"Well, I think it's kind of nice," said Ray Stantz, giving his friend a cheerful grin.

Egon Spengler set the test tube he'd been holding into it's rack with more force than necessary, his eyebrows lifting almost to his hair. The two of them were working late in the lab; Winston was downstairs reading a new mystery and it might take dynamite to pry him loose from it before he finished, and Peter was out on a date with a new girlfriend. Egon had been pleased with the free time--a chance to run studies on his new mold culture--and Ray had good-naturedly volunteered to help him, though he wasn't anywhere near as interested in mycology as Egon. It was fun to watch Egon get caught up in something that had excited him though, and Ray had helped him happily until an unfortunate reference to Egon's latest grievance had triggered an outburst of exasperated frustration from the physicist. "Nice?" he echoed in disbelief, staring at Ray as if he'd lost his mind. "You think it's nice? Would you think it was nice if it were your Aunt Lois?"

Winston Zeddemore snickered from the doorway of the third floor lab at Ghostbuster Central, his finished mystery book tucked under his arm. He had clearly been attracted by the sound of an argument that had begun to grow familiar over the past few days.

"Did you finish your book?" Ray asked quickly before Egon could continue. "Did you guess the ending?"

"Yes to both questions," Winston said. "It was pretty good, but they gave it away with that clue about the trains. Once I read that, I knew it was the horticulturist who did the murder. I kind of wish somebody would spring a mystery on me that would be hard to solve. I find them every so often, but just not often enough."

"It's that logical brain of yours," said Egon with genuine interest, distracted as Ray had hoped he would be. "I'd like to run some variants of IQ tests that Peter and I have designed on you. We originally meant to do ghost IQ's but they've proven useful in discovering the way certain people order their logic. Part of your problem, of course, is that you have a mind like a sponge. You don't forget things--it's why you're so good at trivia. Mystery writers hope the readers will pass over the clues, but you remember then and when other hints come along, you recall what you've read earlier and cross reference it automatically."

"Egon's right," said Ray with delight. "I bet you scored pretty high on conventional IQ tests, didn't you?"

"Higher than the other kids in my class but not outstanding," Winston admitted. "I ran into a kind of cultural backlash--you've heard about that. My folks are middle class, and they encouraged me to read but there were still things that simply didn't track. I never took any tests like that later on, but--"

"What a pity you didn't have a chance to work toward a doctorate," Egon mused. "Still, no matter. You have your bachelor's and those night classes will probably get you an M.S. in a couple of years. If we could only teach Peter to work so hard..."

"Never happen, my man," Winston replied with a grin. "Poor old Pete just never really learned the work ethic. He works hard on something that interests him but I bet he made do through every other subject he took. Worked just hard enough to get the decent grade and no more."

"Yeah, I remember coaching him through a geology course," Ray replied. "He perked up when they talked about precious stones, but the rest of it--well, he just didn't care."

"Learning for its own sake is very valuable," Egon said in rather pompous tones. "Though perhaps with his father as an example..." His mouth drew a tight line and his eyes flashed. "It's amazing Peter ever went to college in the first place."

"Well, he did, and he's done great," Ray defended his absent friend. "Don't pick on Peter just because you're mad at his dad, Egon."

"I am not mad at his dad," Egon said in an angry tone. "I simply resent him very much, and I fear he'll take advantage."

"I never saw you this upset, my man," said Winston, the grin sneaking back. He shared an amused wink with Ray before clapping a hand on Egon's forearm. "Come on, it's just a dinner. How much trouble can there be in one dinner?"

"Knowing Peter's father, quite a lot," Egon replied stiffly, his face taut with annoyance. Ray saw him collect himself and struggle to calm down, and he had to struggle himself to conceal a smile. It took a lot to get past Egon's calm exterior and make him lose control, even to this extent, and Ray thought his friend was overreacting this time, though he understood why.

"I like Peter's father," he said mildly, half aware he was fueling the flames with every word he said but unwilling to back down. "It's always exciting when he comes." He put away the test tubes he'd been cleaning and favored Egon with an encouraging grin.

"Like it was exciting when he loosed Hob Anagarok on New York?" asked Winston, promptly switching sides, probably because he was enjoying himself so much he wanted to prolong the argument. "Like it was exciting when we had to go back into the New Jersey Parallelogram in a small boat to rescue him? Like it was exciting when you and the old con man got stuck in an Aztec temple and nearly got killed by that coatl? It's not exciting, homeboy, it's just plain dangerous." Shaking his head in ill-concealed delight he shifted gears yet again. "But this isn't one of Mr. Venkman's scams, Egon. He knows better, and if he didn't, Peter laid down the law to him yesterday. This is just a dinner, it's not a formal engagement." At the word 'engagement', alarm flashed in Egon's blue eyes and his glasses slid down his nose until they were in danger of dropping off. Copying one of Peter's gestures that never failed to irritate his physicist colleague, Winston reached forward and pushed them up into place on the bridge of his nose. It irritated Egon this time, too. "Don't worry, Egon," Zeddemore continued. "It's gonna be all right."

Egon's mouth traced a stubborn line and he took off his glasses, polishing them on a handkerchief before he settled them once more into place as if he alone were the arbiter of their positioning. Shoving the hankie back in the pocket of his pink shirt he replied, "I don't think it's going to be all right, Winston. I have a feeling this is going to be more trouble than any of us would like."

"I hate it when he gets a feeling," Winston muttered under his breath just as a clatter of footsteps announced a new arrival.

"What's trouble?" asked Peter Venkman, reaching the top of the spiral stairs and poking his head into the lab as he loosened his tie. "Up late, aren't we? I don't usually find a reception committee when I got home from my dates." He buffed the lapel of his sports jacket with his fingernails, then slid out of the corduroy jacket and draped it over the nearest chair where Egon would find it later and complain about Peter's failure to pick up after himself. Ray decided he'd remember to bring it into the bedroom and hang it on the bedpost of Peter's bed. "See, guys," he announced with smug pride, "I made it under curfew."

"At least someone did," Egon retorted coolly, favoring Peter with a very unfriendly look. Ray winced. Egon and Peter teased each other all the time, sometimes very subtly, sometimes with a wicked sense of humor that never failed to amuse their friends, but the note in Egon's voice tonight was different. He didn't sound like someone teasing a friend. He sounded very resentful as if he believed Peter had pulled a prank on him that was beyond the parameters that defined their game.

Peter's eyebrows shot up in amused realization, and he didn't look remotely abashed. Ray heaved a sigh. Ever since this had begun, Peter had gone out of his way to be as outrageous as possible. Part of that was probably an invitation for Egon to share the fun--"Don't take it so seriously, Spengs," he'd urged only this morning. Now he studied Egon's taut pose and a twinkle began in his eyes. "Aha!"

"What do you mean by that exactly?" demanded Egon sharply, buying into Peter's teasing. Usually he managed to give as good as he got, but this question showed he wasn't up to an argument. Ray wondered if he ought to intervene, but then Winston caught his eye and shook his head fractionally. Better if they resolved it on their own.

A sparkle of unholy glee lighting Peter's eyes, he announced dramatically, "They've gone to Vegas. They're getting married." He slung his arm around the blond's shoulders and grinned at him irrepressibly. "Just think Egon, we're going to be brothers."

Winston gave a snort of laughter and Ray's face lit with delighted amusement. Peter lifted an eyebrow at Egon, inviting him to share the joke, but Egon's face hardened and he detached himself from Venkman under the guise of stacking the last test tube in its rack. When he turned back, he had regained control of his face, but his voice was stiffly formal as he replied, "It's hardly a joking matter, Peter."

"Oh, come on, Spengs," Peter argued, some of the delight leaking out of his expression when he realized Egon wasn't going to give an inch. "It's just a dinner date. I know you don't trust my dad, but you sure must trust your mom. Come on, they've known each other casually for years. How much harm can one dinner date do? She's a grown-up. She can date anybody she likes."

Egon's mother had been in town for several days staying in a hotel and doing some shopping, and dropping by from time to time to visit Egon and his friends. They'd all had lunch with her on Sunday and she seemed in good form. Ray had been a little surprised when Egon's mother had announced that afternoon that she wouldn't be stopping by the firehouse tonight as originally planned for a scheduled dinner with Egon because she had plans of her own for the evening. Several days earlier, Peter's con man father had shown up unexpectedly with no trace of a scam in evidence, and for the past few days, all four of the guys, even Peter, had been waiting for trouble to rear its ugly head. When none proved forthcoming, Peter had relaxed, delighted to have his father here, even if it was merely a layover on the way to somewhere else. Though Peter was always thrilled to see his dad, he was wary, too, because previous visits from Charlie Venkman had brought nothing but trouble. The older Venkman was an inveterate schemer, out to make a fast buck from any unsuspecting marks who crossed his path, and in recent years he'd shown a dismaying habit of attempting to capitalize on his relationship to Peter and his connection with the Ghostbusters. So when his dad came to town lately, Peter was wary, checking it out to make sure a new scam wasn't going to land them in court. This time, Peter's father seemed innocent enough, but Egon had said to Ray the first night that it seemed likely Charlie had gotten into hot water somewhere else and wanted to lay low here in the Big Apple for a few days.

Charlie Venkman's visit had coincided with that of Egon's mother, and although the two of them had met on no less than three previous occasions, something had clicked this time, and Charlie had asked Katherine Spengler to have lunch with him. "We can talk over this weird and crazy business our two boys are in," he had suggested, a roguish glint in his eye.

She had hesitated a minute, surprised, then she'd grinned, and said, "You're on." The two of them had been spending a lot of casual time together ever since, culminating in tonight's dinner-and-dancing evening, to the obvious disapproval of her son. He had borne the daytime encounters with bad grace, never saying much to his mother but eyeing Charlie like a hawk, to the obvious amusement of the con man, who knew quite well that Egon didn't trust him. It seemed this evening encounter, all too obviously a 'date', didn't sit well with Egon at all, and from the look on his face, he halfway believed Peter had somehow instigated it all.

"When it's your father, plenty," Egon replied to Peter's question.

"For all you know, she could be home in bed by now," Peter defended his father, though he didn't look like he thought it necessary. "She doesn't have to check in with you, does she? Do you have approval rights on all her dates?"

"What dates?" Egon began sharply, then falling silent as he realized he didn't know if his mother went out with other men or not. Knowing Mrs. Spengler, she would do as she pleased, and mention any men friends to Egon only if the subject came up. It was plain from the look on the blond man's face that he hadn't considered the subject before and was finding it unexpectedly unwelcome. He added impatiently, "That's different. Presumably they wouldn't be con men."

"Sure they would, Egon, every one of them," Peter persisted irrepressibly. "At least you'd take it like that. Give your mom a break. If she's out with Dad, at least she's not here making sure we're all wearing clean underwear on a bust and feeding us chicken soup."

A faint flush rose on Egon's cheeks. "She was just a little overzealous when she was filling in for Janine that time, Peter." He frowned. "I'm quite certain she could take care of herself, though why she should choose to date your father..."

"Just poor taste, eh, Egon?" Peter asked, and this time there was a tiny edge of hurt in his voice. "Come on, my dad may like scamming people and even using us if he thought he could make a buck out of it, but one thing he knows pretty well is how to treat the ladies. Who do you think taught me everything I know?"

"So that's why you broke up with Jennifer a few weeks ago," Winston muttered under his breath. "I knew there had to be a reason."

Peter drew himself with pretend hauteur. "That was not the reason," he announced.

"Peter must have learned a lot more than what his dad taught him," Ray put in quickly, feeling an urge to defend him. "He doesn't con his dates, after all."

"Thanks for that support," Peter replied with a quick grin at Ray. He winked at him and glanced at Egon expectantly.

"Oh?" Egon looked Peter up and down measuringly as if he'd crawled out from beneath the nearest rock. "I'm not sure I'd trust my mother with you," he informed the hapless psychologist, "let alone your father."

"Come on, Egon, your mom's two or three years too old for me," Peter replied quickly, but this time some of the bright humor was gone from his face. "Besides, I couldn't take her out. That cold remedy of hers is lethal."

"My mother helped save your life at Ghostworld," Egon said a little stiffly. Ray suspected he'd gotten in over his head and wasn't entirely sure how to get out again, especially since he honestly didn't trust Peter's father. The thing was that Egon's mom was past the age of consent and if she wanted to date Charlie Venkman, no one had the right to stop her, least of all her son. And Egon did trust Peter with his own life, and presumably his mother's too.

"Sure. I remember. I owe the lady. But the last thing I'd presume to do would be tell her how to run her life. Come on, it would only egg her on and you know it."

"Well, possibly," Egon replied, his expression still not giving anything away. "I'm going to go and telephone her, and then I'm going to bed." He stalked out of the lab, opting perhaps for more privacy with the bedroom phone, which Peter foiled by following him and draping an arm around his shoulders again.

"I wouldn't. Come on, give the lovebirds a break. The last thing they might want is the phone to ring--and break the mood."

Egon's eyes flashed hot blue. "Peter, if you dare to suggest..."

"Chill, Spengs. I wasn't suggesting anything." He turned to the other two as if giving up on the argument entirely. "Come on, guys, anybody but me up for pizza?"

That magic word reached the 'ears' of Slimer, their ghostly little mascot, and the green ghost came swooping out of the bedroom, eyes wide and eager. "Slimer wants piiizzzaaa!" he squealed in delight, hovering expectantly in front of Peter. "Pepperoni!"

Peter groaned. "Oh, good. My life is complete." He started down the stairs again and Winston fell into step behind him, Slimer swooping ahead. Ray hung back a minute and smiled at Egon. "Come on, Egon, it'll be okay," he said. "Your mom can handle herself, and I think you hurt Peter's feelings just now. None of this is his fault."

"I should think it highly unlikely, Ray," Egon replied somewhat defensively. "Peter is simply being Peter at his worst. I know Mom can handle herself. It's just--this makes me very uncomfortable."

"But, gee, Egon, what if they did fall in love and get married? You and Peter would be step-brothers. That'd be nice." Ray smiled at the thought. "We're all like brothers anyway--and that would make it official."

"It would only make him more insufferable than he already is," Egon retorted coolly, snatching up the telephone and giving Ray a pointed look.

"Okay, I'm going," said the occultist, holding up his hands to show he was giving up. "But I think you're making a Mount Everest out of a molehill." He hurried after the other three, eager for pizza, hoping Egon would come to his senses before relations between him and Peter grew too strained. A few dates weren't that big of a thing, even if Peter's dad was a con man. Ray had gotten to know the elder Venkman pretty well when they were trapped for a day in that Mexican pyramid, and he knew that while Charlie Venkman was on the shady side, he loved his son and would push only so far. Of course his limit and Peter's didn't always match, and there were a few things Charlie considered fair game that really bugged Peter. Would Egon's mom be one of them? Mr. Venkman knew Egon didn't trust him, and he'd even admitted to Ray he thought that was a good thing.

"I like the idea of somebody looking out for my boy's interests, Ray," he'd confessed while they waited for rescue in the pyramid. "Your buddy Egon is one of the best things that ever happened to Peter; he came along just at the right time. I'll tell you a little secret, Ray my boy. I wasn't always the best father. I wanted to be, but I just can't help myself sometimes. There's a chance of a quick buck and I can't pass it up. It's like an addiction. I've got to be out there on the edge, taking the risk, daring the dare. I know I let Peter down a lot, but I never meant to. So when I found out Peter had met Egon, I thought, good, here's somebody who won't let him down, because he's not capable of it. Then you came along and you were so full of life and excitement and it was catching. Peter was starting to turn cynical and not trusting people. I know that was mostly my fault, especially after Margaret and I got divorced, but well, I just didn't know what to do about it. When Peter met you two, he stopped turning bitter. And when he founded your business--at first I thought it was a con, that he'd taken after me after all, but it's not a con, is it? It's the real thing. When I saw how proud he was of the business and how much being a Ghostbuster meant to him, I knew he'd made it. He was okay. But he wouldn't have done it without you and Egon being there for him when I never could."

It was the most serious Ray had ever heard Peter's father being, and he remembered that now, knowing as Egon really didn't that there was another side of Peter's father. It might not always be the winning side, especially if he was really addicted to the risks that went along with his kind of business, but it was there. Maybe that side of him would show itself to Egon's mom. Ray hoped so. Since Egon's father had died, she'd come out of her shell and made a whole new life for herself, traveling, even taking karate lessons. Egon's mom could really handle herself. Ray liked her a lot. Once when he'd caught the flu really bad, she'd shown up at the firehouse, just as she would have done when Egon was sick, and had taken care of him while the guys went out on calls. Ray had been nearly sick enough to warrant hospitalization, and sometimes, when he awoke and heard a calm voice talking to him, or felt a cool hand stroking his forehead, he'd said doubtfully, "Mom?" And Egon's mother had shushed him and comforted him, and said, "If you ever need a mom, Ray, you know who to call. After all, you and Egon are like brothers, so that makes it official," and Ray had slept the better that night, in spite of his fever, for her words.

But unlike Egon, he didn't think it would hurt her to go out with Peter's dad. He had a lot of confidence in Egon's mom and he thought he understood Charlie better than Egon did. If they got into trouble, it would be because Katherine had wanted it to happen. Egon hadn't stopped to think how carefully Peter guarded his friends from Charlie Venkman trouble, either. He knew for a fact that Pete had read his father the riot act before he and Ray set off for the wilds of Mexico, making sure Charlie realized he had obligations to keep Ray out of trouble just as Ray would do for him. Peter often followed his father around picking up the pieces, trying to keep him legit, even paying his fines. If he honestly thought Mrs. Spengler would be hurt, he'd have thrown a spanner in the works somehow. He wouldn't be cracking jokes, he'd be chasing after his dad, warning Egon's mom, doing his best to prevent trouble. He must believe, as Ray did, that the two of them had the right to have fun if that was what they wanted, and it seemed like they did. Ray grinned as he bounced down the stairs. He wished her a really good time.

*****

When the guys had come up to bed after eating their midnight pizza, Egon had already been asleep, and Peter had stopped in the doorway, eyeing him suspiciously, wondering if he were only pretending sleep out of pique, but that soft snoring sounded natural. Egon was capable of faking it, of course, but it wasn't his style. The way he'd been acting the last day or so, it would have been more in character for him to have waited up and read Peter another lecture as if he could control his father's private life. No, he was really sleeping. Peter eyed him curiously a minute before he started to change for bed.

When his dad had first asked Mrs. Spengler out to dinner, Peter had taken his dad aside and warned him in no uncertain terms that if he caught him scamming Egon's mom, the world would be too hot to hold him. His dad had looked at him in surprise that actually seemed sincere. "This isn't business, son. It's pleasure. I never scammed your mom, and you know it."

Peter knew his dad had hurt his mom in other ways, but that had never been deliberate, and his mom, while the most terrific lady Peter had ever known, probably hadn't known how to defend herself against Charlie's patented charm. She'd always defended her husband to other people, even while she warned her son against following in his footsteps, and she had stuck by Charlie a lot longer than most people expected. Peter was pretty sure she had done it for him, since his father wasn't there enough to create scenes and make Peter's home life miserable by his presence. It was always his absence...

Peter cut off that thought before he could dwell on it, and concentrated instead on Egon's mom. Hard to believe for years she'd been quiet and restrained and everything Egon's father had expected in a dutiful wife. After his death, she had gradually emerged from her shell like a butterfly coming out of a cocoon, and begun a new life. She wasn't disconcerted by the unexpected arrival of ghosts, and she'd helped them all break free of Karo Zans when he'd tried to possess the Ghostbusters and take over the city. If anyone could hold out against his father's line, it was Egon's mother, who had the guts and the smarts to handle herself on that bust with only Egon for backup.

So Peter had stood aside, prepared to enjoy the show, amused by it all, ready to jump in if his father got carried away with a scam, but knowing he didn't have the right to do more than warn Mrs. Spengler about his dad's con man tendencies. He'd done that, and she had received his caution with a smile.

"I know, dear," she had told him. "The first time I ever met him, he'd just cleaned up on a scam and he bragged about it. I know what he's like, don't worry. I can take care of myself."

Peter did her the honor of taking her at her word. "I won't if you won't," he promised. "But I'm not so sure about Egon."

Her eyes lit with gentle amusement. "Leave Egon to me," she'd said, and Peter had grinned at her in response and given up on it. There were times when he had to stand back and let people make their own mistakes, and this was one of them.

Then why did it bug him so much that Egon had gotten on his case? Egon had always been completely frank about his distrust of Peter's dad and while there was a side of Peter who felt a little sad about it, he knew Egon was right to be suspicious and he hadn't let it bother him. But tonight, it had disturbed him a little more, as if he had to be perverse about Egon's obvious and slightly offensive displeasure. Pushed into defending his dad when he could understand perfectly well why Egon was bothered, he found himself fueling the fire rather than trying to ease the situation. Winston didn't help, thinking the whole thing a huge joke, and Ray's defense of Peter's dad would start bugging Egon before much more time had passed.

Peter awoke the next morning to find Egon slightly stiff toward him, as if he realized he'd overdone it last night and didn't quite want to apologize. When Ray, jumping in where angels feared to tread, asked quite cheerfully if Egon had talked to his mom last night, Egon merely nodded once. "Yes, she was home. She was asleep when I called, and..."

"Read you the riot act, did she, homeboy?" Winston asked as he made his bed, struggling manfully to conceal his amusement. "I don't think she needs a chaperon. I think she'll probably take your head off if you try."

The expression on Egon's face indicated she might have done exactly that last night, but all he said was, "Never mind. We have that early bust this morning. We can't waste time talking."

"Talking isn't a waste of time," Peter said. "Otherwise my whole life would be a waste of time." He grinned brightly. "I wonder if Slimer left any of the pizza. I think a slice of cold pizza would be great right about now. You missed a great meal, Spengs."

"Yeah, it was really good," agreed Ray. "Come on, Egon, you're getting this a little out of proportion, aren't you?"

"Perhaps," replied Egon in the tones of one who didn't agree but felt it politic not to say so. He shot one telling glance in Peter's direction before he went for his shower. Peter sat on the edge of his bed in his pajamas, idly rubbing his chin, irritated enough at Egon's attitude to find it annoying that Egon's very light hair didn't make him look quite as unshaven in the morning. And he'd never understood how old Spengs managed to sleep so neatly that his hair didn't need much rearranging when he woke up. Maybe it was hair spray, though Peter with a wry grin, though on those instances when he'd mussed the blond's elaborately coifed hair to bug him, it hadn't been sprayed or moussed. He probably gave it a stern lecture each morning to stay where it belonged.

When Egon emerged from the shower, he'd regained a little of his perspective and didn't react with more than a grimace when Peter queried mischievously, "Finished, bro?" and added in an aside to the other two, "Well, if we're gonna be brothers I better get in the habit."

"Honestly, Peter, to think I once had hopes you'd attain maturity at some time in the foreseeable future," said Egon with the old familiar twinkle in his eyes.

"Yeah, and you were wrong," Winston retorted.

"Even Egon is wrong sometimes," Peter agreed. "Think how insufferable he'd be if he weren't. I bag the next shower," he added quickly before anyone else could jump in.

Egon didn't apologize for his stiffness, though Peter half expected he would. Probably he'd wait until Charlie wandered off on another scam and he felt the 'crisis' was over. Peter could understand that. He had felt a little safer when his father was in Alaska, but that hadn't proven remotely safe after all, and Peter hated to think what kind of trouble he would get into where he went next. He'd really liked the idea of Egon's mom spending time with his dad. If anybody could control Charlie, it might be Mrs. Spengler--and though he made it a joke, he wouldn't have been too upset if something permanent had come out of it. His dad wasn't getting any younger, and it would be nice for him to have companionship in his old age. Besides, all those jokes about being brothers weren't quite as much jokes as he'd made them. Though Peter had loved being an only child so he could be the center of attention where he firmly believed he belonged, the guys were his family now and there was something kind of nice about making it official.

Peter headed off to the shower feeling a little better than he had before, and not even Slimer wanting to squirt through the shower curtain and sing along with Peter's morning warbling could depress him, though he yelled at the top of his lungs to Ray to come and get the Spud away from him. "I'm gonna blast him, Ray, I swear I am!" he bellowed.

"He's not so bad, Peter," Ray called in return. "Maybe he could wash your back!"

"I'm not that desperate," Peter complained, fending off the little ghost when he produced a scrubbing sponge and advanced on Peter. It degenerated into a water fight that Peter enjoyed hugely, though he wouldn't admit it, and when he finally emerged, the bathroom was soaking wet and so was Slimer, and Peter had to duck quickly behind the shower curtain when the Spud shook himself like a dog and sent ectoplasm flying in all directions.

*****

Their first job was scheduled right after breakfast, one of those irritating little Class twos that sometimes bothered various businesses around the city. This one had taken residence in a deli and it must have decided customers were not welcome because it flung chunks of salami and bologna at anyone who dared enter, sending customers scattering in all directions. When the Ghostbusters arrived and were directed frantically inside by the owner, it howled with rage and Peter found himself abruptly covered in pickle and pimento loaf.

"Don't brush it off, Peter," Ray urged, trying his best not to laugh and failing utterly. "You can take it home to Slimer," he chortled gleefully. Even Egon, who had been more quiet than usual on the way to the bust, was seen to grin at the sight.

"And have him grazing all over my clothes?" Peter shuddered at the very idea. "Do you know how many jumpsuits I go through in a week. I wouldn't wish our cleaning bill on anyone this side of Walter Peck."

"We're lucky we found a dry cleaner who will put up with our clothes, Peter," Egon said without looking up from his P.K.E. meter. Perhaps he didn't want Peter to notice he was quietly laughing. The ghost grabbed a handful of lettuce and tomato and took careful aim at the elaborately coiffed blond head, apparently unwilling to resist so tempting a target.

"Uh, Egon," Peter said carefully, a happy grin spreading across his face. Good. He wouldn't be Slimer's only smorgasbord when they got home.

"Not now, Peter," said Egon with an impatient gesture as he made a minute adjustment on the device. Winston started to laugh and Ray shook his head at Peter but didn't warn Egon. "This is actually rather interes--oof!" blurted the startled physicist as a rain of food caught him in the hair and tried to dribble down the back of his neck. His head came up in astonishment as he realized that was what Peter had wanted to say. Brushing vegetables out of his hair, Egon shot an annoyed look at Peter. "You didn't try very hard, did you?" he asked.

"Hey. I did try to warn you," Peter defended himself, striking a dramatically conciliatory pose. "Would I do anything nasty to my new brother, after all?"

Egon's glare focused on Peter all the more strongly as he was reminded of his previous grievance. "Do you know how to induce spontaneous combustion in a human being, Peter?" he asked quite levelly.

"Uh, do I want to?"

"I think you should know that I do."

"He doesn't want to be my brother," said Peter to Ray in an undertone. "I'm crushed. And here I thought we were buddies."

"If I hear the word 'brother' one more time today, or any reference to my mother and your father, Peter, I shall hold you down when we get home and egg Slimer on while he eats every bit of that meat off your uniform. And I do believe some of it went down the back of your neck. Slimer does have a long tongue, after all..." he concluded musingly, his eyes sparkling with sudden mischief.

"Eucch!" Peter said succinctly at the disgusting image Egon's words conjured up, powering up his thrower and taking aim at the ghost before Egon could make any more threats. But he held back a smile because his persistent obnoxiousness had worked. There had been a definite twinkle in the previously arctic blue eyes. Egon was starting to relax. Maybe he'd even realize how much he'd overreacted and let his mom have some fun--not that he could stop her if he tried.

They concentrated on the bust, then, while the angry ghost scattered meat and slices of onion all around the room, catching Winston in mid-chest with a catsup bottle that made him look as if someone had used a shotgun on him at close range. He grimaced and said mournfully, "I hope Slimer likes catsup."

Ray's eyes widened. "You look like you've been murdered, Winston."

"Except for the little fact that he's still breathing and--yeah! Look at him move!" Peter exulted as the ghost shot up straight for the ceiling in a last ditch attempt to escape. Winston swung up his thrower and pinned it effortlessly in the stream just before it could vanish, but not before it had dropped a whole stack of sliced meats on Ray's head. Ray let out a yelp and shook himself like a dog before he brought his thrower to bear and joined Winston in confining the ghost in the ray of proton energy.

"Way to go. This one's in the bag," cried Peter, tossing out a ghost trap and letting it fall beneath the writhing specter. When he stomped on the trigger, a cone of light swooped out to encompass the ghost and sucked it, wailing and moaning, into the trap. The doors clashed shut over its final protest.

"Nice work, guys," said Egon, raking his fingers through his hair while lettuce sprayed in all directions.

"I think you should leave it, said Peter, leaning close to gaze at Egon's face and batting his eyes at him teasingly. "It's the new look. Food in the hair. Do you think there's a buck to be made in this?"

"No," chorused the other three, grinning at their unexpected unison.

"Too bad. Then can we go home now? I want to remove it before someone says I'm setting a bad fashion trend."

They left the grateful owner of the deli and his staff cleaning up the mess while Peter pocketed the check. Though the bust had been a success, they were thoroughly coated with food, meats, mayo, mustard, lettuce and tomato, and Ray brushed at it ineffectually before he got into Ecto. "Slimer's gonna love us when we get home," he said cheerfully, reacting to the lessening of the tension that had been brought about by Egon's annoyance and Peter's outrageous reaction to it. There was nothing like a good bust to restore everyone to a better frame of mind. Peter loved this job, even when he got bombed with the makings of a submarine sandwich. He couldn't imagine anything he'd be rather doing--except maybe taking a bath. Something squishy had worked its way down between his shoulder blades and he didn't want to think about it.

They all brushed off what they could before they climbed into Ecto, and the ride to the firehouse was enlivened with a commentary on the bust, Winston's spectacular save when the little ghost nearly made it out through the ceiling, Peter's ready trap work, Egon's sudden insistence that the ghost was more powerful than a normal Class 2 even though the trap's reading confirmed it.

"The P.K.E. meter fluctuated," Egon persisted. "As if the ghost could conceal more powerful abilities."

"Wow," breathed Ray, excited by the possibility. "That's great, Egon!"

"Come on, homeboy," argued Winston from behind the wheel, shooting a quick, curious glance at Peter before he turned his eyes to the road again. "How could he do that? He wasn't that hard to catch, just fast."

Egon activated his P.K.E. meter and it beeped into life, though not strongly enough to indicate a powerful ghost nearby. Egon fiddled with it, his brows knit together as he concentrated. "Hmm," he observed.

"That tells it all," said Peter to Ray, leaning over the seatback from his 'shotgun' position and quirking an eyebrow. "Eloquent, isn't he?"

"No, this is interesting, guys," Egon insisted. "What I'm reading now is exactly what I would expect to read if I subtracted the readings we get from the trapped ghost, going by the trap's readings, from what I got before, as if we got part of the ghost, or as if there had been a ghostly overlay over the entire area." He moved the P.K.E. meter in small circles, trying to determine if the readings were stronger in any given direction, but directional fixes were no different.

"Wow," breathed Ray. "As if there were some kind of power over the entire city, right, Egon? What could cause something like that?"

"I'm not entirely certain," Egon confessed. "This will take a great deal of study, but it's almost as if a dimensional barrier is weakening. It's not weak enough for anything to pass through it yet, but it's weak enough to allow energy readings to permeate it."

"I don't think I like the sound of that," muttered Winston to Peter. "You mean it's about to break and give us tons of ghosts?"

"Not necessarily, though it's something we'll need to monitor," Egon replied. "It could mean a powerful demon intends to come through, but it could simply be a seasonal weakness of a transitory nature."

"And in English, Spengs?" Peter prodded, hanging over the seatback to watch the blond. "Make sense of this or I'll have to restrict you to limited P.K.E. duty for the next month."

Egon lifted his eyes from the meter, made a face at Peter, and turned to the device again. "As yet, the readings are inconclusive. There are theories that various dimensions march with our own, some theories insisting that each time there is a choice to be made in our universe, another universe splits off from ours where the choice was made differently; a universe where John F. Kennedy lived, perhaps, or one where Ferdinand and Isabella did not fund Columbus, or even one where Peter actually did the laundry instead of cramming that sack of dirty socks under the lab table. Sometimes, those dimensions run closely concurrent to ours. Another theory is that time is fluid and doubles back on itself like bends in a river and sometimes our time can brush against a time in the past or future and those sensitive to it can cross over. Theories have been advanced, and not all of them crackpot theories, that people who disappeared mysteriously practically in plain sight crossed through those near-transparent boundaries. The crew of the Mary Celeste, perhaps."

"Yeah, Peter, this is great," breathed Ray. "If Egon's really picking up that kind of a cross rip, we can be in on it if it happens. We can study it. I don't think anyone's ever been able to make that kind of study before."

"That we know of," Peter remarked with a grin. "They're probably over on the other side now, and that's why we never learned any more about it."

"On the other hand," concluded Egon, "We have been very busy over the past three weeks. A weakening gateway between our world and the Netherworld, perhaps, could have brought so many ghosts through that what I'm detecting now is a sort of residue of their presence. All in all, a much more likely theory."

"Yeah, but the other one was more fun," said Ray in disappointment. "I always thought it would be neat to go to places like that."

"I seem to remember this boy wanting to bust the New Jersey Parallelogram," Peter said to Winston. "Maybe we should lock him up until the residue fades away. We don't want to have to risk running into Tolay just to get Ray back. We'd do it--but it wouldn't be any fun."

"It'd be great, Peter," insisted Ray, who was just the type to find the idea of being captured by a powerful demon intriguing. Peter caught Egon's eye, tapped his temple with one forefinger and nodded at Ray.

Ray, of course, saw the gesture, as he was meant to, and pretended to pout. "Well, you're no fun," he argued.

"The only one gonna be having fun in about a minute is the Spud," said Winston as he pulled Ecto into the firehouse garage. "When he sees us, he's gonna be in hog heaven."

Peter groaned and buried his head in his folded arms in exaggerated dismay. "Now my life is complete."

As they got out of Ecto Ray made matters worse by calling, "Slimer! Where are you. We've got a treat for you."

"I'm gonna take this boy and put him upside down in the nearest trash compactor," said Winston in an undertone to Peter.

"I'll help."

"Oboy, fooooodddd!" Slimer dive-bombed them with more enthusiasm than Peter had ever seen this side of Ray Stantz, mouth already open so he could start to feed. "Guys yummy!" he announced as his big pink tongue slurped across Peter's forehead. "Gooooood mustard," he said in a quick aside before gobbling all the way down Peter's chest where a few slices of meat had been caught in the straps that held his proton pack and mashed into the fabric.

"Yuck. Get him off me," wailed Peter, shooting dirty looks at the other guys when they cracked up. "Get him off me, or somebody's gonna pay."

Slimer calmly finished his 'meal' and moved on to Ray, who patted him on the head and motioned him to the worst smears. As Slimer was happily munching minced ham, their secretary, Janine Melnitz, got up from her desk and approached them holding a sheet of paper, her expression ever so slightly wary.

"Not another job," moaned Peter, his face full of comical dismay. "Not before I've had a nice long shower."

"No, it's not a job, Dr. V," Janine reassured him, though she looked like she would have loved to produce one. "It's a message for Egon." She passed it to the physicist, who eyed the strange look on Janine's face a moment before he opened the folded sheet of paper. As he read the message, his whole body stiffened, and when he had finished his fingers curled the paper into a crumpled ball. He spun on Peter and snapped, "This is all your fault!"

"Whoa! Back off, Spengs. What did I do now?" demanded Peter. "Come on, I just got here, just like you did."

"Your father," Egon began, but before he could go on, Peter snatched the note from his hand, smoothed it out and read the message aloud. "'Your mom called. She and Peter's dad are going to Atlantic City for a few days.' Aha. I told you it was true love."

"If anything happens to my mother, Peter, I shall hold you personally responsible," stated Egon coldly, and before the hapless psychologist could defend himself from this unjust attack, Egon turned and stalked away up the stairs.

Peter stared after him, mouth open in surprise. Egon was so often the calm, controlled one that this outburst stunned him, even after yesterday's happenings. It had mostly been a game with Peter, teasing Egon, and he had been sure Egon was fair enough not to seriously blame Peter for his father's actions, knowing there were times when Charlie got way out of hand and Peter had no control over him, nor any right to. Charlie made him crazy sometimes, and this was one of them, but more because of Egon's reaction than anything else. If the 'lovebirds' wanted a weekend in Atlantic City, that was their business, and after the stern warning Peter had given his father there was nothing left to do short of going after them, which Peter wouldn't have done for all the money in the world. He could imagine the amusement in his father's eyes, and hear the calmly reassuring note in Mrs. Spengler's voice as she said, "Don't worry, dear, I'll be fine."

What did bother Peter was the cold look in Egon's eyes before he turned away. All these years, Egon had known the truth about Peter's father. Egon was the first one he'd ever admitted it to, and it had taken him several years before he'd worked up the nerve to do so, knowing Egon's father was a respectable scientist who couldn't conceive of anyone like Peter's father becoming involved with his son. Egon had handled it well, too, telling Peter, "It isn't your father I became friends with; it's you. Don't expect me to judge you by his actions." And he'd said it so matter of factly that Peter had actually relaxed and started to feel more comfortable with Egon than he had before. The last thing he had expected was for Egon to turn on him at this stage of the game.

"Egon!" Ray cried after their departing colleague in shock. "It's not Peter's fault. It isn't anybody's fault. I think you owe Peter an apology."

Egon paused a moment, but then he kept going. Peter shrugged and began to work his way out of his jumpsuit. "I don't know about you guys," he said much too brightly, "but I bag the first shower." He stopped, realizing Ray was looking at him sympathetically. "You want something, Ray?" he asked cautiously. His tone didn't encourage the occultist to persist, but Ray did it anyway.

"Egon doesn't mean it," he said quickly. "He worries about his mom a lot since his dad died."

"I know that, Ray. I know he never trusted my dad, either, but he should trust his mom." And me. He shrugged, looking at them all, including Janine, who was standing at his side, as if she'd taken his position instead of Egon's. That made him smile a little. "The thing is, and I can't really say this to Egon, because he'd take it wrong. My dad goes after the ladies all the time--but usually they're young and glamorous and sophisticated, and they can handle him just fine. They know how to play the game. But Egon's mom--well, she's a great lady, don't get me wrong, but she's not young and glamorous, and I can't see Dad trying to scam her--unless she was really rich, and she isn't. Well, she's got some bucks, but not enough to make it worth Dad's while, if you know what I mean. And much as I love her, she, well, she looks too much like Spengs to be beautiful. So if Dad is giving her the rush, it's because he likes her, and if he likes her, he's not gonna hurt her."

"I think it's nice," said Ray promptly. "I bet it is good for your dad to spend time with a woman his age; they'll have a lot more in common than those women you talked about. Why shouldn't they have fun?"

"Yeah, m'man," put in Winston. "It isn't the thought of you and him becoming step-brothers that bugs him. He'd probably like that, if he could trust your dad not to hurt his mom."

"He can," said Peter. "Because I told Dad I'd brain him if anything went wrong, and he assured me he didn't mean anything." He frowned. "Course his view of what could go wrong and Egon's are two different things. I just don't see what Egon thinks I can do..." He let that thought trail off and started for the stairs himself, kicking off the food-stained jumpsuit and leaving it lie on the floor. "Shower time," he said brightly. "It's beneath my dignity to look like this."

*****

"Wow, he's really upset," Ray said as soon as Peter had vanished up the stairs.

"He should be," said Janine, for once in defense of someone over her beloved Egon. "Egon's mom can handle herself and if she wants to go to Atlantic City with Peter's dad, that's her business. It wouldn't be my idea of a great weekend, but different strokes and all that. Can't you guys talk to Egon?"

"I'll have to," said Ray. "Because it really bugs Peter, and while it's fun to bug Peter most of the time, this is different."

"Yeah, he's always been defensive about his dad," Winston remarked. He'd come out of a bad bout of father trouble himself not long ago, but it was not the same as having an unsatisfactory father. Big Ed Zeddemore might not have liked the idea of his son being a Ghostbuster, an opinion he'd finally altered when he got caught up in a paranormal experience, but he'd never stopped loving his son, and he'd never thought to use him. For the most part, Peter was proud of the old con man, but let Charlie's scams affect Peter, and he got ultra-touchy about it. This would hit him all the harder because he knew he couldn't really defend his father most of the time.

"So you want I should talk to Egon?" Janine asked, glancing upward. She wouldn't object to the duty. Winston thought it over and lifted a questioning eyebrow at Ray.

"That might be nice, Janine," Ray agreed. "Go for it. After all--"

The shrilling of the telephone cut off his words and Janine darted for her desk and snatched it up. "Ghostbusters." She listened, her face intent, prompting with a, "Yeah?" or a, "then what?" while she scribbled information on an order form. "They'll be right there," she promised and hit the alarm button to summon Egon and Peter back. "This sounds nasty, guys. It could be a class seven."

Peter appeared at the top of the stairs, pulling on a clean sweatshirt, and trudged down to join them, frustration visible in every line of his body. "This had better be good, Janine," he complained. "I just want a shower and a nap."

"Sorry, Peter, it's a Class seven," Ray consoled him, his own excitement getting the better of him. "Isn't it great?"

"Great is not the word I'd choose," Peter replied with a grimace. "Ray, I think I'm going to take away your vitamins."

Egon arrived by sliding down the pole, his face composed for business. "What do we have, Janine?" he asked without looking at any of the other three.

"Well, it's big and nasty and it sounds like a class seven," the secretary informed him. "I think it might be a demon, Egon. It sounds like it grabbed a salesman at a mom and pop grocery store and carried him right through the wall without hurting him. He got away while the demon was eating a taxi. I think it sounds pretty nasty. Be careful, Egon."

"Thanks for your concern, Janine," Peter said sourly as he struggled into a clean jumpsuit. "The rest of us don't rate, do we?"

"Be careful, Egon," Janine repeated pointedly, "because when you get back, I'll give you a lecture you'll never forget." She folded her arms across her chest, turned to catch Peter's eye, and winked.

Egon's face fell. He couldn't have looked more surprised if his pillow had bitten him. Collecting himself quickly, he turned toward his locker. "I had better take the atomic destabilizer," he observed.

"I don't like that thing," Winston muttered. "It's not gonna destabilize one of us this time, is it, big guy?"

"Of course not, Winston," Egon said impatiently. "I modified it shortly after you rescued me from the Netherworld, so none of us need face that risk again." He loaded the destabilizer into the back of Ecto, beside his normal proton pack. "It should prove most effective, and the problem before was only a minor flaw."

"Yeah, Egon," said Peter wryly. "A minor flaw that made the rest of us risk our lives in the Netherworld to bring you back. How did you design it, Ray? We came back with Egon or we didn't come back?" He looked at Egon pointedly and the physicist's eyes fell.

"Well, don't just stand there like idiots," Janine said quickly before anyone else could speak. "Go on, get out there. You've got a demon to stop."

The ride to the job was mostly spent in silence, so it was fortunate the shop in question was only in Tribeca or it would have become even more awkward than it really was. Peter, who felt he had a genuine grievance, didn't push any more than he already had, probably because he knew his father too well to believe he would automatically behave chivalrously toward Egon's mom simply because she wasn't one of the stunners he sometimes pursued. A man like that could well go for an older woman with money, and the Spenglers had always had money. Winston looked from Peter to Egon and back again. Egon wasn't thinking about his mother's money, though. He was thinking about his mother's happiness, and he believed he was in the right, but for him to blame Peter for his father's proclivities was way out of line, and Winston decided when they got home he would read Egon the riot act about it himself. He and Peter were too close friends to let this come between them. Peter had done all he could to protect Egon's mom from his father's con man activities. Winston had overheard part of it, and it had been something to the tune of, 'You hurt Egon's mom and don't bother coming back.' He wouldn't say anything about that to the others, though. It fell under the heading of private Venkman business, and for all his overt sociability and ready wit, the inner Peter Venkman was a very private person. At times like this, Winston was glad Peter had a ready temper because otherwise he'd hold all of his upset inside.

"We're here," said Ray with such blatant relief that Peter sneaked a sideways glance at Egon, discovered Egon was sneaking a look in return, and turned away quickly. His shoulders stiffened as he got out of the car and took the pack from Ray.

The occultist paused a minute. "Peter, you okay? Egon didn't mean it."

"Not much, Ray," Peter replied, his mouth tracing a tight line. "What does he think I did, brought my dad here on purpose so he could hit on Katherine? Give me a break. You didn't see me getting on his case when his uncle let Mr. Stay Puft out of the containment unit, did you?"

Winston saw Egon stop behind Peter, his face thoughtful, then he frowned, shook his head, and took the pack Ray passed him. Ray watched Peter move toward the small grocery mart with stiff-legged determination and gave Egon the destabilizer. "Peter's not responsible for his dad's actions, Egon," he said reproachfully. "You know that. You really hurt him. He won't admit it, but you did. It wasn't fair."

"I seem to remember you threw a dozen fits over Dr. Basingame taking advantage of your aunt," Egon said stiffly.

Ray nodded. He had. He was very protective of his aunt, who, for all her sophistication, was rather gullible in certain areas. "I know," he said. "But if Basingame had sons, I wouldn't blame them for what their dad did, not unless they worked for him. You know how much it's always hurt Peter that his dad is a crook. You just told Peter there wasn't any difference between them. I think it was mean of you."

Spengler's face was stiff. He wasn't ready to hear it. "Atlantic City, Ray," he insisted as if to justify himself.

"So? I've been to Atlantic City myself. I didn't come away corrupted. I did lose a little money but it was fun. And Peter won $4000. Remember how impossible he was to live with for weeks afterwards."

Egon smiled fondly before he caught himself. Shaking his head, he said quickly, "We have a demon to bust," and walked away.

Winston took his proton pack from Ray. "Nice try, homeboy. I think you got to him. I hate seeing Pete and Egon at odds. Makes everything feel wrong."

"It sure does," Ray replied as he slid his arms into the shoulder straps of his pack. "I like the way they act together--when I first met them, I was surprised that they were friends--they're so different. But..." he shrugged his shoulders and hurried after his two colleagues when a demon-like roar echoed from a nearby alley.

"Did you hear it?" Peter demanded, jogging back to join them. "It sounds nasty. Come on, guys. We've got a demon to fight." A determinedly bright grin on his face, he headed toward the alley, passing Egon without a word. Egon looked after him, made an abortive gesture with one hand, let it drop, then quickened his pace and followed Peter into the alley, with Ray and Winston jogging after them.

The entity was a demon all right, a big blue one who looked vaguely like Tolay and Arzun, only not quite as big. He was big enough to roar in anger at the sight of them and lob a dumpster in their general direction. Peter flung himself sideways behind a row of garbage cans and Egon flattened himself against the opposite wall, while Ray and Winston ducked back until the metal container crumpled up against the wall between them and Peter. For a minute, they couldn't see the brown haired man, and Ray cried anxiously, "Peter, are you okay?"

Venkman rose above the flattened metal, brushing a banana peel from his hair. "No more garbage, Ray. Much more of this and I'm gonna get myself an office job where nobody throws rotting fruits at me." He glanced over at Egon automatically, checking the team; whenever anybody fell behind as they fled a dangerous entity, it was always Peter who noticed if anyone had lagged behind or was in trouble.

Egon wasn't in trouble this time, though. He had his P.K.E. meter out and was calmly checking out the demon, his brow knit in concentration. "Hmm," he said. "Fascinating. By filtering out that overlay we detected earlier, the demon registers as a strong class 7. If I add it into the equation, I'm reading a class 8."

"Does that mean he'll be as tough as a class 8 to trap?" Winston asked resignedly. Nothing about this job was ever easy.

"Of course not," Egon replied reassuringly. "But a class seven is inherently quite dangerous. We'll need a narrow beam at full power to confine him."

The demon had not been idle while Egon talked, his attention on the meter. Instead it had drifted closer, eyeing the physicist as if he had seen his dinner.

"Look out, Egon, I think Mikey likes you," said Peter automatically, then he caught himself. "Pay attention to the ghost," he snapped, firing a quick proton stream between Egon and the entity while Ray and Winston powered up and fired at the entity.

It was fast. Maybe the overlay of psi power enabled ghosts to move more quickly than normal, because it shot up to rooftop level, four stories above them and perched on the roof, shooting fire from its fingertips at them, and making them dive sideways in all four directions to avoid being fried. Hastily Egon put his P.K.E. meter away and turned on the destabilizer, taking aim at the demon and firing.

It shot upward before the stream could impact and Egon tried to compensate by following the specter's movements as best he could, the other three firing with him in unison. With a furious roar, the ghost dove for them and landed right in the alley, in their midst.

"Look out," cautioned Winston, seeing the danger. "We can't aim at him without risking hitting each other. Egon, move ten paces to your right. Yeah, like that. Ray, you go low and aim high." The occultist went down on one knee so that he'd be firing upward at the ghost. Winston nodded as Egon shifted. His thrower and Peter's were no longer pointing directly at each other and if Ray fired his beam would go over Egon's head.

"Now, guys," shouted Peter, recognizing the strategy. "Blast him!"

The demon may or may not have understood English, and he hadn't shifted to compensate for Winston's strategy. Instead he looked around at them, as if deciding who to attack first. The proton streams and the energy from the destabilizer hit him all at once, and he gave an even more ferocious roar and struggled to pull free.

"Egon, blast him," yelled Ray. "We need to destabilize him if we're gonna trap him."

"I am blasting him," Egon called. "Look out, Ray!"

The demon stretched a huge hand right out of the confining streams and swatted at Ray, who tumbled over sideways and rolled, colliding with the trash cans and blurting out a surprised cry of pain. Peter yelled, "RAY!" as he shifted sideways to compensate for the loss of one of the beams, and the demon roared at Peter and jumped backwards, right at Egon. Peter saw his stream heading in that direction, likely to take the top of Egon's head off, and he powered down immediately, diving around toward Ray to give him a clear shot. Freed of two streams, the demon lunged back at Egon, who had no ground to give. Automatically he backed up against the wall as Peter stumbled over debris from the ruined dumpster and went down flat in a pile of garbage. An anguished, if muffled, wail arose from the pile as Peter scrambled frantically to climb to his feet, spitting and gagging and scraping ineffectually at his face with one hand while he tried to aim the thrower with the other one, not even daring to turn sideways to check on Ray, who hadn't bounced up yet. Winston couldn't look, either. He could only keep firing, mouth drawn in a grim line, as they tried to stop the demon, and hope that Ray was only momentarily stunned.

Egon jumped backwards, found he had no room to move without running up against a stack of crates. Pinned into the corner, he could only keep firing as the demon jumped him. Winston shot one hasty glance in the other direction. Ray was still down, conscious but groggy, clutching his thrower with one hand, the other arm hanging useless at his side, while Peter, covered with garbage, fought his way out of the mess, shot one anxious glance at Ray and took aim at the huge blue entity. "I got him!" he bellowed. "I got him."

"No, Pete!" warned Winston. "He's too close!"

Peter's proton stream flashed out but at the warning he jerked his hand up, and the beam shot toward the roof of the building. A chunk of plaster came crashing down on the demon--and Egon--and the entity roared with renewed fury, raised his hands to shoot fire at the falling debris, and sudden brilliant light coruscated around them. It was so intense that Winston had to close his eyes. When he opened them again a second later, blinking away the afterimage, there was a huge pile of rubble in the alley and the demon was nowhere to be seen.

Neither was Egon Spengler.

"Egon!" blurted Ray in a dazed voice, garbage pails clattering around him as he fumbled his way to his feet.

*****

Peter stood frozen for a horrible second, and it felt like he had stepped into an elevator shaft only to discover the elevator wasn't there. He was falling and falling as he stood there, his stomach lurching in a futile attempt at compensation, then he was across the alley so fast it was almost as if he'd teleported, his thrower left to trail behind him on its power cable, as he attacked the piled rubble with frantic hands, tossing huge chunks of it away to uncover Egon the more quickly. The rough stone tore at his fingers and he felt nails crack, but there was no pain, only a desperate urgency to get him out--to free him from the rubble, before-- He didn't finish that thought. He couldn't.

"I did it," he blurted miserably to Winston, who jumped in and started digging beside him. "I lost track of the angle. I...I brought it all down on him. If--"

"Shut up and dig," Winston said quickly before Peter could drown in a sea of blame. "Ray's hurt, he can't help us. Come on, we've gotta get him out of there. He could suffocate--"

"I--I don't think he's there," said an unsteady voice from behind them and Ray tottered over to join them, his face starkly white from a combination of pain and despair. Eyes wide and too bright, he stared at Peter, who kept on tossing away chunks of rubble while he stared up at Ray over his shoulder. He looked like he was about to cry. "I--I was watching. I couldn't fire...my shoulder...I think I dislocated it when I fell. But I was watching--and they vanished just before that stuff fell. It looked like--" His voice choked off as Peter pulled away a huge chunk of rubble to reveal only more rubble with bits of pavement showing through it. He stared wildly at the rest of the brick and mortar as if he'd overlooked Egon's body, but he couldn't have. There wasn't enough of the debris left to cover a body, especially the body of a tall man like Egon. Ray was right, no Egon. He wasn't here. Both men turned to stare at the occultist with doubtful eyes. "It looked like...protonic reversal," Ray faltered, forcing out the words as if each one hurt more than his injured shoulder, and wouldn't stop hurting even when he was physically well. "Total molecular disintegration. Oh, gosh, Peter, I...I think he's...dead."

"You mean Egon's atomic destabilizer backfired again?" Winston asked eagerly, struggling for something positive to offer, a hope when it didn't look like there could be hope. "We gonna have him go transparent all over again?"

"I don't know. Maybe. I hope so, Winston," Ray replied. "Oh, Peter, if only he's right. Egon--we...he can't be..." He wobbled suddenly and Peter lunged at him and caught him, steadying him, feeling the shorter man's body quiver against his as Ray leaned into the arm Peter wrapped around his shoulders. He flinched at the pain the movement evoked--his shoulder probably was dislocated--it didn't feel right. Peter wished he could ease even that much of Ray's pain, but he wasn't sure how to do it right and he was afraid he'd do more harm than good. All he could do was reassure his friend by the warmth of physical contact, and while it didn't exactly reassure Peter himself, it was a comfort in this confused moment of strife.

"Easy, Ray," he said reassuringly, but his voice lacked its usual timbre. "Easy now. We'll get Egon back if there's even one chance in ten thousand to do it. Don't flag out on me now. Can you hold on long enough to take some readings if I hold the meter?"

"Sure, Peter." Ray's voice was unsteady, but he tried to straighten up, gripping just above the wrist of his injured arm to support it, and biting off a tiny moan at the agony even such a slight a movement caused. Peter adjusted his grip to encircle Ray's waist instead of putting any pressure on the injured shoulder. Ray's taut muscles relaxed fractionally and he leaned all the harder against Peter. "It's for Egon..." He heaved a shaky sigh. "I--don't think his molecules were reversed this time," he continued as Peter worked the meter from Ray's pocket, trying to do it without hurting him, and turned it on. "It just--looked different." His voice was small and weak and hesitant as if he knew his words would stab like knives because they wounded him the same way. "There wasn't a fade out and Egon...didn't have time to yell. He was just--gone." He looked down at the meter's screen, shaking his head sadly because Peter could see as well as he could that the device wasn't reacting: no blinking lights, no beeping, no readings on the screen. "I can't pick up anything, it's as if--as if he...no longer exists." He bit his bottom lip, his eyes huge with misery. "Even that overlay is gone, at least around here. The force of the disintegration must have wiped it out," he concluded. "I--I don't know, Peter. I can't..." He slumped sideways and Peter's arm around his waist tightened, as he shifted to take Ray's sagging weight against his hip.

"We've gotta get him to the hospital," said Winston, looking dazed with shock. Ray hurt, Egon--Egon missing, Peter thought blankly, his eyes catching Winston's as if the black man had answers, but Winston looked as rocky as Peter felt. Then as if he felt Peter's eyes on him, he squared his shoulders and continued fiercely, "We'll find a way to get Egon back somehow." He prodded the rubble with his toe, pausing when something caught his eye. "Look here, guys," he said.

Peter craned his neck to see better, unable to move closer without dropping Ray. It couldn't be Egon, but maybe... "What is it?" he asked sharply.

Winston scooped up the P.K.E. meter that Egon had dropped. The falling rubble had dented it and broken off one of the antennae, and it wasn't working any longer. As he held it up by the handle and displayed it so Peter and Ray could see it, Venkman froze, feeling his stomach knit up into painful tightness at the sight.

"That...looks like blood," Ray breathed, horrified. He was clinging to consciousness with all his strength, but at the sight of the blood that smeared the meter's screen, his hold weakened and he nearly slid from Peter's bolstering grip. Grabbing him firmly in both arms, Peter worked his injured arm carefully from the pack straps.

"Give me a hand here, Winston." He motioned the other man closer with his chin, unable to spare a hand. "We've got to get this thing off him and take him to the hospital. Ray? Come on, Ray, hang in there."

"I think he fainted," Winston said quietly. "That shoulder has to be put back and I'd rather they did it at the hospital. We'll put him in Ecto and you can go straight there. That'll be quicker."

Peter steadied Ray's dead weight while Winston slid his other arm free and pulled the pack away. Peter braced himself and lifted Ray in his arms as he might have done a child, his face tight with anxiety. "I gotta get Ray to a hospital," he agreed. Ray should have been a dead weight in his arms, but he wasn't. Peter looked down at the auburn head that lolled against his chest and his heart twisted. He had to come out of this with Ray intact. He couldn't lose both of them. Oh, Egon, he thought despairingly. But there was still Ray. "You--you want to stay here and--and see what you can find?" He didn't want to leave--it would be abandoning Egon--but Egon wasn't here and Ray was unconscious. He might have a head injury in addition to the dislocated shoulder. "I--I've gotta take him," he insisted as if Winston had called him to task for it. "I'll--I'll call Janine on the mobile phone and ask her to--"

"Yeah, to let us know if Egon shows up like he did the other time," said Winston quietly. He helped Peter put the unconscious Ray in the back of Ecto, settling him as comfortably as possible and propping packs around him so the ride wouldn't fling him about. Peter did it like an automaton, the only concession to what he must be feeling a gentle touch to Ray's hair before he scrambled out and climbed into the driver's seat. "Let me know if..." he began, and broke off the words quickly, pressing his lips together to keep them from quivering. He slid behind the wheel.

*****

Winston's stomach knotted up again as he watched Peter. While Zeddemore didn't think Ray was seriously injured, he couldn't be sure. Any unconsciousness was a sign of danger and while it could be stress and the pain of his injured shoulder that had pushed Ray over the edge, it could be much worse, and it was plain from Peter's clenched jaw and his deliberately blank expression that he feared the worst. Egon--well, Egon might show up at the firehouse like he had the last time a demon and the destabilizer had come in contact, but this had looked different and Egon could have been fried. Peter knew that. He couldn't help but know that. He wasn't worrying about Egon's reaction to his mother and Mr. Venkman now. He was worrying that he'd lost his friend in a way that couldn't be fixed.

Oh, shit. Winston didn't want Peter alone on that journey to the hospital but there weren't any options. He took the P.K.E. meter the psychologist passed him and braced himself. "You okay, homeboy?" he asked. Peter's hotly resentful look told him that had been one of the most stupid questions he'd ever asked, but he'd had to ask it. "You sure you don't want me to come along?"

Peter waved past him at the alley. "We've gotta check this out, Winston," he insisted in that desperately calm tone he only used when things were at their worst. Usually this kind of crisis shut him right up except when he had to speak, and now he had to. "You write down any weird readings. Ray can--" He gulped. "Ray can check them out when they patch him up," he insisted gamely.

"You got it, buddy." Winston reached in through the open window and squeezed Peter's shoulder. The muscles under his fingers were like iron in their rigidity. "Hang in there. I'll come to the hospital."

Peter nodded and put the car into gear. He didn't say anything more but the look on his face made Winston hurt inside. He knew how much he hurt for the loss of Egon, but he hadn't known Egon for nearly fifteen years, hadn't met the guys when they were still not quite men, finished growing up together. Now Peter had lost Egon--Winston wasn't deluding himself there would be a miraculous rescue this time--and might even lose Ray too. If that happened, would there be anything of Peter Venkman left?

Biting back a miserable sigh, Winston squeezed Peter's shoulder one more time to remind him he was still here and alive, and turned to do Peter's bidding. The converted ambulance peeled rubber as it raced toward the nearest hospital.

"Take care of him, Pete," Winston said under his breath and turned to recruit the shopkeeper and several bystanders to help him sift through the debris for any clues to what might have happened to Egon.

*****

"Janine." Peter's voice on the phone was so tight and wary that Janine's stomach clenched into knots.

"What's wrong?" she demanded frantically. "It's not...Egon?"

"He--vanished, Janine. It--might be like that other time. Check around there and see if he shows up like he did then. Haul out that destabilizer rectifier unit of Ray's and have it ready."

"I will," she said automatically, grateful for a task even if it wasn't needed. From Peter's tone she didn't think it would be. "Did--could you tell what happened? Where are you?"

"Hospital," Peter said reluctantly. "Ray...got hurt. Winston's checking back there for traces of Egon. I had to bring Ray..."

He was torn in both directions, she knew, but one thing that struck her even more forcibly was that lost little boy note that hung around the edges of his voice. He probably didn't even know it showed, but it did sometimes and it was one of the things that had kept Janine from killing her boss when he got too obnoxious. He was alone, waiting for news of Ray, believing Egon was--was dead. He was alone.

"I'm coming over there," she said. "Right now. Where are you? St. Vincent's?"

Peter nodded. "Closest," he explained succinctly. He pulled in his breath in a sigh that trembled into shock. He was reeling from the possible double loss. "Doctor says--Ray is probably gonna be okay," he said, but that 'probably' was the one thing keeping him from relaxing in that direction. Janine bet the doctor had said, 'if there are no complications,' and Peter wouldn't take that for a positive statement but a negative one, especially now.

"What's wrong with him?" she asked in a bruskly practical voice.

Peter responded to her tone gratefully. "He put his shoulder out. The demon whacked him and set him rolling. He hit his head too, but it didn't knock him out at first, only stunned him for a minute. The doctor thought anxiety and having the pack on with the shoulder might have been enough to black him out, but they have to check for head injuries. Don't come right away, Janine. Get all that stuff ready and look for Egon first." He hesitated, then added in a small voice, "Please."

"You got it," she said. "I'll do it right now and then I'll come straight there. Is Winston supposed to meet you there?"

"Yeah. Thanks, Janine. I knew I could count on you."

"Do you--want me to call Egon's mom?" she asked.

The question was a mistake. She could almost feel Peter flinching away from it. Notifying Egon's mom was final, and Janine couldn't bear the thought herself. It hasn't hit me yet, she thought in anguish. It's gonna hurt so much worse when it does. And if it stabbed her like this, it was at least as painful for Peter--and he would pretend he wasn't in pain. Janine caught her breath abruptly. Egon had been such a--a jerk, why not say it?--over his mom and Peter's dad. Not only did Peter have to deal with that he had to remember how Egon had treated him before he died. Janine's eyes closed in sheer pain. Peter would believe Egon had died hating him.

"Not yet," Peter said quickly. "We've gotta check out the readings, see if we can tell what happened. I--I'll call her, when the time comes." She could almost see him squaring his shoulders for the task. "Did she tell you what hotel--?"

"No, but I can find out if I have to call them all. But first I'll come over there." She squared her shoulders. "I--I'm sorry, Peter."

"Yeah," he said dispiritedly. "Thanks, Janine."

She put the receiver down in the cradle very carefully. Egon. Not Egon. It couldn't be... "EGON?" she yelled at the top of her lungs. "Are you here? Come on, Egon, I've seen you transparent before. You get out here right now or I'll kick your butt!" Nothing. No answer. Only Slimer, drifting down the stairs, swooped over and hovered in front of her. "Egon here?" he asked doubtfully.

"You go check, Slimer," she said. "Remember when Egon was a kind of ghost? You go see if you can find him. Right now?"

"Okey dokey," Slimer agreed and drifted back up the stairs.

"EGON!" Janine yelled one more time, then, when no answer was forthcoming, she put her head down in her folded arms and cried.

*****

Peter felt like he'd been pacing around this stupid waiting room for a hundred years. He'd lost track of how many cups of coffee he'd drunk, enough so that he felt uncomfortably awash and would have liked to make a quick pit stop, but he didn't want to leave for fear the doctor would come while he was gone, think he had left and go away again. It wasn't logical, but Peter hung on as long as he could, then made a frantic bathroom dash and returned, only to find the doctor still wasn't waiting to reassure him. Flinging himself into a chair, Peter raked his hands through his already wildly disordered hair and groaned quietly. How long did it take them anyway? What were they doing in there, inventing an X-ray machine?

He couldn't bear to let himself think about Egon. He couldn't think of that, couldn't let himself remember that burst of brilliant light that had taken Egon away. Instead he simply sat and waited, remembering how they had raced Ray into treatment when he was wheeled in on the gurney, how someone had asked Peter a series of medical questions about Ray that he'd answered like an automaton. After that, someone, probably an orderly, a young black guy in a uniform, had led Peter away to wash up, staying with him while he scraped garbage off his uniform and even ran his hair under the tap in the sink. As clean as he could be this side of a shower and fresh clothes, he'd let the man lead him to a waiting room and there he'd stayed. He didn't know how much time had passed but it probably hadn't been as long as it seemed because he was still alone. Winston and Janine weren't here yet.

He'd done what he could for Ray and now the occultist's health was in the hands of competent professionals. That left Egon, and Peter wasn't sure what to do about him. Winston was checking the alley, but Winston wasn't a scientist and couldn't understand all the complexities of the equipment the way Egon--the way Egon could. Peter would have stayed himself, though he doubted he could make any more sense of it than Winston could. When Ray--when Ray was okay, he could tell, but by then any residual energy readings would have faded.

Janine was ready if Egon showed up in a diaphanous state, and that was something else he had to leave to another person. He couldn't help Egon at all, and probably Egon wouldn't want him to. Egon-- Peter dropped his face into his hands. Egon blamed him for his father. Egon held it against him what Charlie was doing now, even knowing, as he must, that Peter had warned his father not to try anything out of line. It had taken a long time for Peter to trust anyone away from the family with the knowledge of his father's con man proclivities, and Egon was the first person he'd trusted. Egon had always leveled with Peter, let him know he didn't trust Peter's dad, and even had gone out of his way to make sure the older man's activities didn't rebound on his son. He'd been protecting Peter, watching Charlie like a hawk whenever he showed up, resenting his behavior for Peter's sake. Now that had changed. Egon had been furious, blaming Peter for his own mother's considered choice. Egon--Egon had died blaming him, no longer trusting him...

And Peter had killed him. He knew that was crazy, but he couldn't get rid of the idea. It had been his blast that had brought down all that masonry, his blast that had forced the demon to do whatever it had done, whatever had zapped Egon. On the drive to the hospital, Peter had found himself wondering if the demon had teleported like those ghosts a year or so ago that grabbed people and used their energy for transporting themselves to a new location, but if that were the case, there would be reports now, Janine would have gotten them, and she would have called. She hadn't. Or Egon would have managed to bestir himself and get word to Peter. He knew Ray had been hurt...

Peter heaved a sigh and checked his watch. He'd only been here forty minutes? It seemed like forty hours. Maybe the demon had returned to whatever Netherworld dimension he came from--and taken Egon with him. Peter thought of that. Ray would be able to tell if that had happened. His readings had indicated it before; he'd been able to wave the P.K.E. meter over the place where Egon had last stood when the destabilizer rectifier ray had hit him and discover he was in the Netherworld. He hadn't discovered anything like that in the alley. Ray had said the readings were as if Egon had never existed. That didn't mean he'd been shifted to a convenient alternate dimension where they could go and stage a heroic rescue. It sounded like somehow the unthinkable happened, that Egon had been zapped into--nonexistence.

"Peter Venkman?"

His head lifted abruptly, but it wasn't a doctor, it was a cop. He looked sympathetic, which made Peter's stomach lurch in horrified anticipation, but the cop dropped down into the next chair and said, "I hear you had an accident with a demon today."

Peter nodded. "Ray got hurt and Egon--"

"Yeah. Your buddy said something in the emergency room, that the demon had--"

"Vaporized him," said Peter numbly. "We don't know what happened." Then he perked up ever so slightly. "Ray said? Was he awake then?"

"Yeah, awake and worried sick about Spengler--and fussing that you were all right, and insisting he was fine and didn't need them to do anything else. A regular pest, but the doctor wanted to wait for the X-rays before he released him."

"Why didn't the doctor come and tell me he was okay?" Peter demanded hotly, grateful for something to yell about.

"Well, they weren't finished," the cop said quickly. "His shoulder was dislocated and his wrist was sprained. He must have taken a header right on that whole arm. They had to take x-rays, too, of course, and I got the feeling they were due at any minute. They'll be here soon. Your buddy looked like he was gonna be sore as blazes, but I heard 'em say he didn't seem to have any symptoms of a major head injury. I thought they'd told you already or I wouldn't've come in here." He clapped Peter on the shoulder. "My name's Alvarez, Officer Alvarez. I think we need to at least file a missing persons report on your friend."

"I thought we had to wait--" Peter began. He was still in a kind of emotional shock, but the news that Ray was probably okay had forced him to collect himself.

"Pete!" The welcome voice of Winston Zeddemore made him jerk his head up. He spun around to confront his teammate, relieved to have his solitary ordeal over and grateful for the companionship.

"Winston. You made it. Anything?"

"I wrote down all the readings I could get, but they were only residuals. I couldn't even find that overlay thing Egon was talking about this morning. Hey, do you think that means they got zapped into another dimension?" he asked eagerly.

Peter wondered--especially since Egon had been talking about thinning gateways between dimensions, but he squelched down the possibility of hope; he'd never been very good at it. "Ray told Alvarez here in the emergency room that Egon was missing and what happened," he said, gesturing at the cop by way of introcution. "I guess we have to...well, make some kind of police report."

"I'll do it," Winston volunteered readily. "I've just come from there and I can give the best report. Come on, Alvarez. Let's talk over here."

Peter watched them move away, a stir of gratitude warming his icy insides enough to ease his breathing a little. There weren't any answers, though. This would hit all the papers and Egon's mom would come running and how could Peter tell her he'd been responsible for her son's death. Oh, they'd all say it was an accident, but if Egon hadn't been so pissed off at him, they could have worked together the way they usually did.

Winston was talking calmly and rapidly to the cop, his face serious. He was pretty fond of Egon, Peter knew, but he was holding himself in firm control. It hadn't been easy for him, either.

That was when Janine came hurrying in, her face taut and worried. She saw Peter and flung herself at him, her arms around his neck, and he encircled her and held her. "He didn't come," she breathed into his ear. "Have you found anything?"

Peter shook his head. "Not yet. We hope Ray will when they're done with him."

"Dr. Venkman?" That was the voice of the doctor, and Peter turned around quickly, keeping one arm around Janine's shoulders as he faced the man.

"How's Ray?"

"I'd like to keep him overnight just to be sure there aren't any complications," the doctor said, "but there doesn't seem to be a serious problem. He won't be able to use that arm much for at least a couple of days and his wrist isn't sprained, just twisted, but I'll want him to keep it wrapped, too. He won't stay tonight though. He says he can't with your friend Egon missing, and I can sympathize, but I want your word that you'll take him home and see he spends the rest of the day lying down, even if it's on the couch. He'll be fine, but he did hit his head as well as his arm when he fell. If you notice unequal pupils or if he complains of dizziness or seems unusually lethargic, I want him back. Give us another half an hour and you can take him home."

"Can I see him now?" Peter demanded. He couldn't explain what happened to Egon but the sight of Ray would relieve him of one of his anxieties.

The doctor looked at Peter, then past him to Winston and Janine, and he nodded. "Just one of you, and it had better be you because he asked for you, but five minutes. Then we'll let him rest a little longer and you can have him."

Peter turned to Winston and Janine. "I won't be very long," he promised and followed the doctor.

Ray looked a lot better than he had when Peter had last seen him. Still in the emergency room treatment area, he was wearing the jeans he'd been wearing under his jumpsuit and a hospital gown--Peter assumed they'd cut off his tee shirt to avoid hurting his shoulder--and he was lying flat on the table staring at the ceiling as if there were answers to his problems printed there, but when Peter appeared in the doorway and said gently, "I can't take you anywhere nice, can I?" he turned quickly and levered himself up with his good arm. His other one was in a sling, the wrist of that arm wrapped in an ace bandage.

"I'm sorry, Peter," he said. "I--"

"Don't know what you've got to be sorry about." Peter looked around for somewhere to sit down and found a wheeled stool. Hooking it with his foot, he dragged it over and balanced on it, reaching out to grab Ray by the good hand. "You look awful. I think you're getting a black eye." He hadn't cut his head when he fell, but a bruise was beginning to darken.

Ray nodded carefully. "Yeah, I think I hit the edge of one of those trash cans when I got slam dunked. It's okay though. They said my eye wouldn't swell shut. Gosh, Peter, what about Egon?"

"We're hoping you can figure something out," Peter told him.

Ray's face was thoughtful. "I did come up with something. It isn't proof of anything, but it might mean something. Egon's pack disappeared when he did. If he'd been--well, disintegrated, so would his pack and it would have taken out the entire block, us with it. Do you think," he began hopefully, "that might mean Egon just got shifted, like into the Netherworld?"

Peter hadn't considered the proton pack, but he remembered Ray's readings at the time. He wasn't as ready to let himself hope as Ray was but he couldn't completely shoot down Ray's theories either, not if there was the slightest chance they could be right. "You couldn't detect it like you could the other time," he reminded his friend. "But you could be right, Ray. I had Winston take a lot of readings and he wrote it all down. As soon as you feel up to going over them, we'll see if we can figure it out. The good thing is, if he did get shifted somewhere, this time he's got his pack and thrower with him. He won't be helpless."

Ray brightened as Peter had hoped he would. "That's great, Peter." He levered himself into a more upright position, dangling his feet over the edge of the table. "Hey! I'm not dizzy. I feel pretty good."

"If you don't count the headache and your shoulder and wrist, right?" Peter asked knowingly, noticing the shadows in Ray's eyes and the wincing way he had moved. "They said you could come home, but we're going to put you to bed or let you stretch out in front of the TV, whichever you prefer."

"TV," said Ray unhesitatingly. "I can go over Winston's notes and see what I can make of them. We still have the destabilizer rectifier unit, after all. Once we can figure out what that demon did, we can go after Egon. I bet that demon's in Tobin's Spirit Guide. I wish we'd checked."

"Don't worry, buddy. I remember exactly what he looks like. I'm not very likely to forget. If he's in there, we'll find him, and that's a promise from Dr. Venkman."

*****

They bore Ray home from the hospital like a trophy, relieved to come away from the unexpectedly disastrous bust with him reasonably intact. Peter had concealed the broken and bloodstained P.K.E. meter in the back of Ecto before he guided Ray into the front seat beside him. Janine had grabbed a cab over so she and Winston climbed into the back. Ray leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes, but he was conscious, offering intermittent theories all the way home.

When they got back to the firehouse, they helped him up to the second floor and deposited him on the couch in front of the TV. The hospital had given him a pain medication to take before he went to bed, but he waved it away now, settling for the Tylenol they'd said he could take instead. "My head doesn't hurt that much," he insisted as Peter took away the glass of water. "I'm okay. Let me see those readings." He suddenly paused, eyes widening. "Have you told Egon's mom?"

"No," said Janine quickly. "And we're not going to until we know exactly what to tell her. There's nothing she can do right now. You look over those readings, Ray, and think about it. Maybe we can--can get Egon back and she'll never have to know he was missing."

Peter didn't think that was likely--his stomach was as tight and hard as a stone, and even Ray's hopeful comment about the proton pack hadn't eased it much. He wished it was this morning when all he had to worry about was Egon's anger about his dad. He could live with that. The hurt feelings produced by Egon's overreacting had been nothing compared to this pain. Besides, Peter admitted fairly, if his own mom had been alive and in danger of falling for a con man, Peter would have done everything he could to protect her. He knew how much she'd suffered over Charlie's shenanigans over the years and if he'd believed there was a chance of Charlie hurting Mrs. Spengler like that, he would have bought his dad a plane ticket to Timbuctoo and stood over him until he boarded the plane. Egon should know that. He only wished now that he could have held onto some perspective and kept from fanning the flame of Egon's resentment. He'd probably pushed Spengs over the edge and made it worse than it needed to be. Now it was too late for them to make it up.

Peter bit his bottom lip and didn't argue. Maybe it wasn't fair of them to deny Egon's mom the right to be here, but she'd know the truth soon enough. Peter looked around at the others. "Yeah, we'll give Tex here a chance to do his magic first," he said quickly, hoping Ray wouldn't consider it a personal failure if there was no solution. It would be just like him. Peter gnawed on his bottom lip and set the empty glass on the table.

"Sounds like a good idea," he said. "You look over this stuff, Ray. Winston did some fine tuning and got some readings, more than we were getting earlier. See what you think of them."

"Okay. And maybe we can go over there again in a little while," agreed Ray. "I'm feeling lots better and the Tylenol will kick in any minute. I could do a better job if I were there. I don't think we had the meter adjusted right for residuals before."

"Maybe not," Peter said. "Let me see those results, Winston."

Zeddemore took out a sheaf of papers and put them in Ray's good hand. "I wrote the settings here," he explained, his finger resting on one column of notes. "And this is what I got for each one."

"Good job, Winston," Ray praised him. "You really did it right. I can get some sense out of this." He dropped his eyes to the notes and concentrated on them carefully. For a long time he didn't say anything at all. Winston didn't wait. Instead he went upstairs and came back with Tobin's Spirit Guide. Sitting down in the wing chair, he proceeded to check the index and start flipping through the pages, checking out the demon in question. Tobin was pretty helpful with demons. If they'd had a little more time in the alley, they might have been able to identify him there.

"If we can find this guy in here," Winston said, glancing up at Peter, "we'll know where to go after him, won't we?"

"You got that right," agreed the psychologist. Denied of a task of his own, he turned to Janine and rested both hands on her shoulders. "Janine, I think it might be nice to track down Dad and Mrs. Spengler. Don't call them yet, but find out which hotel they're staying at. Okay?"

If she guessed he was giving her busywork, something to occupy her mind, she didn't say so. Instead, she nodded and went to the nearest telephone, and picked up the receiver. "She didn't tell us where she'd be staying," she said to Peter. "I bet she didn't want Egon calling to make her come home."

"Probably didn't want interruptions," Peter agreed, and they grinned at each other. "Knowing Dad, he's got a system and wants to try it out. He never gambles unless he thinks he's gonna win. Of course he usually doesn't, but he has fun trying out the new systems. One time he cut a deal with a mathematician from Princeton, guy was a real whiz with numbers. They were gonna split the profits and the guy was gonna do a paper for it. You know, the old academic system. Publish or perish. Egon always--" He fell silent a minute. "Dad got so carried away with the big bucks he was hauling in that he took a chance, forgot the system, and they lost it all. The math dude was so pissed off he nearly came to blows. He wrote it up anyway but it lost the punch it would have had with those big bucks." He wasn't sure why he was talking so much. It was either that or retreat into silence and alert the others how he was feeling.

Janine grinned. "I can see him trying to punch out your dad," she said. "I bet a lot of people try it."

"Yeah, they do," replied Peter with pride. He'd always got a kick out of his dad's scams--at least the ones that didn't affect him personally. That was always different.

Janine nodded and started to dial, and Peter turned back to the others. Ray was still poring over the readings, his brow furrowed in concentration. "I--I think a dimensional gateway opened up," he said, "but there aren't any normal readings. I've seen a lot of trans-dimensional cross rips in my time and this one is different. These last readings you got, Winston, are really kind of neat. And the reason I didn't get any readings before I passed out is because whatever happened caused some kind of dampening field. As soon as it dissipated, it looks like you got some normal residuals--well, abnormal residuals. Look here." He pointed to a set of figures. "This is almost a match for a standard dimensional gateway--but not quite."

"Could that weird overlay distort it?" Peter asked.

Ray brightened at once. "That's a smart question, Peter."

"Sure it is. I'm a bright guy. So what does it mean?"

"Well, I think it could have an effect, but it was dissipating by then, and it shouldn't have made this much of a difference. Besides, I could filter it out by factoring out these variables." He pointed to a column of figures. "And then we'd still have something different."

"Maybe it's just a dimension we've never run up against before," said Winston, still busily turning pages.

"No, that's not it, Winston. There's a common factor to cross rip readings. Egon and I have talked about it a lot. There's a directional factor and there's the dimensional factor, the first one selects which dimension but the second one tells us that's the kind of gate we're dealing with. Remember when Egon designed that gizmo to send captured entities directly into a parallel dimension? You had to go in after him and find his soul, Peter. Remember?"

"Yeah. Egon as a trampoline was not a pretty sight," said Peter automatically, beginning to feel a faint stirring of hope. All this techie talk had to mean something, didn't it?

Ray made a face at him. "Well, that was a different dimension than the Netherworld where we went after Egon when Tolay had him. But the principle was the same, in a way. Designing a device like that one all over again would take weeks, but if we can adjust these figures and see what happens. The only thing is, these figures are so different it's going to be really risky."

"It's for Egon," Winston said unnecessarily.

Peter knew that, too, but the expression of doubt on Ray's face was a lot different from the eager excitement he'd worn before at the possibility of going after Egon in the Netherworld. "I know it is, Winston," he said. "But we won't help him if it gets us killed in the process. Can you guarantee anything, Ray? Can you send somebody over for two minutes and recall him automatically? No, first things first. Can you recall me--at all?"

"Who says it's gonna be you, homeboy?" Winston asked quickly.

"Because it has to be. Ray's hurt--"

"And I can go as well as you can," Winston insisted.

Ray held up his good hand. "Wait a minute. I don't even know if we can send somebody, let alone bring him back. It's too risky now. I have to check all my findings and then I have to see if I can put these figures into the device--they're outside its design parameters right now. Egon could figure it out in a minute--" He bit off his words and looked up with an agonized face. Peter struggled not to wince at that look of misery, but he also noticed something else.

"You've still got that headache, haven't you, Ray?"

"It's not so bad," Ray insisted promptly, trying his best to look in the peak of health and failing miserably.

Janine put her hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone. "I think you should let him rest. He looks terrible."

"Thanks, Janine," said Ray with a faint, wry grin.

"Well, it's true. It's no fun to dislocate your shoulder. I did it once. And then to hurt your wrist and have a headache on top of it. You guys should let him rest. Besides," she added with fierce practicality, "tired men make mistakes. Rest, Ray. That's going to give Egon the best chance he's got."

Ray cast an agonized glance at Peter, who nodded. "She's right," he said. "You rest. Want us to help you upstairs?"

"I can make it," said Ray, but he did accept Peter's hand to lever him to his feet, and didn't object when both of them followed him up the spiral stairs, Peter with his hand at Ray's back to make sure he didn't lose his balance and tumble down. Janine started dialing another number and Peter heard her asking for his father before they reached the top floor of the firehouse.

With his arm in the sling, Ray needed help to get his shoes off. They left him in his jeans and he stretched out on top of the covers, closing his eyes obediently when Peter instructed him to. For a long moment, Peter stood looking down at him, waiting for his breathing to even out. He stretched out a hand as if to stroke the tousled hair but drew back at the last minute, afraid it would awaken Ray again, and glanced up to find Winston watching him sympathetically. The black man made a gesture in the direction of the lab, and Peter noticed he was holding the notes Ray had been studying downstairs as well as the thick copy of Tobin's Spirit Guide.

They adjourned to the lab, Peter glancing back at Ray as he walked, wishing he thought Ray was really sleeping. Even lying with his eyes shut might help the headache, though, so he left him to it, and followed Winston into the other room.

"Got any ideas?" he asked.

"A couple. I never did get a chance to find the demon in Tobin, Pete, and I thought you could take that over. Egon tried to teach me about dimensional cross rips once. He knew I had a knack for the mechanics of stuff like that and thought it would make sense to me if it was presented as a kind of engineering problem. My dad thought I should work with him and barring that, thought I should get a degree in architecture, but I leaned more toward engineering myself. It isn't exactly the right field--I'm not sure what cross-dimensional experimentation would be a part of, physics probably. What we need is somebody like that Beckett guy Egon knows, the one who had some kind of time travel project."

"But we're not looking for time travel--" Peter broke off. "Unless we could go back before it happened and change it."

"You hope," said Winston with a wry grin. "Never happen, homeboy, not with just the three of us to do it. Egon's physicist friend is one of the smartest dudes around and he's been working on it for years and still hasn't got it. We can't crack it in a few hours. No, that's not the answer. Getting into that other dimension is. Whether it's a different kind of dimension, maybe one of those split off ones Egon was talking about this morning, or what, there's a way over there, and we probably don't need a Sam Beckett to do it. We need an Egon Spengler." He shook his head. "What am I talking about? It was Ray who got us over there before. He's the one who'll have to figure it out."

"And I'm the one who's going," said Peter stonily. "This isn't subject for debate, Winston. I'm the one that caused it--bringing down all that rubble on the demon made him do whatever it was he did, and if I hadn't been riding Egon so hard, we would have been in tune like always and it wouldn't have happened the way it did."

"Seems to me it was hardly all your fault, homeboy," Winston replied, shaking his head as he booted up Egon's computer and spread the sheets of paper on the table beside it. "Egon was acting like a horse's ass and you know it. And you pulled your shot or you would have neutronized him yourself. You were in tune with the job the way you always are. If anyone wasn't in tune it was Egon himself."

"That doesn't make me feel any better now," said Peter honestly. Then, unexpectedly, he slammed both fists down on the table beside the papers. "Damn it, Winston, we ought to know how to get him back. What kind of Ghostbusters are we if we can't rescue him? What good am I? I'm not that kind of scientist. Egon always comes up with these great ideas, and Ray can build anything, and you've got the combat experience and enough background to work with either of them building stuff. When I build something it blows up. I guess I'm just here to talk the ghosts to death." He pounded against the table again.

Winston grabbed him by the shoulders. "Listen to me, buddy, because it's true. You're the leader of this team and you ought to know it. You think fast in a crisis, you psych us all up, you can talk the ghosts out of attacking us some of the time, you keep us going. I don't think any of us would want to be out there if you weren't there, too."

Peter shook his head, only mildly warmed by Winston's encouragement. He'd felt gloomy all day, first because Egon seemed to blame him for his father, something he'd always feared people would do, but something he'd never expected from any of his friends, and then, Ray was hurt and Egon was missing, injured and possibly dead, and if he was alive, he was trapped somewhere they didn't know how to reach. "It's not good enough right now."

"Look, Pete, if we all had exactly the same skills, we'd be a lousy team," insisted Winston. "We each bring our own talents into it and I know we're going to need yours. You keep us going. Don't stop now, not when Egon needs us--not when Ray needs you to be strong for him."

Ray. Yeah, that was right. Ray was being brave and hopeful, but he needed Peter's backing to keep on doing it. With a sigh, Peter let his fists unclench. "Thanks, buddy," he said, leaning tiredly against Winston for a minute before pulling back and grabbing up the heavy tome. "Okay, I've got a demon to find. What are you gonna do?"

"I'm going to try to figure out this weird dimensional stuff, so don't give me a running commentary. I need to think." Winston started pushing buttons and Peter flipped through the pages of the thick book. For awhile, the silence was broken only by the flipping of pages, the clicking of the keys as Winston typed in figures, and the gentle snoring coming from the bedroom.

Janine came upstairs half an hour later. "Dr. V, I checked every hotel in Atlantic City. If they're there, they've registered under fake names."

"Typical," muttered Peter under his breath. "When Mrs. Spengler called you, did she say when they'd be back?"

"Monday night, I think," replied Janine, frowning. It was now late Saturday afternoon and fast approaching evening. Forty-eight hours before they could expect to hear anything.

Peter shook his head. "I don't know what to tell you. Maybe they changed their minds. Maybe they wanted us off their backs and told us they were leaving so--" He broke off abruptly.

"So Egon wouldn't keep calling his mom and bugging her?" Janine concluded for him. They looked at each other sadly.

Winston turned his attention from the computer screen knuckling his eyes, which must be aching from so much focused attention, and rubbing his forehead. "Then they'll see the papers if anything comes out about Egon vanishing in the alley."

Peter spun on him. "Was that cop going to talk to the newspapers?" he demanded hotly.

Winston spread his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "What could he tell them, my man? But we can't count on the word not getting out."

"I don't want Egon's mom to hear it that way," said Janine stubbornly. "I'll do some more calling. Maybe I missed something. You don't know of any aliases your dad uses, do you, Peter?"

Venkman frowned. He was sure his dad did that from time to time, but if so, he hadn't told Peter any of them. He frowned and shook his head. "Sorry."

Janine went downstairs again and Peter turned once more to Winston, closing Tobin in his lap and marking the page with one finger. "Anything?"

"Not really. I think there really are coordinates here--" he gestured at the sheet of paper, "but Ray's gonna have to go over them. How long should we let him sleep?"

"Not too long," said Peter reluctantly, glancing toward the bedroom. "You're supposed to wake people up when they have concussions. I know he doesn't, but we'll be sure. Give him another hour." He wanted to go after Egon right now, if there was any way to do it, but he wouldn't risk Ray's health to do it, either, especially since... No, he wouldn't let himself think about it.

Ray woke up shortly before they had meant to arouse him, and it was plain he was still uncomfortable from his injuries, though his eyes were a little clearer. Getting up stiffly, he joined Peter and Winston in the lab.

"How you doing, Ray?" asked Winston, lifting his hands from the keyboard as the occultist approached.

"Better," said Ray promptly, and he did look better, though far from well. "Have you been trying to make sense of it, Winston?"

"Yeah, and Pete's been checking Tobin for that demon."

"I found him, I think," said Peter, "but it's not much help. His name's Tyconos. See?" He lifted up the book and held it so Ray could see it. "There's not much in here about him, just that he's a class seven and he...has been known to make people disappear. It doesn't sound like he's been around for years--there aren't any recent sightings. I think old Tobin had a bad day when he wrote this. There's usually a lot more information."

Ray sat down and gestured for Peter to place the book on his knees. He read over the text and frowned. "Also known as 'Tycron'," he read thoughtfully. "Why does that ring a bell? Did you cross reference?"

"Yeah, and Winston did it on the computer, but we didn't find anything else."

"It's a start," said Ray, gesturing for Peter to take the book again--it was too heavy for him to lift one handed--and going over to stand behind Winston once the book was removed. "What did you find, Winston?"

"I think these numbers are for a gateway," Winston said, hitting a button and calling them up on the screen. He gave up his chair to Ray and gestured him into it. "But they're not normal. I cross-referenced with what you had when we went into the Netherworld that time, and there are some similarities, but not enough for it to be another section of the Netherworld."

Ray leaned closer to look. "No, it's not like an ordinary dimensional gate but we didn't think it was to begin with. It's a gate of some kind, though, and I think I can reconfigure the equipment to take us there. It's just that it will be a lot more dangerous than it was going into the Netherworld, not because the site would be any more risky but because the transition itself is questionable." He frowned and rubbed his forehead before he started typing in numbers with his good hand. "Let me go over these, okay?"

Winston nodded, giving Ray a pat on his good shoulder. "Go for it, homeboy."

Ray had to work the computer one-handed which slowed him down a little, but not too much. He checked over the other man's figures, his face thoughtful, then his eyes lit up. "You're right, Winston, it is some kind of door. I don't know what it is or what it means, but it's worth a try. I'm going to pull these together. This is incredible, like nothing I've seen before. Gosh, Egon would love this," he burst out excitedly, then he caught himself and his face fell. "I'm sorry--" he began.

"It's okay," said Peter hastily, dropping his hand on Ray's good shoulder. It was true. The thought of a new kind of dimensional cross-rip would have delighted Egon and he would have spent hours, even days, working on it, in hopes of discovering how it worked, or because he feared a new demon would try to come through into the city. Peter remembered the times he'd had to take out the trash for the physicist because he was so caught up in that kind of research he didn't notice mundane crises around him. There had been several times the other three Ghostbusters had considered picking him up and carrying him off to dump him in a cold shower just to break that intense concentration. Peter controlled his features sternly, afraid Ray would see his reaction, but Ray's face was aimed directly at the monitor, and his jaw was rigid. Peter knew right then that Ray was just as afraid they would never get Egon back as he was, only it wasn't Ray's nature to take the pessimistic view. He had to keep trying because that was the way he was made, and when it failed it would only hurt all the more.

"Yeah," said Ray now in a quiet voice. "I know. But Egon would like all this. I just wish he were here and we were doing this together."

"I second that," agreed Winston.

Peter tightened his fingers on Ray's shoulder a moment in a comforting squeeze, then he said brightly, "So, Ray, it looks like you're turning Winston into another mad scientist. What does all this gibberish tell you anyway? It looks like one of my dad's systems to break the bank at Monte Carlo."

"No, Peter, it's the directional controls to open a gateway into--into something. It's sort of like a dimensional cross rip--what we'd get if a bunch of ghosts were coming through. Remember right before Gozer came, and then again when we ran into Proteus? Lots of ghosts, lots of high P.K. energy. I think it was easy for the demon to come through when he did because of all that--but he went back, and closed the door again and that's why we can't read that weird energy any more. Does that make a lot of sense?"

"Yeah, it means Egon's on the other side of the door," said Winston. "What do you say we take our throwers and go knocking?"

"Great idea, Winston," Peter said brightly. "Can we do it, Ray?"

"Yeah, I can adapt this and key it into the system and we'll be shunted over wearing those bracelets we wore last time," Ray explained. "Winston, you'll have to do the adjustments. I'll supervise. Having the bracelets set for recall from the Netherworld like they are now means they'll have to be adjusted to fit these new coordinates. What we can do is set one bracelet first and make sure it works."

"I'll go," said Peter as if it were a foregone conclusion. "Remember how heroic I am? Do I get the gold star, teach?"

"I thought maybe we could attach one to a P.K.E. meter first," Ray said quietly but stubbornly. "I'm not going to risk another of us until I'm sure it works, because we're dealing with something really weird here. If it comes back intact we could send someone through. Depending on the meter's readings," he concluded firmly. "I mean it, Peter." When Peter looked mulish, Ray spun the chair around and grabbed his wrist. "Come on, Peter, we don't want to lose you, too. This is a lot harder than the Netherworld because I don't understand what these readings mean. We'd be jumping blind--like using the transporter on Star Trek without setting all the coordinates. For all I know you'd materialize inside a wall or something."

"Hey," said Peter lightly. "Walls are the new look this season." He added more seriously, "It's worth the risk." The idea scared him but he didn't back down. "How long will it take?"

"Maybe an hour," said Ray, studying the figures on the screen. "Winston, you get those bracelets. I'm going to modify one first--well, you'll have to fine tune it for me--and then we'll send a meter through for one minute."

"And then me," insisted Peter, feeling the knot in his stomach relax at the thought of something positive to do. He'd been skimming Tobin while Winston worked at the screen, starting over and trying different combinations that required him to concentrate hard on what he was doing. Ray had slept. Peter alone had had time to think, to speculate, to wonder if anything they tried would make any difference at all. He didn't want to say so to Ray, but this felt like just so much whistling in the dark. Grateful for a task that required him to give all his attention to it, he let his taut muscles ease ever so slightly. That brought to his mind another sensation, something else he had ignored all afternoon. "While you two geniuses work, I'm gonna get us some dinner. Did anybody but me forget we didn't have lunch?"

*****

The pizza Peter had ordered was mostly gone now, though none of them had pigged out in their normal way. Worry for Egon, and in Peter's case, an uncomfortable certainty nothing they could do would matter, hurt their appetites and they ate only because they were hungry, not with any pleasure. Slimer wasn't around to take up the slack. Peter suspected Janine had warned him away or at the least told him about Egon and he'd gone off alone out of worry for him, or even to look for him. At least, thought Peter wryly, it had given them a measure of peace.

Ray did as much work as he could on the device that would propel them into the other dimension, and Winston made adjustments on the bracelets to match. If Egon had been here, too, this would be fun, but there was little of their normal banter and that felt forced. Peter fetched and carried and tightened connections under Ray's supervision as it began to grow dark outside and they had to switch on the lights, and in the case of the bracelets, a high powered beam attached to a magnifying lens that illuminated the work while it made it seem larger and easier to see. When they were finally ready for the first test, involving a P.K.E. meter ("No, Peter. Not till we test it!"), it was dark out and nearly eight o'clock.

Janine had come upstairs again a little earlier saying she'd tried all the hotels again in case they hadn't registered yet and had left messages to have Peter's father call as soon as possible. "I thought it was better if he called, Peter," she said. "Because even if he is a rogue, he's right there with her and he can tell her. Better than on the phone."

"Yeah," agreed Peter, smiling faintly at that much praise for his dad. Charlie Venkman was a smooth talker and knew how to come across sympathetic. In Katherine Spengler's case, he probably would be sincere in the bargain and that would make a big difference. For once, his dad could do something useful. "Thanks, Janine, that's a good idea." He added with as much spirit as he could muster, "Are you on overtime now? Bankrupting us?"

"I'm staying," she said firmly. "I want to know what you find out about Egon." Settling herself into a chair out of the way, she folded her arms across her chest. "Besides, if all of you have to go into another dimension, I'll need to be here to send you over."

"She's right," Winston said in a quick aside to Peter. "You can't get anything past her."

"And you better not try," Janine retorted. "What's happening now?"

"We're about to send a P.K.E. meter through," explained Ray. "If it works, Peter will go over for a minute and see what it's like. Because we thought the atmosphere might not be breathable, but he could hold his breath for one minute and if we had to resuscitate him, that's not long enough to do permanent damage."

"Who's talking permanent damage?" Peter demanded in mock alarm. "Nobody ever shows me the fine print."

"Pay more attention, homeboy," Winston told him, draping an arm around his neck and giving him a squeeze before he bent to help Ray with the setup. "I'll go. I said I would."

"Okay, forget the fine print. I'll sign," Peter replied, making a face at Winston. "Remember, I get the headlines. Peter Venkman--hero! Right, Janine?"

"Sure, Dr. V. And I'm Hillary Rodham Clinton."

Ray held up his good hand for attention. "It will come back automatically in sixty seconds," he said as Winston bound the bracelet to the meter and stood back. "I've set it to record what it detects on the other side. That way we'll have more of an idea what we're up against, whether there are lots of demons over there or what kind of power readings show up. If it's too heavy, we'll have to consider all of us going at once. Egon would stand a better chance that way. Okay, Winston? Then stand back." He pushed the button then crossed his fingers, his face full of hopeful expectation.

A cone of projected energy shot out of the device, glowing yellow, focused on the meter and the bracelet that triggered the transformation. Peter held his breath and copied Ray, his hands folded behind his back, his fingers crossed where no one could see them. The light glowed heavily around the meter for a minute, and when it faded with a little pop of sound, the meter was gone.

"It works!" crowed Winston, his face bright with delight. "It went to another dimension." Grabbing up a spare P.K.E. meter, he took a careful reading of the area where the original one had vanished. "Yeah! Residual gateway readings. Not very strong though." He lifted his eyes to Ray. "What should it be?"

Ray snatched the meter, wincing at the unwary movement, although he'd used his good hand. "That is weird," he said. "I'd expect some kind of really high backlash power from the gate. Unless it's not a dimension like the Netherworld at all. Maybe it's a parallel universe. That would make a lot of sense."

"You mean like those Egon said splintered off from ours when I didn't wash my socks?" asked Peter brightly. This sounded good. A parallel universe was difficult because it meant going over and yanking Egon back, but it was a lot better than dead. "How can we tell if it really is one?" he asked.

"Well, there'd be variations from our own," said Ray with a thoughtful frown. "When we get the meter back, if it has some strange, skewed readings, like our universe but slightly off key, then that could mean a parallel dimension. This is great! We've theorized about something like that, but nobody's ever been able to prove it before. I can't wait till the meter comes back and we can see what we've got!"

"Save your enthusiasm until we get it back," said Peter quickly. Part of that was a reluctance to believe it might work for fear he'd buy into it and get shot down and the rest was to keep Ray from building up his hopes too much. Having something to do had made Ray bounce back, his normal ebullience returning, especially with this new theory, but if it didn't work he would take it hard. "Let's check the clock."

The sixty seconds passed with agonizing slowness, while Peter's eyes never left the creeping second hand of his watch. When it was time for the meter to return, he raised his eyes reluctantly, watching the spot where it should appear, chewing on his bottom lip with intense concentration. Winston and Janine crowded closer and Slimer appeared from nowhere as if he'd been summoned and hovered overhead, his face full of worry and anxiety. Peter would have appreciated it if Slimer hadn't noticed the remains of the pizza and made an instantaneous run, opening his mouth wide and devouring it, box and all.

The P.K.E. meter popped back right on schedule, intact, in one piece and still turned on. Ray gave a cry of delight and snatched it up, studying it carefully, his eyes wide with hopeful excitement. "It worked! It worked! I knew it would. This is great! This is..." His voice trailed off in perplexity. "This is weird."

"What's weird, homeboy?" asked Winston, peering over Ray's shoulder at the device. "Come on, give. You said it would be off a little if it was a parallel universe."

"It isn't that, Winston. I could measure that," Ray explained, chewing on the inside of his cheek with his teeth in concentration. "It didn't record anything off balance from our world. It didn't detect any psi energy at all," said Ray, frowning, "or at least nothing that couldn't be explained by the transfer itself and what's normally out there, the kind we've filtered back all the meters for so they don't register it because it's so much a part of everything that it's easy to factor out. It should have registered much higher ambient psi if it went into a dimension like the Netherworld and it should have registered psi at a variant in a parallel dimension--or at least I think it would, but I could be wrong, Peter. There might not be a variant. All we get is what we get on a normal day in New York when there are no ghosts. Not even as much of a reading as that weird overlay gave us." His shoulders slumped and he caught himself, drawing in a breath as the motion jarred the injury. "I can't tell if anything happened at all."

"So it's a place without ghosts," Peter said, sliding his shoulders into his pack. "Something happened because the meter went away. What we should have done was set it to detect Egon. This time, we can do that. It will be safe for me to go over there and take a look, won't it?" It had better be. Nothing Ray had come up with had sounded threatening at all.

"It should be," said Ray reluctantly. "But be careful, Peter. The demon might have been out of the meter's range but it could come back. I'm going to give you one minute, too, this first time. If that works, the rest of us can come with you next time and we'll spend some time looking for Egon. Janine can send us over." He glanced at the secretary, who nodded. "I'll set the P.K.E. meter now for Egon's biorhythms and you can take readings for him once you get there. You'll have enough time to do that, okay?"

Peter nodded. "You bet. One expert dimensional hopper ready and willing." He sketched a mock salute with one hand. "Aye aye, sir."

Ray's eyes warmed at Peter's silliness. "Okay, but be careful," he cautioned. "We know our throwers work in the Netherworld, and with these readings you shouldn't have any problems but if it starts to react, ditch your pack and get down, okay?"

"Yes, mother. Do you want to tuck me in, too?"

Ray stuck out his tongue at him, and Peter grinned. "Okay," he said, grabbing his thrower and gripping it firmly in both hands. "Go."

Ray hit the button and the conic light projection shot out and enveloped him. There was no pain, and virtually no disruption. One moment he was standing in the lab with the others watching him anxiously, and Slimer hanging overhead wringing his hands--and as a result dripping slime down on the hapless Ray's head--and the next he was in darkness.

Peter blinked, astonished to find it over so easily. He had half expected to be tossed around or hurt, but nothing happened. "Hey, I made it," he breathed out loud, wishing Ray had designed a transmitter so he could send a message like they did on that Blake's 7 TV show Ray had tapes of. "Down and safe," he said anyway.

It wasn't totally dark. Behind him was a light source which cast a huge dark shadow among the lighter shadows of enclosed space where he stood. The angle of the light and Peter's stance with thrower in hand made the shadow look long and eerie like a giant daddy long legs. Peter grimaced. "I hate bugs," he muttered.

As his eyes accustomed themselves to the darkness, he realized it wasn't totally black. Ahead of him, the narrow canyon walls opened out into--into a city street! As he watched a taxi went by, its overhead dome lit up. Peter's mouth dropped open in astonishment.

A skittering sound by his left foot made him jump and stare down uneasily, only to let out a disgusted, "Yaa!" and kick at the rat that sniffed boldly at his boot. Peter didn't like the look of this dimension, if it came complete with rats. There were probably roaches and spiders and other creepy crawlies too. He kicked at the rat again and it scuttled away into a pile of rubble and fallen masonry, pausing only once to hiss at Peter, its eyes glowing red in the reflected light of the streetlight behind him.

Streetlight? Streetlight! Peter spun around wildly, identifying his surroundings with blank astonishment. This wasn't an alternate dimension after all, some dark and twisted canyon, secret in the night. Somehow Ray and Winston had gotten the readings wrong. He hadn't sent Peter where Egon had gone after all, he'd sent him where he had been. Judging from the banged up garbage cans, the skewed dumpster and the pile of broken bricks and concrete strewn about the alley at his feet, this was the very place Egon and the demon had vanished from this morning.

Peter bent to examine the masonry again, thinking it looked different than it had before. There was a lot less of it, for one thing, and it was piled at a different angle. Somebody must have come in after they'd left and tried to clean it up, hauling off a big pile of it before the end of the workday. Pretty good for a Saturday. Peter prodded what remained with his toe and the tip of his thrower, causing the rat to scurry away down the alley, seeking other shelter. "Good riddance," muttered Peter.

He hadn't expected darkness--none of them had--but the toolbelt he'd put on automatically had a pocket flashlight attached, so he whipped it free and shone it on the rubble, not as if he expected to find Egon buried under it--there wasn't enough left to conceal a child let alone a tall man like Egon--but in hopes of a clue to Egon's whereabouts.

He found a little more blood, not much, not enough to indicate a serious injury but enough to make his stomach flutter. Egon was hurt, and even if it was no more than a slight cut, it was enough to worry his friend. Wherever he'd gone--another dimension somewhere, a parallel universe--starting out injured wasn't the best way to get along.

"Egon? Come on, Spengs, answer me." Peter called, raising his voice. He didn't expect Egon to be here. That was crazy. Egon didn't answer, and Peter yanked free the P.K.E. meter set to Egon's biorhythms, conscious of his minute passing. He didn't want to risk losing the chance to scan for Egon's readings. Activating the meter, he pondered the results as he pointed the detection device in several directions. The needle quivered, but its movement was so minuscule he wasn't sure he hadn't imagined it or it had reacted to the movement of his hand. Carefully he pointed the meter at the fallen masonry, and this time it did stir, but all that proved was that Egon had been here, and Peter knew that already.

The meter didn't find any evidence of recent presence, just what Peter would expect to find if Egon had been here this morning. "Egon!" he bellowed again as he felt the recall begin. Light shone around him, and moments later he was back in the lab, with Ray gazing at him eagerly.

"Did you find him, Peter?" the occultist demanded, gripping Peter's arm and jogging it as if to get a quicker response.

"Where did you wind up?" demanded Janine anxiously. "Did you see anything?"

"You okay, Pete?" asked Winston.

All three of them stared at him expectantly, and Peter didn't have the heart to discourage them, but he had to. He passed the meter to Ray, who looked at it disappointedly.

"Just residuals," he said. "Egon wasn't anywhere near?" His eyes lifted from the meter and lingered on Peter's face, wide and full of hope.

"I hate to break it to you, Ray, but I didn't go to a parallel dimension," Peter explained quickly. "You sent me back to the alley."

Ray's jaw dropped. "I couldn't have. Those coordinates--"

"I don't know about those coordinates, but I do know what the alley looks like," Peter informed him. "There was still a stack of the rubble there, and the trash cans were still strewn all over. But Egon wasn't there. Just the residuals."

A look of utter disappointment came over Ray's face and he heaved a sigh. "Maybe the entry or exit grids were off by a degree," he said quickly. "I'll check the readings again." He turned to the computer, then back again. "It wasn't anything you did wrong, Winston," he consoled the black man. "I never could read these coordinates as dimensional cross rip directions--I--I guess I just wanted them to be so badly."

"Come on, Ray," said Peter hurriedly, following Ray over to the computer and dropping a hand on the younger man's good shoulder. "They are coordinates, Ray," he insisted. "Otherwise I wouldn't have wound up in the alley. I went from here to there. So you're on the right track or I would have stood over there like a dummy for a minute instead of going anywhere."

Ray's face brightened. "Hey, yeah," he realized, smiling reluctantly. "They did move you from here to there. Maybe they just moved Egon to another part of the city instead of another dimension." His eyes widened in sudden horrified speculation. "He was hurt. Maybe we should be calling the hospitals..."

"Ray," said Winston reasonably, joining Peter and staring at Ray meaningfully. "Remember, the cops know he disappeared. They would have checked hospitals, and anyway, Egon was wearing his uniform. If somebody found him, they'd have called us."

Once again disappointment darkened Ray's expression. "Yeah, I guess I know that. But--but what if he's hurt and nobody's found him. Do you think we should go out with our meters set at his biorhythms and check for him? He could be in another alley somewhere and--"

Janine looked like she was ready to agree with this. "He's got to be somewhere," she insisted. "Maybe you did it backwards or something. That would put Dr. Venkman in the alley, wouldn't it? Maybe the demon did something to mess up the readings. You'll all just keep trying, and you'll find him. I know you will."

Peter looked at Winston, and saw the same doubt in his eyes. "Sure, Janine," he said quickly. "We'll do that. Come on, Ray, you know we're not giving up. This is just a minor setback. But you're going to bed. You look like that headache's back and you've been working nonstop since you got up. I think the hospital would probably have us hauled off to Devil's Island if they heard how hard we'd been working you. You catch a nap and Winston and I will start in Tribeca and spread out north and south and we'll see if Janine can handle one more round of the telephones."

"I guess it's okay," said Ray reluctantly.

"You bet it's okay, Ray," said Janine, giving him a quick smile. "I'll stay here and handle the phones until they get back, but you'd better go to bed." She started for the stairs. "I hope you feel better in the morning, but you listen to Peter for now. Okay?"

"Okay." Ray's voice was grudging, but the fatigue and pain in it made it clear he'd been going on adrenalin alone up until now.

"You bet, okay." Peter took Ray's good arm and steered him to the bedroom. "You look like you need a hand getting undressed. I'll be your personal valet tonight." He steered Ray into the bedroom.

Ray's smile was grateful and weary but there was a stubborn core of resistance in his eyes that didn't want to give up. Peter would have felt better if it hadn't been nearly overshadowed by bleak despair. Ray had done all he could think of to save Egon and it hadn't worked. No wonder he was on the edge of depression. Left like this, he'd be blaming himself for everything including the demon itself.

"Listen to me, Ray," he said reassuringly. "This is a team effort. Whatever you do, don't blame Winston for this."

That made Ray look up quickly, wincing a little as Peter worked his sore arm out of his shirt. "I didn't--I wouldn't--" he began hastily.

"I know you wouldn't. But if you wouldn't blame him, then you can't blame yourself either. It's that demon's fault. We can always look in some of the other reference books and the computer and see what else we've got on Tyconos or Tyrone or whatever he calls himself. Sneaky. Just like a demon to have an alias. No, hold still, pal, and let me do the work. It's what you're paying me for, after all."

"That's not an alias, Peter," said Ray sleepily, allowing Peter to insert his arm into his pajama sleeve. "That's just a corruption. It means the demon has been around so long his name got changed just because of the years. It was probably something else entirely in the beginning. It's like the way languages shift. We don't talk like Chaucer any more, after all."

"And I, for one, am glad of it," Peter said. "He didn't even know how to spell 'April' for cripes sake."

Ray's eyes widened. "Peter! You read the Canterbury Tales."

"Under protest," Peter said hastily. "You had to take a running start or it didn't make any sense at all. Come to think of it, there was some good stuff in there. So that's what you mean by the demon's name changing? What do you think it was to begin with? Tyrone? That sounds real medieval."

Ray grinned automatically. "No, it wouldn't be Tyrone. I'll think about it and maybe we can find some things in Spates or one of the other texts later. If we knew where he hung out, we could probably go there. He might even have a place in the Netherworld."

"Yeah, all the best demons have their summer homes there." He swatted Ray's good arm. "Will you let me do this! That arm's gonna hurt if you keep flailing around like that."

Ray gave him a sleepy smile. "I'm sorry, Peter. I just want to find the demon so we can make him give us Egon back."

"You can bet I'll make him give us Egon back when we find him, Ray. He's gonna be sorry he crossed the Ghostbusters." He finished buttoning up Ray's pajama top.

"I know, Peter."

Venkman sighed as Ray climbed awkwardly into bed. "Anyway, it's not your fault, Ray. Remember that. It's mine."

The last two words sneaked out unexpectedly before Peter had realized they were trying to escape, and he could have kicked himself, but Ray's eyes widened and he gaped up at Peter in stunned dismay, sitting up again and grabbing Peter's arm. "How could it be your fault?"

"I kept bugging him and bugging him because he was so disapproving about my dad," Peter admitted, the words spilling out the more quickly for being repressed so long. "He was mad at me and I was mad at him, though not as much, and you can't work together that way. I could have--"

"Could have what?" Ray asked sternly. "Come on, Peter, there wasn't anything you could have done differently. You weren't really mad at him anyway. You were hurt--but you did kind of ask for it. He shouldn't have blamed you for your dad--I know how much that hurt, Peter, and I'm really sorry. But you shouldn't have teased him."

"It's what I do," Peter defended himself, but without spirit. He should have backed off when he realized he wasn't getting a reaction, and he hadn't.

"I know, Peter. And it's okay. You would have made it up if--" Suddenly the strength went out of his face and he gazed at Peter miserably. "He's dead, isn't he?" he asked.

Peter had fought hard all afternoon to keep from conceptualizing that very thought, though he knew deep inside that it was probably true. He hadn't wanted to admit it, though, and a part of him wanted to blame Ray for putting the thought in full view where it couldn't be ignored. Yet Ray's face was so unhappy Peter couldn't blame him for anything.

"We don't know that," he insisted. "That gateway went somewhere--it took me from here to the alley. Maybe it isn't dimensional. Maybe it's just distance. Maybe it just zips the demon somewhere else. It might have taken me to the alley because that's the last place the demon was." He slid his arm around Ray's shoulders, careful not to put pressure on the injury, and hugged him. Ray leaned against him gratefully, his good arm grabbing Peter around the shoulders and holding on for all he was worth. Peter patted his back reassuringly. "So we'll try it again and see what we come up with. Everything's gonna make a lot more sense in the morning. It always does for me."

"Not the morning, Peter," Ray said gamely against his shoulder, though his voice quivered as if he were fighting hard not to cry. Peter's stomach twisted in sympathy and understanding, and he tightened his grip as Ray continued, "You never make sense in the morning."

"Well, how about the late morning," he offered. "Remember how brilliant I am, Ray." He chewed his bottom lip sternly to keep his own voice from quivering. If he let himself go, he'd break down too and that wouldn't help either of them. Life without Egon...

Ray sniffled and gave a watery chuckle. "Okay, late morning," he conceded, then he couldn't maintain the facade any longer, and he buried his face all the harder in Peter's shoulder as if he could find reassurance there. "Oh, gosh, Peter, it hurts."

"I know, Ray. I know. It hurts me, too."

Ray held on. "I just know he was--was deresolved, Peter. I've tried everything I can think of, and there's nothing... He's dead. I know he's dead."

"Shh, shh, Ray, it's okay. You tried everything you could think of tonight, when you're hurt and your head aches so much it's hard for you to think at all. It's gonna be okay. Tomorrow you'll feel better and figure out it's just some little minor glitch we overlooked. We'll find him, even if I have to find the coordinates for heaven and ask to have him back."

Ray leaned against him unhappily, and both of them drew comfort from the contact. Peter bent his cheek against Ray's hair and for a long time they sat there side by side, refusing to let go of what was left.

Finally Ray heaved a shuddery sigh and pulled back a little and Peter let him go immediately. "Okay, Ray?" he asked softly.

"I didn't mean to cry on you," said Ray guiltily, hanging his head as if he'd done something to be ashamed of. Peter spoke quickly.

"That's okay. People do it all the time. It's my night job, having people cry on me. I usually get twenty bucks an hour..."

That made Ray grin, but it was a faint, dispirited grin. "I bet you like it when women do it," he said gamely.

Peter smiled and waved an extravagant hand. "You bet. It's my whole raison d'être."

"Well, if you're gonna get fancy, I--Peter!"

The sudden note of alarm in Ray's voice made Peter stare at him in equal shock but suddenly Ray grabbed Peter's hand. "What happened to your hands?" he cried, staring at the chipped and broken fingernails and the raw skin. Peter wished he'd had the foresight to put his hands in his pockets because this was a reminder neither of them needed.

"Just doing a little digging," he said lightly.

"You mean when--in that rubble?" Ray realized. "Gosh, Peter, that looks sore."

"It's okay." If truth were told, he'd done no more for it than wash his hands and clip away the worst of the broken fingernails, and that only so they wouldn't catch on anything. Only a few places had bled and soap and water in the men's room at the hospital had taken care of it. "Remember this is Iron Man Venkman you're talking to. Stronger than Captain Steel, able to leap tall buildings at a bound and a half..."

Ray managed to smile again. "You sure you're okay?"

"Compared to the way that shoulder must feel, I'm great. Besides, miss out on a free ride, with somebody else doing the dishes for me or soothing the fevered brow? Give me a break here. When did I ever pass up a chance to complain and get waited on hand and foot?"

"Whenever anybody else needed you," said Ray with unerring accuracy.

Peter lowered his eyes. "Giving away my secrets, am I? Oh well, I'll go see if I can convince Winston to clean up the remains of the pizza."

"Slimer did that already the minute he got back," Ray reminded him with a faint chuckle. "Box and all. Peter..."

"Yeah?"

"Tell Winston none of this is his fault."

"I hear you, homeboy," said Winston from the doorway. "Listen, my man, none of this is anybody's fault. It just happened. Tomorrow it will make a lot more sense. Remember what you said before, Ray. If that proton pack had blown we wouldn't be here to worry about it--we'd be in little pieces still expanding, probably at the speed of light." He stalked into the room and leaned over to give Ray's hair a friendly ruffle. "You look like shit, man, so you get some sleep, while I haul this troublemaker out of here and we'll drive Janine home while we're doing that biorhythm check. You be okay if we do?"

"Sure, Winston," agreed Ray promptly. "You go ahead. I'll nap for awhile and maybe I can wake up and help you when you get back."

Peter exchanged a quick look with Winston--neither of them were going to disturb Ray before morning, and that was well agreed. So Peter gave Ray a thumbs' up and he and Winston headed for the stairs.

*****

"Peter?" Janine's voice was very carefully level and very serious as they headed for Brooklyn. The three of them had squeezed into the front seat with the secretary in the middle. Now she turned her head and looked up at the man on her right. "Do you really think there's a chance to get Egon back? Level with me, please."

Peter wished she hadn't asked the question because his honest response was one she really wouldn't want to hear. "I don't know, Janine," he said, and when her eyes pinned his he continued reluctantly, "I don't see how, if those coordinates didn't work right. Maybe in the morning Ray can figure out a new angle, but right now, I don't know."

"Yeah, but there's the proton pack," Winston reminded him. "Ray says it would have blown us up if Egon had been--" His voice chopped off hastily but not before Janine had picked up his intended meaning. She flinched ever so slightly but she kept her face composed.

"Neutronized," concluded the secretary, who was up on their technology and probably had been worrying about just that possibility since she'd gotten the call to check for a spectral Egon at headquarters. It was what the guys had believed when Egon had suffered the backlash from the demon Arzun, after all. He'd been using the atomic destabilizer this time, too, and though he'd modified it after that near miss, they could never be sure exactly what might happen with any near-corporeal demon they encountered. "I can take it, Peter," she continued staunchly. "I'd rather know the truth."

"I don't know the truth, Janine honey," he said, slipping an arm around her shoulders and hugging her against his side. "I--" He hesitated then opted for honesty because she loved Egon no less than he did. "I never did the hope routine very well. It's always been easier to for me to expect the worst because that way I didn't have to get shot down all over again--like making myself sure ahead of time that Dad wasn't coming home for Christmas or telling myself I didn't have a prayer for that scholarship to Columbia." He grinned brightly. "That one paid off--but if it hadn't--"

"You better not be giving up on Egon," she began.

"Do you think I'd do that?" he asked, looking at her in disbelief. "I'll keep looking for him until there's nothing left to try and then I'll still keep looking, even if it means recreating what happened to Egon in the alley and vanishing in a burst of light myself. I won't give up, Janine, and that's a promise from Dr. Venkman." His voice quivered fractionally but he called it sternly to order. He needed Egon back again--Egon was his better self, the one who kept Peter on the right track, the one who was there for him when he needed someone to give him a shoulder to cry on or a kick in the seat of the pants. Without Egon, the magic was gone from everything. Then there was Ray, who, while one of the strongest men Peter had ever known, would take this all the harder because he'd believe he'd botched the rescue attempt. Peter wouldn't let anything hurt Ray like that if there was one chance in ten million he could do something about it. Damn it, Egon, he thought, why couldn't it have been me? Catching Janine's eye, he gave her shoulders a quick squeeze. "There's nothing in this world or any other that'll stop me doing everything I can to get him back, even if I--"

"Even if you think he's already dead," she said in a wavery little voice. "I know, Peter. I'm sorry. And you haven't let it show to Ray what you think either."

"He needs to hope," Peter said quietly. "That's the way he operates. If--if we can't..."

"If we can't get him back, it'll be really hard on Ray," said Winston in the tone of voice of someone who knows he is stating the obvious, and who probably was speaking of himself as well as Ray. Winston thought very highly of Egon, too. Peter would have thought the two of them would have little in common, yet they got along very well, and Winston would do anything for Egon, even fight with Peter over who had the right to risk annihilation to go into another dimension after him. If it came to that, most of the work this time had been Winston's. He had to think his lack of what Egon generally called 'the proper scientific method' might have led to the failure of the test. Peter was pretty sure it hadn't though. Winston was studying both engineering and parapsychology in night school classes as he worked toward his masters degree, and Peter knew there was a lot of exacting methodology in engineering that would have helped him in his work today. Besides, he'd worked at Egon's side a lot and learned a great deal from him. The parapsychology side would be useful too, though some of the conventional parapsychology Peter had studied was not as significant as it had once been after the proven existence of ghosts since the coming of Gozer. Peter still did a lot of psi work on the side, running tests on the guys from time to time to monitor and record any changes in their latent psi ability, and he'd had to hold Egon back that time when he'd been convinced he could completely control an out of body experience. The only time Egon ever failed to take complete and exacting safeguards was when he became so excited about his work he wouldn't be held back. Once he'd announced he'd found a foolproof way to drill a hole through his head. Peter had scotched that particular experiment by an exceptionally low tactic. He'd threatened to notify Egon's mother.

That brought him back to the present, and he heaved a sigh.

"And just as hard on the pair of you, too," said Janine in a small voice. "Do you really think there's something else you can do?"

"You bet," said Winston with forced brightness. "Ray's not at the top of his form tonight. Give him a good night's sleep and he'll get the bugs out of the dimensional gateway, just wait and see. I've got a few more ideas myself. And then we'll all go over there and haul Egon home."

Peter nodded positively, because Janine was looking at him, but he had thought of something none of the rest of them seemed to consider. Even if Egon had been transported rather than disintegrated, there was still the demon to consider. Egon would have had one pack to use against it, on its own turf, and that blood they'd found meant he was hurt.

"Yeah, because I just thought of something else," said Winston in the tones of someone trying his best to sound upbeat and positive. "If we'd neutronized that demon we'd have had high residuals on the demon itself. Wouldn't we?" he applied to Peter.

Venkman considered it. That was true, wasn't it? They'd taken readings immediately and the readings hadn't had any demon residuals that Peter could remember. Shouldn't there have been fading readings from the disintegrated molecules if the demon had been fried? A faint thread of hope ran through Peter. Maybe they could get Egon back. "Yeah, that makes sense, Winston. Besides, I've got an idea myself."

He felt their eyes on him in expectation. "Well," he said quickly, "we could find a way to tempt the demon back. If we could trap him, we could make him give us Egon back. We need to do a lot more research on this character with the changing name."

"Yeah," said Winston with a grin. "You're on, my man. And here you are, Janine. Door to door service. Never let it be said the Ghostbusters don't know how to treat their employees."

"Their friends," said Peter, ushering Janine out of the car. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. "Think you can sleep?"

She nodded. "I'll be in first thing in the morning," she promised. "And if you need somebody else to go over into another dimension with you, I'm pretty good with a proton pack these days. Slimer can push the right button to send us all over there." She put her arms around him for a minute. "Good luck tonight," she said. "You better get some sleep yourself."

When Peter was back in Ecto, he leaned over the seatback and snatched up one of the already activated P.K.E. meters they'd brought along. They'd turned the sound function up to high gain, so if even the slightest trace of Egon's frequency was encountered, the meters would beep at their highest volume. If they found Egon himself, Peter and Winston would probably be near-deafened from the burst of sound the devices would produce. "So far, nothing," he said reluctantly. "Think we've got a chance at this?"

"Yeah, we've got a chance, and don't you forget it, Pete. Think I don't know how you're hurting? Just remember this isn't your fault."

"I brought that masonry down..."

"Crap!" Winston snapped at him. "Crap. It was an accident, and that's final. The demon did it. It's not your fault, and it isn't your fault your dad got interested in his mom. What is your fault is that you were kind of obnoxious to him, rubbing it in."

Peter dropped his eyes to the P.K.E. meter in his hand. "All my life, my dad's been a problem to me," he admitted. "I love the man but he makes me crazy. There were times when I was a kid, some of the other kids wouldn't be allowed to play with me because of Charlie. I got to the point I had to turn it into a game. I couldn't really defend him because what could I say? He was a con man, and I couldn't make him into my idea of what a dad should be, no matter how many tall tales I made up for the other kids. There were times when I had to find fault with him first before they could do it, and I felt like a traitor doing it, but what else could I do? I know he's an old crook, Winston, but when Egon said he'd hold me responsible for it, it really hurt. I just--just got defensive."

"I know, homeboy. It's okay. Egon really didn't mean it. It's his mom. Any guy's gonna worry about his mom. You would have done the same thing."

Peter nodded. "I know. I just thought--well, Egon was the one person I trusted never to blame me for my dad. He was the first one I ever told about him, even before I told Ray."

"And you think he let you down?" Winston asked knowingly. "Yeah, that makes it all the harder, because you were teed off at him when it happened. That doesn't make it any better or any worse, though. It still happened, and I know you and Egon really are brothers in every way that counts. So tell me this. Where does it say brothers can't fight sometimes? Doesn't make them any less kin."

Peter knew that was true and it was balm to his tired soul, but it wasn't enough. He heard himself blurting out the thing that had been bothering him all day, the thing he'd avoided conceptualizing because if he didn't let it surface consciously, it wouldn't be true, the thing he'd never expected to admit even to himself, let alone to someone else. "He died hating me, Winston." He felt moisture sting his eyes and he blinked furiously to keep from crying.

Winston drew a dismayed breath. "Oh, man, that is the stupidest thing I ever heard you say, and I've heard you say a lot of stupid things." He freed one hand from the wheel and dropped it on Peter's shoulder, his fingers squeezing tight in a comforting grip. "Egon does not hate you. Egon could never hate you. He could be exasperated with you or want to stand you upside down in a sink of dirty dishes but that man loves you every bit as much as Ray does and you know it. None of this was about you anyway, except that Charlie triggered it. It was about him being shocked that his mom would date any man after his dad. It had never even occurred to him, and then when it happens, it's the worst possible person. He just overreacted. But it doesn't mean he hates you or even blames you for anything but being such a horse's ass these past few days. He even knows why you were doing it, because he told me so. Said he knew you defended your dad automatically when somebody put him down. Well, he was defending his mom just as automatically. Afterwards the two of you will laugh about it."

"Yeah, Winston. We'll laugh about it." One tear did spill over in spite of his frantic blinking and he sneaked up a hand to dash it away before Winston could notice. "I'm sorry I was such a jerk," he said.

Winston pulled Ecto to a stop in a no-parking area and stared at him. "That doesn't sound like the Peter Venkman I know. Come on, quit kicking yourself. Egon's somewhere. There's too many clues that prove it. He's not dead. We're still the best team in the business and we'll get him back."

"Thanks for the pep talk," said Peter wearily. Then he caught himself. "Guess I'm being a jerk all over again." He leaned sideways until his forehead rested against Winston's shoulder for a minute. "Sometimes I forget how much you hold the rest of us together, Winston. Thanks."

Winston tousled his hair in spite of Peter's often-voiced objection to such a gesture and then slid his hand down to squeeze the back of Peter's neck. "An uphill battle all the way, my man," he said in exaggeratedly lugubrious tones. "Come on, let's get this run in, because I think I want to haul you home and put you to bed. Tomorrow's gonna be a busy day."

"It's gonna be a lousy day, unless we get Egon back," said Peter as he pulled himself upright again as if he were doing it like Atlas with the whole world balanced on his shoulders, and didn't really realize how true that would be.

*****

Insomnia was a terrible thing. Peter Venkman swam toward consciousness after a night interrupted with half-remembered nightmares and long periods of staring unseeingly at the dark ceiling, or counting the number of times in one minute that Slimer would bob up and down as he slept. When he caught himself formulating a theory about why a ghost would need to sleep in the first place, he had given up in exasperation and stalked downstairs to try that traditional--and nauseating--remedy, a glass of warm milk. As one who preferred to drink milk only when it was ice cold and then only when he was eating, the whole procedure took on the ritual aspects of taking nasty medicine on a spoon. Worse was the waiting-for-the-other-shoe-to-drop sensation of expecting Egon to arrive as if his magic radar had detected another Venkman problem in the wee hours and companionably share his snack and offer an ear so that Peter could sound off. It didn't happen and Winston and Ray's radar was turned off tonight, so that when Peter finally went upstairs again and flung himself down on his bed without the least expectation of anything more than light dozes for the rest of the night, he had a feeling of ill-usage that was pointless as well as misplaced.

He did sleep, though, unexpectedly and so heavily that when he did awaken, he was groggily confused at first, not quite sure where he was for a minute or what had happened. When he finally pried his eyes open by the expedient method of using his fingertips to lift his eyelids, his first view was Egon's neatly made bed, which made his stomach twist in remembered misery. He yanked the covers over his head for a minute, pulling his pillow against his chest and hugging it to him tightly.

That remedy, a holdover from childhood, had never worked very well then and it didn't now. It didn't shield him from the misery and it didn't make it go away. Remembering his other two buddies, he pulled the covers down again and glanced at their beds.

They were up already and gone, which made Peter jump up with guilty haste, all too wide awake, though hung over from too little sleep. Hearing them in the lab, he poked his head in to say, "I'm up." They were both shaven and dressed, and were working at the computer, their heads close together. Ray's shoulders were slumping a little as if he felt the weight of responsibility too heavily upon them, and Winston had a hand resting on his back, ostensibly for balance but most likely to remind Ray he wasn't alone.

"We let you sleep," Ray said quickly, smiling at him. "Slimer said you had a disturbed night."

"The way the Spud was sawing logs himself, I don't know how he could have known," Peter retorted. "Ghosts shouldn't snore. It should be in the rules." Pausing, he eyed Ray, and made himself walk forward and peer into the younger man's face. "This must be the new look I missed out on," he said, shaking his head over the vivid bruise around Ray's eye. "This is what I get for not reading the current issue of GQ, isn't it?" He touched it lightly with cautious fingers and was relieved when Ray didn't wince under the touch. "So, on a scale of one to ten, how does it feel?"

"Only one to ten?" Ray asked with a wry grin. "No minus points?"

"That bad, huh?" Peter shook his head sententiously. "You've got to stop using your head to beat up garbage pails, Ray. It's in all the etiquette books."

"Gee, I knew there was something I should have read," Ray returned, struggling to maintain the banter, even though it took more of an effort than it should this morning. It was possible to make jokes even now, but it wasn't possible to stop looking over one's shoulder as if afraid someone would chastise them for smiling at such a time.

Winston turned from the computer where he had been doing something complicated with a long string of huge numbers. "Well, you're no fashion plate yourself, Peter. Why don't you go and shower and shave before you inadvertently scare us or something. Anybody ever tell you how you look in the mornings?"

"Hey. I've had some favorable reports from some people whose opinion I rate a lot higher than yours," Peter said with mock outrage. "They're prettier than you, too."

That made Ray smile, but he gestured toward the bathroom. "We're not your lady friends, Peter. We're particular."

Drawing himself up to his full height, the picture of offended dignity, Peter called over his shoulder as he headed for the bathroom, "I'll shave and I'll shower. But nobody says I have to like it."

He stood under the beating water for a long time, feeling it sting his raw fingertips, wishing it could take the tension out of his taut muscles. Ray was bearing up pretty well--Peter had wanted to keep it light; no more backsliding into demands for sympathy from Peter Venkman. He was going to be tough and in control and do whatever needed doing, and nothing he would say or do would make Ray worry any more than he already was. In spite of his brave words, the occultist had looked pretty grim. There had been more shadows in his eyes than Peter had seen there before, shadows that highlighted the tense look Ray wore sometimes when he remembered the death of his parents, the one subject he'd never willingly opened up about, even with Peter and Egon. Peter didn't want Ray to have another memory like that.

As for himself, he would do whatever needed doing to bring Egon back, and he wouldn't stop trying, though he wasn't sure last night's determination would be enough to carry him through. He'd research Tyconos like crazy today while the other two did that techie stuff, and if they figured out why they'd taken Peter to the alley instead of wherever the demon and Egon had gone, then it would be Venkman's job to go to the right place, armed with his thrower, and bring Egon back.

"Did you have anything to eat?" Winston asked when Peter trailed back into the lab, still pulling his sweatshirt over his head.

"Yeah, right, Winston. I keep food in my closet. I'll grab something later. Why?"

"I thought you ought to go down and check with Janine, if you wouldn't mind? Maybe grab us something on the way back. There's a box of doughnuts if Slimer hasn't found them--and we could all do with some toast."

"Behold in me Chef Pierre," Peter announced in an atrocious French accent. "But before I go, how's it coming? What would happen if you just turned those numbers around? Reversed them?"

"We tried that first thing," Ray said, shaking his head. "It seemed like a good idea. So we tried to send a P.K.E. meter back. It didn't vanish." He blew out a frustrated puff of breath between his lips and picked up a charred hunk of something. "This is it. I--don't think we can do it in reverse." He smiled sadly at Peter. "I think that takes us back to--to whatever happened to Egon," he concluded. "And this--" he displayed the P.K.E. meter, "got zapped."

Peter stared at the lump of charred metal and plastic that had once been a P.K.E. meter and tried to avoid imagining what that kind of power would do to a certain tall, blond physicist. He could tell from the look in Ray's eyes that he had already considered the possibility in excruciating detail, so Peter spoke fast. "Well, yeah, then it's a good thing Egon didn't go through that particular setting, isn't it? I bet he'd just hate looking like that. No, he went the other way. I don't think we've got all the coordinates, though. Just enough to go to the alley. Maybe I should go back there again and have another look."

"You think Egon might be there now?" asked Winston in surprise. "What makes you think that?"

"Well, who knows. The demon might have put him in some kind of stasis field." He knew it was a lousy theory, but then this kind of stuff wasn't his bag.

"Or in another dimension," Winston offered. "Maybe that's what it is. You were in the same alley--but it wasn't the same alley."

Peter's eyes widened with the first trace of hope he'd felt for a long time. "Egon said something about parallel dimensions. Why don't I go over there and grab a newspaper or something and we can compare it to today's?"

Ray liked the idea. "That's great, guys. We'll reverse the equipment again and you can go over. I'll set the bracelet to return you either in ten minutes or when you push a recall button. I'd been working on that possibility for awhile, and it's ready to go. I--I didn't tell you about it before because I was afraid you'd stay if you thought there was any chance and--and it would be too dangerous."

"New York alleys are dangerous, Ray," said Peter with careful lightness. He was touched that Ray had tried to protect him, knowing the occultist had been right. If there had been a chance of tracking Egon over there, Peter wouldn't have pushed a recall button--he would have gone on looking for him as long as he could. "But I'll have a thrower. Finding a newspaper shouldn't be too hard. I seem to remember somebody had tossed a pile of them in the alley. I'll just grab the top one. Have we got this week's papers?"

"Since it was your turn to take out the trash," Winston put in, grinning broadly, "I'm sure we do."

"Hey. I'm not the one who forgets to take out the trash," objected Peter. "We'll just leave them here and let Spengs do them when he gets back."

Ray smiled, too, a little more hopeful. If it was really a parallel dimension, it should be possible to find Egon. Peter would just go to the firehouse. There would probably be two Egons there, talking physics like crazy as they worked out the solution to the problem, and he'd bring his own back with him. He'd have to take a spare bracelet.

"So what are you waiting for, Chef Pierre?" Winston asked. "While we do all the hard work, you go check with Janine and make the toast. This is hard work."

"Yeah, operating screwdrivers is tough."

Winston stuck out his tongue at Peter and then grinned. "Go on," he urged. "Get outa here."

Peter started for the stairs, waving his hand at them. They were already caught up in their work and didn't notice. This parallel dimension stuff had to be the answer. Peter felt like kicking himself for not thinking of it earlier, because Egon had talked about it yesterday, after all. No wonder the alley would look the same--and he'd noticed the amount of rubble was different. This had to be the answer. He'd grab that paper and they could check ever page for similarities. Peter would have preferred going directly to the alternate firehall--maybe he could phone, he thought happily as he trotted down the stairs. The thought of talking to Egon...

His bright enthusiasm carried him to Janine's desk, where she raised puffy eyes to his and managed a wan smile. He said quickly, "Janine, it could be a parallel dimension--alternate universe. If I can go over there with a spare bracelet, I--"

The door opened behind him and he whirled, thinking, Egon beat us to the punch; he's back, when he saw the blond head and glasses, then his heart sank into his shoes when he realized it wasn't Egon who had come in, but his mother. She was wearing a rather grim look on her face and holding the current issue of the New York Post. "I came right away," she said, holding it out to Peter. The headline screamed in bold letters, "GHOSTBUSTER MISSING?" with a picture of Egon below it. Peter heaved a sigh. Why couldn't she read the New York Times?

"Is Egon missing, Peter?" she asked him, her eyes, as blue as Egon's, meeting his expectantly. Peter saw in that look the courage that Egon must have inherited from her, her determination to face the truth head on without pulling any punches. The look on her face reminded Peter of the time that Egon had asked to have the bad news first when he'd been transformed into the werechicken, and Peter knew he couldn't lie to her.

He reached out and caught her hands in his, squeezing them gently. "We don't know, Katherine," he said in a serious voice. "We've got some new ideas--we think he might have been transferred into a parallel universe."

"You mean like the time he went into the Netherworld?" asked Mrs. Spengler. "My son, the dimension traveler." Her bottom lip quivered. "Tell me what happened."

Peter told her, holding his voice steady, refusing to defend his own actions. She listened with a thoughtful face, holding onto her courage and refusing to panic though he saw it in her eyes. When he'd told the whole story and explained their current plan to search the alley again, believing it could be an alternate dimension, she smiled. "I knew you'd have a plan," she said. "Egon always told me how inventive you boys were."

"He's the inventive one, he and Ray," said Peter quickly. "I put things together with baling wire and chewing gum and sometimes it works well enough to keep from blowing up until I'm finished with it. Egon's the genius."

"He said you were a genius, too, in your own way," Katherine Spengler said astonishingly. "He said you were a genius with people, not like dear Charlie who uses what he knows to make a buck, but to understand them and be there when needed. He told me once he wouldn't trade you for the most qualified physicist in the world."

Hearing what Egon had told his mom hurt worse than Peter had expected it would. He didn't want praise from Mrs. Spengler, even if it were in the guise of comfort. She shouldn't comfort him. "I fired the blast that brought all that masonry down," he muttered, avoiding her eyes. "The demon wouldn't have done what he did if I hadn't. And Egon--" He paused, squaring his shoulders. "I'd been--well, I'd been teasing him about you and Dad, because I knew he hated it, kind of rubbing it in. You know how I get..." His voice trailed off because maybe Katherine Spengler didn't.

But she smiled. "Yes, dear, I do. Egon talks about you a lot. Of course you exasperated him, but I was always glad he'd met you in college. I knew my son was a genius and Egon's father always encouraged that. He never stopped to think that Egon had to live in the real world with real people who might not be geniuses, and his father only encouraged the intellect. You took that and made him more human. He needed someone like you very badly, someone who could show him there could be joy in life. You and Ray between you were so good for my son that I thanked God for you, even when his father was muttering in frustration. I know if it's possible you'll get him back. I know you won't quit because you love him too much to quit."

Her understanding, and even worse, her praise, was nearly too much for Peter, who suddenly pulled her into his arms and hugged her. "We won't quit," he said into her hair. "I promise you we won't quit."

"I knew that, son," she said in surprise. "I knew it went without saying." She detached herself from the embrace and smiled at him.

"Mrs. Spengler," put in Janine, "we tried to call you yesterday but we thought you were in Atlantic City."

"We were," said Katherine with a smile. "Charlie said he had a system, and it worked, too. I won almost $5000. But we never planned to stay there. We just went for the day. We thought if we came back last night you wouldn't expect us and Egon--" For the first time, her determined optimism faltered. "Egon wouldn't call me to read me the riot act. My son, the mother hen." Her voice caught briefly, but she controlled it at once and went on brightly. "Charlie and I came back last night and had dinner in the Rainbow Room, and danced and it was a lovely evening. Then I went back to my hotel and finished the new Robert Parker mystery--I brought it for Winston," she concluded, reaching for her purse and holding out the book. "Now, Peter, what would you like me to do? Wait here? Go back to my hotel?"

"I want you to do what you want to do," Peter said quickly. "If it feels better for you to stay here, then do. Otherwise, I'll run you back to the hotel."

"I've got my car here," she said. "Would you mind if I called your father? Charlie's good in a crisis."

Peter stared at her, disbelieving. "Yeah, he's good at taking off with the bucks," he began.

Katherine Spengler shook her head at him. "That too, of course, but there's a side to him you may not know too well. I bet you don't remember when you had your appendix out, do you?"

Peter shook his head. "I know I had it out, but I was just seven and I can't remember much about it. I remember mom fussing over me afterwards..."

"I bet you didn't know your father sat up with you the whole night long. He happened to be nearby and your mother telephoned him--and he came immediately. He stayed with you every moment, talking to you, worrying about you. I know there have been times he's let you down--more than a few of them--but that time he was there." She smiled at him. "He'd be here for you now if he knew, so I'm going to collect him at his hotel. You go into the other dimension as you've planned and maybe when I come back, Egon will be waiting for me." She leaned close and kissed him on the cheek. "I'll see you soon," she said and spun away quickly, leaving Peter staring after her, clutching the Parker book.

"That's one gutsy lady," Janine said as the outer door closed. "She's worried sick, but she's hanging on."

"Hey, she's Egon's mom," Peter replied. "Where do you think he got it from?" He reached out and touched Janine's cheek lightly. "Now that we know they're back in town, put on the answering machine and come up with me. I've gotta fix the guys breakfast."

"Yeah, right. I don't get paid for cooking, Venkman," Janine responded automatically but she fell into step with him as he turned toward the steps. "But knowing your cooking, I'd better come along and protect Ray and Winston."

*****

"All you have to do, Peter, is pick up a newspaper," Ray said sternly as Peter adjusted the bracelet on his wrist. "Take readings, too, of course. That goes without saying. If it's another dimension, Egon's readings should be even fainter than they were last night. And it should be morning there just like it is here. You grab that paper and if the readings are the way we think they are, you hit the recall button. Okay? You saw this morning's paper? The Times, I mean. Grab one. Well, anything with today's date on it, then bring it back and we'll check for anything that might be different."

"Gotcha," Peter replied, positioning himself, his thrower in one hand. In case the other dimension had some nasty entities--or drug dealers or any more rats, he was going to be ready.

The alley looked the same as it had last night, though the rat had vanished. Peter took his readings first, quickly scanning the alley with the P.K.E. meter, checking for any traces of Egon. The meter was attuned to his biorhythms and it registered exactly as Peter had expected. There were lingering traces of Egon, but they were fainter than they had been last night, as they would be if Egon had not returned to this spot in the meantime. Peter wondered what would happen if they brought the converted destabilizer rectifier unit here and tried to send him from this spot instead of from headquarters. Would it make a difference?

There were a pile of newspapers stacked on top of the crumpled dumpster and Peter snatched the top one quickly, which happened to be the New York Times, and scanned the date though he could tell from its thickness that it was the right one. It was today's. Some early bird had read it and tossed it away already. Just as well. Tucking it into his belt, Peter went to the end of the alley and looked out into the street. Traffic was pretty heavy for a Sunday morning, but there wasn't anything else different about the dimension he could see. A couple of people went past, staring at Peter with interested eyes, recognizing his uniform and equipment and glancing around for traces of ghosts. He heard them talking about him as they moved away down the street and they were talking New York English all right. If this were a parallel dimension, maybe it had split because of Egon's vanishing. Maybe this was a world where Egon hadn't vanished and if he called the firehouse here, he'd talk to a group of guys who didn't remember Egon's disappearance and find an Egon who belonged here instead of home. The thought was so appalling that he pushed the recall button quickly instead of trying it. Let them check the newspapers first and see. If there was any mention of Egon's disappearance, he'd know a possible split hadn't occurred at that juncture. The thought of a dimension one step over where everything was fine was too painful to contemplate, and that Egon would belong to those other Ghostbusters not to him and his friends back at headquarters.

The lab came into existence around him and he stood there holding out the newspaper. His face must have shown some of what he'd been thinking because Ray said quickly, "Peter, what's wrong?"

"Nothing like you're thinking," Peter denied, shaking his head at the sight of Ray's alarmed face. "I didn't find any demons over there and the readings of Egon are that much fainter just like you thought they'd be. Here's today's paper." He passed it to Ray, who stared at the front page automatically.

"Then what is it?" Winston asked. "You look shaken up, homeboy. Come on, give or we'll think it's worse than it really is."

"It isn't anything," Peter said, but when they stared at him expectantly, he explained quickly. "I was just thinking of those dimensions that split off from ours because I didn't wash my socks, you know? And thinking maybe that was a dimension where Egon didn't vanish in the alley--and he might be there but he wouldn't be our Egon."

"Ouch," said Winston, his eyes widening in understanding.

Janine gasped. "You mean if you found him we couldn't bring him back?"

"No, he means that Egon wouldn't be our Egon, but instead the Egon from that dimention" said Ray quickly. "That could be, Peter, but that still doesn't explain where our Egon is. He obviously was in that dimension because you got residual readings."

"It might not even be another dimension," Janine reminded them sharply. "It might just be the alley. Take a look at the paper, everybody."

Ray sectioned it out and they grabbed for the matching sections of their own paper. For a long time they did nothing but read, comparing the two papers line by line. Peter had the comics and the sports page, and he went through everything including the baseball scores, trying to find anything different, even a comma. What he had were two identical papers, though one of them was a little damp from its time in the alley.

Janine flung away the front section. "It's all the same," she said. "All the national news, all the headlines, everything. I thought maybe we'd have a different president or something. I can't find one single thing that's different."

"Me either," agreed Winston. "Everything's the same."

Ray nodded. He'd had a little harder time flipping the pages one handed, but he looked up, his face too white, though that may have been in contrast to the bruise around his eye which had darkened dramatically overnight. "It's the same as our paper. That may not prove Peter only went to the alley in our time, but it's a pretty good indication."

"Yeah, so what would happen if we took the equipment all over to the alley and tried from there?" Peter asked. "Maybe it would shift us somewhere else. If it's directional..."

"Come on, Pete," argued Winston. "It's a good idea, but the coordinates are locked on the alley. It would be too much of a coincidence for us to happen to hit on the alley exactly if it were merely a distance rather than specific directions. You could have ended up anywhere in the city, not necessarily in the alley itself."

"I'm afraid he's right, Peter," Ray said sadly. "The alley is the focus of the coordinates. I can read them in the figures." He pointed to the screen. "See, right here. That gives us the physical location of the alley. That's why you're going there. I had hoped these other figures might be dimensional--the same coordinates but in another dimension, only they probably aren't." He swung his good arm around, scattering his section of the newspaper which fanned out on the floor. "It wouldn't do anything different than now, Peter."

He looked so utterly certain and so completely defeated by the certainty that Peter put up his hands to stop the other man's hasty words. "Okay, right, I got you. But all that means is we have to find the demon. That's got to be the key, old Tyconos. We didn't disintegrate him or we would have picked up residuals. So he went somewhere and took Egon, and if these numbers don't show it then it's because he did some demon number and is probably laughing his head off in the Netherworld. Where are all those reference guides you guys are always talking about. Give me one and you take one, Janine, and Winston, you go through another. Ray, you use the computer Tobin. It's got good cross-referencing. Egon always said--says it does." Mentally he cursed himself for the slip, all the more so because the other three winced at it then pretended brightly not to notice.

"He's right," said Ray very quickly. "It does. It makes all kinds of suggestions. There isn't much about Tyconos in there, but there's bound to be some cross-references on the computer. I'll get on it. Here's some other books for you. Janine, you take the Spates Catalog, and Peter, the Roylance Guide, and Winston, I don't think anybody's been reading the current edition of Who's Who and What's That. Egon just got it in the other day and he was really excited about it. They've upgraded everything and they're bringing out a CD ROM version in December. Egon's already signed up for it..."

"And my mom used to complain I wasted all my time reading mysteries," said Winston with a wry grin. "Okay, I bet this thing weighs forty pounds. I could use a couple of them for bench pressing."

"Yeah, they are about ten times as bad as the Manhattan Yellow Pages, aren't they?" agreed Peter, receiving the book Winston handed him and pretending to sag beneath its weight. He'd better watch himself or he'd keep on saying the wrong things. As long as those clues added up to a discrepancy, there was still some hope. No demon residue, no exploding pack. That had to mean something. Maybe the dimension the Demon had entered had some kind of psi barrier across the gateway, now that the psi residue Egon had detected earlier had faded. Maybe without it, the coordinates would only take them to the alley. He said so.

"I've got an idea, guys. All that ambient PK energy we were getting yesterday like an overlay--it's gone now. The barriers are firmed up again, aren't they? So when we go knocking at Tyconos' front door, we wind up on his front porch because the door is locked. That's why I keep ending up in the alley, isn't it?"

Ray brightened, spinning around in his chair to look Peter right in the eye, and this time he didn't look quite as weary as he had a few minutes ago. "Hey, yeah," he cried excitedly, grinning at Peter. "That's brilliant! We should have thought of it a lot sooner, because it makes so much sense."

Peter preened himself. "Resident genius at work," he said, content in his words, though if this didn't work it would only be the harder later on. "Does that mean there's something we can do about it?" he demanded while Janine and Winston leaned closer expectantly, their expressions hopeful and eager.

"It gives us something to try that makes a lot of sense," Ray replied positively. "Egon said that ambient energy felt like a coming cross-rip, and the barriers were low. But once that reading was gone, it would mean the barriers were high again, wouldn't it?"

"The sixty four thousand dollar question is, what makes them lower for us?" asked Winston, his finger jammed into the book he had been searching through as a bookmark. "And how do we set up our equipment to detect it again so we can zip on over first chance we get and snatch Egon back?"

"You mean we're bumping our noses against their door?" asked Janine, brightening remarkably. "We just need to find a way to pick the lock then we can all transport over there. Yeah, that makes all kinds of sense."

"An even better question, Ray." Peter smiled to himself at the sight of his friends re-energizing themselves as he gave them one more option. He hoped it wasn't a false one. "Can we induce that psi residue artificially?"

Ray's face puckered in thought. It was still possible to see traces of pain in his eyes but the dispirited look had fled again and hope had come back. "That's a tough one, Peter," he said musingly. "Because the only way I can think of to do it is ghosts."

"Ghosts? As in lots of ghosts? As in letting them out of the containment unit?" demanded Winston, eyes narrowing. "That is not a good idea, homeboy."

"Yeah, but it's one way to power up the whole area with excess PK residue," Ray defended his new theory, gesturing expansively with his good arm and wincing momentarily as he was reminded he wasn't in the pink of health. He straightened carefully and continued in the tones of a lecturer addressing a class. Just like that did Egon often start a description of his new theories. "It would give everything we did an added boost, the way it must have worked for Tyconos. That much power concentrated in the area might even weaken the gateway enough for us to zip on over to wherever Tyconos hangs out and grab Egon back." He grinned enthusiastically. "I know it will work. It's just gonna take a lot of planning to get it right. We can capture all those ghosts all over again when we've got Egon back. There'll be four of us to do it."

"Hey, yeah, and we can get paid for it all over again," Peter realized, grinning. "You're on the right track here, Ray."

"Peter!" chided the auburn haired man. "We can't charge for that, because we're the ones who'll have freed the ghosts."

"Yeah, but we can't tell anybody we're freeing ghosts or they'll get on our case," Winston argued. "It's probably illegal to turn ghosts loose. If there isn't a city ordinance about it, there will be, once somebody figures out what we're doing."

"So nobody talks," Peter said. "If we claim it was a lab accident or something, we should be safe, right, Ray?"

"We might not need to do that," Ray replied. "I'll work it out. We'll induce high ambient PK in the area and that might let us cross over into Tyconos' dimension."

"This means you don't think Tyconos is going to come back on his own?" Peter hazarded, chewing one of his lacerated fingertips thoughtfully. It was not a smart idea. He'd smeared them with Vaseline earlier and it tasted awful.

"Well, he could come back in five minutes," said Ray promptly, his brow furrowing in concentration as he considered the possibilities. He was getting caught up in the new theory. "But he might not come back for five hundred years. Remember what we figured out last night, that there isn't a lot of current material on him, because he hasn't been around for a long time. I don't know what brought him back now..."

"Maybe he was bored," said Peter hastily. He could think of other reasons but none of them were very nice. A lot of them included the possibility of looking for humans to devour. Better not mention anything like that or he'd set Ray off, and Janine wouldn't want to hear it either. "Maybe he wanted somebody smart to talk to. What do we have to do to spring all these ghosts, and how do we free them right where we need them? I hope you're not talking about blowing up the containment unit again. I don't want to have to rebuild the firehouse." He wouldn't hesitate an instant if it were the only way to get Egon back, though, and all of them knew it.

"Maybe he's cyclical," suggested Winston. "You know, he comes at certain times. Maybe he's been around a lot more than we think but nobody could detect him. Maybe he's taken away other people who are reported missing and people always thought it was natural causes or runaways or kidnappings or whatever. After all, until you guys dreamed up the business, nobody was taking those kind of readings except for a few parapsychologists here and there. Nobody knew anything about ambient PK levels."

"Good point," said Peter. He glanced around the room and pushed away the papers that lay on his lap. "So what can we do to help get this gateway open again, Ray?"

"I have to do a lot of cross checking," Ray replied. "The rest of you check your books and see if you can find out anything more about Tyconos, okay? I'll get going on this. I need to set up a database to compare the possible levels of power needed and cross reference them with the output of the device. Egon could do it really quick. This is more his field than mine, but I think I know how to do it. Winston, maybe you could help me. Peter and Janine, you get to read."

Peter eyed the heavy book on his knees and flipped it open at random. "'The liekko (omlatt),'" he read aloud. "Sounds like an omelette. Nope, it's a flaming spirit, the ghost of a child buried in a forest." He grimaced at the very idea of a ghost child, wishing he'd kept his mouth shut. "Who writes these things anyway? And why do they have to use such small print?"

"A child buried in a forest?" echoed Ray, his face growing solemn at the idea. "That's sad." He added as sternly as Ray ever got, "Look for Tyconos, Peter. Don't read about other ghosts. We don't have time for that right now. Every minute we waste might be important."

"Aye aye cap'n," Peter replied, snapping off a quick salute. "You heard the man, Janine. Start reading."

*****

It was a long day. Ray had a tendency to jump into things without taking the time to think them through, but this time, he couldn't really do that because the freeing of a great many ghosts would endanger a lot of people in the city, and not even for Egon would he risk that many lives. It would take a great deal of concentration. There were some ghosts in the containment unit too dangerous to be freed, those who had hurt human beings, even a few that had killed people. Others, like Samhain, simply had too much power to be loose again, and entities like the Bogeyman had to stay where they were. Ray couldn't blow the containment unit, not even for Egon. Peter would probably have done it without hesitation, or at least without very much, but Ray opted for a more cautious method. The weight of responsibility seemed to be wearing heavily on his bowed shoulders. Peter, who found the book on his lap very dry going, kept sneaking glances at Ray, and more than once he caught Ray rubbing his aching shoulder.

After the third such time, he caught Winston's eye and stood up. "Okay, that's it. Peter needs a break. We aren't gonna be much good to Spengs if we starve ourselves. It's time for food. In fact it's past time for food."

Slimer, who had been hovering silently in the corner of the room, his face filled with concern as he sensed the mood of his favorite humans, perked up amazingly. "Oboy. Foood!"

"Yeah, Spud. You can have a big chunk of whatever turns you on," Peter replied. "Hey, Ray, suppose I could take Slimer to the alley with me? You know--you send us both over there? Maybe he could sense a gateway we couldn't get through. What about it, Spudface? After lunch, we teleport to Tribeca?"

Slimer eyed him suspiciously. "Not hurt Slimer?" he ventured.

"It didn't hurt Peter did it, Slimer?" Ray asked. He fixed the little green ghost with one of his most earnest grins. "You know I wouldn't hurt you, don't you, Slimer? We can send you both over there and you could tell us if you could sense anything. You're a ghost. It might be something you could sense and we couldn't. What do you say?" he wheedled. "I'd buy you a double pepperoni pizza if you'd do it."

"Don't spoil him, Ray," Winston objected. "Slimer, Egon's in trouble. We want you to help us find him."

Slimer drew himself erect and sketched a salute in Winston's direction much like the one Peter had given Ray earlier. "Find Egon," he vowed as solemnly as the little spud ever got. "Find Egon. Slimer misses Egon."

"You and me both, Spud," Peter said, grabbing the ghost by one slimy wrist and tugging him in the direction of the stairs. "Come on, we'll fix lunch while Ray gets everything set up."

Fortified by the biggest lunch Peter could throw together in twenty minutes--in other words all the leftovers in the refrigerator nuked in the microwave--the psychologist donned his proton pack again and slid on what he was coming to call his 'teleport bracelet'. Slimer was delighted to receive one, too, and he waved it enthusiastically in the faces of the three Ghostbusters and Janine. "Pretty," he enthused. "Slimer likes bracelets."

"Great, Spud, and I'll buy you one for Christmas," Peter said with a grin. He felt better with something to do, even if it meant visiting the alley again in the company of Slimer. "Okay, Ray, tell him what to look for."

"This is what you need to do, Slimer," Ray asked, standing in front of the green ghost and eyeing him solemnly. "A nasty demon took Egon away with him. No, Slimer, the demon isn't there now," he added when panic lit the ghost's yellow eyes. "Egon isn't there either. What we want you to do is check and see if you can find a door, the kind of door that goes from one world to another. Do you know what I mean?"

"Door to Ghostworld?" Slimer asked. "Door to Netherworld? Slimer knows doors." He bobbed up and down eagerly then added in much more restrained tones, "Slimer have to go in?"

"No, Slimer. We just want to know if there's something like that in the alley, even if it's powered way down. It's really important," Ray concluded. "You tell Peter about it. This time, Pete, I'm gonna crank up your P.K.E. meter differently. There's no point in checking for Egon's biorhythms again. We know he isn't there now. I'm going to adjust this meter to try to detect something like we were reading right before Gozer came in. The door should swing both ways. If we can't open it by letting only the safe ghosts out of the containment unit, maybe we can cross the streams. I'll work it out. I've got a program running now that might be able to tell me. You go over and take readings anywhere Slimer thinks is suspicious and then I'll cross-reference your findings with the ones I get. This is gonna be great!"

"Yeah, great. You get to stay here and play with the computer and the spud and I have to play with Ben the rat in an alley. Somehow I don't think this is a fair division of labor."

*****

"Nasty alley," Slimer announced in a piercing voice as he and Peter materialized once again in the now-familiar spot. The alley was deserted this time, too, but a rush of traffic at the end of the alley indicated life was going on around them, though not here. Slimer backed up against a wall, his eyes spinning around as he observed the pile of rubble that had fallen. At a sound from overhead Peter raised his eyes to the place where his proton stream had struck and was surprised to notice that someone had boarded up the window that had broken in the process. A workman stood suspended on a hanging platform working on the mess and the sound Peter had heard had been him as he nailed a final board into place.

"Geez, they've got them working on Sunday," Peter observed to the air. "Talk about time and a half. Somebody important must live in there." He hadn't paid any attention when he was here earlier, so the work could have been going on then as well. "Never mind that, Spud," he urged. "And forget the garbage. It was old when Columbus sailed for the new world. It's not a gourmet treat."

"Yummy, yummy." Slimer smacked his lips and started for the rotting garbage that had spilled out when the demon had upended the dumpster, scattering trash everywhere. It looked and smelled pretty disgusting to Peter, but then Slimer had never been exactly discriminating when it came to food choices.

"You touch one bite of that, Spud, and I'll make sure you never get another pizza in this lifetime!" Peter threatened.

If Slimer could have screeched to a halt in midair, he would have done it. He did come to a very abrupt stop, whirling to eye Peter with huge, reproachful eyes. "Slimer hungry!"

"Yeah, I know, I'm cruel and mean to you, and you haven't had any food for at least a month, and all that, but this is for Egon, Spud. We're here to look for the gateway, remember," Peter reminded him, gesturing around at the rest of the alley. "Come on, check it out. What do you sense? Can you feel a gateway of any kind? Any clues where to look for Egon?"

Reminded of the physicist and his assignment, Slimer snapped obediently to attention and assumed a pose like a pointer scenting a pheasant about to fly. He made loud and exaggerated sniffing sounds, but Peter wasn't sure whether that was a search technique or if Slimer were simply enjoying the 'tantalizing' aromas of the garbage that lay strewn around. The ghost's brow furrowed in excessive concentration--well, he wasn't a heavy thinker, Peter knew. It probably took him a lot of effort to concentrate in the first place.

"Can you tell where the gate is, Spud?" Peter asked eagerly. "Come on, you must be able to pick up on something, with all the training Ray has given you over the years."

Slimer shook his head so violently his whole body swung back and forth. "Not a gate," he denied as if Peter had let him down by being idiotic enough not to realize it.

"What do you mean, not a gate?" Peter demanded hotly. "There has to be a gate. How do you think we got here, after all?"

Slimer shook his head stubbornly. "Not a gate. No Ghostworld. No bad place. Just this place."

Peter felt his heart sinking into his boots. That was what he'd been afraid of all along, the possibility that in spite of no demon residual readings and no exploding proton pack Egon had been killed after all. Instead of demanding Slimer to check again, he activated his P.K.E. meter and ran it all around the alley. It stirred to life, but it was sluggish life with none of the beeps and flashes Peter would have expected if there was a real gate here, even a gate that was powered down. He noted the readings, scribbling them down on a pad of paper he'd brought with him, so Ray could have them exact and make some sense out of them. Peter was surprised at first and then not so surprised to notice Ray had filtered out Slimer's reading. They all knew the Spud's frequency but Slimer wasn't giving out a reading. Trust Ray to think of that, giving them an opportunity for the clearest and most accurate reading possible.

"Just this place?" Peter asked. "What does that mean, Slimer?"

"That place, this place, just one place," Slimer insisted stubbornly as if he knew what he wanted to say but had no words to explain it. "No nasty bad spirit place."

"Maybe it's just powered down," Peter offered in a futile attempt to argue with Slimer about it. "You know, the door's locked."

"No bad place," Slimer insisted. He fluttered over to the pile of masonry. "Egon here--now Egon gone." His face twisted with perplexity over something he might have understood but didn't have the understanding or the language to clarify his meaning.

"Do you know what happened to Egon here?" Peter asked. Sometimes you had to get the Spud to come at answers from another direction.

"Ooooh, nasty! Egon hurt," Slimer mourned, wringing his hands in distress. "Blood, blood, blood."

Peter's stomach twisted violently at the image. "You can see that here?" he asked sharply. There hadn't been that much blood to be found, just few smears of it on a couple of the stones and a tiny bit on the ruined P.K.E. meter they'd found in the rubble.

Slimer shook his head. "No, not here. Here!" His pointing finger aimed at the same spot both times, never wavering. Whatever ghostly sense the Spud was using didn't mean a thing to Peter. It must be important to Slimer, though, who insisted, "Not this place. This place." Yet 'this place' and the other 'this place' looked like the same place to Venkman.

"Tell me about the blood, Slimer," Peter urged, needing to know more, though he knew he would hate the answers. "Where is it? Where is Egon hurt?"

"Here." Slimer zipped over to Peter and put his hand on the psychologist's forehead right at the hairline. "Bloodbloodblood. Icky! Pooooor Egon."

Well, scalp cuts always bled like crazy, even when they weren't serious and maybe this was just another of them. Egon could bleed there and still be in pretty decent shape. Bracing himself for further, and possibly unwelcome, information, Peter asked, "What did Egon do?"

"Didn't do anything." Slimer frowned at him as if he could not believe Peter's stupidity. "Didn't do anything. Laid there, eyes shut. Opened eyes. Made noises." He groaned heart-rendingly as an example. "Got up, looked around, called for guys."

"That's something, spud. I hate to break it to you." Egon may have been in pain, but he'd been alert enough to move. Whatever dimension Slimer had keyed into, at least Egon had survived the transition. None of this made sense, but if Slimer could see Egon reviving, well enough to move around and call for his friends, it was the best news Peter had received since this all began. "He did something all right."

"No, Peter stupid," Slimer insisted, shaking his head. "Didn't do it. Did it."

"My head hurts," groaned Peter. "You're not making any sense, Slimer. Where is Egon now? Just tell me that much."

Slimer looked at Peter with confused eyes. "Is no Egon now," he replied devastatingly.

Peter froze, gaping at the spud. "No Egon now?" he echoed as if trying to get a clarification. "What do you mean? Is he--dead?"

Slimer shook his head violently. "Nonononono. Not dead. No Egon now."

"Where did he go when he left here?" Peter tried. He wasn't liking these answers one bit. If Egon got up and moved around... "Did the demon do something with him?" he asked.

Slimer looked at the pile of masonry again as if seeing something Peter couldn't see. Maybe the gateway was so obvious to Slimer he could see it as if it were here and now and didn't even realize it was a gateway. "Demon go away. Egon on ground. Bloodbloodblood."

"Yeah, we did the blood part before. You mean the demon went away and left Egon lying there?" he asked hopefully. "And Egon woke up after the demon was gone?"

"Maybeso," Slimer replied. "Egon go away."

"So what do you mean, 'no Egon now'?" Peter persisted. "Come on, Spud, talk to me. Explain it so I can understand. Are you saying Egon's dead?"

"NONONONO. No Egon now!" He wouldn't be budged on that, and though Peter came at it from several different directions, it made no difference. Finally Peter grabbed Slimer by the wrist and pushed the recall buttons simultaneously on both bracelets. Instantly they were back in the lab with the other three waiting anxiously.

*****

"No Egon now," said Ray thoughtfully. Slimer had repeated those words over and over, interspersed with moans of 'Poor Egon!' and 'bloodbloodblood,' ever since he and Peter had returned from the alley. Janine had blanched at the first mention of blood, but Peter had jumped in quickly.

"Slimer says he woke up and left," he explained quickly. "I don't think the spud can tell the difference between our dimension and the other one. I think they look just alike to him, so he doesn't realize there are two." It was the only explanation for the ghost's confused words. If Egon had walked away, he would have left the gate altogether and that might be why Slimer couldn't sense him. He was no longer near the point where the two worlds met. He offered the theory quickly before Janine could explode with the questions that were trembling on her lips.

Ray frowned. "That might be it. Slimer, do you understand what Peter just said about gates and another world that looks the same as ours?"

Slimer bobbed up and down in a kind of nod. "Slimer knows. Not another world. Same world. Not the same world."

"There he goes again," Peter groaned. "I thought you taught him how to make sense, Ray?"

"I did, but this sounds like something too complicated for him to explain. He knows what he means but he doesn't have the ability to conceptualize it enough to explain it to us. Maybe if we ask the right questions..."

"You ask them," Peter said in frustration. "I've been pulling my hair out ever since he panicked me with all that talk about blood. It sounds like Egon got a hairline cut and you know what they can be like. If he was conscious and able to call for us, he was obviously alert and it doesn't sound like he was out very long, just enough time for the demon to get away. He still had his thrower so Tyconos took off before he could wake up, at least that's the way I call it. Right, Spud?"

"Uh huh, uh huh," Slimer agreed, bobbing his head. "No Egon now," he added, to Peter's dismay. That had to mean something, but the only thing it sounded like was that Egon had died.

"Slimer," said Ray gently. "Did--did something happen to Egon after that? Did something--kill him?"

Slimer shook his head violently. "Nobody kill Egon, Egon not die. No Egon now."

"I hate to tell you, Slimer, but you're contradicting yourself," Winston put in.

"Slimer not," insisted the ghost, which was nice if you could assume he understood the meaning of 'contradicting.'

Peter grimaced. "I'll leave you with Mr. Contradiction here while I go off in search of some fresh coffee," he said. "Can you take it from here, Ray?"

"I think so. Some coffee would be great, Peter." Ray's eyes held perplexity as he stared at Slimer. "I think there's something important here, but I'm not sure how to get at it. Maybe the gate is just so obvious to Slimer he can't see it as a gate. It's not into a Netherworld or Ghostworld after all. It's a universe like ours. So it wouldn't look particularly paranormal. Is that it, Spud?"

Slimer was still insisting this place and this place were the same place when Peter headed down the spiral stairs to the kitchen.

*****

He was running the water for the coffee when he heard someone start up the stairs from the ground floor, and for a moment he remembered Slimer saying Egon had got up and called for the guys. Maybe he'd found his way home. Peter left the water and hurried to the head of the stairs. "Egon, is that you--" he began hopefully, knowing not just anyone had a key to the firehouse, falling silent when he realized it was his father instead.

Charlie Venkman hurried up the stairs to meet him, his face expressing his concern. "He's not back yet? I'm sorry, son. Katy told me what had happened. I'm sorry you couldn't find us, but she wanted to have a peaceful day or two. Your college buddy was driving her crazy, calling all the time, sure I was out to rip her off or take advantage of her."

"And you're so saintly I don't know what made him think such a thing," Peter said wryly, shaking his head. His father knew quite well how much Egon had always distrusted him. "Come on up and have a cup of coffee, Dad."

The elder Venkman sat at the dining room table while Peter started the coffee perking, then found a smile for his son when Peter dropped into a chair opposite him. "It's rough on you, isn't it?" his father asked.

"What the hell kind of question is that?" Peter demanded, outraged at what seemed a world-class understatement. "Egon--Egon might be dead..."

"And if he's not, you fellows will find a way to get him back, because nobody does it better," insisted Charlie. "Katy said you had all kinds of ideas, you and Ray and Winston. You've got a good set of friends, Peter."

"Yeah," agreed Peter heavily. "And I'm one friend short."

"He gets closer to you than any of them, doesn't he?" asked Charlie, picking up a salt shaker and sliding it around the table. Peter could almost hear the, 'closer than I ever did,' that Charlie left unspoken.

"I could never pull anything over on him," Peter admitted with a sad little smile. "Not on Egon, not unless I waited until he was caught up in some experiment or other and then it wasn't any fun because it wasn't a challenge. When he thought about it, he could read me like a book. He knows things about me I don't even admit to myself."

"Yeah, like the way you feel about your old man," said Charlie levelly, his face solemn.

Peter stiffened, unready for this confrontation. "What do you mean?"

"I'm not a fool, son. I know I've let you down a lot. I know you don't trust me. You read me the riot act about Katy the other day."

"You ruined a lot of other things in my life," Peter heard himself cry hotly, though it was the last thing he had meant to say. "I wasn't going to let you come between me and my best friend by hurting his mother when I could have stopped you--but you came between us anyway. Egon was so sure you were going to hurt his mom he blamed me for the risk. He--we didn't resolve it." Ignoring the sudden pain in his father's eyes, he said in a near mumble, "I didn't even have a chance to tell him I was sorry..." His voice faltered and he bit down hard on his bottom lip before he gave anything else away. If he hadn't just heard Slimer's ravings about blood and 'no Egon now,' he might have handled this better, but suddenly his feelings were all pouring out. "You never showed up for Christmas or graduation and when I got my first Ph.D you didn't even bother to write or call. I put up with all of that because you're my dad and I knew you couldn't help the way you were, but now you've come between me and Egon--and now he's dead and I'll never have a chance to make up to him..."

Charlie's face had gone completely white. "Make up what?" he asked as though his lips were too numb to form the words properly. He looked utterly shocked as if he hadn't allowed himself to realize what Peter had felt all these years, or more likely, he simply hadn't bothered.

"He--he knew; all these years he knew what I went through with you--he knew what it was like for me and he didn't want it to happen to his mom," Peter continued. Maybe he'd needed to dump on someone and now here was the ideal target. "He blamed me for bringing you and his mom together and said if anything happened to her it would be my fault." Peter shuddered. "I trusted him to understand and he didn't, and he would have if you..." This was crazy. He had to stop. "I drove him nuts, teasing him about it, saying you and Katherine were going to run off to Vegas and get married and driving him crazy until I pushed too hard and he pushed back--and now he's dead and we never got to make it up." He couldn't go on. With a shuddering sigh he jumped up and charged into the kitchen and stood at the sink, clutching at the taps as if he had to hold onto something, anything.

"Son." His father's voice was gentle in his ears, the voice Charlie had used when he was a child, when he was sick and needed comforting--at least on those few instances when such an illness coincided with a visit from his peripatetic parent. He hadn't remembered the incident of his appendicitis until it was mentioned to him but now, suddenly, he had a flash of memory, a strange white room where he lay feeling sick and frightened and his father's voice going on and on, soothing him. "I'm sorry, son," Charlie said now in exactly the same tones he'd used then. "I'd do anything to make this right for you. God knows I wouldn't hurt you on purpose and I'd never hurt Katy. I'm not going to marry her and she doesn't want me to, but she's a friend. You don't hurt your friends."

"But it's okay to hurt your son?" Peter demanded. All those painful years pressed down upon him, and he felt bereft of support. He knew Ray and Winston--and Janine--would do anything for him, but this man had let him down, and now, the man who never had, not until Peter drove him to it, was gone and wouldn't be coming back. "It's okay to drop in when you feel like it and ruin the best thing I've ever had..." He couldn't go on. Savagely he slammed his fists against the sink, scarcely noticing the pain in his raw and painful fingertips. "I hate you!" he half shouted. "You've ruined everything..." Appalled at himself for the hasty words he didn't really mean, he closed his mouth tight before he could utter any more of them and bent his head, waiting for his father to turn and walk away. Why shouldn't he? This time Peter had pushed him away, the same way he'd pushed Egon, and his father had never stayed around when the going got rough any time in his whole life.

"Oh, son..." He felt his father's hands on his shoulders, squeezing him in an attempt at comfort, and without realizing what he meant to do, he spun around, grabbed his father into a fierce hug and clung tight. Charlie at once returned the grip, one hand reaching up to stroke Peter's hair the way he'd done when Peter was a little boy. He started murmuring soothing words, words that Peter scarcely heard. He'd nearly lost it in the car with Winston last night but now he'd finally snapped, and he felt his eyes burn with unshed tears. His father held on and didn't let go, and Peter knew his father loved him, no matter how unsatisfactory a parent he might have been, because no one who didn't love him would take such abuse and then turn around and offer comfort without hesitation. Charlie was far from perfect, but he was here right now and Peter suddenly felt like a lost little boy who could be safe for the moment because his father was here and would take care of him.

After a long time, he felt the tightness in his chest ease away and he pulled free, abruptly turning away again to scrub a hand over his eyes. His father stepped back but didn't retreat, waiting while Peter turned on the taps and splashed water over his face. Peter heard him moving around in the background but he didn't look up for a moment. Finally, before the silence could become too unbearable to break, he risked a quick look. Charlie was holding two steaming cups of coffee and he held one out to Peter.

"Here, son. You look like you could use it."

"I think a shot of brandy would probably go down better right about now," Peter replied, accepting the cup and cradling his hands around it, the warmth soothing his lacerated hands.

"No, you need something hot. Sit down and drink it. Come on, you need it."

Peter carried the cup out to the dining table and sat down where he'd been sitting before. His father, his own cup in his hand, sat opposite him.

For a long moment, Peter sat stirring the coffee, dishing in several spoons of sugar though he usually preferred it black, then, his eyes firmly fixed on the surface of the liquid, he said hastily, "I don't hate you, Dad. You know I didn't mean..."

"I know, son. But even if you did, you had cause. Was I really such a bad father?" His voice was curiously tentative, as if, suddenly at this stage in his life, Peter's answer mattered.

Peter considered it for awhile because he owed his father an honest answer, then he said, "Not when you were there. I remember our camping trips and the great presents you used to bring me. When--when you were there, I didn't care about the rest of it, but..."

"Christmas," said Charlie positively. "I never quite got that right, I know. I had to be out there pushing, had to make that quick buck, knowing if I wasn't there someone else would beat me out of it. It was always for you and your mother..."

Peter lifted his eyes and shot him a skeptical look, and Charlie shrugged ruefully. "All right, I couldn't help it. It was in my blood. But I didn't do it just for the money. That money was for you and your mom. Your college fund..."

Peter knew the mysterious college fund his mother had told him about when the scholarship came through was what had enabled him to take the scholarship and go to Columbia. Without it, there would have been no way to manage the things the scholarship could not provide without taking jobs all through school and maybe not even then. "I know, Dad," he said. "It was--it was just tough sometimes. I could never be sure--"

"That I loved you?" Charlie asked, eyes widening. "You're my boy. You mean more to me than anything in the whole world."

"Good one, Pop," said Peter with rampant skepticism. "You do the sincerity bit so well."

"This time I mean it."

He probably believed he did. Peter knew his father loved him. He'd always known that. And he loved his dad. But he simply couldn't trust him and hadn't been able to for a long time. Most boys don't have to lose that one form of innocence, the utter certainty one's parents love him and will always be there. Peter had lost it when he was eight. That was why he worked so hard to make sure Ray never did. Ray had lost both his parents, but he'd never lost his trust in them. Even though he had the pain of that loss, they'd died with image intact, and nothing could tarnish it. Peter had always envied him that. But how could he tell Charlie that when Charlie had stood here and offered Peter his love and comfort when Peter needed it even though he had done everything he could to drive Charlie away? It was probably a test, one he hadn't planned, a test to see if his father would let him down this time, too, and for once, Charlie hadn't. For once Charlie had been exactly what Peter needed him to be, and Peter was so drained by everything that had happened that he felt humbled and grateful and able to relax and step back a little and allow a sight fragment of trust to creep into his voice.

"Thanks, Dad."

Charlie eyed him narrowly. "You mean that?"

"Yeah, fool that I am." He sipped the coffee, grimacing at its unaccustomed sweetness. "Thanks for being here--putting up with me."

"You've done more than that for me, rescuing me from the New Jersey parallelogram, bailing me out after I brought the Hob to New York, flying down to Mexico to spring me from that pyramid--though that was probably for the kid more than me..." Charlie stretched out a hand and wrapped it around Peter's wrist. "Drink the coffee. I know it probably tastes lousy that sugary but you need it."

Peter obeyed, sipping the too-sweet coffee without enthusiasm. It was like the warm milk of the previous night, medicine, but he managed to drink it down, and it warmed him all the way through, though not so much as his father had.

"I won't hurt Katy," Charlie said quietly as Peter forced the coffee down. "I genuinely like the lady. It's great to be with someone I don't have to put on an act for. She's my own age so I don't have to try to be younger. I don't have to scam her because she knows me for what I am and wouldn't let me get away with it anyway. So I'm not on edge when I'm with her. I'm not in love with her, son, and she's not in love with me. It's just a chance to relax and be happy for a little while with someone who knows me for what I am and who actually likes me anyway. Even an old fox like me needs time to relax."

Peter was sure he was right. "I know," he said. "If--if Egon--if it doesn't work out, be there for her for a little while. She'll need someone to understand and I think it would be too hard on her to come here and be with us. It would remind here..." He stopped that thought, knowing how everything about the firehouse would remind him of Egon and how much it would hurt. Even seeing Egon's neatly made bed this morning had hurt. For Katherine, coming here would be as painful as knives and Peter wanted to help her if he could, for Egon's sake and for her own. "Can you handle that?" he asked.

"You have my solemn word on it," Charlie Venkman said. "Remember, the special word of honor we did when you were a little boy?"

Peter closed his eyes, remembering. Sometimes his father had promised to come home for Christmas or Peter's birthday or be there for the school play or some other special event in his young son's life and then hadn't made it. But when Charlie gave his 'solemn word of honor,' something he rarely did, then he had always meant it. It was the one oath Peter had never known him to break. Relieved, he heaved a grateful sigh and dredged up a tired smile. "I remember," he said. "Thanks, Dad."

*****

When Peter sent his father over to Mrs. Spengler's hotel and trudged up the stairs again with coffee on a tray, Ray looked up quickly, then stopped and took another, closer look. He probably could read a lot into Peter's face. He was nearly as good at picking up Peter's emotional state as Egon was. "You okay, Peter?" he demanded in concern. "I heard someone come in, and then I recognized your dad's voice so we stayed up here and left you to talk to him." He'd probably heard Peter's angry outburst and figured it was better to give Peter the time to deal with his dad on his own, though Ray liked Charlie a lot. Even thought he understood the old con man. Peter doubted Charlie had let Ray see the inner man, even down there trapped in that pyramid.

"Yeah, Mrs. Spengler told him and he came by," he said quickly. "I sent him over to wait with her so she won't have to be alone." He distributed the coffee to the other three and Slimer, who liked coffee but didn't find it as much of a treat as he did solid foods. "So, did you get anything out of the Spud, Ray?"

The occultist frowned. "I did get him to say Egon is alive, just not here, but I'm not sure what he means. He insists Egon isn't in another dimension."

"If he's not in another dimension and he's not here..." Peter began, setting the tray on the table and taking his own, mercifully unsweetened, cup of coffee before he sprawled in the nearest chair.

"I know it doesn't make sense, Peter," Ray replied. "But it does to Slimer. He says Egon will come back. He insists on that and nothing can shake him on it. He doesn't know when, though."

"Egon here," Slimer piped up before gurgling down his coffee and looking around for more. "No Egon here."

"He's still doing that," Winston said, shaking his head. "Poor little Spud. He's so frustrated when we don't understand what he's saying."

"But he's saying Egon's going to come back," Ray said, grinning broadly. "Even if it doesn't make sense; it's probably a ghost thing."

"Yeah, like a guy thing only ectoplasmic," agreed Winston.

"So what do we do now?" asked Peter, propping his feet on the table. "Do I go back to the alley or what?"

"No, let's come at it from another direction," replied Ray. "All we're getting in the alley is confused."

"Yeah, I'll say. Whoever owns that place has construction people there today. Think what he'd have to pay to get them to work on Sunday? They've got a lot of that rubble cleared away, too. You'd hardly know the place. Oh well, money talks, I guess. So what's your plan, Super Stantz?"

"The demon," Ray replied. "We never did find much about him in any of the books. Just that he snatches people, and some of them never--never appeared again. But some of them came back and couldn't even remember what happened."

"Figures," Peter griped. "You don't think the demon keeps them in a kind of stasis, do you?"

"No," insisted Slimer. "Nasty demon," he concluded in his piping voice. "Bad."

"We got that far on our own, Spud," Peter said. He set aside the coffee cup. "But if none of them could remember what happened to them, how can that help us find Egon?"

"Maybe it doesn't, but we do have the demon's readings. We haven't tried to find it yet. If we could trap it, we might be able to get more information."

"So where do we find it?" Winston shook his head. "There haven't been any reported sightings since it took off with Egon. We haven't had any calls about it."

"We have the answering machine on, Zed, remember?" Peter pointed out.

"Yeah, but I set it so they could call through if they had seen the demon," Janine explained. "I figured we'd want to know if it showed up again, so I changed the message and gave a number for people to call through if the demon appeared. I described it in all the detail you guys had given me and I used the lab phone number. Nobody's called about it."

"Do you know where the demon is, Slimer?" Ray asked the little ghost, who was in the process of sneaking the rest of Peter's coffee. He made a gulping, slurping sound before he replied.

"No demon now," Slimer insisted, shaking his head.

"Arrggghhh!" groaned Peter. He noticed his empty coffee cup and the slime around the rim and made to throw it at Slimer, who zipped behind Ray and peeked out over the occultist's shoulder to make a face at Peter.

"No, he's right, Pete," said Winston, tightening his grip on his own cup as if he feared a ghost incursion. "Tyconos and Egon went to the same place. When they got there, the demon vanished first and Egon woke up and tried to find us. He didn't realize he was in another dimension, after all. He probably thought we left him there." He heard his own words and shook his head. "No way. He'd know we wouldn't."

"Would he?" asked Peter. "The way I've been treating him..."

"The way you treated him?" echoed Winston. "Come on, Pete, you were kind of a jerk, but not that much different than usual. Egon treated you like shit and you know it."

"There's nothing in the world Egon could do that would make me leave him buried in a pile of rubble," Peter returned hotly. "I'd dig anybody out of something like that, even a stranger, probably even Walter Peck, let alone one of the best friends I've ever had in my whole life. I wasn't mad at him, guys. Not enough to pull something like that. Never enough for that."

"You know that, and so do we," Ray began, but Peter shook his head.

"No. Egon knows better than that, too. He knows me better than anyone ever did in my whole life. If he thinks I'd leave him like that for even one second..."

"So what's he supposed to think in that first second?" Winston asked reasonably. "He thinks he's still in the same alley. We're gone..."

"Oh, no, he'll think the demon got us," cried Ray. "He'll go looking for it and he can't handle it with only one thrower. Especially when he's in a parallel universe. We've got to get him back."

"Ray," said Peter quickly, "We've just established we can't get into that other dimension. We may have to let those ghosts loose after all, just to create that overlay. Because if the demon's in that other dimension, I don't know how to tempt him back here, and even if we did, he probably wouldn't bring Egon."

"He might," Ray said stubbornly. "Some of those other people got back, after all. I know the dimensional gates are weak in spots, but this one isn't now or you could have detected it. We have to weaken it again. Maybe it will lure Tyconos back if we do that, because I don't know any other way, but even if it doesn't, it'll give us a way to look for Egon. Once he figures out he's in another dimension, he can recruit the Ghostbusters there to help him, and they'll be working at it from their end. Gosh, imagine two Egons together. They'll probably solve it any minute."

"Yeah, but we can't assume that, homeboy," argued Winston. "We have to try to solve it here, too."

Ray nodded. "I know. And the best way to do it is ghosts. It's gonna take me at least a day to get that worked out. It's just too complicated to do it wrong. We can't let out Samhain or the Bogeyman in the process either. We have to find a way to sort them out, maybe filter out some of the class twos and threes and vent them. I could design a filter; you know, modify the unit to release ghosts of a certain class or less but hold in the nastier and more powerful ones. We're close enough to the place where it happened that the PK energy freed up would spread across the city like a blanket."

"I hope this doesn't mean you're gonna pull an all-nighter, Stantz," Peter said quickly. "I know you think you're fine today but I bet that shoulder hurts like blazes and you look a little grey around the gills. How's the head?"

"Fine," said Ray unconvincingly. "I'm fine, Peter."

"You don't look fine, Ray," Janine said, peering at his face. "You look tired and in pain and we've been pushing you too hard all day."

"Janine's right, Ray," Peter insisted, glad of the support. "You're not fine. Now that we've got a plan and Slimer says the demon didn't kill Egon, you're gonna take a nap break--and you're gonna have an early night. Tomorrow you can spend the day on this scheme of yours, but I'm not gonna let you kill yourself over it."

"But Egon's in danger! I've got to help him, Peter."

"Egon is alive in the other dimension, even if Slimer can't tell it's another dimension. The first thing he'll do is go home--or what he thinks is home. Tell me if an alternate dimension Egon showed up here what we'd do? We'd haul him in and do tests and help him--and if he's hurt we'd get him medical care. If that's what happened, Egon is okay and probably having the time of his life. He wouldn't expect you to risk your health to rescue him. He probably wouldn't even want to be rescued too soon. So you're going to bed."

He nodded at Winston and the two of them steered Ray across the hall and into the bedroom trailed by Slimer, who kept saying, "Poor Ray. Slimer help."

"Lucky you," said Peter with a wry grin. "Just what I'd want, I can tell you."

Slimer grabbed Ray's Mr. Stay Puft doll and held it out to him. "Now Ray sleep good."

Ray took it from him and sat down on the edge of his bed. "Yeah, Slimer," he agreed. "Now Ray sleep good."

*****

Janine heaved a weary sigh. The past day and a half seemed years long and in spite of the guys' nonstop plans to save Egon and their new insistence he was in a parallel universe helped by the Ghostbusters of that world, the secretary couldn't be sure of it. When the guys took Ray in to put him to bed, she got up and wandered down to the ground floor, where she played back the messages on the answering machine. Two thirds of them were from the press, demanding information about Egon's absence, and she scarcely listened to each of them before moving on to the next message. The rest of them were calls about ghosts interspersed with one or two calls from people who knew Egon and were concerned about him, other physicists mostly like Buckaroo Banzai and Sam Beckett. Janine considered calling them back and asking them to drop by. It might help to have a physicist on the team. Ray was good at what he did, but it wasn't the same as what Egon did and it was possible he'd overlooked something. Winston was a nuts and bolts man who didn't have the theoretical background and Peter's training was totally different. They needed a physicist. After Ray's nap, she'd urge him to call Buckaroo Banzai, who was in New Jersey after all and could conceivably do some good. She didn't recognize the area code for Dr. Beckett, but a quick check showed her it was in New Mexico, of all places. Beckett might be the next Einstein, a sobriquet that had irritated Egon from the first time he had ever heard it, but even he couldn't help from so far away. She wondered what he was doing there anyway.

Heaving a huge sigh, Janine began to sort through the papers on her desk, tidying away things that could be filed, and setting aside the billing work to be dealt with when she felt up to concentrating on it. Right now, her whole being was focused on one thing and one thing only.

She was sure Egon was dead.

The guys had been great all through this. Ray had fought against the pain he was feeling to devise theory after theory. Winston had put in an incredible amount of work, pushing himself past his limits to work on the gateway transfer. Dr. V had risked his own life several times on that gateway to the alley, had watched Ray to make sure he was okay, supported Winston, come up with a lot of theories on his own that proved his spongelike mind had absorbed a lot more hard science than he was usually willing to admit. He'd done it in the face of Egon's nastiness to him, and never once hesitated. If he could have brought Egon back by chopping off his arm, he'd be looking for an axe right now.

Janine heaved a sigh. Peter drove her nuts half the time. She suspected it was because there was a core of similarity in both of them, a knowledge life was tough and you had to be on your guard against its nasty side all the time, a kind of streetwise shield against vulnerability. She could mouth off to Venkman and both of them would enjoy it. But that had a downside because it meant she could see past that shield a lot of the time, like now. She'd heard Peter yelling at his father downstairs; they all had. For him to fling words of hate at his adored father, even if the old reprobate deserved them, meant Peter was riding a lot closer to the edge than any of them had realized. They had all pretended not to hear Peter down there, but when silence had descended, Ray had slipped down the stairs. He had returned almost immediately, his face full of concern and he'd merely shaken his head at Winston's sharply questioning look.

"It's okay. They're working it out," was all he'd said.

Then Peter had finally come back up, and even though he'd been slightly more relaxed and under control, his eyes had been reddened and puffy and it was more than apparent to Janine that he'd been crying. For Peter to cry...

She shook her head. She could understand it, though. Egon had vanished and left a lot of things unresolved between the two of them. He'd vanished before Janine had resolved her own anger at the physicist's stubborn and stupid attitude toward Peter. Janine was positive she'd been right to side with Peter in the dispute--but, like Peter, she had something unresolved with Egon, and if he were dead...

Her eyes burned. She wasn't usually a lady who gave way to tears. In her experience crying merely wasted time that might be better spent constructively, though she could sympathize with those who felt the urge as long as they didn't turn into watering pots. The sight of Peter's reddened eyes had shaken her because he wasn't the type to cry any more than she was. It was just that some things were so far beyond the ordinary upsets of daily life there was no other answer.

"Damn it, Egon, where are you?" she snapped, her words echoing around the empty garage area. "You get your butt back here," she said hotly. "You get your butt back here or I'm gonna find you and kick it from here to Florida and back again."

Then, with a miserable sigh, she folded her arms across her desk pad and put her head down into them.

After a few minutes, a hand dropped onto her shoulder and held on, tightening in a comforting grip. "Hang in there, old girl," said Peter.

Without volition she spun in her chair and wrapped her arms around his waist, hiding her face the front of his uniform. His arms came around her and they held that position a long time.

*****

Dinner was a very cautiously cheerful meal. Looking a lot better after his nap, Ray was full of plans to free the ghosts needed to create the PK overlay. He even suggested a directional flushing of the system that would steer the ghosts north in the direction they wanted. He had regained some of his enthusiasm and sounded like he honestly believed getting Egon back was only a matter of time. His excitement was catching. When Janine, who had stayed on with no thought of going home to Brooklyn, mentioned the calls from the two physicists, Ray had promptly gone to the telephone and spent nearly an hour conferring with Buckaroo Banzai, comparing notes and spouting theories at the particle physicist/rock star. Peter, who had always envied Egon that friendship, wished he could have some useful input so he could talk to Buckaroo himself. His contact with the Banzai Institute was limited to his attempts to date some of the women on the team and a cautious and competitive friendship with Perfect Tommy.

"Buckaroo had some good ideas," Ray said over dinner as he slathered butter onto his bread. "He says if we don't have Egon back by this time tomorrow he'll come over and bring a couple of the Hong Kong Cavaliers and see if they can help us. He really was fascinated by what Slimer said and now apparently they want us to bring the spud out to the Institute next weekend because they want to run some tests on him and see if they can understand and quantify his perceptions of alternate dimensions."

"That sounds like my idea of a fun afternoon all right," said Peter wryly, snatching a chicken leg off the platter before Slimer could grab it.

"Yeah, but it's exciting, Peter. Slimer evidently could detect something or he couldn't have seen Egon. We just need to find out what it was he saw. They have a couple of linguistic specialists out there who might be able to make sense of Slimer's perceptions. They're doing research with dolphins and think they can come up with a meaningful translation device, but they're hampered by the fact that language isn't just words, it's based on perception of the world around us. A lot of words we'd need, you know, phrases like 'left handed compliment' for instance, wouldn't mean a thing to a dolphin. We use our hands for tools, so that would mean a lot to us. Dolphins aren't tool makers. They use their environment in a totally different way, so they wouldn't even perceive it the way we do. Slimer copies us a lot, even sleeping and eating but there are ways in which he perceives everything differently, and it might not be possible to understand what he means unless we try to understand where he's coming from."

"Fascinating, Ray, but I don't want to spend time even imagining where Slimer comes from," said Peter. The thing is, he was fascinated. What Ray was saying was a lot closer to his own fields than it was to Ray's. Even though both men were parapsychologists--the three scientists all had Ph.Ds in parapsychology and Winston had recently gained a Bachelor's degree in that field in addition to his original degree that he'd gotten on the G.I. Bill. The thing with parapsychology is that it could be approached from so many different disciplines. Peter had come into it through psychology and a lot of his research had always been slanted that way. He did his best ghost work with class threes and fours, not because they were any less powerful than some of the major demons but because they had been living people first and he understood behavior, at least with regard to people.

Ray was right in saying Slimer's perceptions had been shaped differently. Though he tried to emulate the humans he loved, up to and including sleeping and seeming to have colds, he wasn't human and had never been human. He was what they always called nether entities, ectoplasmic beings who had come into our world from various nether regions, sometimes as the result of thinning gateways between Peter's world and another, sometimes through the activity of cults or spiritualists, and probably a lot of other methods. Slimer's perceptions had been formed elsewhere. Though he knew enough to imitate humans, he viewed 'life' differently than they did. That was why his explanations this afternoon had made no sense, not because the spud simply wasn't very bright, but because he was trying to explain something that couldn't be explained in his limited vocabulary. There might not even be English words for what he was trying to explain.

He heard himself continuing, "They've got a good point, though. Slimer understands what he's saying, even if he can't vocalize it to us in a way we'd understand. He's basically pretty literal, too. He might use slang because he's heard us doing it and because we usually laugh or encourage him when he does it, and even a spud needs positive feedback. But when he's trying to explain things, he just goes at it literally. So when he says, 'No Egon now,' he means it literally. Egon is not in our dimension and so there's no Egon here."

"That's the best explanation I've heard for it," Winston concurred, nodding as he dug into his mashed potatoes with his fork. "Slimer was pretty teed off when we didn't understand what he was saying, especially since it was so clear to him."

"No Egon now," Slimer confirmed nodding.

"Does that mean there'll be an Egon soon?" asked Janine dubiously.

Slimer bobbed up and down in eager confirmation. "Egon soon," he agreed excitedly. "Slimer misses Egon."

"Yeah, don't we all, Spud," agreed Peter. "You know, Buckaroo might be onto something here. One of the things you learn in psychology is that a patient's perception of the universe is gonna color how he acts. If you believe the world is a great place and everybody loves you, you'll probably go around acting happy and positive, and one of two things will happen. Either everybody will react to that and like you back the way people do Ray here." He waved his chicken leg at the occultist, who grinned at him. "Or else they'll say, 'sucker,' and try to take advantage. And that's human nature, too. Then there's the sort who expect everything to go wrong--the true cynics. Whenever anything does, they take it as confirmation of the nastiness of life."

"Like you, Pete?" teased Winston.

"Right," said Peter with a crooked grin. "Like me." Like the me that would have been if I'd never met Egon and Ray.

"You're not like that, Peter. You're more of a skeptic," Ray said quickly. "You don't take everything on faith, but you don't automatically expect the worst either."

"Not most of the time, no," he replied thoughtfully. He only expected the worst when it wasn't safe to expect the best. Right now a part of him wanted to insist Egon was dead so he wouldn't have to be shattered if the hope was misplaced, but he couldn't really do that now. It would be letting Egon down.

Any anger Peter had felt toward Egon had vanished long ago. Yeah, of course Egon was protecting his mom. Peter would have done the same. He was as sure as he was of anything in this world that Egon would apologize as soon as he got back. Peter knew he'd accept that apology. Anything else was out of the question.

"So how does this help us with Slimer's weird talk?" Janine cut in quickly.

"It means we either have to find a new perspective to listen to him or we have to try to get inside his head," Peter replied. "Not the greatest place to be, I'll grant you. Maybe I could hypnotize the spud. I've got the feeling he's on the edge of solving all this, and if we could just find the key to it all, we'd know where Egon is and how to get him back."

Slimer had been listening absently, his attention more on the food than anything else, and the scraps Ray had been sneaking him, but now he said brightly, "Egon come back. Guys not get him."

"There he goes again," said Winston, dropping his fork on his plate and staring at Slimer. "Words of one syllable time. "Slimer, you mean Egon can get himself home without us doing a thing?"

Slimer nodded joyfully. "Uh huh, uh huh. No Egon now. Egon soon."

Janine leaned toward the green ghost. "Are you sure, Slimer?"

"Slimer sure," he burbled. "Slimer misses Egon. Soon."

Ray grinned broadly. "He sure sounds like he means it. I just wish I knew where he was coming from. Do you really think you could hypnotize Slimer, Peter?"

The psychologist gnawed on his bottom lip thoughtfully. "I could try," he said doubtfully. "Maybe I could plant a post-hypnotic suggestion to keep him off my pillow or to quit trying to share a shower and sing along with me."

"Aw!" moaned Slimer in disappointment.

"So I'll give it a shot after dinner," Peter agreed.

*****

"Okay, Spud, I want you to listen to me very carefully." Peter had learned hypnosis in college but didn't use it often as a technique, mostly because he wasn't in practice and didn't have the opportunity but partly because it was a responsibility he wasn't always comfortable with. "The important things," he said to the other three, "are a sense of trust between the hypnotist and the patient and the use of the voice. Sometimes you can use an object as a focus--you've all seen hypnotists swinging a watch on a chain back and forth before somebody's eyes, but those night club hypnotists sometimes catch a poor sucker in the audience who is ultra suggestible and he gets hypnotized without even being 'in the line of fire'. I don't go for that. I want to focus concentration, but with the spud, he's got the attention span of a two year old, so I'll try it by the use of voice alone."

"You really know your stuff, Peter," said Ray in an impressed voice.

"Course I do. I'm a natural genius," Peter agreed, enjoying the respect in Ray's voice because it was for something he genuinely felt good about, his psych degree. "Okay, Spud, listen to me. I don't want you to do anything but concentrate on my voice." He modulated the tone of his words very carefully. "No one will hurt you, Slimer. Afterwards we'll feed you cake. But now, just listen to me. Hear me and follow my voice. We're going to take a trip back to the alley..."

He talked for a long time, catching and holding Slimer's attention and luring the Spud into total relaxation until he was hanging limply in the air, arms dragging at his sides. His eyes rounded then began to droop, and it wasn't long before they closed and the spud began to bob gently in the air the way he did when he was asleep.

"You can hear everything I say, but you feel very good, relaxed and comfortable. There's no danger anywhere."

"No danger anywhere," Slimer replied, his voice slightly garbled.

"We're in the alley," Peter informed him. "Can you see it?"

"See it," echoed Slimer. his voice more blurred than usual. His eyes were closed but from the way his body drifted, he seemed to be looking at something.

"Can you see the other dimension now, Spud," Peter prompted hopefully, still using the same soft, soothing voice. "Can you see a gate that goes into another world? It should be right there in the alley."

Slimer quivered with intensity. His eyes popped open but they looked blank and unfocussed, since what he was looking at was not really here "No other world," he replied, shaking his head slowly in perplexity. "No other world. This world."

"Can you see a gate that goes anywhere that isn't right here and now, Spud?" Peter persisted, maintaining the gentle, reassuring tone as carefully as he could, though he wanted to grab Slimer and shake him, insisting the gateway was right in front of him.

"Yeah, yeah," agreed Slimer immediately, nodding vigorously, one hand coming up to point at the invisible portal. Since he had not admitted this before, Peter felt a surge of excitement but he was careful not to let it show in his voice.

"Tell me, Spud," he said soothingly. "Tell Uncle Peter all about it. Can you describe it for me? Tell me where it is?"

"Here," Slimer said, pointing in the direction he must have visualized as the gateway. "Peter here." He made another stab with his finger in exactly the same direction. "Egon here." He pointed a third time, again without altering his position. "Peter here, no Egon now."

"Keep going, Peter, I think you've almost got it," urged Ray in his ear. His voice struggled to be hopeful, in spite of the conflicting stories the little ghost was telling. "You did get him to say it was a different place even if he contradicted it again."

Peter had realized that. He must have asked the right question before. "Slimer, a parallel universe might look exactly like ours and only have a few things different, things we couldn't see right where Egon was. Do you understand that?"

The ghost nodded positively as if Peter had told him nothing new. "Slimer knows."

"Then can you see that other world even if it looks just like ours?"

The ghost shook his head. "No Egon now," he repeated. "No other world."

"What world is Egon in right now, Spud?" Peter persisted, raking a frustrated hand through his brown hair.

"No Egon now. Egon not here," Slimer insisted stubbornly, beginning to twitch and squirm as if the hypnosis was breaking down. He shivered, unseeing eyes turned pleadingly in Peter's direction.

"We know Egon's not here, Spud," Peter said in that same soothing voice, gesturing to the others to keep quiet, though he could see all three of them struggling to avoid speaking. "Is Egon coming back? Is Egon going to be here again, alive like he was before?"

"Yeah, yeah," enthused Slimer, his whole aspect brightening. "Egon come home. Egon here again. Slimer misses Egon. Slimer loves Egon."

"So Egon is not dead?" Peter asked carefully, afraid to ask if Egon were alive for fear of getting more of that 'no Egon' stuff. "Egon is not dead?" he repeated, determined to get this clear.

"Egon not dead," agreed Slimer. "Egon safe. No Egon now."

"He's still contradicting himself," Janine breathed in disappointment, shaking her head and biting her bottom lip. She'd already gnawed off all her lipstick that way, and her face seemed paler than usual without it. Ray patted her arm comfortingly.

"I don't think he is," the occultist insisted. "I really don't think he is. We just think he's contradicting himself because we can't understand what he means. He says Egon's not dead and he means it. Somewhere Egon's alive and he'll come back."

"Will Egon be here tomorrow?" Peter tried, shooting questioning looks at the others. "Feel free to step in and suggest something," he muttered out of the side of his mouth. "He knows something but I'm not quite getting it. He sees it all different than we do." What really worried him was the fact that the little ghost might perceive life and death so differently that he could be referring to Egon's ghost dropping by for a visit, even if he insisted Egon wasn't dead. Peter didn't want to think about that, but his nature was not overly optimistic. Yet Slimer had said flat out that Egon wasn't dead.

Slimer hesitated then he spread his hands in a very human gesture. "Slimer not know," he replied. "Sometime Egon home. Slimer can't explain." His words were growing even more garbled with frustration as he struggled to explain something he didn't have the vocabulary, or possibly even the understanding, for.

"Maybe he can see into the future," breathed Ray, his eyes lighting in excitement at the thought. "Maybe that's how he knows. We never did any precog tests with him, did we?"

"I tested him on the ESP cards shortly after we got him," Peter remembered. "Egon was running all kinds of tests and I wanted to get in a few of my own. I figured even if he couldn't read yet he could take that kind of test because he could describe the shapes on the cards. He'd know a circle and a square and stuff. He got them all right the first time and I was really starting to get excited, thinking maybe ghosts were all psychic, when I realized he could see the shapes right through the cards and was just telling me what he saw." He made a disgusted gesture and grimaced at the spud, who looked thoroughly smug and buffed his 'fingernails' on his chest, even in his hypnotized state. Peter's eyes narrowed and he wondered if Slimer were really in a trance state or if he were just reacting the way he thought Peter wanted him to. It was hard to tell with ghosts sometimes. They were so good at mimicking the reactions of the living and sometimes that was all it was, an imitation.

Winston and Janine bit back chuckles at Slimer's reaction and Ray grinned. "I kinda remember you doing those tests. You did get a better reading though, didn't you, after awhile?"

"Yeah. I had Egon coat a deck with a substance Slimer couldn't see through. The green guy wasn't any more psychic than I am. The only way I could get him to do higher than average was to flip through the cards really fast first so he could see them. Then he could remember most of them. So that didn't count." He frowned as if something had occurred to him. "I remember one time Slimer scored a lot higher than usual and I couldn't figure out why. The coating was on the cards and he hadn't been shown the order of the cards first. So I went and talked to Egon about it and we batted theories around and I spread out all the cards in the order Slimer had read them. He came floating in and listened and he looked at the cards a long time. Maybe he can sense a little into the future and that time he 'saw' the cards that he was going to see later."

"Wow!" exploded Ray, bouncing up and down on his toes as he considered it. "That's great! Maybe Slimer's really psychic. That's really exiting, Peter."

"No, that's an unsubstantiated theory," Peter replied with a wry grin. "Egon would have my hide for hypothesizing without more data. You know how he always gets about the scientific method." He heard himself speaking of Egon in the present tense and couldn't help grinning. Whatever the reason, he was suddenly halfway convinced they could get Egon back after all. He just had to find the right questions and they'd get the right answers and then maybe they could do something about helping Egon home instead of sitting around trying things that didn't work.

Yet though he questioned the green ghost for another twenty minutes, the answers went round and round in a circle and they couldn't get any closer to understanding the contradiction between 'no Egon now' and Slimer's assistance that Egon was not dead. Ray finally shook his head.

"I think he just means Egon isn't in our dimension right now, Peter, and he can't say it any other way. Maybe we're reading too much into it." He spread out his hands in a helpless gesture. "I usually understand Slimer better than any of you, but he's only talking gibberish now."

"No we're not reading too much into it, Ray," argued Winston. "He says Egon's not dead and he's insistent about it. That's what we've gotta hang onto. He's convinced Egon's gonna come home any time now, too and he's all excited about it. That much is real, anyway."

"Well, I don't know about you guys," Peter burst out, surprising himself at the frustration in his tone, "but I'm not just gonna sit here and wait." He slammed his fists against the table top. "I'm gonna get out there and kick some demon butt if that's what it takes, and haul our boy home."

"We're not going to wait," Ray reminded him, grabbing Peter's wrists to keep him from doing any damage to his already abused hands. "We can still release those ghosts and let the ghostly overlay weaken the barriers between the dimensions. Maybe Slimer can't really 'see' the gate because the barriers have firmed up, but he knows where it is even if he can't see it."

"Yeah, maybe," agreed Peter, unclenching his fists and nodding to Ray to let go. "I'm not getting anything more out of him, so I'll pull him out of it now unless you can think of anything different to try."

The others shook their heads.

He brought Slimer out of the hypnosis and Winston went downstairs to collect the cake they'd promised the spud as a reward for cooperating with them. Peter grabbed the nearest chair, and sat on it backwards, folding his arms across the chairback and dropping his chin onto them. He turned to Ray expectantly. "Well, come on, Super Brain? What did you think of that? Any brilliant insights?"

"Yeah," said Ray thoughtfully. "I don't know how brilliant it is but Slimer knows Egon isn't in our world so he says there's no Egon now, meaning no Egon in New York, but he's someplace where we can't track him. Slimer probably understands places like the Netherworld pretty well, but this is too close to our reality for him to really distinguish it as a separate place. That's why he can't understand Egon not being here now. It's as if Egon doesn't exist while he's in the other place, even if Slimer could see him there. Does that make sense?"

"I think it makes great sense, Dr. Stantz," Janine agreed hastily. "It sounds exactly like what's going on here." She glanced at Slimer, who was drifting idly around the room, paying little attention to their conversation. "You're the best of all of us at figuring out Slimer's motives. Look at him. He sure doesn't seem very worried except when he remembers about that blood." She shivered, her face full of concern. "I know he says Egon's okay and all that, but I don't like to think of him being hurt."

None of them did, so Peter moved on quickly to distract her from the thought of it. "Then does anybody think Slimer really can do the precog number?" Peter asked. "I ran all those tests on him, but he didn't usually show very high, any more than the rest of us do."

"But we know when the telephone is gonna ring a lot of the time," argued Ray, pointing at the nearest phone. "Egon says that's from all this exposure to weird stuff, ectoplasmic residue and contact with ghosts, like the time our uniforms nearly came to life. Egon said there was so much PK residue they could literally get up and walk away. Some of that has to affect us after awhile. And that's why we halfway believed it when Dr. McCatheter said you were allergic to ghosts, because we thought all the ghostly energy had kind of contaminated you. It wasn't really impossible, though it was unlikely it would take any of us that way or one of us more than the rest."

"Well, I'm sure glad he was wrong," Peter replied, remembering the heart-stopping feeling of believing he'd have to give up Ghostbusting and move away and never be part of this team again. It was like being told he didn't have a family or a home any more and never would. He lifted his chin off his hands and glanced around the lab with sudden fondness. It was home and if the spud was right, Egon would be back...sometime.

Winston returned with the cake and Slimer let out a squeal of sheer joy and dive-bombed the hapless man, who held the platter out quickly at arms' length to avoid a thorough sliming as the ghost slurped down the whole cake in one gulp, leaving Winston holding a green coated plate that he deposited hastily on the table. Ray and Peter laughed at the sight.

"He was wrong, and we're glad, too," Ray agreed to Peter. "Too bad there isn't another cake. It looked good." He shrugged. "But there was enough validity in the theory that we believed him. McCatheter," he added to Winston by way of explanation when the black man looked a question at him. "We thought he was kidding at first but Egon knew better. He knew it might be possible. So if we can develop our own latent psi because of frequent and repeated exposure to ghosts, doesn't that imply ghosts might have latent psi or even overt psi, at least some of the time?"

"I don't know," complained Peter without moving. "You lost me with all the big words."

Ray made a face at him. "I didn't and you know it. I'm not saying all ghosts have ESP or even many of them do, but I bet there's a little more of that in ghosts than there is in people. This is great."

"This is not great!" objected Peter, shaking his head back and forth on his folded arms. "I don't want ghosts to have ESP. I want them to be surprised when I sneak up on them with a thrower instead of figuring out where I'm going to fire and making my job all that much harder."

"I didn't say they had it all the time," argued Ray stubbornly, settling his arm more comfortably in the sling. "If they did, we'd never catch them and we always do. I think it might be a special thing. You know, for special events." He sneaked a surreptitious hand up to rub his shoulder, pretending he'd meant to scratch his ear when he saw Peter watching him.

Peter suspected Ray's insistence might be wishful thinking since Slimer was so convinced Egon was coming back. Yet Slimer had seemed to see something in the alley that Peter couldn't see, and had pointed insistently twice in the same direction as if there was something visible to him that Peter just couldn't perceive with normal human senses. He'd been surprised and irritated when he realized Peter couldn't see it. Even if Slimer didn't call it another dimension, it must be one. With a little more research they'd figure out how to cross over into it and bring Egon home.

Peter sighed. He was more optimistic than he'd been before, but he wasn't entirely ready to believe Egon was going to stroll into Ghostbuster Central on his own two feet any time in the next few days.

His conviction Egon was all right fluctuated all through the evening while Ray worked on the computer trying to find the safest way to implement the program that would allow them to free some ghosts and force the dimensional gateway to open up again without allowing the more powerful and dangerous spooks to get away. He was caught up in the excitement of it, but every so often he'd stop and look up at the rest of them doubtfully.

"This is really a neat idea, guys, but it worries me," he confessed when Peter finally asked him what was bothering him.

"Why does it worry you, Ray?" asked Janine, who showed no signs of going home even though it was fast approaching bedtime and riding the subway this late at night was sometimes like playing Russian Roulette.

Peter, who had dragged his chair up next to Ray's at the computer and who had not budged from it all evening except periodically to grab a snack or to visit the bathroom, reached out and clapped a hand on his friend's good shoulder. "You can do it, guy."

"I know I can do it," Ray replied, shaking his head to correct Peter's misconception. "I know it will work, too, given enough time to figure out all the details. But what I don't know is if I should do it?"

"Is it gonna get us Egon back?" demanded Winston. "That's what you've gotta think of, homeboy. We can always bust those ghosts again. It's what we do."

Ray shook his head, rubbing his sore shoulder wearily, making no effort to hide the gesture this time. "I know. I'd do anything to get Egon back and you know it. But what really worries me is letting all these ghosts go in order to do it."

"I don't know," argued Peter, pulling his hand back and standing up to stretch his arms above his head and then massage the back of his neck. "I like that part. We bust 'em all again and get paid a second time. I think it's great!"

"No, Peter," said Ray stubbornly. He shut his eyes a minute, knuckling them one at a time with his good hand. "That's the bad part. What if somebody gets hurt because of all those ghosts. I know we're designing it so only harmless ones get freed, but what if we can't control it exactly right? What if something really nasty gets out?"

"That won't happen, Ray," Janine encouraged him. "You'll figure out how to prevent it. I know you will. Egon always says how smart you are, and he ought to know."

That made Ray smile, but he shook his head. "I'll design in a lot of safeguards, but if there's any chance something nasty can get out, we can't do it. I want Egon back, but I can't let somebody get hurt--or worse--because we weren't careful enough. Imagine if we scared some little kid or a little old lady had a heart attack because she saw a ghost that we'd freed."

Peter knew that was true. Right now, they were so caught up in retrieving Egon they wanted to push such problems away to a dark corner of their minds and refuse to face the consequences, but Peter knew Ray could never live with that and he also knew Egon wouldn't choose to come home at the expense of anyone else. He said quickly, "Yeah, but that doesn't mean we can't do it safely, Ray. If Egon's really over there with the alternate universe Ghostbusters, they might be working at this same plan from their end. It might even mean we wouldn't need to let out as many ghosts. Wouldn't it?"

"It might," agreed Ray, fatigue evident in his voice. "Tomorrow afternoon, when I've got more of the work done, one of you can take a meter attached to a remote link over to the alley and plant it there, and we can tell if there are any changes in the ambient readings as we work. That way, we can tell if anything's happening from the other end or if the barrier is weakening. What I'll do right now is configure one of the meters to react if the ghostly overlay we detected yesterday comes back. If it does, we can head over there right away."

"See, I knew you'd think of something, Dr. Stantz," Janine reassured him.

"It's getting late," Winston put in casting a sideways glance at Peter and nodding at Ray, whose eyes were heavy lidded with pain and fatigue. "And don't tell me you're not hurting, Ray, because I can see you are. I think it's time you shut down for the night. Don't argue with me, m'man," he continued quickly. "Because tired men make mistakes and we can't afford to make mistakes with something like this. Got it?"

Ray hesitated, but his exhaustion was spelled out for everybody to see. Reluctantly he nodded. "Okay," he conceded. "But only because Slimer says Egon isn't dead and that he's gonna come back."

Peter bit his bottom lip before he could say anything about possible danger to Egon in the other dimension. If it were a parallel universe and there really were other Ghostbusters over there, he would probably be okay--and Peter couldn't wait to hear what his own counterpart over there was like; he couldn't be any better looking or classier than the Venkman of this dimension. But he didn't want to worry Ray about any risks a delay might cause. Ray had taken on enough responsibility already without Peter laying any more on him.

"You bet he's gonna come back," he said brightly. "And just in case he needs the Stantz touch to do it, you're gonna get a good night's sleep so you'll be bright eyed and bushy tailed in the morning."

That made Slimer frown and circle around behind Ray to look him up and down as if he expected Ray to have sprouted a tail. "No bushy tail," he announced in disappointment, eyeing Peter skeptically.

Ray grinned tiredly. "Wait till tomorrow, Spud," he said. "You never know."

"I'll run you home, Janine," Winston offered. "What do you say?"

She nodded. "But I'm coming back first thing in the morning--and if Egon comes back before then, you call me, even if it's the middle of the night."

*****

Morning found everyone hard at work. Janine showed up before eight, and by then Ray was already back at the computer, hard at work. He didn't look like he'd slept well either, she thought, noting the dark shadows under his eyes and the aching carefulness of his position as he sat before the screen. It had only been two days since he was hurt, not quite even that, and he hadn't been taking it easy the way he should have done. She could tell by the way Winston occasionally took over the keyboard and worked under Ray's direction that he'd noticed too and was determined to help out in any way he could.

Peter was being his usual obnoxious self, the persona he put on either to be annoying or to distract the guys from problems they shared or from noticing his own vulnerability. When she wasn't wanting to brain Dr. V, Janine sometimes found herself very grateful for him. He was really good for Egon, she knew, and more than once, Peter had deftly steered Egon in her direction for a movie or dinner. The psychologist might be a jerk some of the time, but he was a lot smarter than he wanted people to think, and he was better than anybody at dragging Egon out of the lab and making him act like a normal human being.

Janine heaved a sigh. Egon might not act like a normal human being all the time, but even when he wasn't, he was the one she'd chosen. She'd been worried sick ever since he vanished and though she wanted with all her heart to believe Slimer's insistence Egon would come back, she found herself holding off, not quite sure how to take it. Like Peter, it would be harder for her to deal with the loss if she had allowed herself the luxury of hope first. But Ray was so determinedly optimistic she felt she had to support him.

Though it had never been her job, she went down to the second floor again after checking on the guys and watching them for an hour or so, and cooked them a big breakfast: bacon, eggs, pancakes and syrup, toast, and coffee, and eventually called them all down to eat it. She'd noticed on the way up that they'd spared no time for food but had gulped coffee and cold cereal, and that wasn't enough for them right now.

Peter looked at the spread, eyes widening in delight. "Egon doesn't know what he's missing," he said automatically, then caught himself and added, "And soon as he gets home, I'm gonna tell him. Just think, if he treats you right, you might cook for us every day."

"In your dreams, Venkman," she snapped, concealing her wistful thoughts behind a show of amusement.

"It's great, Janine," said Ray enthusiastically, sitting down and accepting the plate she put in front of him. "It's sure a good thing it was my left arm I hurt." He picked up his fork.

"Yeah, otherwise we'd have to hand feed him, and that wouldn't be fun," Peter retorted, grabbing his own plate with every evidence of enthusiasm. He set it before him then reached over and grabbed Ray's, quickly cutting up everything that needed it so Ray wouldn't have to use his injured hand to do it.

"You'll make someone a wonderful mother some day," Janine told him.

Peter stuck his tongue out at her.

"Keep it up, homeboy and we'll hand feed you," threatened Winston with a grin. "We'll put the whole plate down the back of your neck--and send Slimer down after it."

"Winston--you fight dirty."

She watched them eating, Ray with every evidence of delight, remarking often and enthusiastically about her cooking, Winston steadily, and Peter more sporadically, pushing the food around on his plate, and only forking in a bite if he thought one of the others was watching him. She should have known Peter would make it more difficult. There were times when she thought he went out of his way to do things the hard way.

On the other hand if she had a father like Charlie Venkman, maybe she'd be that way, too. Peter's father had called once last night during Ray's computer work, and Peter had talked to him, then to Katherine Spengler, who had been with him. He had said all the right things to Egon's mother--he could always be counted on to do that in a crisis, even when he was good at putting his foot in his mouth or smarting off the rest of the time--but Janine had watched Peter's face as he spoke to her, and though the words and tone were just right, his face was grim and shadowed. She knew he still blamed himself, at least in a way, for Egon disappearing. Because of that, he was going out of his way to reassure Mrs. Spengler.

"So I'm a lousy cook, Venkman?" Janine asked briskly now, leaning toward him and poking his plate. "Come on, if you hurt the cook's feelings, you'll have to get a new cook--and wash all the dishes besides."

He jumped, startled, and avoided the looks his two buddies threw at him. "Sorry, Janine. I was thinking."

"Yeah and it's like people who have trouble walking and chewing gum at the same time," put in Winston quickly. "When Pete thinks, he has to stop doing everything else."

"Die, Zeddemore." Peter started eating, forking in bite after bite as if he were on a schedule. After a minute, he took a look at his fork, as if he'd just realized it tasted good. It wasn't long before he slowed, though, and the fork started pushing scrambled eggs around again.

"Peter." Ray's voice was quiet, and it got through to the psychologist, who set aside his fork and looked at him.

"Yeah, Ray?"

"Can I help?" It was that gentle, sympathetic tone of Ray's that none of them had a defense against.

Peter braced himself. It was plain he wanted to throw in a stupid one-liner and distract the others from his darker mood, but the concern in Ray's face stopped him. He chewed on his bottom lip a minute. "I guess I just can't help thinking about Dad and Egon's mom and the way I egged Egon on before he got sucked into that other dimension."

"We've been over all that," Ray said with sudden sternness. He didn't usually take that tone with Peter, but he did now. "You were a jerk, but Egon was a worse one. You both had provocation, and when he gets back, we'll lock the two of you in a room together and you can work it out. Don't you think Egon knows he was wrong, Peter?"

Venkman heaved a sigh. "The thing is, Ray, I figured out it doesn't matter. Egon--okay, yeah, he kinda hurt me, saying what he did, but it doesn't mean I don't trust him, and he can say it all over again if only he was here." He caught them staring at him and concentrated on his coffee cup as if it held the secrets of the universe.

"When he's here, he's not gonna say it all over again," Janine insisted firmly. "Because if he does I'll brain him. Once he gets back the two of you are gonna sit down and work it out, okay?"

"Okay," he replied, but he didn't persist, picking up his fork again. "I guess I just want him to know I wouldn't let Dad hurt his mom."

Janine reached out and patted Peter on the shoulder. "It's gonna be okay, Dr. V. I promise you. I know Egon, and when I'm through with him..."

That made Peter's eyes brighten. "I'd like to hear that conversation."

"Well, you're not going to," she snapped. "That one is private."

"Figures," complained Peter in a much more normal tone. "The good stuff always is. Oh well, I'll send the spud to eavesdrop." He flipped a slice of bacon in Slimer's direction and the ghost caught it in his open mouth without a trace of effort.

"Bribing Slimer," said Ray sententiously, shaking his head. "Come on, Peter, that's low, even for you."

They fell into the routine of bantering back and forth, and it almost sounded normal. Janine watched them, noticing Peter's tense posture easing as Ray and Winston teased him. One thing she really liked about her bosses was the way they were always here for each other in a crisis. Let one of them be depressed or hurt or unhappy and the others would gather round and coax them back into better spirits.

Yet when breakfast was over and Janine firmly steered Peter and Winston into the kitchen to wash the dishes--"I cooked, you clean. Melnitz house rules and I don't want any argument."--Peter still had his silent moments. After the dishes were washed, dried and put away, Winston headed upstairs to help Ray and Janine turned to follow, pausing in surprise when Peter turned toward the stairs that led to the ground floor.

"Where are you going, Peter?" she asked.

"I thought I'd go wash Ecto-1," Peter replied quickly. "I never got the hang of that computer stuff."

It probably wasn't that so much as the need to do something himself rather than sitting around watching somebody else do something. Waiting was always harder without something to do. She nodded, feeling the need for a little action herself. "Need a hand?"

If he sensed her motive it didn't budge him, but probably he was just so caught up in the problem he hadn't realized she might have valued a little strenuous activity herself. He wanted his activity alone; fine. She wouldn't interfere.

"No, I can get it," he said quickly. "Thanks for the offer, though. I'll tell Winston you like washing cars next time there's a car show."

She gave him a fond cuff on the arm. "Try it and die, Venkman."

He grinned at her broadly, but she could see the tension in his eyes. This waiting was making them all edgy and even if Slimer had insisted Egon would come back, the longer it took him to do it, the harder it was on everyone. "Tell Ray I'll be up later, okay?" he concluded as he started down the stairs.

"You bet." She blew him a kiss. "Be good down there and don't do anything I wouldn't do."

He paused to grin at her. "Well, if you're gonna give me that much leeway, Melnitz..."

"Get outa here before I brain you with the nearest frying pan," she threatened.

He blew her a kiss in return and trudged down the stairs.

*****

One minute Egon Spengler was fighting hard against the nasty blue demon, trapped against the wall of the alley and a stack of crates positioned just where they could do the most harm to his mobility, hearing Peter bellow excitedly, "I got him! I got him!"

Ray was down, moving a little, awake but hurt, and Egon knew they had to trap the demon quickly so they could get him to a hospital. From the one quick glance he'd been able to spare the youngest Ghostbuster, he suspected Ray had either a broken arm or a dislocated shoulder, and he might have hit his head, too. That could be a serious problem, but at least Ray was conscious and moving, even if he hadn't found his feet yet.

"No, Pete, he's too close!"

Winston's alarmed cry of warning coincided with a rumble and clatter from overhead and Egon had time for one stunned glance upward at the pile of debris that was plummeting straight for his head before the demon let out a devastating roar and did something Egon couldn't quite see. Brilliant light burst up around him so hot and intense Egon squeezed his eyes shut automatically, half afraid it would burn out his vision. Then something crashed against him and even the brightness of the burning light against his eyelids faded, leaving him in blackness.

Egon wasn't sure how long he was unconscious, but it may not have been very long. When he finally felt awareness again, it was prefaced by acute discomfort and a sticky sense of warm wetness against his face. Not quite alert, he put up an irritated hand to brush it away, and his fingertips touched something viscous and unpleasant that coated half his face. Blood.

"Aahh!" he said involuntarily and his fingers walked up his forehead to his scalp line where they stopped abruptly as they discovered a painful cut. It was still bleeding, but even in his groggy state, Egon knew scalp cuts bled a lot. He needed to do something for this one, though.

Fumbling into his pocket, he produced a handkerchief and pressed it against the cut, holding it in place a minute then lifting his fingers. It would stay there as long as he didn't move much.

Several heavy and painful objects pressed against his body, and he reached out carefully and pushed them away, recognizing them by touch as parts of bricks and bits of masonry. Peter's proton stream had eaten a chunk out of the wall when the demon had moved unexpectedly and Egon had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He groaned. "Peter, perhaps some target practice would not come amiss."

Silence. No answer.

Alarmed, Egon forced his eyes open, finding it harder than he had expected because blood had gummed one of them tightly shut. He took the handkerchief and mopped his face with it, spitting on a clean corner to moisten it to wipe the blood away from his eye. Once he could see again, he returned his makeshift bandage to the cut itself, and, holding it in place, sat up carefully.

The alley didn't quite swing around him, but he had an edge of lightheadedness for a minute, as if he needed to move carefully or he'd keep going and tip over in the other direction. After a second or two, it went away and he was able to stay in position, sitting up, resting his back against the wall. He pushed another piece of masonry off one leg and fingered a tear in his jumpsuit and the trousers underneath. His leg had bled a little, but it was a scratch, no more, and that bleeding was already stopped.

Egon flexed his arms and legs carefully. He hurt, but he suspected it was more in the nature of bruises than any possible fractures. He was lucky not to have sustained a severe concussion with all that rubble falling on him.

"Guys?" he called anxiously. His voice sounded normal, too, no real weakness in it. "Guys, where are you?" He might have been stunned by what the demon had done as much as by the falling bricks, and if that were so, his companions might be lying nearby, injured as well. Ray was already hurt.

Egon turned his head in that direction. There was the upended dumpster, the strewn garbage, but no Ray struggled to his feet. Peter had been there, opposite Egon, at the other side of the alley, but he wasn't there now. Egon glanced down in the direction where he had last seen Winston, but Zeddemore, too, had vanished.

"Guys!" Egon bellowed. "Where are you?"

No reply. Had the demon taken them somewhere? The physicist fumbled for his P.K.E. meter and came up empty. He still had his proton pack and thrower, and when he slid it off to examine it it appeared undamaged despite a few nicks and dents in the framework. He powered it down at once. It didn't seem needed at the moment. There was no trace of a demon, and strain as he might he couldn't hear the familiar hum of distant proton rifles at work. Either the guys, including the injured Ray, had chased the demon out of audible range--or it had done something to them.

Egon glanced around the alley. It looked just the same as it had. He would have expected a lot more bricks around him but perhaps the guys had dug him out before--

Frowning, he adjusted his glasses, staring around him to try and read what had happened here. At least the glasses were intact though slightly crooked. He settled them on his face anyway, and shouted once again. "Peter! Ray! Winston!"

No reply.

Really concerned now, Egon ventured to climb to his feet. Again that momentary sensation like he might fall if he didn't concentrate, but again it went away again. Once he was upright, he didn't feel too bad until he reached down for his pack. Sudden movements that shifted his head made him vaguely dizzy. Probably a slight concussion, Egon diagnosed himself, though it would be practical to have an x-ray just to be certain. Unlike Peter, he was willing to allow hospital treatment when necessary, though they usually had to drag Peter there kicking and screaming all the way, figuratively, of course.

Peter. Pressing the handkerchief to the cut on his forehead, Egon heard himself saying to Peter, "If anything happens to my mother, Peter, I shall hold you personally responsible." Now, standing here in the midst of the debris in the alley, he could look back on it clearly and see the absolutely shocked expression in Peter's eyes before he had concealed it. Peter couldn't have looked more surprised if Egon had pulled his thrower and fired it at him. Egon had told Peter it was his fault, too, as if he could now or ever control his father's actions. He knew Peter's father was the one area of insecurity about his friend, yet he'd attacked him in the way most guaranteed to hurt. True, he'd been concerned about his mother--and still was; Charlie Venkman was the last man he wanted his mother to have anything to do with--but his mother was a reasonable adult and she knew what the elder Venkman was capable of. She had gone into the relationship with her eyes wide open--and full of amusement at her son's reaction. That alone should have reassured Egon, but it hadn't. Instead he'd persisted until he'd gone so far beyond the acceptable that even Janine had turned on him.

And now the guys were gone, trapped by the demon? Sent into another dimension? Neutronized? He didn't even have a P.K.E. meter to check the readings. Frantically he kicked his way through the rubble, hoping to unearth the device so he could use it to track down his friends.

Nothing. No P.K.E. meter. No way to check...

Ecto! There was bound to be a spare P.K.E. meter in Ecto-1. They carried back-up equipment on every bust in case something went wrong with what they were using. He had to get to Ecto.

Holding onto the wall of the nearest building for balance, he made his way to the mouth of the alley, gaining steadiness with every step. Perhaps he wasn't concussed after all, which was just as well when his friends needed him. Finally he took the last few steps unaided, pausing at the edge of the street and staring at the place where they had parked the converted ambulance.

Ecto-1 was gone.

For what seemed a long time Egon stood there frowning at the bakery van that had replaced Ecto at the curb. This was ridiculous.

How long had he been unconscious? He glanced at his wristwatch, relieved to find it unbroken. It informed him it was nearly eleven-fifteen. He wasn't sure what time they had arrived at their destination; for once he had been too busy brooding about his mother to log the time as he usually did. He was certain it had been ten-thirty when they had left the firehall, though. It had been a short drive, and they had spent some time with the ghost. He didn't think he could have been unconscious more than ten or fifteen minutes at the most. Yet in that time the demon had fled, the guys were gone, and even stranger, Ecto-1 had vanished.

Egon looked up and down the street, realizing the pedestrians were giving him a wide berth, eyeing him uneasily out of the corners of their eyes, unwilling to make actual eye contact. It was typical, but it irritated Egon.

He held up a hand to a passing man. "Have you seen the other Ghostbusters?" he demanded.

Directly accosted, the man ran his eyes over Egon's bloodstained face and frowned. "I ain't seen nothing," he said in a heavy Bronx accent. "Ain't been any Ghostbusters around since I got here." He pushed past Egon and hurried down the street as if he feared whatever danger had threatened Egon was contagious.

Egon could understand the guys being missing. The demon had done something with that burst of light, and it could have shifted them to the Netherworld, though Egon had been closest to the demon and he had been unaffected. What he could not understand was the absence of Ecto-1, unless it had been stolen, and that was too much of a coincidence for him to accept with equanimity. The guys were missing and Ecto-1 was gone. Unless the demon had wanted to remove all evidence of his tampering, he wouldn't have bothered with the Ghostbusters' vehicle.

If the guys hadn't been affected by the brilliant burst of light, they could have taken Ecto, driven Ray to the hospital. Except--

Except they would never have left Egon lying in the alley.

Yes, they had been annoyed with him, and deservedly so, as he now realized, for his treatment of Peter, though Peter had hardly helped matters with his unwelcome and ill-timed levity. But no matter how annoyed they had been with him, they would never have left him unconscious in the alley and driven away without trying to help him.

He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. This made absolutely no sense to him, none whatsoever. Could the demon have rendered him temporarily invisible to them? Would that lead them to suspect that he had been neutronized? They might leave if they couldn't find him, especially since Ray had clearly needed medical attention as well.

Egon rubbed his aching head, feeling the sticky crust of drying blood in his hair. Cautiously he lifted the handkerchief away from the wound. The flow of blood seemed to have stopped. He unfolded the handkerchief and refolded into a long bandage, tying it around his head so the wound was covered. It wasn't sanitary, but it was the best he could do at the moment.

The next step? He hesitated, longing for a P.K.E. meter. Spotting a telephone booth, he made for it, slid money into the slot and dialed headquarters.

"Ghostbuster Central. We can't come to the phone right now due to an emergency situation. At the beep please leave your name and number and describe the ghost that is bothering you. An agent will contact you as soon as possible to schedule an appointment," came Janine's recorded voice briskly and professionally. "If your ghost..." Egon replaced the receiver in the cradle rather than listening to the entire spiel. An emergency situation. Ray must have been hurt more seriously than he'd realized. But if that were the case, why hadn't one of them stayed with him, called the paramedics? It had to be something the demon had done.

Egon returned to the alley for another look. Perhaps he had missed something. Systematically he searched the entire area, trying to find one shred of evidence that would point him in the right direction. He didn't find any clues, but he did find a spigot on one wall, and he turned it on, taking off his makeshift bandage and rinsing it out as best he could, and splashing water on his face and hair to wash away the worst of the blood. He couldn't do anything about the stains on his jumpsuit, but he cleaned himself up as best he could, then, feeling somewhat better, he reapplied the bandage, its cold wetness soothing to his aching head.

First things first. He should have an x-ray, but it would have to wait. He'd grab a cab, return to headquarters and find out if Janine knew what was wrong. How had Janine known something was wrong so quickly unless one of the guys had told her? She didn't leave the emergency message on the answering machine when they went out on routine busts. If she knew something had happened, that meant at least one of the guys had told her. There hadn't been time for the police to ticket or tow Ecto in or for them to call her and report something wrong. No, at least one of the guys had to have contacted her somehow--and that meant someone had left Egon in the alley.

Confused and aching, but feeling a very strong sense of ill usage, Egon went out to flag down a taxi.

He spent the whole ride home trying to make sense of the conflicting information he had been given. How could so much have happened in such a short time; the guys vanishing, Janine putting the message on the machine, Ecto disappearing. The only thing that made remote sense was someone surviving what the demon did and calling Janine before or after driving away. Yet Egon's deep rooted knowledge of the guys, even of Peter in a snit, told him they would never have left him hurt and unconscious and blithely driven away. It made no sense at all.

Unless-- He frowned, pulling off his glasses and rubbing his closed eyes with his fingertips as the effort to concentrate made his head ache all the more. Unless, this was not really his own New York. He had theorized about weakening barriers during their last bust. Perhaps he had been shifted into an alternate New York, one where things had happened differently. If it were really an alternate New York, there should be some way to tell, but he had called headquarters, using the regular number and received a message in Janine's voice. There was no overt difference to his questioning eye. The phone booth had taken the coins from his pocket without trouble. The cabbie behind his grill looked typical of the species and had sounded it, too, when he'd demanded where to take Egon. The streets looked the same and were familiar. Remembering the earlier theorizing about universes splintering off at every slight change, thus producing a myriad of barely differing dimensions, Egon couldn't help wondering if he'd arrive at the firehall and find a totally different set of Ghostbusters, all who shared the same memories--up to a point. There might even be an Egon waiting for him there, another self, divided at some time by a twist of fate. The cab might not be taking him home, not to his own firehall and his own friends.

With a shudder, Egon watched the streets grow progressively more familiar. It looked just the same, so much the same. He tried to seek out differences and the only difference he could see were the clouds that had begun to roll in and darken the sky. The forecast this morning had been for clear and warm all through the weekend, hadn't it?

That didn't prove anything, though. It only proved weathermen were fallible. It was nothing he could rely on to tell if he had actually come home.

Yet something deep inside him kept insisting this was really home. This was his own world, his own street, his own firehall. He had no logical, rational explanation for it, and for it to be his own meant the guys had walked away and left him lying under those bricks and rubble. There was no answer. No answer that would give him what he wanted, a chance to go home, a chance to apologize to Peter and be forgiven, a chance for this to end.

*****

"I'm getting something," Ray said abruptly, startling Winston, who had been trying without much success to read the Parker book Mrs. Spengler had left for him. Ray's voice made him realize he'd been reading the third page over and over, yet he had no idea what it said.

"What, homeboy?" he said quickly. "What have you got?"

Ray was holding the meter.

"Look at this. I think it might be back. That ghostly overlay."

"You mean without letting anything out of the containment unit?" Winston asked hopefully. That part of the plan had always made him uneasy, and not just because they'd have their work to do over again against ghosts who really had it in for them, who had a good idea how the guys worked and probably wanted a second chance to beat the system.

"I think so," Ray replied. "I'm not sure if this is exactly the same thing or not. I want to run some tests and take a lot of readings first, but if it turns out the way I think it will, we can head down to the alley in about half an hour and see if we can go through. Or we can haul Peter up here and strap a bracelet on him and see if he can get into the other dimension now. He'll throw a fit if we send anybody else."

"You got that right," Winston agreed. "For somebody who has every right to be pissed off at Egon, he sure is worried about him."

"Well, yeah," Ray replied. "Because even if he was mad and hurt, it wasn't enough to make him stop loving Egon, after all." He made some adjustments in the P.K.E. meter, tucking it in the curve of his injured arm and using his good hand to twist the dials.

"Want me to do that for you, homeboy?"

"No, I've got it. Just let me check the readings at the different settings and key it into the computer so we can tell how it will affect sending Peter there."

"Want I should go get him, Ray?" volunteered Janine.

Winston shook his head. "No, because he'll be bugging us like crazy to send him right away. Wait till we're ready. Besides, he needs a little longer to himself."

"Yeah, and I might be wrong," Ray agreed. "Let's make sure it's what I think it is before we tell him. I don't want to disappoint him."

"So how long do you think it will take?" Janine asked, sitting down again and controlling her impatience.

"Forty minutes, tops," Ray promised. "Then if Peter isn't back up here, we'll get him and send him back to the alley."

"Oboy, oboy," chortled Slimer, hugging himself with sudden glee. "Egon come home. Egon now."

"Egon now?" echoed Winston, catching the terminology and shooting a considering look in Ray's direction. "You mean as opposed to 'no Egon now'?"

Slimer thought that over, his face twisted in a parody of deep thought, then he nodded. "Egon now," he agreed, smiling so wide his whole face seemed to be mouth. "Egon now. Egon come home."

"Yahoo," blurted out Winston. "That's great. Get to it, homeboy," he directed Ray. "This is fantastic."

*****

Egon opened the door to the firehall silently. It was unlocked, but Janine wasn't at her desk. No one was visible but Peter, who, close at hand and oblivious to Egon's appearance, was washing Ecto, his back to the door. Something about the rigid lines of his back and shoulders told Egon all was not as it should be, and even if he hadn't been able to read Peter's body language so well, the way Peter was washing the venerable vehicle, each swipe of the sponge a near-blow, would have told him something was seriously wrong. He could imagine the look on Peter's face, be it tight with concentration or twisted with anger. There was a certain expression that showed in the back of Peter's eyes when something was wrong that peeked out for those who knew him well enough to see it, a lost little boy look he did his best to hide and generally covered with bluster and smartass remarks and wry humor. Ninety-five per cent of the time, it didn't even emerge because Peter had his act together pretty well, but those other times... Egon knew that look. He'd seen it only this morning when he had been fool enough to blame Peter for his father's actions.

Sensing just that particular mood in Peter insisted to Egon's subconscious mind that this was indeed his own Peter and his own firehall. He wasn't sure how he knew it, whether it was a subliminal signal he hadn't learned how to read or mere wishful thinking he was uncertain. But Peter was here, washing Ecto and very upset, and there had to be a reason for his abandonment in the alley.

"Was I really that bad?" Egon asked whimsically as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

Peter went so still he didn't even appear to breathe. For an achingly long moment he seemed to hang poised over the car, one hand stretched out toward the bucket, his body as stiff as wood. Then his head came up and, very slowly, he turned around, no color on his face at all, the sponge falling from his hand with a squishy sound against the concrete floor. Peter was usually slightly pale, a result of a generally-controlled tendency to anemia, but Egon had never seen him this white before, not even when he was ill. His eyes were nearly as round as Slimer's as his gaze fastened to Egon's face, and they held all kinds of emotions: anguish, hope, disbelief, reluctance to risk believing, fear, relief, joy, all spelled out so vividly he might have been wearing neon signs. "Are you real?" he said, his voice scarcely above a whisper, full of such bald vulnerability and need for hasty reassurance that Egon felt his stomach lurch. This was not the voice of a man who had abandoned his friend unconscious in an alley. This was the voice of someone who has been through hell, though Egon didn't understand it yet. He hadn't been abandoned, though he didn't have a clue yet what could have happened. "Or are you a ghost?"

"Of course I'm real, Peter," Egon said, letting mild exasperation creep into his reply as if the question needn't have been asked at all. He knew it would reassure Peter more than soft and soothing words would have. "Ghosts scarcely bleed."

That last addition was a mistake. Peter's eyes flew to the bandage, the remnants of blood Egon had been unable to remove from his face and hair, the stains on his uniform, and, if possible, he grew even paler. "You're hurt," he said. He was clearly not functioning at an optimal level yet or he would have said something more helpful and much less obvious. Though it took knowing him to understand it, Peter was far more subtle than he looked and he often stated the obvious as a delaying or tension-breaking tactic.

"Scalp wounds bleed freely, Peter," Egon replied. He took a step closer, half expecting Peter to flinch away from him. What was this? How could Peter be so distraught after such a short time? What had the rest of them thought? Why hadn't they seen him in the alley?

"You're alive?" Peter demanded in the tone of voice that needs instant reassurance. "Really alive?"

"Yes, Peter. Really alive." He opened his mouth to say more but before he could speak, Peter launched himself at him as if fired from a cannon and flung his arms around Egon's neck, holding on for all he was worth and nearly upsetting the not quite steady physicist in the bargain. That was surprising, but no more so than Peter's behavior since Egon had walked into headquarters. Feeling the helpless intensity of Peter's grip, he encircled the younger man with his own arms and held on as tightly, his fingers automatically seeking out the taut muscles in the younger man's shoulders and kneading them.

Peter's body quivered as if he were struggling against tears, and Egon, stunned and confused by this reaction in a man who had been holding him at arms' length the last time they'd interacted, lifted one hand automatically to stroke the thick brown hair. "It's all right, Peter," he said in a soothing rumble. "It's all right."

"It's really you? Our own Egon?" Peter mumbled against his neck.

"As near as I can fathom, since you appear to be missing an Egon and I appeared to be missing, we can assume we have made a proper match," Egon replied in carefully pedantic tones.

That made Peter give a slightly watery chuckle. "That sounds like our Egon, all right," he said. "God, Spengs, we thought you were dead! Slimer was babbling about blood and saying 'no Egon now,' as if you were gone forever." He sucked in a deep breath, tightened the hug for one near-frantic moment, then eased up, backing away just far enough so he could look Egon in the eye but not enough to release his grip on the taller man's shoulders. "I'm sorry," he said quickly as if he'd rehearsed his lines and had to say them very quickly in case he forgot halfway through. "I pushed and pushed until you had to push back and when you did, I took it wrong and screwed up the bust and you could have been killed and we thought you were gone forever and..."

"Peter. Peter? Peter. PETER!" Egon kept raising his voice as Peter babbled his apology, giving him a little shake on the final 'Peter' until the other man ran down and stared at him dazedly. His eyes looked blurred and not quite focused and glittered too brightly, but he was listening.

"What?" he asked, scrubbing the back of his hand across his eyes without even quite realizing he was doing it. The defensive gesture was so automatic, so much a part of Peter, should he be driven to such an extreme that Egon felt his own eyes burn momentarily.

He said quickly, "First of all, you did not screw up the bust. That was an accident, pure and simple, if you mean the falling masonry. Yes, you did push and push at me, but it was my own reaction that I had to deal with, not your annoying behavior. I am quite accustomed to that."

A reluctant sparkle began to show in Peter's eyes. "I try," he said in an attempt at flippancy that almost succeeded. Egon found himself quite relieved that Peter had made the attempt. At least it was a step in the right direction.

"Secondly," Egon persisted, "what I said to you about blaming you for your father's behavior was completely uncalled for and deserves a ton of bricks on my head in retaliation. I know you are not your father. I know your father has caused you more than any ten people's share of anguish over the years and I had no right to attribute to you any behavior of your father's, or even my mother's, if it comes to that. I realize you took an unholy delight in my reactions, but perhaps that was inevitable."

"Come on, Spengs," said Peter, finally beginning to relax though his body was still vibrating with the lessening of tension. "You made it impossible to resist. You were like somebody with a sign pinned secretly to his back that read 'kick me'. I couldn't stop."

"No, not when I put you in an impossible position, that of defending your father when you've never been able to do so before. I should have known better than that."

"I should have known better than to push you so hard," Peter said quickly. They looked at each other levelly a long moment and suddenly the bad moment and all the accompanying bad feelings were behind them, one more crisis successfully overcome in a long and well-tried friendship, one more positive outcome.

Egon hesitated, determined to explain, though he could tell from the sudden contentment in Peter's eyes and the way his posture had loosened up that it was not really necessary. "Your father makes you crazy. Well, can you imagine how I react to my mother? Since--since my father died, she's changed so much. I must confess I like most of the changes. But there are times when I can't help worrying that she will get in over her head."

"Like the times when she starts dating con men?" Peter asked.

"Precisely. Or, to be honest, dating anyone at all. I had never considered the possibility of her dating again, not until she went off with your father for that lunch. Perhaps it was willful blindness, but that was a very rude awakening. I know you are not your father, Peter. I know you have nothing of your father's dishonorable tendencies in you. I know it hurts even to acknowledge them. What I did--"

"You did because you were pushed to it, Spengs. Let's write it off," Peter offered, holding out his hand like a peace offering. "When you were gone, I knew it wasn't important, not as important as having you walk through that door alive and well." He gripped Egon's hand tightly in a firm handshake, reaching out with his other hand to clasp his shoulder. "I can vouch for the alive part, anyway. I don't suppose you had a chance to see a doctor?"

"Not yet, but that can wait until everything is resolved. I just have one question I don't understand." He freed his hand from Peter's and looked at him expectantly.

"Shoot," said Peter.

"Why did you leave me in the alley?" he asked. "I realize how obnoxious I was and how completely unacceptable my words to you were before the bust, of course, but did that warrant leaving me unconscious in the alley half buried in a pile of rubble?"

"Leaving you in the alley?" Peter echoed, pushed out of his relief and the release of tension to tighten up again and stare at Egon in disbelief. "Leaving you in the alley! My God, Egon, we tore the alley apart trying to find you. We figured out a dimensional gateway with the coordinates in the P.K.E. meter and I've been over there through it a few times--except it doesn't go anywhere but from here to the alley, not into another dimension at all. We found your meter, all broken and we found blood. Slimer said it wasn't another dimension but it had to be. It ripped me apart to leave Winston to check out the alley when we couldn't find you, but I had to get Ray to the hospital. I had to. I wouldn't have left you... Where were you? Were you in another dimension? Did you find other Ghostbusters to help get you home?"

"In fifteen minutes, Peter?" Egon asked, staring at him. Was this another dimension after all? "I awakened in the alley. You were gone. I cleaned up and took a taxi straight here. It's not even noon yet. How--"

"Not even noon yet!" exploded Peter. "What the hell day do you think this is? It's Monday morning, that's when it is! You disappeared two days ago!"

Egon's mouth fell open in stunned realization. No wonder Peter's greeting had been so unrestrained, no wonder he had been so tense and guilty and ready to lose it. Two days with no real solution to a disappearance he couldn't explain, that none of them could explain. Their attempt to seek another dimension had failed. How many other ploys had been equally unsuccessful? "Two days? How is that possible? My watch shows--" He held it up and squinted at it, for the first time taking in what he should have noticed all along, the date. He'd been so concerned with the time it had never occurred to him it wasn't still Saturday morning. "Monday morning?" he echoed. "Peter, for me the transition was instantaneous. I was struck by the bricks, momentarily stunned, awakened. It was the same time of day, the same weather, though I noticed clouds coming in as I took the taxi home. I merely assumed..."

"What, that we'd run out on you? Come on, Spengs," Peter urged, grabbing his arm. "I'll let you off the hook for that one because you obviously got brained by a brick and you weren't thinking clearly. Even if I was ticked off at you, the other guys weren't mad, or at least not very much. You think we're the kind of friends who leaves our buddies lying in their own blood? Give me a break."

Egon frowned. "Of course I don't think that, Peter. I never did. But when I saw that Ecto was gone--until then, I thought perhaps the demon had taken you."

"We thought you'd been neutronized," said Peter quietly. "But your pack didn't blow up and it wasn't lying there without you the way it was when the destabilizer backfired and you wound up like a ghost. Then we thought of another dimension but everything we tried didn't work. I even hypnotized the spud last night. Ray came up with a plan to let out some of the ghosts and re-create that ghostly overlay in hopes of weakening the dimensional barrier and they're up there working on that now." He gestured vaguely toward the ceiling and, presumably, the third floor lab.

"But I was never in another dimension," Egon began, then caught himself. "Ray? How badly was he hurt?"

"Dislocated shoulder, sprained wrist," Peter said quickly. "He didn't even stay overnight in the hospital." Realization widened his eyes. "Oops, the guys. We'd better get 'em down here and tell 'em you're okay." His whole face split with a joyous grin and he headed for Janine's desk where he slapped his palm down on the alarm button--and held it down. Egon could see the look of utter delight on his face, the excitement of sharing the good news with the others, and he stood waiting, unwilling to diminish that for a minute.

Ray must not be able to slide down the pole with a dislocated shoulder because Egon heard them on the stairs, then Slimer came swooping ahead of them, darted at Peter and stopped his forward momentum by looping an arm around the psychologist's neck and spinning momentarily around Peter in a circle, sending slime squishing down his neck and causing him to wail, "Slimer!" in anguish as he yanked his hand away from the button to bat at the green ghost.

In one of his spins, Slimer saw Egon and he managed a dead stop about an inch from Peter's ear, where he screeched, "Eeeeeegonnnnn!" in a voice loud enough and shrill enough to bend metal.

Peter let out an equally noisy screech and clapped his hand over his ear. "Slimer! I'm gonna be deaf in that ear now! You're dead meat!"

Ray came down the final few steps just as Slimer announced his great discovery, and he halted there, catching the rail with his good hand. He looked tired and achy, and his arm was in a sling, the edge of an ace bandage showing around his wrist. At the sight of Egon, the fatigue and pain vanished as if by magic, replaced by an overwhelming joy, and with a glad cry of, "EGON!" he raced toward the physicist and threw his good arm around him just as Slimer dived bombed the pair of them with a splat. Ectoplasm flew everywhere but Ray ignored it. Most likely he hadn't even noticed. "You're alive! I knew you were, Egon. I knew you'd come back. I just knew it," he babbled over and over, his voice full of sheer happiness. "Once the overlay was back we should have guessed you'd show up. Gosh, this is great." He pressed his face hard against Egon's shoulder, his arm squeezing him tightly.

Winston was next, draping an arm over Egon's shoulder in spite of Ray's refusal to let go. "Man, you scared us, homeboy," he said. "I don't know where you were and I don't care, as long as you're home now. You scare us again and I'll turn you into hash and feed you to Slimer for dinner." He ran a hand through Egon's hair, rumpling it enthusiastically, and Egon didn't have a hand free to straighten it. He did loosen one of his arms from around Ray and reach up to clasp Winston's arm.

"Egon!"

At Janine's glad cry, Winston stepped back and Ray reluctantly eased free of Egon. The secretary launched herself at the physicist so violently she splatted against his chest almost as fiercely as Slimer had, though without the ectoplasm. She hugged him hard, then reached up and cupped his face in her hands, pulled him down and planted a big kiss on his mouth. It seemed to last a long time.

Finally she pulled back and stood there looking up at him expectantly, arms folded across her chest, one foot tapping, her face filled with unaccustomed anger. "Have you ever got some explaining to do!"

Egon looked at her dazedly, trying surreptitiously to steady his breathing.

"He can't, guys," Peter cut in quickly. "This is major weird. Egon says he was out a few minutes, woke up in the alley and came home. No other dimension or anything like that. He can't explain how he wound up in a time warp, unless he knows more about Tyconos than we do."

"Time warp!" exploded Ray, his eyes widening in astonishment and disgust. "I've got it. It's so obvious. Don't you get it, Peter? Winston? Tyconos. Tycron. Tycronos. Chronos. He's a time ghost. Isn't he, Egon?" he demanded, waiting for Egon to pick up the ball and run with it.

"Naturally, hence the name," Egon replied, straightening his glasses, which had slid down his nose a little crookedly. He fell into the explanation easily, as the solution waved itself in front of his face. "I had not realized the identity of the ghost at the time, but I have heard of Tyconos. His name is a corruption, of course."

"Well, we got that right. He seemed pretty corrupt to me anyway," Peter cut in. "What do you mean, Ray, a time ghost?"

"Well, it's simple, really, Peter. He doesn't just travel back and forth between here and the Netherworld or between here and another place," Ray explained, his words tripping over themselves in his excitement. "He can travel back and forth between different times, not different places."

"Ray is, in essence, correct," Egon replied. "Knowing the name of the demon makes it all perfectly clear. Did the ghostly overlay vanish while I was gone? I feel certain it did."

All three Ghostbusters nodded. "Totally poof-o," Peter replied. "We thought the barrier between two dimensions had firmed up."

"Honestly, guys, if you will remember, I talked about dimensional and temporal barriers," Egon reminded them.

"Yeah, he did. And then Slimer said there weren't any other dimensions, and he said, 'No Egon now,'" Ray remembered. "We thought that meant you were dead or we'd never get you back, but he was right. If Tyconos shifted you forward in time, there were a couple days when there really wasn't an Egon. That must be what the spud meant."

"Yeah, yeah," agreed Slimer. He squished up against Egon's shoulder and planted a number of sloppy kisses on his cheek and mouth. Egon pushed him away automatically and tried to scrub away the proof of the spud's affection. Given a preference, Janine kissed far better than Slimer did. He shot her a sideways glance of speculation, his heart sinking slightly when he realized she had been waiting for it and understood it exactly for what it was. She also seemed to sense his wariness, and, worse, it amused her.

Peter, who had witnessed the byplay and seemed to grasp every nuance of it without a word of explanation, grinned broadly with a look in his eyes that seemed to promise he wouldn't let it drop. "So what that means is that Slimer could see the gate after all but since it was the same place, except a different time, he insisted there wasn't another dimension. When I asked--what was it I said last night that got the best answer? Something about a gate that wasn't here and now. I was thinking 'here' and Slimer must have been thinking--as much as he can think, anyway--'now'. Right, Spud?"

Slimer nodded emphatically, the motion sending slime flying. With a grimace, Peter flicked a speck of it out of his eye. "Okay, so Tyconos picked you up, Spengs baby, and deposited you in Monday morning! What a rude awakening. I never liked Mondays--" he caught himself, turned his eyes on Egon with a kind of greedy exultation, and added, "Well, until today anyway."

"Gee, that means Slimer can't see into the future after all," said Ray with sudden disappointment.

"You thought perhaps he could?" Egon asked curiously, looking from Ray to Peter and back again, then staring at Slimer with surprised eyes.

"Well, we went through the teleport process," Peter explained, realizing what Ray meant, "and Slimer said no dimensional barrier or gate or anything, but he kept going on about you, Egon, talking about the demon going away and you waking up and blood everywhere, and then he said you were coming home, and we thought he was seeing into the future. But when I put the bracelet on and got zapped over there, I was in the future, two days ahead of myself, and none of us realized it. That's why there was so much traffic on 'Sunday morning' and somebody working on that building I zapped. I thought somebody had the bucks to bring construction guys in on Sunday and pay them time and a half and by then I had actually leaped into Tuesday already, forty-eight hours in my future. No wonder it looked different. No wonder it was so easy to find a Sunday paper. It was two days old when I was over there, right?"

"Right," Ray agreed. "Gee, that means Slimer was only seeing what had already happened, when you took him over there, Peter. He knew Egon was okay."

"But that means the spud can see into the past," offered Winston, shaking his head.

"I don't think so," Egon replied. "If there had been a time slip in that location, he simply might have been able to see both ends of it, so he might have 'seen' my arrival, or perhaps he could sense what had been, seeing not me but an afterimage of where I'd been."

"Sort of like Kirlian photography?" Ray offered. "That's kind of neat. I think we need to run some more tests on Slimer and see if he can sense other recent past events. If so, he might be useful in missing persons cases or things like that."

"Possibly, Ray," Egon replied thoughtfully. "But in this instance, the time transference may have created more powerful residue than is customary, or perhaps it was simply because he was in tune with me. We will test him, of course, but I don't think we can volunteer him to the police department as a psychic."

"They'd never thank us anyway," Peter said irrepressibly. "Would you thank anybody who offered you Slimer?"

"Wait a minute." Winston held up his hands, one flat atop the fingers of the other. "Time out, guys. Tyconos brought Egon into today from Saturday morning. We all clear on that?"

Everybody nodded, including Janine, who edged up beside Egon, slid one arm around his waist and reached up with her other hand to lift the makeshift bandage on his forehead and examine the cut at his hairline.

"Okay, so this is the big question," said Winston as Peter and Ray edged closer to Egon to see what Janine was uncovering. "Where's the nasty gooper now? Loose in Monday or vanished altogether?"

As if on cue, the telephone began to ring.

They looked at each other with wary suspicion. "That could be him now," said Peter. "I better grab it." He snatched the telephone before the answering machine could kick in. "Ghostbuster Central? We bust 'em... Oh. Katherine."

Egon started toward the telephone even as Peter added, "There's somebody here who wants to talk to you. Yo, Egon," he added, raising his voice. "It's your mom. And is she gonna be pissed you didn't call her the instant you walked in the door." He slid his hand over the mouthpiece and added, "For a nice incentive, I could be bribed to keep quiet about that cut of yours and spare you the blender routine."

"Honestly, Peter," Egon replied, snatching the phone away from Venkman and pausing a moment, bracing himself before putting it to his ear. "Mom? Yes, it's Egon. Yes, I'm fine. I'm sorry I didn't call you sooner, but..." As he listened to his mother's urgent questions and heard the relief fill her voice as he answered, he saw his friends gathering around, welcoming him back, taking him in, and in spite of his aching head he felt wonderful.

*****

"So what do we do about Tyconos, guys?" asked Winston a few hours later. The four of them were gathered in front of the TV set on the second floor at headquarters. Once he'd reassured his mother he was fine except for a couple of cuts and bruises, he had allowed his friends to bear him off to the hospital for x-rays. The doctor thought he might have a very mild concussion and recommended he take it easy for the rest of the day. He put two stitches into the cut, all the while trying to find out what had happened to Egon and where he had been for the last two days, as if he were trying out for a job with one of the supermarket tabloids. He sent Egon home in disappointment when the Ghostbusters weren't particularly forthcoming, urging rest and quiet, his questions unanswered, and probably heading for the nearest telephone to call in a scoop the minute they were out the door.

When they returned to the firehall, Egon's mother and Peter's father were waiting, and at the sight of them together, Egon had grimaced in dismay before manfully squaring his shoulders and going forward to embrace his parent. She flung her arms around him and hugged him hard, then backed off enough to examine the bandage on his forehead, feel his face for fever, gaze into his eyes, and urge him to come in and sit down immediately.

"You'd better do it, Egon," Charlie Venkman offered. "This is a lady who knows her own mind."

Egon shot one sharp look at Peter's father but he seemed to derive some comfort from the tone. "She always has," he said, his voice only a little stiff, and allowed her to lead him upstairs to the second floor and guide him over to the couch, where she sat him down.

"I'm going to fix up something for you," she said ominously. "Something to make up for the blood loss and ease your headache at the same time."

"I didn't say I had a headache," Egon began.

"My son, the man of steel," she remarked whimsically. "You didn't have to. I can see it in your eyes. Where's your blender, son?"

Peter's eyes sparkled with mischief. "I knew that was coming," he remarked sotto voce to Winston, leaning his elbow against the black man's shoulder, secure for the moment in his own health and confident he wouldn't be offered a potion.

"I heard that" Winston replied, grinning. "I'm glad I'm in the pink of health, aren't you?"

"And of course you'll have some too, Ray," Mrs. Spengler continued, studying the hapless occultist, who stiffened, his eyes widening in dismay. "You don't look at all well, and I'm certain you haven't been sleeping properly. This will help revive you. It's a very healthful remedy for various aches and pains." Her eyes lingered on Peter, who stood up straight and tried to look as if he felt better than Captain Steel, but Egon saw the panic in his eyes before he looked away, saying brightly:

"So, Dad, what are your plans?"

Mr. Venkman grinned at his son. "Now that everything is back to normal I'm taking off tonight," he announced. "I've got a job lined up out in San Francisco. It's an opportunity I've been waiting for a long time, and now it finally looks like I've got the chance to score--uh, to make a profit."

"You mean 'score,'" Peter corrected. "This is your son you're talking to, not one of your marks."

"Marks? Son, I'm hurt." Charlie's eyes held amusement, though, and Peter's face lit up in response. He seemed quite comfortable with his father at the moment, something Egon was glad of. He could see the look of confidence and contentment in his mother's eyes and realized she hadn't been hurt by Peter's father, but had, on the contrary, enjoyed herself immensely without forming any kind of commitment.

"Since this is our last day," she said, "Charlie and I are going to spend it together and have an early dinner. Tomorrow night, I want to treat you four--and dear Janine, of course--to a special dinner to make up for the one we missed. But once I've made up my special remedy, we need to leave." She put her hand on Egon's cheek. "I realize you still have a demon to bust, son, but I hope you'll wait until tomorrow. Just tell anyone who calls that you need your rest."

"Right," Peter said. "There's a good policy. If I have a late night and somebody calls first thing in the morning, I'll just tell 'em to phone after lunch."

"The doctor did say Egon should rest today, Peter," corrected Ray. "Besides, I can't do any busting with this arm. I could throw out the trap, though."

"You are not going on busts," Peter said sternly. "Not until the doctor says you can. I hope the demon doesn't show up this afternoon."

"If he does, I'll come," Janine offered. "And Mrs. Spengler can help, too. She was great at Ghostworld."

"And I enjoyed it, too," said Katherine Spengler, heading for the kitchen.

His mother's potion was as noxious as usual, but Egon drank it manfully, and Ray braced himself and gulped down his glass without a shred of his usual enthusiasm. Peter's father watched the process and grimaced.

"I must say I'm glad I've got my health," he remarked to Egon's mother. "You're a dangerous woman, Katy."

Egon winced at the appellation, but bit back any hasty remarks he might have made. Observing his mother and Charlie Venkman together made him realize this was the most harmless side of Peter's father he had ever seen. The man was leaving soon anyway, and Mom didn't look remotely disturbed by the thought. Evidently she had simply been enjoying herself, and perhaps delighting in her son's reaction.

She cornered him just before she left. "I'm not sure you shouldn't have another dose of my special potion, son."

"I feel much better already," Egon said hastily. "Honestly, Mom, I don't think it's necessary."

She looked at him a long moment, then urged him to come downstairs with her. "I want to talk to you, son. Charlie says you were hard on Peter over the two of us."

"I was worried about you," said Egon hastily. "I've known Peter's father for years and he's not trustworthy."

Katherine Spengler shook her head. "My son, the chaperon," she remarked. "Did it occur to you that I wasn't looking for a lifemate, simply a pleasant few days? It may surprise you to know this, son, but I sometimes enjoy a bit of a risk."

It didn't surprise Egon, and that had been part of his concern. She smiled at him gently then grew serious. "I talked to Peter while you were missing, Egon. He was so brave for my sake, but I could tell how painful it was for him. I've known Peter a long time and I'm accustomed to his usual mouthiness. The serious side of him doesn't show very often, but it did then. He was so strong for my sake, but he was torn up inside. You must apologize to him for your attitude toward Charlie."

"I'll never trust Mr. Venkman," Egon replied. "But Peter and I have resolved our problems. I said some unforgivable things, but he chose to forgive them." He smiled hesitantly. "He has a tendency to provoke people to saying what's on their minds."

"Yes, dear. It clears the air. I like Peter very much. Treat him right. The difference between his whole bearing today and that of yesterday is the difference between a bright sunny day and the middle of a hurricane. I can't remember seeing anyone look so lost. He needs you, son. All of them do."

"Did he bribe you to have this conversation with me?" Egon asked suspiciously, though the thought of Peter looking so pathetic disturbed him. Usually Peter found the strength to bounce back quickly so he could be a wiseass for the others' sake, when there was trouble.

She laughed. "Of course not. I don't need to be bribed to talk sense to my only son. Be grateful for your friends, Egon. They love you very much." She leaned forward and patted his shoulder. "But enough said. I've left the recipe for my potion with Winston. He'll make you another dose tomorrow."

Egon vowed to avoid that at all costs. "Yes, Mother," he said and offered her his cheek to kiss. The rest of them came downstairs then as if Mr. Venkman had been told how long she needed for her little pep talk, and the Ghostbusters and Janine saw them off. Egon wouldn't feel completely better until Peter's father had boarded the plane for San Francisco, but his mother's complete lack of disappointment at the elder Venkman's planned departure did much to relieve his mind. He would never have minded becoming a brother to Peter in reality as well as through friendship, but he'd prefer to do it without gaining a stepfather in the process, especially this one.

Now they were gone, Janine was back at her desk, and Winston had mentioned the demon.

"I hope he goes back to his own time, whenever it is," said Peter, stretching out his feet and resting them on the coffee table. He, Ray and Egon were all sitting on the couch, side by side, while Winston sat cross-legged on the floor near the TV, holding the Parker book.

"Yeah, but we can't count on that," argued Ray. He shifted slightly and adjusted his sling. Whether it was the concoction Egon's mother had prepared for him, relief at Egon's return or simply relaxation, he looked much better than he had before, though his shoulder must still ache. He shifted, leaning slightly against Egon, who was on his right, uninjured side. "We've got to stop him before he temporally dislocates somebody else. The reason some of Tyconos' victims came back must be because they were shifted only a short period ahead in time the way Egon was. No wonder they can't recall a transition. For them, it was instantaneous. The ones who never came back may have been shifted far into the future or the past."

Peter sat bolt upright, his feet thudding against the floor. "You mean we have to fight a demon who might put one of us fifty or a hundred years away? This does not sound good. How could we ever get back?"

"We could get back and there's a simple way to do it," Ray said thoughtfully. "I could put in a special recall link into the bracelets and we could wear them on the bust. If I adjusted that one control we didn't understand, the one that must have caused the time shift, and set it for infinity, a recall at this end should pull back anyone who gets yanked away, as soon as we feed in the appropriate spatial coordinates. Only problem I see is that the automatic recall buttons on the bracelets might not work. The device would be geared for any point in time but the bracelets don't have that much power or the capacity to hold any more. They'd need someone at this end to trigger a recall, but other than that, it ought to work."

"That's brilliant," Egon said, quite impressed with the theory, realizing how much work the occultist had put into testing and experimenting with the subject at hand. "It should work perfectly well, and would make the task of facing the demon again far safer for us if we are called to bust it again. But stop it we must if it remains in our time frame. We can get back--"

"At least in theory," Peter reminded him.

"At least in theory, but in a very likely method," Egon replied. "I plan to go over Ray's notes as soon as possible. We must either trap it or prevent it from returning to our time again."

"Hey, we could always try that ghost repellent stuff," said Winston with a grin.

Peter's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "If you mean those phony ponchos my dad came up with a few years ago--" he began hotly.

"No, I'm talking about that spray stuff Ray came home with from that paranormal conference out in California last month," said Winston. "He was squirting it around like room deodorizer all over the place."

"Oh, that stuff," Peter remembered with a grimace. "The stuff that made everybody sneeze! Slimer hated it. I still think we should lay in a supply for whenever the spud gets too obnoxious."

Slimer made an annoyed 'hmmphing' sound and hovered threateningly out of reach just over Peter's head.

"That stuff," said Egon in disgust. "I honestly believe there should be a law prohibiting the state of California from holding paranormal conferences. It was pleasant to talk to genuine scientists like Dr. Auerbach and Dr. MacKensie but crackpots from other fields who think their expertise in a non-paranormal field enables them to experiment in ours..."

"Gee, Egon, Murray's not so bad," argued Ray. "He's brilliant, too."

"Who's Murray?" Peter asked, shaking his head as he placed the name. "Not that Bozinsky character, the one who's such a computer whiz? Works for a detective agency? What does he know about ghosts?"

"Well, he's had some good luck in Kirlian photography, Peter," said Ray at once, defending the little guy. "And the ghost repellent is really a good idea. It's just that he threw it together one day and didn't take time to work the bugs out because they needed it. Their boat was haunted. Reversing the flow of electromagnetic ions in the atmosphere is a good idea, after all. Look at how cloud seeding works. A somewhat similar principle, even if it is geared toward repelling ghosts rather than causing rain, but depending on a chemical spray--"

"Especially one that stinks," put in Peter with a grin.

"Yeah, especially one that stinks," agreed Ray, "is probably not the easiest way to handle it."

"Sounds easier than reversing the polarity of the neutron flow," muttered Winston. "You guys stole that phrase from Doctor Who anyway. I bet it doesn't have anything to do with polarity and neutron flows when you come right down to it."

"You're partially correct," agreed Egon. "But it's a convenient catchphrase. This time around, I think we'll avoid using Murray's repellent. Slimer would never forgive us, and in any case, we don't want to drive Tyconos away. We want to stop him entirely. Using something that would wear off and allow him to return at his leisure isn't a practical solution."

"I don't know," Peter said. "I'm gonna call Murray. I bet he's done some more work on the stuff by now. Maybe he can come up with a sample that smells like Old Spice or something--or pizza--and we can use it to keep the spud away from my bed."

"Fine if you want your bed to smell like pizza," said Winston with a grin, looking up from his book and winking at Peter. "Personally I'd rather have the spud."

Slimer hovered over to Winston and draped a skinny green arm around his neck. "Slimer likes Winston," he piped brightly and planted a sloppy kiss on his cheek.

"Are you sure?" Peter asked Zeddemore. "I can get Murray's number really easy. I'll just call Operator 23."

"Ray looked up. "Don't you know her name yet, Peter?"

Venkman smiled brilliantly. "We decided to keep the mystery in our romance. It's all done by telephone. Someday when the time is right, the romance of the century will bloom before your eyes." He'd missed his first date with the telephone operator when the Ghostbusters had been shipwrecked, and had never mentioned her again until now.

Egon looked around the room at his friends, enjoying their cheerful banter. Remembering Peter's reception when he had returned home from the alley, Egon shook his head fondly. It was good to have the team intact again. Yes, the job was dangerous, but there were ways to guard themselves from the worst of the risks, and this one had not proven as bad as expected.

The telephone rang.

Peter slanted one green eye in the direction of the nearest phone, but Janine must have answered it downstairs because it stopped ringing immediately. After a few minutes, the alarm sounded and they hurried downstairs exchanging speculative looks. This could be it.

"It's that demon again," Janine said worriedly. "It's at Rockefeller Center playing tag with the Prometheus statue. It's even got it moving around. You're supposed to get over there right away."

"We can't," gasped Ray. "Not without making sure we're covered. We have to adjust the device first."

"How long will it take you to set the temporal coordinates on infinite?" Egon asked practically. "Theoretically, it should be a simple proceedure after all the work you've put in already."

"Two minutes," explained Ray. "But then there's the bracelets. I have to adjust them to match and I've only got one hand free."

"Can I do them under your direction on the way to the bust?" Egon queried practically. "I haven't had time to study your current schematics yet."

Ray considered it. "Sure. It's easy, Egon. Once you've done one, you'll know how to do it anyway, and I could probably talk you through the first one. You could figure it out on your own once you saw my notes, but we don't really have time for that. It's a snap. Winston could do one or two. We'd better get upstairs and do it right now. And I'm coming on the bust," he concluded pugnaciously, his jaw outthrust with determination. "I can throw out the trap, and anyway, you'll need somebody to get the directional coordinates in case we need to recall anybody."

"Of course you are," Egon replied immediately. "You will, however, be unable to wear a proton pack, so your job will be to observe, record the necessary data, and possibly to throw out the trap. We're depending on you for that."

They started up the stairs in a hurry.

*****

Peter grimaced as they arrived at Rockefeller Center and hurried through the Channel Gardens to the great statue of Prometheus, gleaming golden even on such an overcast day. Gleaming blue and just as nasty as they had remembered it, Tyconos swirled around the statue as if he were dancing with it, casting out bursts of golden-blue energy that seemed to make the statue sway in response to each barrage as if it were alive. Most people had fled but a few were pinned nearby, hiding behind tables and benches and crammed into doorways.

"Wow, look at that!" Ray cried in excitement as he spotted the way the statue moved as if the demon were wooing it. "I didn't know it could do that."

"Mood slime," Peter offered with a grin. "After all, if we could make the Statue of Liberty walk through the streets of New York--"

"The point is, we didn't," Egon replied. "That was mere hype for our second film. We might have attempted something like that on a lesser scale, but I rather doubt we would have gotten away with moving a national monument without the possibility of gigantic fines or even jail sentences."

"Gee, and that was my favorite part," said Peter. He leaned against the railing, looking down at the demon. "Do you suppose it's zapped anybody into another time?"

"There's no way of telling," Egon replied. "I'm glad I asked Ray to configure some spare bracelets, though, in case they prove necessary."

"So what do we do?" Winston asked, thrower firmly in hand. "I'm not facing that thing without a plan."

"We've got a plan, Zed," Peter told him. "We just start blasting like crazy. We come at him from three directions. It's a lot better than four because we won't be in each other's line of fire, and Ray will stick right behind one of us, ready to toss out the trap first chance we get. Can you handle that, Ray?"

The occultist nodded. Bracelet firmly fastened around his good wrist and trap held securely by the cord in that hand, he was clearly ready to do his part. "The device is all powered up," he reminded them. "If any of us vanish, the others go straight home, key in the coordinates and hit the recall button. Janine's there, making sure everything's okay. So we all need to take readings and just in case." He secured the trap to his belt and pulled out his P.K.E. meter, adjusting it for the kind of data he wanted to pick up. Egon nodded, copied him long enough to get a directional fix, and set his meter back to check for the demon.

"Yeah, and I think I'll put a leash on Spengs here," said Peter, nodding at the physicist as Egon adjusted his P.K.E. meter. "Last thing we want is for Egon to disappear again. It was enough of a nuisance last time."

"Nuisance! It was horrible," said Ray quickly, shooting a quick smile at Egon.

"Yeah." Peter turned to Egon and gave him a big, sloppy grin, his affection fully visible in his face. "Ruined a perfectly good weekend," he said.

"I hear that," agreed Winston. "This time, homeboy, you're not vanishing without a trace. You disappear and we'll know exactly where you--uh oh!"

"I hate it when he says 'uh oh,'" moaned Peter, shooting an alarmed glance at the demon, then ducking with a wild yell of, "LOOK OUT!" as the entity bellowed with rage and dived at them in a strafing run. It was clear the beast had recognized them, and just as clear it was furious. He wasn't sure whether it was sheer instinct or the reluctance to face another 'ruined weekend' but he dove for Egon and flung him down just as the demon shot fire in their direction. Rolling over quickly, Peter powered up and got off a good burst from his thrower.

"Eat protons, you sucker!" he chortled in glee, disappointed when the demon darted in and out of the path of the stream.

"You're sitting on my stomach!" Egon wheezed, pushing at him ineffectually as he tried to breathe.

"Sorry." As the demon shot up into the sky, eluding Peter's fire with insulting ease, he slid sideways to the pavement and Egon drew in a deep, gasping breath.

"I am *wheeze* capable of *wheeze* ducking on my own, Peter!"

"Sure you are, Spengs. That's why you got to time travel last time." He held out a hand to haul the physicist to his feet and dusted him off carefully. "Sorry about that."

"Last time, I was backed up against a wall," Egon replied without heat as he pulled his uniform straight and checked the modified thrower of the atomic destabilizer for damage. "He's coming back!"

"Okay, positions, everybody!" hollered Peter, directing Ray and Winston in one direction and Egon in another that formed them into a triangle with Ray hanging behind Winston, trap in hand and activated P.K.E. meter tucked into his belt. "Heads up!" shouted the psychologist. "He's nearly in range. Steady, everybody! Egon, ready on that destabilizer!"

"Ready," Egon replied.

"Great! Heat 'em up."

"Smoking!" chorused the others as they readied themselves, aiming at the demon in unison.

"GO!" cried Peter gleefully and three streams lanced out, dead on target, and pinned the demon in a firm hold.

"We got him, we got him!" bellowed Ray excitedly, tossing the trap out. Just as he let it fly, the entity shook himself like a dog coming out of water and nearly broke free of the confining energy. One arm snaked loose and a bolt of brilliant light shot straight at Egon!

Peter let out a yell and dove for the physicist for the second time, hitting him around the knees in a flying tackle reminiscent of his best moves in his college football days. "Yahoo!" he hollered as the two of them crashed to the ground in an explosion of light.

"You're sitting on my stomach again," Egon groaned breathlessly, making ineffectual pushing movements in a vain attempt to free himself. "Really, Peter, I scarcely need a nursemaid."

Before he could slide away, Peter heard the demon coming in, free of the confining energy entirely, and in a desperation move, he grabbed the trap from his pack and pointed it skyward, his fingers scrambling for the trigger pedal. Pressing it tight against the side of the trap, he keyed it open right in the path of the diving entity. It let out a desperate wail of despair and tried to abort its dive, but it was moving too fast. There wasn't even time for it to shoot fire from its fingertips this time. With a snarl of fury it zipped right into the trap and the doors snapped shut over its furious raging.

Squinting against the brightness, Peter blinked a few times before sliding sideways off his buddy. "I got him, Egon!" he chortled in delight. "I got him just like that! This is gonna look so great on the front pages of all the newspapers! Did you see me get him?"

"Yes, Peter," Egon said in a dampening tone. "I saw it. Unfortunately so did they, and they look none too happy about it."

"They?" Something about Egon's tone alarmed Peter. One final blink rid himself of the glowing afterimage and he sat up beside the blond man and looked around.

The entire world had changed.

This was no two-day jaunt like Egon's earlier time shift. This time the demon had been mad at them and he'd taken them somewhere a lot further away. Peter couldn't begin to guess how many years had passed but he'd be willing to say it was more than a hundred, maybe even several hundred. He hoped so, anyway. He didn't like the look of this place, not one little bit.

Carefully he edged his way to his feet, offering Egon a hand and pulling him up beside him. They stood staring at the altered world around them, struggling to get their bearings. Carefully Peter put the full trap into its holder on his proton pack, freeing his hands for his thrower. It looked like he was about to need it.

Though the RCA Building still towered overhead and the statue of Prometheus hovered nearby, it was all different. Many of the windows of the RCA building and other nearby buildings were gone and others were boarded up completely. The statue was dented and broken and twisted, and dust and rubble were strewn everywhere: garbage, burned out automobiles of unusual and futuristic designs, barricades of warped metal and a substance that looked like plastic, tacky looking booths that looked like they sold food but which were presently deserted, many with heavy padlocks on grills. The people Egon had been referring to circled around the two Ghostbusters in ever tightening circles, all of them dark visaged and wearing tatterdemalion clothing like Vincent and the tunnel-dwellers had worn on the old Beauty and the Beast TV show, rags wrapped around their hands in lieu of gloves, though many of them had fingers bare to clasp metal pipes and rods, or rocks and bits of masonry as weapons. It was cold out, the wind that carried a few swirls of snowflakes whistling between the broken spires of buildings, some of which rose to impossibly tall heights, dwarfing the RCA. A few of the taller ones showed lights on some of the higher floors. Though it didn't seem to be night, it was dark and shadowy and thick clouds hung low around them, cutting off the tops of the tallest skyscrapers as if they simply stopped existing. Floating devices big as city blocks drifted by overhead, brilliantly illuminated from within, and over in the direction of Fifth Avenue, huge vehicles that resembled halftracks clattered by, heavily armored grills over their headlamps.

"I don't think we're in Kansas any more," Peter muttered to Egon out of the corner of his mouth. This place made him really uneasy.

"We're certainly no longer in the Twentieth Century," Spengler replied, taking the destabilizer firmly in hand as the crowds bunched sullenly closer. He activated the device and sent a brief burst skyward. The crowd growled unfriendly things but they gave a little ground. Having displayed the power of their weaponry, Egon pulled out his P.K.E. meter and took readings, a look of wary fascination upon his face as he made hasty adjustments, twisting dials and studying the results.

Peter gestured at the trap, touching it in warning. "Back off," he cried. "I caught it. You saw me. I can let it go again."

"Witch!" yelled someone from the safe anonymity of the crowd.

"Spirit handler!" shouted another. Something like a rock or piece of masonry flew at them and only Peter's reflexes kept it from slamming against his cheekbone. It clattered away beyond Egon and a second one missed by an even greater distance.

"Hey, we don't like demons," he hollered back, defending himself. "Give us a break. It's our job to stop them! You want them running around loose?"

"I don't think that's what they're saying, Peter. For all the technology we see up there--" a hasty gesture at the floating cities overhead--"we're down here amid the common folks now, and quite often historically they have been poorly educated and superstitious. They don't understand what you just did and it makes them very nervous. They also look like 'survival of the fittest' is their credo."

"That's great, Spengs, but we've got the throwers. I don't want to neutronize anybody, so give me a setting quick that'll scare 'em off and not kill anybody until the guys can get home and bring us back where we belong."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," Egon replied, eyeing the crowd speculatively. He and Peter exchanged a look, then they shifted automatically until they stood back to back, circling slowly to keep as much of the crowd in view as possible at any given moment. "Sheer numbers can overwhelm us, even with the throwers," the physicist continued. "Let's not fire until we have no other choice."

"Well, if they charge us, I'm sure gonna do something!"

Another rock came whizzing from the back of the crowd, and this time, though both of them ducked, the rock grazed Peter's ear. He let out a startled yip of pain and jerked one hand up to investigate, coming away with bloodstained fingers. This wasn't fun.

"You cut that out or I'll come over there and slap you silly!" he called defiantly, waving his thrower at them in what he hoped was a menacing manner.

That drew a series of hoots and catcalls from the crowd and to Peter's astonishment some of them even laughed as if they found his defiance normal and possibly even amusing. They didn't look any less threatening, but for the first time, they didn't look like they'd surge over the two Ghostbusters and overwhelm them with sheer numbers, at least not immediately. They might listen a little first, playing with the strangers for the entertainment value they presented. Peter felt like a lab specimen who was about to be vivisected by a sadistic experimenter.

"Don't make them angry," Egon cautioned warily. "It would be advantageous to attempt to gain their trust if at all possible."

"Well, they made me angry first."

The crowd seemed to take that well, but a heckler called out, "Techny scum!" and a sullen rumble moved through the people. Again the mood shifted and Peter muttered, "Techny?" under his breath to Egon. "What do you think that means?"

"Perhaps there's been a shift between the haves and have nots, and the haves enjoy technology," Egon suggested. "These people don't seem technologically advanced, yet those sky cities or whatever they are must require a great deal of technology and expenditure of energy, which seems lacking down here. Be careful, Peter. We have to stall long enough for Ray and Winston to get back to the firehall, alter the directional coordinates and hit the recall button."

"We should have told them to call Janine and have her do it," Peter said ruefully.

"Perhaps, but this is a more complex procedure than she has been trained for. If Ray is there, he can be certain it's done properly. Pushing a button might well do it, but we have no guarantees."

"No guarantees!" echoed Peter in rampant dismay, fingering his cut ear without realizing he was doing it until he felt the sting of the wound and the wetness under his fingers. "What do you mean, no guarantees? I thought this was a brilliant plan, and now you're saying it's touch and go?"

"It is a brilliant plan, but we haven't had an opportunity to test it."

"I hate it when you talk like that. You mean we might be stuck here?" He gestured the crowd. "Mikey doesn't like us. So what do we do?"

"Talk to them, Peter," Egon urged. "It's what you're best at."

"Well, okay." He lifted his head, looked at the people nearest him. "We're not techny scum. We don't even know what that is. We're Ghostbusters."

"Ghostbusters?" the people mumbled. Peter couldn't tell if they recognized the term or not, but one man edged a little closer, clutching a thick metal pipe, one end of which was wrapped round and round with a leather thong to make a handgrip. "Not governy techny men?" he demanded.

"I suspect he means the government, Peter," Egon prompted in his ear. "They want to know if we work for the government."

Peter shook his head. "Not governy techny men," he agreed hastily, pretty well convinced from the questioner's tone that it wouldn't be a good idea to claim government contact. "We're freelance. We contract out for pay."

That brought a loud buzz of conversation half of which sounded suspicious and distrustful as if the speakers were convinced Peter was lying to save his neck, and the rest approving of any anti-government sentiment. After a moment, the man who had spoken waved his hand for silence. "Capitalisty?" he queried, his expression giving no hint as to how he felt about capitalism. Peter shot a questioning glance at Egon, who lifted one brow and shrugged.

"It doesn't sound a dirty word to him," he said. "Go for it, Peter."

Venkman eyed the crowd. The individual faces didn't show much expression other than the distrust of someone strange, so he figured the best thing to do would be to opt for honestly. "Yes," he confirmed. "Profit motive all the way. That's what we're best at. My own father is a first rate con man."

This time laughter and cheers rang out, but again the speaker gestured curtly for silence. "Where from? Under York? Over York?" It was plainly a choice, and Peter lifted his eyes to see one of the bright, glowing islands floating overhead. That must be Over York, a place evidently despised by the crowd.

"New York," he said. "The one and only. The Big Apple. Down here, though. Not up there. That's not our turf."

"Big Apple! Big Apple!" chanted some of the crowd. They no longer looked homicidal. Though it was plain none of them were willing to trust Peter, they were more than prepared to enjoy his answers, even if they should later on be proven lies. If Peter kept it up outrageously enough, they'd go on enjoying it, and that would give Ray and Winston the time necessary to get home and retrieve them.

In the distance, an ominous roar began, not voices this time, but something mechanical, techny and therefore suspect. The crowd heard it and shifted nervously though they didn't attack or break and run. Peter shifted closer to Egon.

"I don't know what that is, but I don't think I like the sound of it and our new buddies don't either," he said under his breath.

"Blue demon bring from another York?" demanded the group's spokesperson, glancing quickly over his shoulder at the sound as if judging how dangerous it might be.

"Yeah, you got it, bunky. Another York. A place with no Over York and no Techny. Everybody's the same there, and they've all got what they want." It wasn't true, of course, but compared to this place, it was probably paradise.

That caught the crowd's attention more than anything he had said. "No Over York?" asked the tall man, his face full of aching envy as if he'd witnessed heaven and knew he couldn't give it to his people. "No techny? No punishment wands?"

"Punishment wands?" Peter asked, disliking the sound of that intently. "What kind of a place is this, Egon? I get the feeling these people get treated like cattle by the ones who wind up there." He jerked a finger at the floating city. "No," he called. "We don't have punishment wands."

A P.A. system flared to life. "Demonstration in Rockefeller Plaza will disperse in two minutes or troops will be sent in. Demonstration in Rockefeller Plaza will disperse in two minutes or troops will be sent in," it announced in a cold, mechanical voice.

"And that is the only warning given us," the man said. "Run. You must hide quickly. They will see non governy techny and they will terminize."

"Betcha that means 'zip'!" said Peter, drawing a finger across his throat in an ominous gesture. "This is not my idea of a fun city, Egon. How long do you think it's gonna take us to get out of here? I hope there isn't a traffic jam back home."

"I'm certain Ray and Winston will set a new land speed record back to the firehall," Egon replied. "Excuse me." He took a step toward the leader. "Can you hide us? It should not be for long, then we will return to our own New York."

"Hide you and we are terminized," the man said. "We cannot trust you, for your techny weapons, and witch business. We will not terminize you, because you come from a place with no Over York, but will not shelter you either. Hide on your own and I wish you safety and enough food for the day." He made a gesture with his hand and the crowd scattered, vanishing down manholes and into buildings like cockroaches scuttling away when the lights come on. In half a minute everyone was gone.

Peter and Egon looked at each other, then around the empty area. Down toward Fifth Avenue, the roar of something mechanical grew louder and Peter saw one of the halftrack machines making its ponderous way toward them. "You want to have a go at one of those manholes, Spengs?"

"If we do, we'll be seen. Worse, I believe we will be associated with those people, and they will be exterminated. A culture such as this apparently does not value those who do not meet certain qualifications. I would theorize the ones above consider these little better than cattle."

"Yeah, but they could have killed us and they didn't," Peter said, shaking his head. "They were scared of us and half sure we were the enemy, and they still didn't kill us." He didn't want to get those poor, bitter people killed, but on the other hand, he didn't want to die either. "Okay, we won't try that, but we've got to move. We're about to be overrun."

"This way," Egon said, pointing north. "Maybe we can get through..." His voice trailed off as armed troops started filtering into the plaza, their uniforms about the color of Ray's jumpsuit, each with a big red patch on the chest that depicted a stylized hand held out palm up with a knife blade spread across it. "No, that way..." Egon jerked to a stop, his fingers tightening on his thrower. The troops were coming from every direction now swarming around them. "Adjust to lower power," Egon said hastily in Peter's ear. "We won't kill them but we might be able to stop them or at least scare them into delaying a full-fledged attack."

They made rapid adjustments, prepared to defend themselves in the only way left to them.

"I bet they could read the power surges from our throwers," Peter said. "They sent the warning to make the people scatter so they wouldn't have to fight and maybe get some of their own people hurt, though I bet they wouldn't mind hurting those people. This way, too, they get a clear shot at us. I'm glad those others got away though. In spite of the way they tried to threaten us, I don't think they'd stand up to armed troops."

"I don't recognize the weapons," Egon said practically, eyeing the new threat. "They don't look like guns."

They didn't. They looked vaguely like the pipe weapon the leader of the Under Yorkers had held, only much fancier, gleaming black metal with braided leather thongs, a device right above the hand grip that looked like a power source. Peter and Egon went back to back again, turning slowly, their steps choreographed so each movement matched. The troops appeared completely unimpressed and didn't hesitate, even when Peter snapped out, "Blast 'em, Egon!"

They fired in unison, the proton streams striking the pavement in front of the nearest troops. The energy sizzle stopped the leading men, but only for a moment. They kept on coming. They didn't do anything but raise their weapons and hold them out in front of them like swords.

"I don't like this," Peter complained. "Hey, guys, lighten up. We don't want to zap you."

"Then you will not," called one of the men. "You will lower your weapons and taste the punishment wands. Under Yorkers are forbidden techny tools, and you will accept rod treatment and surrender your energy weapons immediately. Failure to comply will lead to terminizing immediately."

"Okay, if we give up our weapons they'll use cattle prods on us and if we don't they'll kill us," Peter said. He raised his voice. "Oh, Ray! Now would be a very good time to bring us home."

"You don't understand who we are," Egon argued. "We are not Under Yorkers. We are New Yorkers, from a time in your past when there was no Over York and no Under York."

"There have always been two Yorks," the officer said. "Wand them. Immediately!"

Peter turned his thrower on the officer and the man let out a yelp and staggered backwards, collapsing on the pavement at the feet of his men. "He's not dead," Peter called quickly. "But anyone who tries to wand us will take a painful little nap."

The troops let out a howl of anger and charged.

The two Ghostbusters fired as one, sweeping the leading troops with their proton streams. Howls of pain and anger filled the air, and many of the troopers fell, but some got through. Peter jammed his thumb on the trigger of his thrower and held it down, firing continuously. "We could use Robo-buster about now," he called. Behind him, he could hear Egon yelling threats and warnings, and the troopers cursed with unfamiliar profanity, its meaning only evident from the tone of their voices.

Sheer numbers told, of course, and finally the troopers broke through. Peter did his best to avoid the thrusting punishment wands, firing his thrower constantly, and even once hitting out with it at one man who got too close. The trooper fell against the man next to him and the tip of the punishment wand struck the second man under the chin. There was a sizzle of energy, an arc of blue light pulsed at the point of contact, and the trooper who had been stuck jerked, his body tensing up. Without a sound he pitched over, his face slack and his lips blue.

Peter stared in dismay. "Look out for those things, Egon!" he yelled over his shoulder. "They aren't very nice."

He heard Egon blurt out a choked and painful cry as he shifted, their packs clashing together. Troopers were all around them now, punishment wands pointed inward. Peter heard himself yelling helplessly, over the sizzle of his thrower and Egon's atomic destabilizer. The wands probed close.

"See you on the other side, Egon," Peter said with great regret--and then, in the last second before the weapons could touch them, the world of Over and Under York vanished around them.

Peter opened his mouth to yell triumphantly but instead of the firehouse coming into place around him, there was only nothingness, a hot grey nothing that went on and on.

*****

"I hope they're just a couple days away," Winston said as the two of them hurried up the stairs at Ghostbuster Central. "Because if they're someplace far away, they could be in deep shit."

"I know," said Ray. "I think the demon went for Egon on purpose, don't you? He remembered him and didn't like it that we were back together again. I hope they're just sitting in Wednesday waiting. Because I think it's gonna be harder to lock onto them the further away they are." He could hardly believe it had worked like they'd feared it would. When the light had dimmed and Peter and Egon had both vanished, he and Winston had stared at each other in shocked surprise. Well, not really surprise. They knew the demon could do that, and from the way Peter had reacted to Egon's earlier disappearance, neither man was surprised he had gone along for the ride this time around.

Racing to the spot where they two men and the demon had vanished Ray had taken a hasty reading on his P.K.E. meter to make sure the demon was really gone and not lurking behind a building waiting to pounce, and when he detected only residual readings, he'd adjusted the meter quickly for an exact, last minute directional fix and nodded, then he and Winston had set off for Ecto at a dead run. The drive to the firehouse had seemed endless.

"It's gonna be worse," he said unhappily as Winston guided Ecto through the traffic as aggressively as any New York cabbie, siren wailing overhead. "I never thought more than one of them would go," groaned the occultist. "I didn't think to design in a factor for that."

"Hey, come on, homeboy," Winston had consoled him. "That thingy brought all four of us back from the Netherworld that time. It's used to shifting us around, after all and it took Peter and Slimer over there just fine yesterday. I still think you should patent it. Only working teleport machine we know of." He couldn't take his eyes off the road to grin at Ray, but his voice was full of encouragement.

"I know, Winston," replied Ray anxiously, shaking his head. "The machine can compensate but it'll take more power. Slimer didn't really need that much. This is a temporal shift, not a dimensional one and it isn't what it was really designed for, even if it does work. If the guys have been taken very far, it might be a problem."

"I hate it when you say 'problem'," complained Winston as he ran a red light, ignoring the squeal of tires as other drivers applied their brakes. "Never mind. With the boy genius in action, we'll have our buddies home in a few minutes, and knowing them, they'll probably have old Tyconos with them, safe in a trap."

They made record time back to the firehouse and skidded to a stop, leaving the car doors open as they jumped out and hurried up the stairs.

Janine appeared at the top of the spiral staircase as she heard them thudding toward her. "How did it go?" she called anxiously. "I've got everything powered up just in case." Rapidly her eyes totaled up their number and found them two men short. She frowned. "Okay, Ray, Where's Egon and Peter? They're not hurt?" Her voice tensed at the thought. "They're not in another time, are they?" she demanded as if the two of them should have grabbed them by the heels and held on.

"The demon shifted them," Winston explained as Ray flung himself at the machine and busied himself with the adjustments on the directional coordinates, cross-referencing them quickly with the P.K.E. meter. "Yeah, they got snatched, Janine," the black man told her. "But that's what all this is for. You'll see 'em in just a few minutes. Right, Ray?"

"Right," agreed Ray, watching lights pop on as the transfer machine powered up. He held up crossed fingers then heaved a sigh and punched the recall button. "Here goes." The device made an unexpected shrill whining sound that cut through his words and silenced him, and the overhead light flickered momentarily as power was sucked in.

"It never did that before," said Winston, eyeing it as if he expected it to blow up at any second. "I think we've got trouble right here in River City."

Ray shook his head. "That isn't it, Winston. They're far away!" he cried. "The further they are away from us in time the harder it's gonna be to get them back."

"You mean this thing could overload?" Janine's face paled as she considered the consequences. "We might not get them back. They might be stuck at the wrong end of history. Do something!"

Ray leaned forward and made hasty adjustments on the controls. The device had never been intended for anything like this, and it could well short circuit if the power demand on it was too high. He concentrated hard and came up with a possible answer, though it was a risky one. "I can turn down the infinity function," he explained, reaching for a screwdriver. "That's the open ended coordinate that lets us reach them no matter what time they've gone into. But if I turn it down too far, I'll risk trapping them in the past or future, setting it too close to our own time, so it can't include them. But if I don't turn it down a little, we risk burning it out entirely."

"Go for it," Winston urged, giving Ray a supportive clap on the back. "You know this thing inside out. I bet you can make the adjustments without even risking our buddies. It sounds like the only chance we've got." When Ray looked at him, he nodded solemnly, his eyes encouraging. "You can do it, my man. I know you can."

"I should have wired in more power to it," said Ray regretfully as he made slow and careful adjustments. He could feel the strain easing as he did it, but he didn't dare go too fast. One turn too many and Egon and Peter would be stranded forever in time as the coordinates shrank too close to the present to allow their return.

In the background he could hear Slimer babbling worried questions at Winston, and after a minute, he felt Janine put her hand on his shoulder, her fingers tightening reassuringly. "You can do it, Dr. Stantz," she encouraged him. "I know you can. Egon and Peter are counting on you."

The thought of that, of risking his two best friends on this gizmo, was a frightening one, but he couldn't let them down, either. Carefully he made another adjustment on the controls, easing them back to a specific factor, hopefully one wide enough to allow his friends to come home. He was pretty sure he hadn't overdone it, or the machine would have simply shut down, with nothing out there to latch onto. He tried one more fractional adjustment and then stopped. He couldn't risk pushing it any further, limiting their options any more than that.

"Come on, come on," Winston repeated in the background. "Hang on! Come on, hang on."

The overhead light flickered again and nearly went out, then with a heartfelt groan the machine started chugging and panting like an asthmatic steam engine. The lightbulb in the ceiling light glittered then came on a little more brightly and Ray turned the screw another notch. He couldn't risk any more than that. He just couldn't.

The wheezing groan eased up and all at once light shot out of the machine and two still forms materialized on the floor, sprawled flat. They were transparent, sparks shooting around their outlines, then abruptly they stabilized and the machine powered down with a crackle and bang. Smoke gushed out of it and it tilted sideways, dead.

"Egon! Peter!" cried Ray, ignoring his invention as he flung himself down beside the motionless figures, his heart in his mouth at the sight of their lax faces. Had he brought them back too late? Had the machine labored so strenuously to bring them two corpses? Sure his face was as white as theirs, Ray reached out to check for life signs, his heart thumping away in his chest.

Peter was closest and Ray stared at him in horror as he saw the blank expression on the psychologist's face and the blood on his left ear. Egon was curled up in a ball, his arms tight across his chest, and though he bore no visible wounds, he, too, was unconscious. Unconscious, please, only unconscious, thought Ray. Please, Peter, Egon, wake up.

"Somebody hurt them," Janine cried hotly. "Dr. V is bleeding." Ray could hear the stark fear under the anger in her voice. Like Peter, she sometimes lashed out when she was scared, and she had to be terrified right now.

"They're not breathing!" Winston blurted out, his voice full of shock. Even as Ray's heart sank into the region of his boots, Winston was continuing, "Quick, Ray, we'll have to give them mouth to mouth. Come on. Move it!"

"What's wrong with them?" demanded Janine frantically. She tried to straighten Egon into a more comfortable position but Ray and Winston were quicker, stripping away each man's pack and lying them flat. Ray tipped Peter's head back with a hand under his neck, then, in frustration, pulled his arm out of the sling, scarcely aware of the soreness of his shoulder and aching wrist. He put that hand on Peter's forehead to help tilt his head to the right angle, checked quickly to make sure the airway was clear and to make sure Peter hadn't resumed breathing on his own, then pinched the psychologist's nose shut and breathed into his mouth. All the guys had received CPR training, knowing their work was dangerous and they might need it someday. Ray had hoped it would never come to that, but now he was incredibly grateful for the training. Breathe, Peter, he urged his friend. Breathe. Please... He was conscious of Winston doing the same thing for Egon, forcing air into his lungs again and again, and a cold knot formed in Ray's stomach. What if his modification to the transfer device had brought them all the way home--but had killed them in the process? It had taken so long to bring them back, and they'd been stranded in some kind of no man's land during the process. There must have been no air there. How long had it been? It had felt like hours, but surely no more than minutes. How long could the human body go without oxygen, how long before brain damage set in, even if they could be resuscitated? He'd heard stories of people who had been brought back irrevocably changed...

"Breathe, Egon," Janine muttered in the background. "Come on, Dr. V, breathe!"

In the end it only took a couple of breaths before Peter gasped and choked and then started breathing on his own, his arms flailing wildly for a moment as he coughed and sputtered and gasped. Collapsing back on his heels in relief, Ray stared at the psychologist's chest as it rose and fell, greedily feasting his eyes on the proof of Venkman's survival. He curled his fingers around Peter's and said, "Easy, easy, Peter, it's okay. You're home."

Peter's struggles ceased and abruptly his fingers returned the pressure. He clung dazedly while he drew in fierce, determined breaths. Ray closed his eyes a moment, his head dropping against his chest, then he looked over at Winston, who lifted his head just as Egon's body jerked and he sucked in a lungful of air. Catching Winston's eye, Ray heaved a deep sigh of relief.

"What happened to them?" Janine asked, stacking their packs out of the way, her eyes darting back to the gasping Egon. In doing so noticed the trap on Peter's pack and picked it up, holding it aloft to display it to Ray and Winston. "Hey, guys, this is a full trap. They must have caught the demon." She put the trap on the nearby table, slid in beside Egon and caught up his big hand in her smaller ones, lifting it to press against her chest. "Are they gonna be okay?"

Peter groaned loudly and tugged at Ray's hand. "No wands," he groaned. "Keep those things away from me."

"Wands?" echoed Winston doubtfully. "You got it, buddy," he continued, raising his voice. "Not a wand in sight. We won't let one of them on the place, and that's a promise. You're home. Open your eyes. Come on, Pete. You hear me, homeboy?"

Venkman's eyes flew open and he stared around the lab, squinting at his surroundings as if his vision had blurred. It took him a second to recognize the familiar place, then an expression of overwhelming relief filled his eyes, only to be replaced by new concern. "Egon?" he cried. "Egon, are you here?" His eyes met Ray's then he sat up abruptly and looked around, a wild expression in his eyes.

"I'm here, Peter," Egon replied. He sat up, too, gently detaching his hand from Janine's grip. "That was not an experience I should care to repeat. I must say the future is not entirely promising." He and Peter smiled at each other and reached out to clasp each other's hands for a moment. "While you took an unconscionable risk in coming with me, Peter, I must say I was grateful for your presence."

"You think I was gonna let you disappear again?" Peter demanded, his voice nearly defiant. He caught himself. "Anyway, it worked, and you're right. That's a lousy future. Maybe we can work on that one." Peter brightened, his eyes seeking out Ray and Winston. "I got the demon, guys. We never have to go back." He met Ray's anxious gaze and gave him a big grin. "Hi, Ray. Thanks for the assist. You'll never know how close you cut it."

Ray returned the smile and grabbed Peter for a quick hug, his arms tightening around the psychologist. Peter returned it, clinging for a minute, as he, too, realized how close it had been. "What happened to your ear?" demanded Ray when they pulled apart, wincing slightly as he finally remembered his own injury and slid his arm back into the sling. "Are you hurt otherwise? You weren't breathing when we brought you home. You really scared us."

"No shit," agreed Peter. "Scared me, too. Somebody lobbed a rock at me. They didn't appreciate Ghostbusters over there."

"Oooooh, nasty, Peter all bloody," Slimer complained, zipping in close and flinging his arms around the psychologist's neck. He bestowed a welcoming kiss on Peter's cheek, and Venkman pushed him away with a groan as everyone laughed.

"Yeah, and now Peter's all slimy, too," he complained. "Spud, someday you're gonna push it too far and when you do, I'll be waiting with a thrower."

"He missed you, Pete," said Winston with a broad grin. "You scared the little guy. Cut him some slack." He registered Peter's words then and his eyes widened. "They tried to stone you, man? Where were you? What happened? Who did it?"

"That's easily explained," replied Egon, climbing to his feet and moving cautiously until he made sure he had his balance, fending off Slimer when the little ghost cried his name and hugged him, too. "We were thrust by the demon into a time far into the future. Two hostile groups confronted us, and one of them threw several rocks. The other had weapons not unlike cattle prods but you retrieved us before we could experience them, thank you very much. The homeward transition was not instantaneous and there was no air in the void. Had we been further away, we might have died."

Ray shuddered at the thought, and Peter said quickly, "But hey, we can hold our breaths with the best of them. We're fine." He went over to the nearest window and flung it open, leaning out and staring around for a few minutes and sucking in deep breaths before pulling his head in again. "New York," he said with satisfaction. "Now this version is my kind of town."

"I quite agree," Egon caught his first glimpse of the remains of the transfer device, and went over to it. "I see the effort caused a major case of overload," he remarked as he pulled his P.K.E. meter out and activated it.

"Yeah, and it nearly drew off all the power in the building," agreed Ray excitedly bouncing over to Egon's slide and leaning against him as they studied the wreckage together. Egon slung his arm around Ray's shoulders, rubbing his chin thoughtfully with his other hand as he studied what was left of the device.

"I was afraid it would shut everything down and blow the containment grid but it didn't," continued Ray. "It overloaded first, the minute you guys were back. Boy, did you scare us," he concluded in a burst of relief and tightened his arm for a minute around Egon's waist. The physicist gave him a warm smile.

"You!" Peter shook his head. "At least you didn't have to face off against about a million armed troops, waving cattle prods in your face. I don't like that place. How far in the future do you think it was, Spengs? Just tell me it isn't gonna be next year or something."

"At least several hundred years," Egon replied, holding his P.K.E. meter over the ruined transfer unit. "Closer to four hundred, judging by the length of time we spent in transit. The weather over there was perhaps symptomatic of a great many climactic problems, and of course I shall want to make tests to determine if there was any nuclear contamination."

"Nuclear contamination!" exploded Peter, his face whitening. "You better be kidding, Spengs. It's not nice to scare Dr. Venkman like that."

"I saw no symptoms of it in those people, Peter, but let me run a few tests." He headed for his equipment and produced a geiger counter. Ray came to look over his shoulder as he took readings with it.

"As I thought," Egon replied. "No contamination. However, I suggest both of us sustain physicals in the next few days. Different immunities and lack thereof exist in cultures which have no contact with each other. In case we picked up any bugs while we were over there, we'll be tested."

"You're just full of good news, aren't you, big guy?" Peter grimaced, but there were no obvious symptoms. Ray decided he'd call their doctor in a little while and schedule their appointment for the first thing the next morning.

"We must take precautions, Peter, even should they prove unnecessary," Egon replied. "While I saw no evidence of sickness over there, we will protect ourselves." He shook his head. "It is not a future I would care to look forward to. Perhaps a series of papers presented to key individuals might assist in the enactment of stricter conservation laws to attempt to correct the problems that led to such changes. Of course altering the political situation there may well be beyond our powers."

"Yeah, Egon, and I'm all for saving the Earth, too, but first we've got to take Tyconos to his new home," cut in Peter, looking around for the trap. "Just so he didn't get loose in transit. I'm not doing any time traveling again. Mama Venkman's little boy is happier in the here and now."

"It's okay. He didn't get away, Peter," Ray reassured him, displaying the trap, its blinking light indicating it was full. Egon ran the meter over it.

"He's there all right. I'll put him into the containment unit immediately."

The others fell into step as he started for the spiral stairs.

*****

As they returned to the ground floor, the street door opened and Mr. Venkman and Mrs. Spengler entered together, Charlie carrying a suitcase. He set it down when he saw the guys and hurried over to join them. Egon's mom rushed toward her son and grabbed him in the way mothers do when they want to make sure their children are safe and well.

"Peter, my boy!" Charlie burst out. "We heard on the news that you had vanished at Rockefeller Center. We stopped by on the way to the airport to make sure you were okay. You gave your old man quite a scare." He grabbed Peter and pulled him into a hasty hug, surprising Peter, who went into it with a grin a mile wide. Charlie squeezed him tightly then backed away, looking the psychologist up and down for traces of injury. Then he gave a casual grin, trying to look as if he'd just happened by.

"Well, yeah, Egon and I did vanish," Peter admitted, a surge of warmth flooding him as he realized his father had been worried enough about him to come rushing over here to make sure he was all right. Charlie Venkman was not the most satisfactory of parents but there were times when he did exactly the right thing at exactly the right time, and this happened to be one of them. "We had a little side trip to the future," Peter explained. "Only a lot further into the future than Egon managed before."

"You're bleeding," his father pointed out, reaching for Peter's ear and fingering it with surprisingly gentle fingers.

"Yeah, but it's just a cut. Can you believe it? People in the future don't appreciate the Ghostbusters. They actually threw stones at me! What kind of crazy world is that anyway?"

"People in this world appreciate you," Katherine Spengler said briskly, running her eyes over Egon to look for similar injuries. Satisfied the blond was all right, she turned to the younger Venkman. "Let me clean that for you, Peter."

"Just so I don't have to drink any of that stuff you gave Egon and Ray this morning," Peter replied as she guided him up the stairs to the second floor. "Was it only this morning? It seems like a hundred years ago."

"Make it four hundred and you'd be closer to the truth, Peter," replied Egon. Peter had seen him looking at his mom carefully to make certain she was carrying nothing more threatening than her handbag. He must still be worried she would jump on the plane with Charlie at the last minute, though there was nothing in his bearing or his mien to indicate he would hold Peter responsible if she did. Maybe old Spengs had learned something from the experience. Peter felt a spark of mischief building inside him. He couldn't resist.

"Fine," said Katherine. "Where is your first aid kit, son?"

"I'll get it," offered Winston, returning in a few moments with the box and opening it.

Katherine sat Peter at the dining table, examined the contents of the kit, and took out what she needed. She then proceeded to wipe away the blood. "There, that isn't too bad," she said, disinfecting it professionally.

Peter let out a yelp at the bite of the antiseptic. "Ow! That stings."

"Be a man, son," Mr. Venkman urged, leaning in to look. "Ah, that isn't bad." He clapped Peter on the shoulder. "I think you'll live."

"Well, I'd kinda planned on it." He submitted to the bandaging while his three buddies watched with varying expressions. Ray looked concerned and sympathetic, Winston was interested, and Egon was sneaking sidelong glances at Peter's father as if he expected Charlie to snatch his mother and bear her away to Gretna Green or whatever that place was people used to elope to.

"So, Dad," asked Peter, while Katherine was packing up the first aid kit. "Want a ride to the airport? I can run you out to LaGuardia in Ecto."

"I won't say no, son," Charlie agreed. "I'm not sure when I'll get back this way and it'll be good to have my boy there to see me off. It's not every man who has a son who's a Ghostbuster."

And you just can't wait to capitalize on it, Peter thought fondly. He knew his father would never change, but sometimes the old man came through in a pinch. Peter was grateful this had been one of them.

"Of course I'm coming, too," Mrs. Spengler said, looking at Egon out of the corner of her eye. She settled her glasses into place in a gesture so familiar Peter had to grin. It must be a family trait. Then, under Egon's startled eyes, she slipped her arm through Charlie's and leaned against him as if defying her son to comment.

"In that case," said Egon hastily. "I shall accompany you."

"What's the matter, Spengs?" Peter asked with devilment in his eyes. "Afraid they're really heading for Vegas to tie the knot? You gonna come along to play chaperon? I still think it's cruel of you not to want us to be brothers."

That made his dad grin broadly and amusement twinkle in Mrs. Spengler's eyes. They both thought it was funny. Come on, Spengs, it's a joke, thought Peter, watching the physicist to see how he'd handle the situation this time.

Egon drew himself up stiffly, the picture of offended dignity, then, with an effort, he forced himself to relax. "Actually, Peter, we are brothers in every way that matters," he said in quite formal tones as if surprised Peter would question something he took as a given. "But I see no need in forcing my mother or your father into a way of life that doesn't suit them, simply to prove it." Unexpectedly, he winked at Peter.

A surge of sheer delight ran through the psychologist as Winston and Ray started laughing and Janine made no attempt to smother a giggle of amusement. Mr. Venkman grinned broadly. "Not that I wouldn't want you for a son, Egon," he said, "but I appreciate your attitude. I'm not ready to be tied down, not at this time of my life, and I wouldn't dream of asking Katy to give up her freedom either." He sneaked a sideways glance at Egon and added wickedly, "Not that it isn't something to consider..." and let his voice trail off thoughtfully. Peter could see the impishness in his eyes.

"Dad!" he groaned dramatically, cutting off the reproach that rose automatically to his lips when he saw that even Egon was laughing.

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