maybe we should ask Dad if we can get on a real train," Liz suggested as she studied the now defunct machinery of the conductor's station.

"That would be the L, I think," Charlie mused as the kids finished enjoying their game of pretend. When they flew out of the cockpit and back into the lobby, Mike was waiting for them, looking at them with a look of amusement on his face.

"I bet so many people would kill to visit the kind of places you have access to on a regular basis," he commented dryly as they looked around for another exhibit to visit before they had to buy their tickets. Not finding any in sight, Mike approached the long desk of admissions with the ghosts trailing closely behind. There were several TVs hanging above different sections of the desk, displaying the ticket prices and exhibits that tourists could witness, if they were willing to pay a little more than usual.

"I'd like a ticket with all of the special exhibitions, please," Mike informed the attendant.

"Right away, sir," she replied as she typed up the order. Mike gave her his credit card and she printed the ticket out, handing both back to him. "Enjoy your visit!"

"Thanks!" the man replied with a grin as he left the station and walked over to the escalator that led up to the museum proper. "Being ghosts makes museum trips so much more convenient," Mike commented with a smirk. "You guys can visit literally any exhibit you want without having to pay a cent."

"I thought money doesn't matter for you since you're so rich?" Charlie raised an eyebrow.

"Doesn't make my point any less valid," Mike retorted.

"Fair enough." The family reached the top of the escalator, where they found themselves on a landing of some kind. They could see another set of escalators in front of them leading to the second floor, as well as hallways that branched to exhibits on the left and right. Mike opened up a map and the ghosts crowded around to get a closer look.

"Oh my God!" Fritz's mouth dropped open. "They have a freaking SUBMARINE? That's like a thousand times better than a ship! I wanna go there!"

"No way!" Susie retorted. "I want to go to see the Science Storms! Those sounds way cooler!"

"Pfftt…" Jeremy scoffed. "Why do that when we can visit an actual coal mine!"

"Guys, guys, GUYS!" Charlie interrupted them with a sharp telepathic message as the ghost kids began to argue. "Are you really choosing NOW to start an argument of all times?"

"We can figure this out easily," Mike added as the ghosts looked at each other with embarrassment and not a little shame. "You guys divide into pairs and go visit the exhibits you want to see first. We can stay as long as we need to see everything here, there's no hurry."

"You're right…" Gabe mumbled. "We were kinda being stupid, weren't we?"

"It's all right," Mike brushed the apology aside. "I know it's easy to get excited. Just be sure to meet back here at, say…noon?"

"Sounds good!" the ghosts agreed. Fritz and Liz quickly floated next to each other, as did Gabe and Jeremy and Cassidy and Susie. Charlie floated by Mike's side, deciding to stick by his side this time instead of going off on her lonesome like she usually did in situations like this.

"Are you all right to go see the submarine with me?" Fritz asked Liz.

His sister nodded and smiled at him. "Yeah, I wanted to see that anyway!" she affirmed.

"Let's go check out those storms!" Susie suggested the Cassidy, the former Golden Freddy inhabitant just as excited as her sister.

Gabe grinned at Jeremy. "Time to go check out that coal mine!" he declared.

Mike gave a questioning look at Charlie, who shrugged. "Whatever you want to see, dad."

"Let's go guys," Mike gave his kids an encouraging grin. "We've got a museum to explore!"

Storms of Science

Susie and Cassidy raced towards the second set of escalators leading up to the next floor. As they reached the next landing, they stopped and their eyes bulged in amazement at what they saw. The floor they were on now was easily the largest one of the entire museum, and it had been split into 4 branching paths like a cross. Each path led to exhibits that were as different as the four seasons, with several smaller doorways leading to further corridors and exhibits dispersed throughout the walls. At the very center of the floor was a large rotunda with four white stone pillars, each of which bore a poster that proudly highlighted one of the exhibits of the museum. And the most decorative part of the building itself was easily the ceiling at the top of the rotunda, a dome that glowed with brilliant blue light with a ring-like metal chandelier hanging from the top, and an inscription honoring science and industry written in a circle underneath the dome itself.

"Oh my God…" Susie's jaw dropped. "People have actually MADE buildings like this?"

"This is one of the coolest buildings I've ever seen!" Cassidy exclaimed. "I want to see EVERYTHING!"

Susie giggled with delight, sharing her sister's enthusiasm. "Calm down, Cass, we want to take things one at a time. Let's start with that Science Storms exhibit, I think it's the one that's in the dark with all those blue lights over there," she pointed to the right.

Cassidy's eyes lit up. "Ooooooh, yes!" she squealed. Even from a distance they could already see the foggy tornado, and as they grew closer they marveled at the man-made, technological recreation of one of nature's most iconic and powerful storms. The fog tornado that stood proudly in the center of the exhibit spanned from the floor to the ceiling, swirling and whirling chaotically yet still firmly controlled by the boundaries set by the museum's technology.

Mesmerized by the tornado, Susie reached out a ghostly hand through it, expecting to feel the raging force of the artificial winds. But to her surprise, the tornado was actually much gentler than she expected, and being a spectral entity herself, she could barely feel a soft coolness as her hand passed through the tornado.

"Oh wow…" she mumbled as Cassidy did the same thing. "This tornado's a lot less violent than I expected."

"I bet if we were still alive we could walk through it," Cassidy commented. The two of them floated into the middle of the foggy tornado, enjoying the cool sensation of the concentrated mist on their spectral bodies.

"This is so relaxing…" Susie sighed contentedly.

"I could stand here all day…" Cassidy happily agreed.

"Hey, look over there!" a voice below them called out. "Check out that cool illusion!" The girls' eyes snapped open and they looked down towards the voice, a teenager who was pointing towards them and gesturing towards someone who was possibly his girlfriend. "I can think I can see two shapes in the tornado! It looks like…two girls, I think?"

Susie and Cassidy looked up at each other in horrified panic as they quickly got away from the fog tornado, making absolutely sure they were fully invisible as they did so. Below them, the teen scratched his head. "Huh…now it's gone! Was I just imagining it?"

"Oh my God, we almost fucked that up…" Cassidy breathed.

"Dad would have been SO mad if we blew it here," Susie muttered. She looked for anything to distract her from their near miss, and her eyes fell on a giant spinning disc a short distance away from the tornado. "Hey, check this out!" she declared.

The two ghost girls floated towards the circular metal disc, which housed a vast mass of swirling sand with glass covering the very top of it. "It says here that this is meant to copy an avalanche, and that we can make one by playing around with the settings here," Cassidy read.

"We have to wait until someone does this for us," Susie reminded her, "unless we want to mess up even more than we almost did with the tornado."

"You don't have to remind me," Cassidy sulked. Fortunately, the two of them didn't have long to wait, as another tourist approached the station and began to manipulate the disc. The two girls watched in awe as the serene surface of the sand was suddenly and drastically disturbed, turning it into a roiling and chaotic mess that gradually spread across the entire disc until the entire surface was covered with the makeshift avalanche. "That is so cool…" the former Golden Freddy inhabitant breathed.

"Good thing we don't live anywhere near snowy mountains," Susie commented with a shudder. "I'd hate to be caught up in one of these in real life."

The two girls left the sand avalanche exhibit behind them, turning towards a long rectangular, transparent case that had contained a mass of land on one side that fell off to a pool of water that covered the rest of the case.

"I think I know what this is! We're going to make some waves!" Cassidy guessed.

Susie read the sign accompanying the display. "I…think that's what tsunami means?" she hazarded.

As luck would have it, another set of tourists arrived at the exhibit, this one a young boy and girl similar to the ghosts themselves. The girl played around with the settings on a screen, and all of them stared in awe as a machine sent energy waves into the water, causing it to gently wash up against the shore.

"Ooooh," Cassidy gasped. "This reminds me of that beach we saw back in Korea! Only a lot smaller and without the hot sands?"

"Can we do bigger waves?" Susie asked. Her question was answered seconds later, as the boy turned the settings all the way up. The waves became much larger and more violent, forcefully crashing into the shore where they had only been gently lapping seconds earlier. "This is so cool!" the former Chica inhabitant gasped.

"How big can these waves actually get in real life?" Cassidy wondered.

"They can get big enough to cause some major damage," Susie answered, having read up on this topic a bit at the house when she had been particularly bored. "That or they make for great surfing waves."

"You think Dad could ever surf on a big wave like that?" Cassidy asked.

The two girls giggled at the idea of Mike going on a surfboard in full surfer gear, fearlessly going up against a huge tidal wave. "As cool and as funny as that would be," Susie finally answered, "I don't think so."

"Figured as much," Cassidy admitted, "but one can only dream."

They spent the next few moments passing by and exploring the exhibit's different features, including several smaller fog tornadoes encased in cylinders that could be adjusted to alter the shape of the tornado and a tesla coil having from the ceiling with lightning bolts surging and crackling within its metal shell. One exhibit that the girls particularly enjoyed was the fireworks exhibit, where they watched some tourists mix and match different colors of fireworks and chemicals to create their own personal, beautiful light shows.

"Man, if only we could actually make fireworks like that," Susie sighed as they left that exhibit behind them.

"Maybe Charlie can make some?" Cassidy suggested. "I mean, she IS the only one of us who's actually really good with magic. Or maybe Dad can buy some fireworks and set them off in the backyard?"

"It can't hurt to ask her, I guess," Susie shrugged.

The two girls stopped in front of one of the only stations that they still hadn't seen yet, where four giant prisms stretched from the middle of the room to the ceiling, with sunlight streaming from a circular skylight with a mirror attached to it. "What kind of storm are we going to see here?" Cassidy wondered.

Her question would soon be answered as one of the tourists rotated the heliostat mirror, sending light cascading onto the prisms. The ghost girls watched in awe as the lights formed beautiful rainbows that extended down the length of the prisms, creating a majestic and natural decoration that no artist, craftsman, or technology could ever hope to recreate.

"They're so pretty…" Susie gushed, as she floated up to one of the prisms to get a closer look.

"Is this really how rainbows are made?" Cassidy asked in amazement as she flew to a different prism. The small girl reached out to touch the rainbow, her spectral hand gently passing through it.

"I think I see what Jeremy was talking about earlier," Susie murmured. "Nature really is beautiful."

"But crazy too," Cassidy reminded her. "I mean, look at all the storms we saw earlier, the tornado and everything!"

Susie smiled at her. "I'm happy that we ended on the calm and beautiful one though, out of all of them," she sighed contentedly as she floated back down to the museum floor.

"A great way to end the exhibit," the former Golden Freddy inhabitant agreed. "Is everyone else having as much fun as we are?"

Exploring the Coal Mine

Gabe and Jeremy followed a few feet behind Susie and Cassidy, basking in and marveling at the sight of the museum's second floor and rotunda just as their sisters had done. Unlike the two girls, however, the ghost boys had instead opted to fly straight ahead, towards the Coal Mine exhibit. The Coal Mine exhibit was highlighted by an industrial structure that wouldn't have been out of place on a construction site, with a waiting line outside of a small black chamber that marked the entrance of the exhibit.

"So how did they fit a freaking COAL MINE in this building?" Jeremy wondered.

Gabe shrugged. "I mean, it's probably not going to be the real thing," he pointed out. "Just a copy they made in the museum itself."

"Still, it must be a really convincing copy if it's big enough that they're making you pay extra money just to see it," Jeremy countered. Gabe nodded as the two looked up at the small sign next to the door, which displayed the time left until the start of the next tour in digital red lights. There were only three minutes left until the next tour, so they didn't need to wait very long.

The door swung open, and the two boys floated ahead past the rest of the line, smirking at the unsuspecting tourists as they did so. To their left, they could see a small forest recreation in several display windows with many plants and trees, complete with a picture in the background.

"What's that doing there in a coal mine exhibit of all things?" Jeremy wondered.

"Maybe there's coal underneath the ground or something? I don't know," Gabe gave the best answer he could.

The two ghosts floated past the display, where they came to a flight of stairs that ironically lead up, away from the ground where they would have expected the coal mine to be.

"Where the heck are we going?" the former Bonnie inhabitant muttered as they passed by several old signs, a coal miner telling a story about life in the mines over an unseen loudspeaker.

"If this exhibit is in a tiny little space at the top, I will be VERY disappointed," Gabe muttered. Fortunately, their fears were unfounded as they reached the top of the staircase, where they reached the doors of an elevator with a sign proudly reading "Old Ben Mining Company" next to it." A tour guide cheerfully greeted her newest guests and opened the door, allowing everyone inside. The door slide shut behind them and the elevator began to slowly descend, the ghosts' keen eyesight allowing them to see the inside of the elevator and descend alongside it.

"This elevator used to have no walls, only a floor and some chains on the sides to keep people from falling," the tour guide explained as they went down. "The taller miners would hold onto the chains while the shorter miners stayed on the inside so that nobody would fall off. That's why it's called a mancage. And there used to not be any lights too."

"As funny as that name is," Gabe admitted, "that sounds ridiculously dangerous."

"Can you imagine if every elevator was like that?" Jeremy shuddered. "That sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. Thank God for technological advancements."

The elevator slowed to a stop and the door slid open, revealing a dimly lit cavern with only a few lights scattered throughout the ceiling and upper walls. It was also surprisingly cold down here, the sudden drop in temperature affecting even the ghosts.

"Ooh…" Jeremy gasped as he looked around. "This looks both creepy AND exciting!"

"This is really impressive for a copy," Gabe agreed.

They were interrupted by the sound of rumbling to their right, and the ghosts turned to see a large mine cart filled that was slowly coming to a stop in front of them. A machine underneath the cart suddenly tilted over and dumped the coal into an unknown location, the tour guide describing what was going on in the simulation. The tour guide then brought their attention to the left, where they could see a black rock wall with water trickling down.

"Man, really makes you wonder how people were actually able to make giant tunnels in the earth, doesn't it?" Gabe mused. "It must have taken a lot of time to actually get to this point."

The ghosts followed the tour guide through the tunnel to another chamber, which contained a small "safety room" that was actually a makeshift hospital for injured miners. The tour guide then elaborated on the different ways that miners used to detect natural gas in the mines, from canaries to lanterns and pocket methanometers.

"So a blue flame means there's methane, right?" Jeremy suddenly realized. "Can't Charlie make blue flames? Doesn't that mean they're actually really dangerous around Dad?"

Gabe shook his head. "Nah, that's supernatural flames," he pointed out. "Those probably work completely differently. Otherwise, Dad's stove would've probably exploded every time Charlie set her hand on fire for more than a couple of seconds."

"Might be worth bringing it up, though," Jeremy mumbled. Before they could talk about it any further,the tour guided interrupted, directing their attention over to a train that would take them deeper into the "mine." The tourists clambered into the train, along with the two stowaways.

"Hope you like going fast," the tour guided joked as a bell rang, "cause we're going a grand total of 4 miles per hour!"

"Wooooooow," Jeremy drawled as the train started to move. "Sooooo fast…"

"It's almost not worth even anchoring ourselves for this," Gabe muttered as they followed the train. After a few seconds of darkness, the train stopped outside of a chamber where a large machine was drilling into the wall, with several poles holding the roof up to prevent a collapse.

"Can these machines actually do things like that still?" Jeremy wondered. "Or are they just really convincing copies?"

"Well, they definitely look real," Gabe replied. "If they're fakes, they look close enough to the real thing to be good enough for a museum."

The train slowed to a stop, and the tourists climbed out into a different cavern with more lanterns scattered about. There was a jumble of machinery and mining equipment on the floor, and out of all the caverns they had seen so far it was easily the room that was filled the most.

"This is our 1930s room!" the tour guide declared. "Before 1930, miners had to do a lot of the work by hand, until these machines were made to make the job a lot easier." She lifted a pickaxe and handed it over to the tour group. Unfortunately, as they were both spectral beings, neither Gabe nor Jeremy could accept the pickaxe as it passed around.

"Aww man," Jeremy sighed. "Wish we could interact with the exhibits and stuff. Really cuts down on what we can do…"

As it turned out, however, the pickaxe was the least interesting thing in the room by far. The tour guide turned on the machines, and the ghosts watched with amazement as the undercutter, facedrill, dryloader all began to rumble into action, each piece of machinery doing their part in cutting into the rock, drilling into the wall, and collecting coal respectively. "This is so cool!" Gabe exclaimed.

"Unfortunately, miners could only take out 60% of the coal in this mine," the tour guide continued. "Otherwise the entire mine would collapse. Miners weren't happy with that, so they put their brains together to make something even better!" The tour guide guided them through a stone-made hallway into another cavern. This cavern had an alcove with a low ceiling and a machine that was easily the largest one they had seen in the entire tour, expansive enough to cover the entire section of the cavern where it had been placed.

"This is the longwall machine!" the tour guide announced. "It was made in the 1960s, and it can get 90% of the coal! There's a hydraulic lift that holds up the ceiling, and a shear that grinds coal off the wall. Unfortunately, as the machine goes deeper into the wall the ceiling collapses behind it, and it can be really expensive to dig them out, so there's only a few of these in existence."

"Really?" Gabe asked incredulously. "Sounds like a huge waste."

"I mean, as long as it gets the coal out, I guess?" Jeremy asked, though he too was sounding skeptical.

The tour guide turned the machine on, and there was another rumbling and grinding as the longwall whirled to life. Not wanting to miss an opportunity to inspect the machine even closer, the two ghosts flew into the alcove, examining the details of the longwall as much as they possibly could. Thanks to their flight, they could even get a close look at the rolling gears on the right of the machine, a close-up view that only they could enjoy.

"Do any of these machines look like the ones Dad used to work with?" Jeremy wondered as they flew back to rejoin the tour group. By now, the tour group was already starting to leave, and they had to rush to keep sight of them as they went down one last hallway, this one lined with small display cases of miniatures of miners at work to their right.

"I mean, Dad was working with robotics and engineering stuff," Gabe pointed out, "not coal mining. And thank God for that too, because this job seems really dangerous. As cool as this was, I wouldn't want to hang around down here."

"Me neither," Jeremy shuddered as the ghosts floated over to the end of the path. To their surprise, they found themselves in a brightly lit modern room, an imitation of a mining room with a few display cases to remind everyone that they were still in a museum. The tour guide directed their attention over to a control panel that lined one of the walls, a series of computers and screens that showed everyone what was going on inside the mines.

"It's just like Dad's security cameras!" Gabe realized. "Only in a mine instead of in our house or in a pizzeria."

"Five Nights in the Mines?" Jeremy asked jokingly.

"After learning what we learned? That sounds like it could go horribly wrong really fast," Gabe deadpanned. The tour guide finished her presentation, and everyone including the ghosts clapped at her presentation. She pointed the tourists over to a set of stairs that led down, joking about how they were in the only mine in existence that one could exit by going down a set of stairs. Gabe and Jeremy followed the rest of the tourists down the stairs and out into the cafeteria.

"That was so awesome!" Jeremy exclaimed in amazement. "I had no idea they could actually recreate a coal mine like that and bring in all the machinery to really make this whole thing work!"

"Now I'm really wondering about the types of machines that Dad used back when he was still working," Gabe added, filled with curiosity at this part of their father's past that they'd surprisingly not talked about much. The two ghost boys looked around at the cafeteria, before realizing they hadn't made any plans for what exhibit to see after the coal mine.

"So, uh…" the former Bonnie inhabitant mumbled, "…where to now?"

Down in the Depths

Unlike their siblings, Fritz and Liz did not fly up the elevator to the second main floor of the museum. Instead, they going by the map that Mike had shown them, they flew to the left, passing by several smaller exhibits and rooms that they could potentially consider revisiting later. But right now, there was only one exhibit that was on their minds, one that caught their attention even more than Science Storms or exploring a coal mine.

"I heard there's a submarine!" Fritz exclaimed eagerly. "They're like, ships that can go underwater! I HAVE to see this!"

Liz giggled while rolling her eyes at the same time. Of course Fritz would go for the ship exhibit above any of the others, although to be honest she was just as interested in seeing the U505 submarine as her brother was. "Do you even know where you're going?" she quipped.

Fritz gave her a mildly insulted look. "I'm not THAT dumb!" he protested, earning another giggle. "It's just at the end of the hallway, make a left, and…"

The ghosts turned the corner and stopped dead in their tracks, their jaws dropping in awe at what they saw. They found themselves at the entrance to a vast chamber lined with metal columns that gave the appearance of the inside of a shipping dock, on the second floor overlooking the massive U505 submarine that filled up almost half of the room. Down on the floor below, they could see screens, computers, and scattered blinking lights on the wall, giving the place an almost futuristic appearance.

"Oh…my…God…" Fritz breathed. "It's…so beautiful!"

Liz wasn't any more successful at finding words than her brother was. "That's…wow…" she mumbled. "How did they even FIT something this big inside here?"

"Who knows and who cares?" Fritz grinned. "This is freaking AWESOME! I REALLY want to go inside now!"

"Hold on, hold on," Liz reined her brother in. "Let's actually see what's around here first before we go in. There's more around here than just the submarine!"

Fritz calmed down a little. "Yeah, that's a good point," he admitted. He noticed something and brightened again. "Like that!" he pointed. Liz turned to look at what he was pointing at, a depth charge and a hedgehog on display immediately to their right. A quick read of the sign revealed that they were weapons that had been ironically used against submarines.

"Still can't believe anything would be able to take that huge submarine down, but okay…" Liz commented. The two ghosts flew down from the second floor overlook to the first floor, their flight capabilities proving incredibly convenient once again. Once they got a closer look of the bottom of the submarine, they realized that there were blue lights swirling throughout the length of the bottom, giving the illusion of it still floating on water.

"Damn, they really went all out on this!" Fritz whistled. "That is a really cool effect!"

"I know, right?" Liz was just as impressed. She looked around the chamber that housed the exhibit "Want to go look around first before we go in?"

"Sure!" Fritz had no trouble agreeing. He noticed a sign a few feet away, and hovered closer to read it. The sign listed several facts about the submarine, including that it housed 54 crew members, it could dive down to a depth of 755 feet, and had a max speed of 18.3 knots.

"Man, if only Foxy had a submarine like this," Fritz mumbled wistfully, his eyes glazed over in his fantasy of being his favorite pirate animatronic. "A loyal crew of 54 sailors, zooming over the ocean and deep under it, Foxy would be truly unstoppable! The greatest pirate to ever sail the seven seas!"

"Oh my God, here he goes again…" Liz sighed, rolling her eyes. It was incredibly fortunate that they were both invisible and unable to be heard by everyone around them, as seeing Fritz go off on his one of his daydreams would have been more than a little embarrassing…assuming they didn't freak out over the fact that there were two ghosts in the museum. She snapped her fingers in front of Fritz's face and lightly slapped the back of his head, bringing him back to reality. "Come on, we have more to see!"

"Right…" Fritz rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. The two ghosts explored the bottom of the submarine in more detail, their ghostly abilities allowing them to see the propellers, engines, and attached torpedoes. They also took the time to examine some of the displays that were located separately from the submarine itself, including a submarine machine gun and a dismantled torpedo locked in a glass case.

"I think we're ready to go inside now," Liz commented once they had gone through all the major displays.

"Hold on!" Fritz interrupted with a grin on his face. "Thanks to being ghosts, we can explore the deck at the very top!"

Liz's eyes widened. "Oh my God, you're right!" she exclaimed. The two siblings flew to the very top of the submarine, getting an in-depth close-up of the machinery and deck in a way that no living tourist could ever hope to. Liz grabbed the railing of the deck, looking out over the rest of the room as though she were a sailor marveling at the open sea.

Fritz was doing much the same thing, but he wasn't so mature. "Hey, losers!" he called out as he stuck his tongue out at the rest of the tourists, knowing they couldn't see or hear him. "Guess who can go on top of the submarine while you can't! I'm Foxy, the legendary pirate fox, and I'm the captain of this whole submarine! WHOOOOO!"

This time, Liz couldn't resist the urge to facepalm even as she struggled to hold in her laughter. "So where to next, Captain Foxy?" she couldn't resist quipping a little.

Fritz grinned at her. "Why, into the submarine of course, first mate!" he answered confidently. Then, his bravado faded, and he looked at her uncertainly. "Should we just float in, or…?"

Liz shook her head. "Let's follow the tourists," she decided. "They probably know the best way to actually get in the submarine."

Fritz shrugged, and the two ghosts descended to the level of second floor again, looking for a possible entrance. After a few seconds of searching, they found a part of the overlook that directly led into the submarine itself, along with a few tourists who were walking inside a small doorway that led to the depths of the submarine.

The ghosts followed them, bypassing the line to enter the submarine as quickly as possible by phasing through the wall next to the door. They found themselves in a cramped room with bunk beds scattered around, furnished with the most basic blanket and pillows. There was also something that suspiciously looked like a torpedo on the floor in between the sets of beds. The room was dimly lit with light bulbs that cast off an orange glow, with another section glowing red just beyond.

"Oh wow…" Fritz muttered. "For a huge submarine, this room was a lot smaller than I expected."

Liz shook her head. "I wouldn't want to live here, that's for sure," she commented. "I already miss my hotel room."

"Huh, maybe living in a submarine isn't as cool as I thought," the former Foxy inhabitant admitted. He suddenly brightened. "Hey, maybe the captain lives someplace a little more comfortable. He has to, right? The captain always lives in the best part of the ship!"

"We'll just have to wait and see," Liz replied. They left the sleeping quarters behind and followed the tourists into another room filled with lockers, the walls glowing with the same blue light that had created the special effect outside, giving the entire scene a hauntingly beautiful and ethereal look. "This is so pretty…" Liz stared at the walls, mesmerized.

"Maybe there's some uniforms in the lockers!" Fritz suddenly realized. He phased into one of the lockers and vanished. A few seconds later, he came back out, looking disappointed. "Dammit, there's nothing!"

"They must have taken out the uniforms a while ago," Liz speculated. "That or they're currently being cleaned right now to preserve them or something."

"Would've been nice to see them in person," Fritz sighed, checking another locker and getting the same result. With nothing more to see, the two ghosts moved on to the next room. This one was a stark contrast to the one they had just left, as it was much smaller and the walls were covered with pipes and machinery. Their eyes fell on a device that took up a large portion of the room.

Liz stared at it in incomprehension for a few seconds. "Is that…a stove?"

Fritz snickered. "I'd like to see Susie try to cook in this kitchen."

Liz gave him an unimpressed look. "Better her than you," she deadpanned. "If you tried you'd probably end up blowing up the stove. Or the entire submarine."

"That was one time!" Fritz protested. "ONE TIME!"

Liz only shook her head in amusement as they moved on to the next room. This one was a bedroom much like the first room they had seen, but it was much fancier and fully furnished (or at least, as furnished as a room in a submarine could get). The entire room was lined with finely carved wood instead of cold metal, with a cupboard that housed fine china and a bed prepared with a pillow and blanket that was much more well-crafted than anything in the sailors' quarters. Minus the confined spaces, it wouldn't have been a room too out of place in Mike's house.

"Ah, there we go, that's more like it!" Fritz declared happily. He flew over to the bed and lay down on it. "The captains' quarters! A room that's a perfect fit for the captain of a ship like me! All I need is a captain's log and I'll be good to go!"

"I'd still take my room back at home over this," Liz muttered, "but I'll admit it's an improvement."

Fritz got up from the bed and the two ghosts moved past the bed and the cupboards. On their way, they passed a small alcove to the left with several pieces of machinery, including one covered with several black and white circles.

"Hey wait," Fritz pointed at it. "Isn't that like a communication device or something? I think it was called a…telegraph or something like that?"

Liz squinted at it. "I…think so? Didn't they have to use Morse code for things like that?"

"That thing with the dots and dashes, right?" Fritz asked. When Liz nodded, he made a face. "Man, I can't imagine trying to communicate using that all the time. I'll happily take phones and Internet, thank you very much."

Liz shrugged. "I don't know if they used Morse code or could actually write out their messages, but either way it's weird seeing something so old after what we're used to," she commented.

Two ghosts passed by another office, this one filled with trinkets and valuables, including a desk with papers and a shelf with some books, including at least one Bible. The most noteworthy feature was a music player with a disc spinning inside, a player that even now was emanating some old-fashioned music that they could hear from their position out in the hallway.

"Is this the Captain's office?" Fritz asked, "or a place for somebody else?"

"I'm wondering what that old song is that's playing right now," Liz wondered. "You think Dad would know?"

"Doubt it," Fritz muttered. "He was born way after this submarine, wasn't he? He's not THAT old."

"This room does look cozy, not gonna lie," Liz admitted. "Doesn't give much for elbow room though."

Fritz gave her an unimpressed look. "We're ghosts, Liz. We don't care about things like that."

"I'm just saying!"

Fritz shrugged and the two followed the tourists over to the next room. Unlike the ones they had just visited, this next room returned to straight to the theme of cold metal, the room itself being covered with machinery and metal devices to an even more extreme degree than other similar rooms that they had visited. There were dials, clock-like monitors, and pipes covering the walls almost completely, and the sound of a sonar echoing throughout the room.

"Wow…" Fritz whistled. "This is…insane. Look at all these machines!"

"My head hurts just from looking at all this," Liz mumbled. "How did people even understand how to drive this thing?"

"Maybe it has something to do with that wheel over there?" Fritz pointed at a large wheel attached to one of the walls.

"All this insane hi-tech machinery, and they use a wheel to turn the ship?" his sister asked incredulously. "I don't know, that sounds a bit off."

"You think Dad would recognize any of these machines?" Fritz wondered. "He DID used to work with engineering and machines at that company Melody works at. Maybe he did some work on things like this?"

Liz shook her head. "I thought Dad worked on things like animatronics and stuff," she replied. "If he ever worked on submarines or ships, he never brought it up."

"We really need to ask him what he worked on later," Fritz decided. The two went down one last hallway, with the "walls" being two large green machines that covered most of the room, leaving only a small path in the center. They would find one last hatch that led to another set of bunk beds, with more piles of machinery covering the walls just beyond.

"Man, I'd hate to be the one who has to maintain all of this crap," the former Foxy inhabitant commented dryly as the two ghosts left the U505 submarine, finding themselves back in the open chamber that housed the relic of war.

"Holy crap, exploring that submarine was so much fun!" Liz exclaimed. "I'm so glad we chose to visit it first!"

"I know, right?" Fritz grinned. "It was a lot more cramped than I thought, but it was so cool to see what underwater ships look like! Imagine if they had Foxy the pirate be the captain of a whole submarine!"

Liz raised an eyebrow. "I'd be your first mate though, right?" she asked, in a tone that made it clear that there was only one correct answer.

Fortunately for Fritz, by now he had grown wise enough in the ways of women to know that disagreeing with them tended to end badly. "Of course!" he declared, earning an approving grin from his sister. The two shared one last look at the submarine, before looking at each other uncertainly.

"So, uh…" Liz broke the silence, "where do we go now?"

Several Hours Later…

"Oh wow…" Charlie mused as she and Mike left the Toymaker exhibit. "I had no idea making simple toys could be so complicated."

"Technology and engineering aren't easy to learn, that's for sure," Mike agreed, flipping a top that had been made by the machines of that exhibit in his left hand. "Though I think if one of those machines broke down, I'd probably be able to repair it if I had a little time and I understood how the mechanisms worked."

"Thinking about getting yourself hired at the museum, Dad?" Charlie joked. The two chuckled for a few seconds, knowing full well that there were several reasons why Mike wouldn't consider the idea, as cool as it might've been. "What did you work on, Dad?" Charlie wondered when they finished. "I don't think you ever brought it up."

Mike resisted the urge to shrug his shoulders. "A couple of things, really," he replied. "Large machines like the ones we just saw, smaller ones that fit into the idea of robots more. Heck, I've actually worked on animatronics a couple of times, which is one of the reasons why I was able to work on the Rockstars so well."

"As much as I respect my old Dad, I don't think I'd want to go into robotics," Charlie admitted. "Even before we take out all the…shit that happened," she phrased carefully, "it doesn't really call out to me all that much."

"I know that finding a job doesn't really apply to you since…well, you're dead and all. But one day you might find something that you really enjoy and want to do," Mike assured her. "Just keep a look out, is all."

Charlie smiled at her father. "Thanks, Dad," she replied gratefully as they made their way back into the lobby where they had arranged to meet the rest of their family. Gabe and Jeremy were the first to arrive, having just visited the U505 submarine that Fritz and Liz had visited first in their journey through the museum. Next were the orange- and red-headed children of the family, who had explored the Transportation Gallery to witness all the many ways humanity had developed to fly and ride over great distances. After a few more minutes, Susie and Cassidy joined the rest, having just taken a look at a Fairy Castle that was everything a young princess could ever dream to have as her ideal home.

"So what'd you think, guys?" Mike asked as they descended down the escalator and out of the museum. "Did you like the museum?"

"Are you kidding?" Cassidy exclaimed. "That was so awesome! I loved it all!"

"I didn't think there could be so many cool things in a single building!" Jeremy immediately agreed with an excited grin on his face.

"And this is only one!" Liz pointed out. "Just how many of these ARE there? And are they all as cool as the Museum of Science and Industry?"

Mike took out his phone and started looking through it. "Oh, not even close," the man replied with a grin of his own. "There are a LOT of cool museums and other things for us to see in Chicago."

"Then what are we still doing here?" Fritz exclaimed. "Let's go see some more!"

"Hold up," Gabe raised a hand to silence everyone. "What time is it? Do we even have enough time to go see another museum today?"

Mike looked at the time, which showed 12:30 PM in bright white letters. "Oh, pfft, we've got plenty of time," he scoffed, earning excited and relieved looks from the ghosts. "The real question is…where do you guys want to go next?"

/

A/N: How do I follow a four-week delay between chapters? How about a chapter that's 20 pages long on Word, of course!

The two museums that reviewers recommended were the Museum of Natural History and Museum of Science and Industry, and the method that the family used to decide which one they were going to visit was identical to method that I used to determine that myself for this fic, down to the results.

I had to do a lot of research for this fic from both the museum's website and Youtube videos, which easily took over and hour collectively. I was genuinely surprised by how long the sections representing the different exhibits took to write. All of them took at least 3 pages to write, and Fritz's and Liz's exploration of the submarine taking 5 pages was WAY more than I estimated at first. Also, I originally intended to have a section for Mike and Charlie, but this chapter was getting ridiculously long as it is, so I decided against it. They've had plenty of moments in the spotlight anyway.

I need a break after this one. I'm honestly not inclined to write another chapter like this because of all the research I needed to do, but I'll write one more if there's overwhelming (and I do mean OVERWHELMING) support for another museum chapter.

I hope the length and quality of the chapter made up for how long it took to write it. Hope you guys enjoyed!

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