Originally published in Our Favorite Things 14

"I hate this place," muttered Bill Maxwell, peering out the window of the plane as it circled over New York City in preparation to land. "I always hated this place." The flight attendant had just instructed them to make sure their seat belts were fastened and the seats in the full upright position. Belted in and ready, he was prepared to get going, find Keller as fast as he could and head home to L.A.

"Why?" Ralph Hinkley had been unusually silent for the past hour, which had allowed Bill to doze until the announcement of impending landing had awakened him and caused him to look out the window. Bill turned abruptly, not sure he liked the sound of his friend's voice, now that he had spoken. The FBI agent had dragged Ralph along to help him track down the kidnapper who had headed for the Big Apple, at least according to Hinkley, and the teacher had not been enthusiastic about the trip once he'd seen where Keller was headed. He'd complained about leaving his wife, Pam, but the counselor couldn't come along on this joyride. She was deep in a major trial and had spent the past weeks so wrapped up in it she had hardly been speaking to Ralph, a point Bill had brought up when he'd tried to wheedle the kid into coming along and bringing the suit. Pam didn't need to be distracted, and it was spring break so he wasn't all tied up in school and his pet juvenile delinquents.

"Full of criminals and scumbags," Bill muttered with a comprehensive gesture at the plane window. "Every other person you meet's a perp. You okay, kid?" He stared at Ralph in sudden alarm. The blond man didn't look good. His curly hair seemed limp and damp against his forehead and his color was bad. He was hunched forward as if he was preparing for a crash landing. "Airsick? Want a barf bag?"

"I'm not airsick," Ralph returned with some difficulty. Had he wanted to claim good health, he was going about it all wrong.

"Shouldn't be, not with all the flying you do," Bill said pointedly; most of Ralph's flying didn't take place on airplanes. "What is it? The flu? Come on, kiddo, you've gotta put your seat up. Just for a few minutes. We're nearly down. Then we'll grab a cab for the hotel and pick up something you can take for it. You'll be good as new once you're down on solid ground again."

Ralph moaned and grabbed abruptly for Bill's arm, one hand pressed hard against his right side. "It hurts, Bill," he groaned, leaning forward again in his seat then, as he let go and tried to straighten up, his body tensed in pain. Bill eyed him nervously, then he urged Ralph to sit up straight for a minute. "Does it hurt here?" he asked, pressing lightly against the right side, where Ralph's hand had been. Ralph didn't react until Bill withdrew his hand, then he moaned again and hunched forward as if to curl around himself.

"Oh, geez, kid, don't do this," Maxwell said in sudden alarm, his suspicions much more certain about the cause of his partner's distress. He'd seen symptoms like this before. He'd even had them himself when he was younger than Ralph, although he could still remember how it had felt. This was not good. "Talk to me, Ralph. You ever had your appendix out?"

Ralph opened eyes that seemed blurry with pain. His head turned back and forth against the headrest in denial. "No."

That was bad. Bill yelled instantly, "Hey, can I get a stewardess here!" In a lower voice, he asked, "You wearing the jammies, Ralph?"

Hinkley muttered, "No. The suit is in my bag, the one I checked."

"Doesn't do you much good there," Bill said, angry and frustrated, although not at Ralph.

The younger man stared up at him in astonishment that distracted him momentarily from the pain in his side. "You think the…suit would keep me from appendicitis?"

"Who knows what the green guys can do," insisted Bill as if by saying it he could make it happen. "They saved your life after all, that time you got shot, scared me out of ten years growth in the process. Hey!" he hollered again, lifting his head to see if anybody was coming. "Somebody help!"

A moment later the redheaded flight attendant showed up. She was purely gorgeous and Bill had been ogling her the whole flight, but now he paid no attention to her obvious attributes. "You're alarming the other passengers, sir. What's the matter?" Then she looked at Ralph with understanding -- and worry flashed across her face.

"My friend's sick, I think it's his appendix," he gabbled, pointing at Ralph, who was obviously in distress and growing worse by the minute.

She reached out to touch Ralph's forehead, felt his pulse, although the odds were she wasn't exactly a medical professional. What she detected didn't please her for she said with as much reassurance as she could muster, "I'll have the captain radio for medical personnel to meet the flight," and hurried forward to do so. At least she had the sense to do what needed doing and not waste any time exclaiming and getting all upset.

"Just get us down quick," Bill hollered after her.

"She's…doing all she can, Bill," Ralph pointed out, then he gasped and drew a sharp breath. "It hurts," he breathed, his fingers digging into Bill's arm hard enough to leave bruises. "It hurts."

"Aw, Ralph, hang on," Maxwell urged his friend, settling his arm around Ralph's shoulders and trying to hold him steady as the plane lost altitude rapidly and headed for the ground. He was aware of nearby passengers all but falling out of their seats to gawk and he growled under his breath, "What are you clowns looking at? Give the kid some privacy, for chrissake." He whipped out his badge with his free hand and waved it around. "FBI. Mind your own business."

Not remotely intimidated by such a display of authority, a middle-aged woman sitting across the aisle held out one of the plane's blankets. "Here. Cover him with this." She didn't take offense at Bill's yelling. "I'm a nurse," she said. "I'll examine him as soon as we're taxiing." Bill took the blanket gratefully, shamefaced about his outburst, and smoothed it over Ralph.

The flight attendant returned then and the nurse introduced herself to her. They conferred in low tones as the plane touched down, then as the plane slowed and finally turned off the runway the nurse undid her seat belt and bent over Ralph, checking him out with quiet professionalism that reassured Bill as much as anything could, although her calm couldn't stop the kid's appendix from bursting if it wanted to. Bill didn't want to think about that.

Thanks to the pilot's call ahead an ambulance was waiting when they landed, and medics boarded the plane, examined Ralph, and carried him out on a gurney, Bill hot on their heels. "Is it his appendix?" he demanded, his voice impatient.

"You a relative?" asked one of the men.

"He's my partner--my friend," Bill added more quietly but without giving an inch. "I'm coming with him."

"Then keep up," said the man as they wheeled the gurney through the crowded airport at a near run. "He's going fast; I've seen it before. We've gotta make time."

"Going fast?" Bill echoed in horror. Did they mean the kid was dying? People didn't die from appendicitis, did they? Even people who had ruptured appendixes didn't die. He told himself that over and over.

"His appendix," the other medic explained hastily. "It's harder on him if it bursts. Come on, buddy. Move your ass. We want to get him to the hospital as fast as we can."

"Bill," called Ralph in a muzzy voice from the gurney. "My suitcase…"

"Never mind the suitcase," Bill exploded. "I'm coming in with you, make sure these clowns treat you right. I'll come back for the suitcase soon as I know you're okay, you got my word on it. I'll bring your claim check." He talked fast, anxious to reassure Ralph. The last thing they needed was some jerk walking off with the suit, but he didn't care about the suit right now. It could wait until Ralph was okay.

*****

The next few hours were among the worst Bill had ever spent. Ralph was still conscious and in a lot of pain when they arrived at the hospital but he was well enough to sign the consent forms for surgery. The doctor who examined him sent someone to ask Bill questions about Ralph's general health which he answered absent-mindedly, his thoughts on the kid, then there was nothing to do but wait. He called the counselor but she was in court and he had to send a message. Then he had to wait for Pam to call him back and reassure her that he'd seen the kid to the hospital before his appendix could rupture and that her husband was in good hands. She said she'd catch a flight out as soon as the day's session wrapped up and to call her immediately if there was any news. "I can find someone to take over for me tomorrow," she said. "But if … well, I can get a recess if I have to. Level with me, Bill. I don't want you trying to protect me, not when Ralph needs me."

"You got it, counselor. Don't worry. The kid's tough, he's a fighter, and he's got … friends upstairs."

He could sense Pam tensing all the way across the country as she realized what he meant. "Do you think they could…"

"He's not wearing the suit."

"He wasn't the time he was shot either, and they still saved him," Pam reminded him.

"Then maybe it means his life's not in danger," Bill said hopefully. He still felt uncomfortable about their extraterrestrial friends who had given Ralph the suit and the powers that accompanied it, although he wasn't above shamelessly taking advantage of Ralph's alien-given powers for the benefit of the FBI. But even superheroes had down days. If Ralph's condition became too bad the green guys might do their little UFO number and save Ralph's bacon the way they had before.

"I always thought he'd be safe even when he was out playing Dudley Do-right with you, because of the suit," Pam said, not as if she were blaming Bill for the current crisis, or even any crises past, but as if she needed to reassure herself that this time would turn out fine too. "I never thought of anything like this."

"Maybe because it doesn't have anything to do with what they … well, gave him the suit for," Bill said. "Or maybe they're off doing a galaxy cruise, boldly going where no little green guys have gone before. They'll show up any minute and do their mumbo jumbo and Ralph will be back to normal before you can say J. Edgar Hoover."

"I hope you're right, Bill." She was silent a minute. "Are you okay?"

"Me? What do you mean, me?" he blustered. "I'm fine."

"It's all right to be worried, Bill." She had hesitated, and when he had been unable to find the words to admit his worry, she had promised to show up as quickly as she could and returned to court.

He thought of their conversation as he paced up and down, up and down the waiting room. Easy for her to say. She wasn't the one who had dragged Ralph all the way across the country just because he wanted to make use of the suit and Ralph along with it. True, Keller had taken a little girl, and he had a history. He'd taken two others and they'd both died within a couple of days. Nine-year-old Jamie Lee Beckett deserved better than that. So Bill had recruited Ralph, given him a hat that had belonged to Keller and let him image away. Clutching the old, battered hat, Ralph fixed his total concentration on it, and had seen Keller boarding a plane, holding Jamie Lee by the hand, and the flight number on his boarding pass. Bill checked it out, found it was a nonstop flight to the Big Apple, and here they were in a New York hospital. Bill cast an eye skyward. "Where the hell are you when we need you," he muttered.

"Well, He's hardly in hell, young man." It was an elderly nun, eyeing him tartly. "You young people are often irreverent, but never doubt He watches over us all."

Bill nodded, embarrassed and unable to correct her misunderstanding, and listened to her stern little lecture about the proper way to pray, before he could get rid of her and resume his pacing.

The doctor arrived a while later, shook hands with Bill, and grinned. "I'm Dr. Carter. You can relax, Mr. Maxwell. Your friend's going to be fine."

Bill heaved a huge sigh, feeling as if the weight of the plane they'd come in on had been lifted from his shoulders.

"We got him before the appendix could burst, though it was a near thing. He'll be here for a while; it is major surgery. But he's young and fit and healthy to begin with. I don't foresee any complications."

"Can I see him?"

"He's still in recovery and I'm going to keep him there for a while because it was a close thing. He's groggy and sleepy, and the best thing would be for you to go away and come back in the morning when he'll feel like talking. He said you were from out of town so I suggest you go check into your hotel. You can phone this evening, and you might be able to talk to him for a few minutes."

"He's gonna be okay?" The words finally registered and Bill whooped with delight, moderating his tone when the doctor's wince recalled to him his surroundings. He pumped Carter's hand exuberantly. "I've gotta call his wife."

It was only when Bill had finished checking into the hotel that he remembered the suit. "Do you have luggage, sir?" the desk clerk asked.

"Oh, shit! It's still at the airport. My partner got sick on the plane and we rushed him to the hospital with no time to get our bags. I gotta head out to La Guardia right away!"

"The airport shuttle is leaving in five minutes, sir."

Bill hopped the shuttle, frowning. Ralph would be okay and he'd pick up the suit but it wouldn't be much good with Ralph in the hospital. He had a pretty good idea it would be tough to sneak Ralph into the red jammies for a little scouting around for Keller while he was flat on his back and loaded down with IV's. That meant Bill had to get in touch with the local office and fast. Carlisle, his boss, had said he'd contact the New York Feds and warn them about Keller, but it was Bill's case and he had to follow it up. The local guys might know something about Keller, and by now the FBI computer should have spit out information on any local ties the kidnapper might have, but they couldn't wait. Soon as he reached La Guardia he'd call the local office, tell 'em to get cracking and earn their keep. And he'd grab the suit and haul it back with him. Too bad the suit didn't work for him, although he wasn't thrilled with the idea of wearing it, even if it had. Maybe if the kid just held onto it, or stuck one arm in a sleeve…

After checking in with the local office and learning Carlisle had already made contact and that surveillance had been set up at the homes of two of Keller's old cronies and one former cellmate, Bill headed for the unclaimed luggage area and offered the claim tickets for their suitcases. He could see them sitting side by side along with other uncollected bags from other flights and felt his tension ease as he watched the baggage check girl move along the line, pick up his bag, check the number of Ralph's, move on…

"Wait a minute, that's my buddy's bag," he hollered.

"The numbers don't match, sir."

"What do you mean, the numbers don't match! That's his bag. It was right next to mine and I recognize it. What are you trying to pull, lady?" He flashed his badge. "I'm not gonna take any funny stuff."

"What's your friend's name?" she asked, eyeing the badge, unimpressed. That was a New Yorker for you. No sense of appreciation for the Bureau. He had known he'd hate this trip and already it was turning into the trip from hell.

"You're holding me up, and there's a little girl's life at stake, so don't try to pull anything," Bill told her. "My friend's Ralph Hinkley, and that's what it says right there. I know you airline people, always losing luggage. You better give me Ralph's bag or--"

"This bag belongs to a Ray Stantz," she corrected him. "Ray Stantz!" Her eyes widened in astonished recognition.

"Who is he, some kind of local big shot? And what's his name doing on Ralph's bag?" Bill demanded suspiciously.

"In case you haven't noticed bags often look alike. That's why the airline gives you a baggage claim number. We instruct people to check the number and not to pick up the bag on sight alone. Evidently Dr. Stantz made a mistake."

"Yeah, and that means this Stantz clown has my buddy's bag. So who is he? And don't forget, I can check him out if I need to." He grabbed his own bag, opened the zipper compartment and found his box of dog biscuits, taking one out to munch. Ralph had once teased him about such an unlikely treat being 'comfort food' and if there was any truth to it, he needed it tonight. He hadn't had a chance to eat, and he needed all his strength to deal with this stubborn woman who didn't want to cooperate with him. He had to get the Suit back.

"He's one of the Ghostbusters," the woman replied. "If he took your friend's bag he did it by accident."

"Ghostbusters!" He'd heard of the Ghostbusters, New York scam artists who pretended to catch ghosts and raked in big bucks for it. There'd been some big deal a year ago, something about a giant marshmallow man walking through the streets of New York. Probably something dreamed up by Lucas or Spielberg for publicity. Ghosts. Everybody with brains knew there was no such thing. Yet she'd called the Ghostbuster Dr. Stantz. Sure, that sounded good. But Bill knew better. The Ghostbusters were nothing more than the snake oil salesmen of the '80s. He carefully ignored the fact that his buddy could put on the red jammies and fly, not to mention becoming invisible and super strong and all sorts of other goodies, and the suit was a present from none other than aliens from outer space. The only difference was that Bill knew the suit was real. And ghosts weren't. He took out another biscuit. "Oh, geez! Not that malarkey. Ghosts, give me a break here. So where do I find this spook chaser? Here's the scenario, lady…"

"How was the conference?" Winston Zeddemore asked as Ray Stantz and Egon Spengler arrived home to the converted fire hall that was Ghostbusters Central, suitcases in hand. "Sorry we couldn't pick you up but we had a bust and it lasted too long to head out to the airport. We just got home ourselves."

"Yeah, we had to bust a big, purple class five that wanted to eat my nose," Peter Venkman complained, giving his two returning buddies a welcoming grin. "Here I was working hard, risking my life and limb while you two were out partying in sunny California."

"Hardly partying, Peter," Egon replied, surrendering his bag to Venkman who took it automatically as he started up the stairs. "As you will remember, it was a conference on the interdependence of particle physics and parapsychology. You could have come."

"And spent my days listening to you talk Egghead." Peter shook his head. "No way, somebody had to hold down the fort while you mad scientists went out to play."

"It was great, Peter," Ray said enthusiastically, letting Winston take his suitcase. "We got a new idea for boosting the traps so we won't have any trouble like we did with that class seven last month that kept escaping, or like Houdini did that time."

"It was indeed fortunate," Egon agreed. "Dr. Petrie from Cal Tech had some great input. He and I have been corresponding for some time."

"And you should have seen the computer equipment out there," Ray burst out. "The wave of the future. In five years we won't even recognize what we have here. That big old thing of Egon's is going to really be out of date. There was even a guy out there who had built a robot/computer combined. It was really spiffy."

"He may be a recognized computer genius," Egon said as they started up the spiral stairs to the third floor, "but he was very strange."

"And some mundane on the street is going to see you and think you're Mr. Normal, Egon?" Peter asked. "I remember that bust with that gorgeous blonde three weeks ago. She was all over you, and what did you do? Take a P.K.E. reading!" He shook his head in disbelief.

"So what's for dinner?" asked Ray, taking his suitcase as they reached the third floor dormitory and carrying it over to his bed, where he began to unlock it. "Gosh, this is funny, the lock's really stiff."

"Probably pushed up against something in the luggage bay," Winston said, leaning past Ray and wiggling the key. It clicked open and Ray undid the hasps and flung open his bag, only to stare in astonishment at a bright red superhero costume lying on top of folded clothes that didn't resemble anything Ray would have taken with him to the conference. "Omigosh."

"Gonna play Captain Steel, are you, Ray?" Peter teased. "I knew you were into this superhero comic book gig but I didn't think I'd have a buddy who had the hots for running around in red tights." He tilted his head sideways and considered the youngest Ghostbuster. "I never thought it of you."

"This isn't mine, Peter." But Ray was fascinated. He lifted up the costume and held it, studying it carefully, trying to make out the design in the circle in the center of the chest, right where Superman's big red "S" would have been. It held a long, vaguely rectangular shape, wider at the top than at the bottom, coming together in a point at the top, and extending from it, winglike sections that rose out on either side. Ray had never seen the design before. "And it's not a Captain Steel costume, either," he concluded, naming his favorite comic superhero. "I've never seen this one in any of my comic books. There are some kind of like it, but this one's different. Wow!"

"Wow what, Ray?" asked Winston, exchanging a grin with Peter.

"It's got a great cape. It's incredible."

"You picked up the wrong bag, Ray," Egon reminded him as he took neatly folded items out of his own suitcase and began to restore them to drawers and shelves.

"Gee, I musta," Ray agreed in disappointment. "But this suit is great."

"I think he wants to try it on," Peter said sotto voce to Egon.

"Really, Ray. Put it back," urged Egon. "You can see it's made for someone very slender. It wouldn't fit. You must have picked up the wrong suitcase at the airport."

Ray, who had seated himself upon his bed and was engaged in measuring one of the suit's feet against his own shoe, appeared disappointed. "Come on, Egon, it wouldn't hurt to put it on. I know it wouldn't. It …" His voice trailed off and he frowned, his brow puckering as he checked the fabric. "I don't recognize this material. It doesn't feel like anything I ever touched before."

"That's because you're not into tights, Super Stantz," Peter informed him. "I've had dates who wore stuff like this." He fingered the material carefully. "Yep."

Ray shook his head. "Similar, maybe, Peter, but different. I don't know. Maybe it sounds crazy, guys, but I have to try it on."

"I'm sure the person who owns it won't appreciate that, Raymond," Egon warned him. "Didn't you check the label when you picked up your bag?"

Ray pondered, scratching his head. "Gosh. I didn't even think. Who'd have a battered old suitcase like this one?"

"Somebody who gets his jollies running around in red tights," Peter said. He picked up the label and read it. "Some character named Ralph Hinkley."

Ray's fingers continued to brush the suit, tracing the pattern in the circle. Then he shook his head. "I'll put it away afterwards, but I have to try it on."

"Captain Steel fixation," Winston said instructively to Peter in an undertone.

"Let him do it," Peter said, leaning against the footboard of his bed and folding his arms across his chest. "It won't fit anyway, so what's the biggie. We can call the airport and see if Ray's bag is still there and then we can trade, but if it gives the boy wonder his jollies, let him put it on and play Captain Steel for a while."

Ray flashed a grateful smile at Peter. He wasn't sure why he wanted to put on the costume so much when he could clearly tell it would be way too tight, even if it stretched, and he'd look silly in it. Shorter than his teammates and stocky, Ray wasn't built like Superman but from the shape of this, Ralph Hinkley probably was too skinny for such a heroic mold himself. But spandex and its like had a lot of give in it. Ray started to strip down to his shorts, while Peter plopped down on his bed, prepared to be entertained at Ray's imagined posturing in the suit, and Egon returned to his unpacking.

The distant sound of the door buzzer made Winston snap his fingers. "Pizza's here. I'll go." He hurried down after it.

It was funny but the suit seemed to shape itself to him, form-fitting but not too tight, although pulling it on was not the easiest task he'd ever accomplished. He had to sit down on the bed to work his feet into it and pulling on the shoes. He'd thought they might be just a little too small, but once they were on they fit perfectly as if they were contouring to his feet.

Amazingly, it fit as if it had been made for him. He settled the cape around his shoulders, loving the feel of it and swirling it around him like a villain in a melodrama before letting it settle into place. This was great. He suddenly felt like a superhero. He could probably even fly. Spreading his arms, out to his sides and then extending them in front of him, he assumed a Captain Steel pose.

"Amazing!" Peter said as Winston returned carrying two pizza boxes. "It fits him. Just like it was made for him. It even looks good on him. This has gotta be a first."

Ray turned to the full-length mirror and stared at himself. Okay, so he was a little too chubby, mostly around the middle, and the suit didn't hide it, but somehow in the outfit, he didn't look like a guy in a too-tight costume, he didn't look silly, and he didn't look as if he was dressed up in a Halloween outfit. He looked…right, somehow. As if he really could leap tall buildings at a single bound.

"Hey, Ray, you look good in that thing," Winston remarked, carrying the pizza boxes over to the table and depositing them there. "But never mind that. Slimer's not here, come on, let's eat."

"I can't eat in this, I'll get pizza on it. Besides, there's something telling me I can …"

"Can what, Ray?" asked Peter, opening the top pizza box and hauling out a piece. "Fly?" he asked around a mouthful.

"Don't talk with your mouth full, Peter," Egon chided. He took a bite himself, all the while watching Ray.

"Well, I'm not gonna jump out the window to find out," Ray said reassuringly, although a part of him almost wanted to. Some guy from L.A. was hardly a super hero. But the suit made him feel as if he could do more than usual. Wondering if he could find out anything about the man who owned the costume, he reached into the suitcase and pulled out a book that had been lying beneath it. It was a textbook, something at the high school level, a remedial English book. Opening the cover, he found Hinkley's name in it. Maybe the guy was a teacher, although he'd never had a teacher who dressed up in red tights before, at least not that he'd known of. He closed the book, thinking about the absent Mr. Hinkley and a really bizarre thing happened. Suddenly in the center of the cover a cloud pulled away revealing an image of a blond, curly-haired man lying in a hospital operating room, surrounded by doctors and nurses. It was as vivid as watching a program on television.

With a stunned yelp he dropped the book, and the image vanished.

"What happened, Ray?" Peter jumped for him, grasping his arm. "You okay? You went white as a sheet."

"I saw something," Ray blurted in stunned astonishment. "Like a vision or something, only right on the cover of the book. It was a guy in the hospital, having surgery. I never saw him before in my life."

Winston hummed a few bars of the Twilight Zone theme. "That's weird, Ray. You haven't always had visions, have you, and you just forgot to tell us?"

"No. I never had anything like that happen. Peter can tell you. He's run all those ESP tests on me. Started way back at Columbia when we were grad students."

"You're more psychic now than you were then, Tex," Peter put in helpfully. "We all are. All this ghost stuff rubs off."

"If you mean our ability to tell when the telephone is going to ring and other such simple foretellings, Peter, you do that more than any of us," Egon remarked, regarding the still-openmouthed Ray, intrigued. "I've kept track of such instances, and while Ray is second, you do it the most."

"Yeah, and I've been slimed the most, too," Peter reminded him with a grimace, rubbing the back of his neck in unhappy remembrance of Slimer's deposit there just a few hours earlier. "Think there's a connection?"

"Most probably," Egon replied, fascinated by the concept but not enough to distract him from the bright red suit and Ray's supposed vision. "But it's Ray that's at issue now. Peter, you pick up the book, concentrate on its owner and see if you can sense anything abnormal."

Peter touched the text warily with one finger first, then when nothing happened, he picked it up and concentrated on it, his face scrunching up with the effort. "I'm not getting anything here, Spengs," he said. "But then psychokinesis was never my forte. You think that Superman outfit gives Ray an edge?" He sounded extremely skeptical.

"Hmm." Egon went after a P.K.E. meter, while Ray, intrigued with the possibility, picked up a sweater dangling over one of the bedposts of Peter's bed and concentrated for all he was worth. The image came faster this time, Peter and his latest girlfriend, Maggie, kissing with great enthusiasm, Peter wearing the sweater, Maggie wearing considerably less. Ray could feel his face reddening as he put down the sweater. "Gosh. It's almost x-rated."

Peter yanked up the sweater and carried it away to his closet, where he tossed it in on the floor before closing the door. "You're making it up, aren't you, Ray?" he begged. "Tell me you're making it up."

"If you want a blow by blow description…" Ray began, delighted when pink tinged Peter's cheeks. "Wow, this is great. I bet it is the outfit. I wonder what else it can let me do."

Egon turned on his P.K.E. meter and passed it over Ray. At first nothing happened then when Egon made a few adjustments the meter began to beep. "Interesting," Egon said. "It's a strange energy field, unlike anything I've ever detected before. It's not ectoplasmic, and the only reason I can pick it up at all is because we made the parameters for detection as wide as possible when we fine-tuned the meters. Most of the ghosts we encounter fall with in a certain range, but this is outside that. The valence is strange, but it's not negative like physical energies. What I'm detecting is a paranatural field that surrounds Ray."

"The suit is haunted?" Winston asked blankly, nearly dropping the piece of pizza he held in his hand.

"No, this isn't about ghosts," Egon replied. "Paranatural is different from paranormal. I'm not entirely certain this 'costume' comes from our own dimension or our own world. Come into the lab, Raymond. I want to run additional tests."

"Maybe I can fly there," Ray suggested. He took a couple of running steps and launched himself hopefully into the air. What happened then stunned all of them. For an instant he could feel power through him and suddenly he was aloft, really flying, but he wasn't sure what to do, and by the time he remembered to strike a pose like Captain Steel he was out of control in a nose dive for the floor. He landed with a yell and rolled over, rubbing his left elbow, which had made contact, but before the other three could reach him he bounded up ecstatically. "I can really fly!"

"You mean you can jump high and land hard," Peter corrected.

"No, Peter. He actually did, er, levitate," Egon put in. His eyes were alight with fascination and he passed the meter over Ray, checking its responses. "Evidently this suit can imbue the wearer with certain abilities," he said. "It's as if it was designed to exert a force upon the wearer to draw forth latent abilities of the brain."

"Yeah, right, Egon. I'd buy that for the little psychic number with my sweater," Peter objected, shaking his head. "But last I knew, people didn't have latent abilities to make like birds. Even clumsy birds," he added, gesturing at Ray, who still stood rubbing his elbow automatically.

"Levitation is a psi ability, Peter. Psychokinesis," Egon reminded him. "Like all other human abilities, while some people may have natural gifts in that area, for most of us it would be a question of learning to use it."

"Yeah, but it doesn't work like what Ray just did," Peter said. "You don't have a lot of trance mediums or magicians or people like that leaping into the air and flying like Superman."

"Wait a minute, Peter," Winston put in. "Maybe this suit is really some kind of enhancer, letting people use psi powers and enhancing them. Ray saw some guy in the hospital, which might have been happening right now, but if he saw you with a date, he was seeing something from the past."

"Retrocognition," Egon replied. "If the suit can enhance psi abilities, an uncontrolled use of it might reveal several different powers. Perhaps if we were to control its uses and experiment under strict, scientific guidelines we might be able to determine its parameters."

"You forgot something, big guy," Peter told him, eyeing the suit uneasily. "It doesn't belong to us. It belongs to some guy in the hospital. Maybe he tried one experiment too many and got crunched. I think Ray ought to lose it before he winds up in intensive care."

"But it's really fascinating, Peter," objected Ray. "And it doesn't feel dangerous. It feels like I was supposed to wear it."

"In other words, it's probably controlling you. I don't like it."

"I wonder where it came from," Winston put in, frowning. He put out one finger and touched Ray's arm. "It doesn't feel like it's full of power. It just feels like cloth to me. But it might be a good idea to analyze the fabric."

"Why?" asked Peter suspiciously.

"To see if it's of Earth origin," Winston explained, his tone only slightly facetious. "Superman came from the planet Krypton, after all."

"Superman isn't real, Winston," argued Peter. "He's a character in a comic book. This getup is real and it almost made Ray fly. He wanted to try it. What if it had made him try it right out the window. He'd be down there now in a pile of broken bones."

"But I'm not hurt," Ray said.

"You've been rubbing your elbow."

"I know, but it doesn't hurt. I just kept thinking it would." He heard what he'd just said and stared wide-eyed at Egon. "Gosh, maybe it's bulletproof. Maybe it will protect me when I wear it."

"Sure, but it doesn't cover your head, kiddo," Peter reminded him. "Think about that. I think we'd better call this Hinkley character. Nobody's called us about the missing bag. Suppose that means he's in the hospital here and hasn't had a chance to call?"

"Tell you what," Winston said, frowning. "I'm gonna call all the hospitals and see if there's a character named Hinkley in any of 'em." He headed for the telephone, picked up the phone directory and began to flip through the pages.

"He must have come in on your flight," Peter said, turning to Ray and Egon. "Was anybody sick on the plane?"

"Oh, gosh, I forgot about that," Ray replied. "There was some guy up near the front who had to be rushed out on a stretcher. The stewardess said they thought he had appendicitis. I forgot about that. He must be the one. Anybody else would have taken my name off my suitcase and called, especially somebody missing something as special as this suit."

"So what do you think it is, Egon?" Peter asked, staring at Ray as he fingered the material. "A real psi-enhancing outfit? My dad finds out about something like this and he'll be out there trying to make major bucks off it. Bad enough he tried to sell those phony ghost-repelling ponchos. This'd drive him nuts. He'd love it, and it'd be dangerous." Ray was sure Peter was right. The elder Venkman was out for a quick, and not-always-legal buck.

"Then we must be certain he never finds out about it." Egon began to test their other detecting equipment on the suit, one piece at a time, while Ray considered the possibilities, his mind drifting to the powers displayed by various comic book superheroes. What could he do with something like this outfit? If it was really a psi enhancer, what could it do? Make him telepathic? Psychic? Able to turn invisible?

Intrigued with that possibility, Ray concentrated for all he was worth, trying to imagine himself vanishing from sight. That would be really great. If he could get the drop on some really nasty ghosts and sneak up on them, if he could pull a stunt on the guys, tiptoe around when they didn't even see him, he could short sheet Peter's bed without being caught at it. It would be great fun.

"Ray," screeched Peter, color draining from his face. "Egon, where'd he go? If that fancy red costume disintegrated him…"

Winston flung down the phone and lunged for Ray, just as Peter jumped for him, both of them gazing blankly into space while Egon, magnetometer in hand, breathed, "Fascinating."

Ray held up his hand and realized in astonishment that he was even invisible to himself. Smiling at the charge of his friends, he ducked but Peter's flailing hand caught his arm and grabbed on tight, his eyes growing huge as he realized he'd found Ray. The occultist let go of his concentration and popped into existence again, and Peter dropped his arm with a blurted gasp of astonishment then grabbed both arms above the elbows and shook him, all the more angry because he'd been scared.

"That wasn't funny, Ray."

"I'm sorry. I just thought, if I could fly, maybe I could turn invisible, so I concentrated on it. This is really a great suit. I bet there's all kinds of things I could do if I really put my mind to it."

"Yeah, right," said Winston, reaching out and poking Ray in the chest as if to reassure himself Stantz was solid. "Don't do anything like that again without giving us a warning, first."

"I detected an energy surge when you became invisible, Ray," Egon informed him, setting aside the magnetometer and picking up the P.K.E. meter again. "I'm not sure if working the suit enables you to use psi powers normally dormant or whether you have to concentrate to activate powers inherent in the suit. I want to run further tests."

"Before you do any more, guys," Winston put in, "I think we ought to consider that it belongs to somebody else and the only reason we have it is because Ray grabbed the wrong suitcase at La Guardia. This Hinkley guy won't be too happy with us when he finds out we've been playing with the outfit. I think you ought to put it back in the suitcase and I'll call around to a few more hospitals. If that doesn't work, I'll phone out to L.A. and see if we can find out where Hinkley might be, if he had a hotel reservation or anything, in case he wasn't the guy who got sick on the plane."

"If you can't find him, we can only wait until his suitcase is claimed," Egon replied. "I am not certain something like this is safe in the hands of a layman. In any case, further tests will harm no one."

"In other words, Egon's too fascinated with our new toy to give it up. So what else can you do, Ray?" Peter asked, grinning. "Are you faster than a speeding bullet?"

Ray thought about it, then he turned and raced into the bedroom and back. The other guys blinked in astonishment, and Ray grinned triumphantly, realizing how fast he'd been moving. It had been all he could do to keep from running right out through the window into the night, a couple stories above Mott Street. "I'm pretty fast," he said. "Wow, this is really great. I bet there's all kinds of things I can do."

"One thing we should explore is whether or not the suit works equally for all people," Egon mused. "Peter, you try it."

"Not if you paid me," Peter objected, holding up his hands as he eyed the suit suspiciously. Ray wasn't sure whether it was concern about what the suit might do to him or worry that it would make him look silly.

"I'll do it," Winston volunteered, a skeptical expression on his face. "Although you guys gotta promise you won't tell anybody I tried it."

Ray was reluctant to part with the suit. He felt he was only beginning to get a handle on it, and he knew he could think of lots of things to try, abilities possessed by superheroes in his favorite comic books. But Egon was right; they had to find out if the suit worked equally for anyone, a premise that was borne out by the way it worked for Ray, and presumably for Hinkley. Ray peeled off the suit, feeling momentarily bereft when he passed it to Winston. He'd been enjoying himself.

Winston tugged and pulled but the suit just didn't fit him right. "Couldn't walk a step in these shoes," he complained.

"That's funny," said Ray. "It felt like it molded right to me."

It didn't mold to Winston. He squeezed it on but it was tight and uncomfortable as if he'd attempted to put on something three sizes too small for him. He grimaced. "Hate to say it, but I think this thing was meant for Ray."

"Yeah, Winston, I've gotta say that look just isn't you," said Peter, cocking his head to survey his friend. "You look like you bought a Halloween costume that was the wrong size."

"Then you try it on," Winston grumbled.

Egon interrupted. "See if you can run like Ray did," he urged.

Winston tried. He made good time to the far window and back but it was good time for a man in great shape, nothing like the lightning speed Ray had made, blurring his movement. "No good, huh?" he asked when he joined them again.

"You won't set any records in the paranormal Olympics," Peter told him, grinning. "Sorry, Winston. Close, but no cigar."

"And no energy surge," Egon confirmed. "The suit isn't giving off anything with you in it, Winston. With Ray, it almost seemed alive."

"Is that because Ray tried first, or because he fits some unknown requirements?" Winston asked as he took off the suit. It came off much easier than it had gone on, as if it didn't like Winston. He passed it to Peter, who received it uneasily, and began to pull on his own clothes again.

"You try it, Peter," Egon urged.

"Are you kidding? It's against my contract to look silly," Peter proclaimed.

Winston wrapped an arm around Peter's neck, taking him in a chokehold. "Listen, homeboy. If I did it, you can do it," he told him.

"Well, only to save my neck then." Peter put the suit on. It wasn't as tight on him as it had been on Winston; he was a thinner man, less solidly built, although the shoes fit better than they had Winston. But it wasn't comfortable, and he felt awkward in it. Ray knew Venkman wouldn't have chosen that word, but he could see it on Peter's face. As soon as he set the cape on his shoulders, Peter closed his eyes in concentration. For a long time he stood there, eyes scrunched shut, then he opened them and gazed at the other guys. "You can still see me, huh?"

"Clear as a bell," Egon told him. "Hmm. I wonder if it was indeed the fact that Ray donned the suit first."

"I don't think so, Egon," Ray replied as Peter hastily slid out of the costume. "The minute I saw it, I felt an urge to put it on, a kind of compulsion. Because I don't think I'd usually try on other people's clothes. But this was different. The minute I saw the suit I knew I was, well, meant to put it on. I know that sounds funny, but…"

"Not precisely, Ray," Egon said, his face thoughtful. "We don't know the origin of the suit, whether it's occult in nature, paranatural, or a repository for boosting psi power."

"We only know it's a lousy fashion statement," muttered Peter as he threw on his sweats again.

Egon shot him a mildly-irritated glance. "This is serious, Peter. An article like this suit in the wrong hands could be very dangerous."

"Or it could make a crook look like an idiot," Peter said. "Which of us did it choose? Ray. He's as far from a crook as anybody could ever be. He also believes in fairy tales. Maybe it takes, well, a sense of wonder to make the suit work."

"An interesting theory," Egon lauded, raising the meter and studying the suit as Peter passed it to Ray as if anxious to be rid of it. The moment Ray took it in his hand, the meter stirred faintly. "It clearly has chosen Ray, although it would likely return to its original owner when Hinkley arrived."

Winston returned to his telephone calls while Ray put on the suit again. He'd thought of several things he wanted to try, super strength and x-ray vision. So once he was clad in the red outfit again he went over to Egon's ectoplasmic energy resonator, a device they had built together in a corner of the lab because it would have been too big to move it once finished. It coordinated ectoplasmic readings and Egon fed the results of his ambient energy testing into it for the machine to produce a pattern. Grabbing it and balancing himself carefully, Ray picked it up as easily as he might lift a chair. He could feel that it was heavy, but the weight didn't trouble him. Egon's meter beeped to prove energy was being expended.

When Ray had carefully returned the resonator to its place, he turned and grinned at his friends. "Wow! Did you see that? This suit is great. I bet there are all kinds of things we could use it for on a bust. Think how we could help people."

"Hmm." Egon rubbed his chin. "Peter. How would you use the suit if it worked for you?"

"Heck, Egon, I'd make the round of talk shows and do my stuff. I'd impress all my dates. And think how easy it would make to get my work done. It'd be great on a bust, but…" He hesitated, then shook his head. "Run around in a red suit and tights? No way."

"Winston?" Egon asked.

"Not me, man. Not my thing."

"So what are you saying, Egon?" Peter asked. "What's your point?"

"Ray's first instinct is to help people with the suit. He's thrilled with it, open to the experience. You and Winston have reservations, as I would."

"As almost anybody would," Peter insisted. "You saying this Hinkley guy is like Ray?"

"Not necessarily," Egon replied thoughtfully. "We simply don't know enough. I've taken a great many readings. I'm going to work with them on the computer and see if I can discover any patterns." He turned away to power up the computer.

"So what else can you do, Ray?" Peter asked hopefully. "Get dates easy? Never be stuck in traffic?"

"I want to try the flying again," Ray said eagerly. "I don't seem to get hurt when I fall, and I think it's just a matter of working out the aerodynamics. Let me see." He grabbed up a pad of paper and began to work with columns of figures. It had been a long time since he'd done this kind of math, and his slide rule was in the basement lab, but maybe he could figure out a way to do the flying more easily. The first time he hadn't been quite sure it would work, but this time he knew it could. Maybe faith had a lot to do with it, although that imaging he'd gotten off Peter's sweater and the book wouldn't have been the first thing he would have tried, imagining himself in a costume that imbued him with super powers.

"Hey, hey, I got something!" Winston hung up the phone. "That Hinkley guy, he must have been the one taken off your plane on a stretcher. He's at the New York U Medical Center and he's undergoing an appendectomy. They wouldn't tell me anything about his condition or anything. We can go over there tomorrow and take his suitcase back. He'll be ready to make sense of it by then."

"And pick up my bag from the airport," Ray remembered. "I had some neat things from the conference in there. I hope nobody steals it."

"Fly out and grab it," Peter suggested facetiously.

"Don't do anything of the sort, Ray," Egon cut in, frowning sternly at Peter. "Evidently flight is an ability requiring some practice. I'd hate to think of you landing in the East River by accident."

"Yeah, our little boy scout would be a real menace to aerial navigation," Peter said, flopping down in the room's most comfortable chair. "You can fly around here, inside the building, and try to crash on one of the beds instead of falling down the stairs."

"Well, I'm gonna practice," Ray said. "Because if the suit has all these powers, maybe I was chosen to wear it. Mr Hinkley's in the hospital and if he's in surgery he's not going to be up to putting it on right away, probably not for a few weeks at the very least. So maybe I need to learn how to use it."

Peter frowned. "Why? You think he showed up here with a higher purpose? Save the world, rescue somebody, prevent a disaster or something? You'd love playing hero. I remember when you rescued all those people off the roller coaster at that carnival, single-handed."

"I couldn't have done that without you guys," Ray said, somewhat abashed. "I don't know, Peter. But -- well, I guess I do think it was meant, that there's a reason for it."

"Then you better get good at it fast, Kimo Sabe, because if it's meant, that means trouble is rearing its ugly head," Peter insisted. He didn't appear happy at the idea. The odds were good that Hinkley hadn't come to New York to bust ghosts with the suit, so whatever it was 'meant' for was probably not one of Ray's usual practices. He realized Peter didn't like the idea of the risk. "I think this'd be a great time to take a detour down to Atlantic City," the psychologist concluded.

Ray made a face at him, glancing around for support. "Come on, Winston, want to watch me fly?"

"It's what I live for," said Winston with a resigned grin, following him out into the hall while Egon snatched up the spectrameter and followed, Peter trailing him, complaining all the way.

Bill Maxwell paid off the taxi and stood staring unhappily at the building the cab driver assured him was Ghostbuster Central. He had to say it wasn't where he'd expected really high-class scam artists to live; an aging fire station on the edge of Chinatown seemed an unlikely home for four so-called scientists to run their high visibility operation out of. Yet the famous logo he'd seen in newspaper articles and on the news hung over the double doors, lit from within, proclaiming exactly what business was housed here. Bill shook his head in rampant disbelief. Ghosts! A pile of garbage if you asked him.

The door was locked. Sure, it was after business hours but there were lights on upstairs. He set down Stantz's suitcase, took another dog biscuit from the handful he'd stuck in his pocket, and pushed the buzzer set beside the door and waited. A few minutes later a character with brown hair and a cocky feel to him opened the door.

"Got a ghost?"

"No, I haven't got a ghost. It'd be pretty hard to have a ghost when there's no such thing as ghosts," Maxwell snapped. He produced his badge and waved it in the Ghostbuster's face, surprised when the man leaned in closer to study it. "Maxwell, FBI. One of you clowns made off with a suitcase that didn't belong to you." He gestured at the suitcase he carried. The badge had let him have his way at the airport, but something told him it wasn't going to work quite as well here, because the Ghostbuster's face tensed, his eyes narrowing.

"So now the Feds are tracking down missing luggage? Kind of a comedown for you, isn't it?" He made a grab for the suitcase. Bill yanked it out of reach.

"Ah, ah, ah. Your name Stantz?"

"Venkman. Peter Venkman." He replayed his words mentally and must have caught the resemblance to the way James Bond introduced himself because his eyes twinkled momentarily before the wariness returned. "That's Doctor Venkman, actually. I'm one of Ray's partners." He shrugged. "You'd better come in. I'll fetch Egon."

"I think I'll come with you," Bill decided, putting up his hand to catch the edge of the door. "There's something about you I don't trust."

Venkman opened his mouth to protest the slur then fell silent and gestured him in, every line of his body indicating reluctance. Maxwell's senses as a FBI man couldn't help reacting. This character had something to hide. "I can't stop you. But remember, we use a lot of dangerous equipment here, so don't touch anything. We don't let civilians mess with our equipment."

"I'm not a civilian," Maxwell snapped.

"Well, you don't look like a scientist to me. Ray, Egon and I have multiple Ph.D's, and Winston's had a couple of years of training with our equipment. Betcha you wouldn't want any of us messing with your gun. So lose the attitude around our packs and stuff like that." He raised his voice. "EGON! RAY! WINSTON! The FBI is here!"

"Aw, now, I didn't tell you you could warn 'em," Maxwell groaned. "All I want is to grab Ralph's stuff and be out of here. I'm on a case and I don't have time for dealing with any yuppie Liberal scams."

Peter's face tightened as if Bill had accused him of a terrible perversion. "Ghostbusting isn't a scam," he said hotly, his temper escalating. "Just because you don't believe in ghosts doesn't mean there aren't any." He caught himself, eyes widening in surprise. "Ralph? You know the guy? You're not here to try to bust us because Ray grabbed the wrong suitcase by mistake?"

"You say it was by mistake," Bill said darkly. "I've got no way of knowing that."

Peter gestured to the battered suitcase Bill still held as he led him reluctantly across a garage past a bizarre vehicle topped with a collection of probably-illegal armaments that had started out life as a Cadillac hearse. "You think anybody would expect more than one suitcase that looked like that?"

Maxwell glanced involuntarily at Stantz's bag. He'd been sure it had been Ralph's at the airport. This Venkman clown had a point but Bill wasn't ready to admit it.

Venkman continued, "If he's your friend, I hope he's doing okay. We found out he was in the hospital having his appendix out. We were gonna take his suitcase to him in the morning." His voice rang with conscious virtue that Bill distrusted immediately. He was up to something.

"Yeah, he's gonna be fine," Bill admitted as the Ghostbuster started up a flight of stairs.

"Great. Listen, the last thing any of us would've done is grabbed a Fed's bag. Word of honor. We didn't hurt it, either."

"Ralph's not a Fed, he's a teacher," Bill admitted. "You better not have messed with the bag though."

Peter hesitated as if he was considering his options, but before he could say anything, an exuberant and particularly weird shriek sounded from upstairs along with a thud and complaining yells of, "SLIMER!" Immediately after that someone with a weird voice or a speech defect or something yelled at the top of his lungs, "Ray flying! Slimer likes it."

Maxwell stiffened. Flying? Shit, they'd opened the kid's bag and found the magic jammies. But what had made one of them try them on, and even more weird, what made them work for a stranger? He dropped the suitcase and tried to push past Venkman, who had shifted automatically to block the stairs. "Okay, let me past or do I have to get out my gun? You opened it, didn't you?"

"You know about it?" Peter's eyes widened.

Bill grabbed his arm. "Listen, Venkman, you're messing with a classified government operation here and you're in deep shit. Now get out of my way."

Peter hesitated, then he yelled, "Guys, we're coming up!" in a resigned voice and moved aside.

His call must have alerted the others when the first one didn't, because the next thing that happened nearly blew Bill away. As they reached the second floor and found themselves in a dining area, something small and green shot through the air right at them, making Bill wonder if they didn't have a suit of their own or if one of the little green guys had detected a stranger using the suit and showed up to put a stop to it. But when the green thing came closer Bill saw it resembled nothing he'd seen on his one visit to the alien ship. It was roundish, lumpy, wide-eyed, and evidently dripping with goo because as it grabbed Venkman around the neck with two skinny arms that ended in three-fingered hands, the substance oozed down the Ghostbuster's neck, making him yell, "SLIMER!" unhappily and struggle to free himself.

Bill's gun practically leaped into his hand. Peter saw the movement and held up his hands warily before pushing the ugly little green thing behind him. "It's only Slimer," he said quickly. "You don't have to be scared of him. He may be a ghost but he's harmless. He only slimes people, he doesn't hurt them." He shoved at the ghost without enthusiasm as it popped up and tried to see what was happening. "Back off, Spud, before this guy shoots you. He's FBI."

Slimer shrieked; the sound hurt Bill's ears. He aimed the gun at the ghost -- it couldn't really be a ghost, could it? But the sight of the gun panicked whatever it was and it shrank behind Peter again, shivering, growing almost transparent. Aw, geez, maybe it was a ghost.

Bill shook his head. No, it had to be a scam. Maybe it was a film projection or -- or hologram. Only they wouldn't leave -- what was it? -- slime behind. Venkman scrubbed at his face to remove the residue, his grimace telling Bill he didn't care for the sensation.

The little whatever-it-was popped out from behind Venkman, its hands folded in entreaty. "No shoot Slimer. Please."

"Okay, okay, but try anything funny and you're history." He had to be out of his mind, talking to the thing. He didn't believe any of this. Reluctantly he lowered his gun.

Relieved, Slimer turned to Peter and began a long, babbled story, the only words that made sense to Bill being, "…pretty red suit…" and, "Ray flying." Peter kept gesturing at the green thing to shut up, but it rambled on, talking a mile a minute in its own particular idiom, leaving Bill behind.

Evidently leaving Peter behind, too. He waved his hands. "Whoa! Slow down, Spud. You know only Ray can understand you when you carry on like that." He turned to Maxwell, suddenly cocky again. "So now do you believe in ghosts?"

Slimer turned his attention on the Federal agent and regarded him consideringly, then he stuck out a hand in greeting. "Hi, FBI guy," he greeted him. Abruptly he paused, sniffing Bill's suit jacket. "Got goodies," he said hopefully. "Slimer hungry!" He must have sniffed the dog biscuits.

"Don't even think it, Slimer," Peter cautioned. "You've got your own food."

Maxwell waved the hand away, unwilling to touch anything so weird, certainly not willing to share his dog biscuits with it, and the little ghost, if that's really what he was, hung his head and muttered, "Aw," in disappointment before slinking away.

"So what's this about a classified government project?" Peter asked, leading the way across a living area to a metal spiral staircase and starting to climb. "You want me to buy it that the Feds are playing superhero for fun and profit?"

"It's on a need-to-know basis, buddy, and you and your pals with the fancy degrees don't have any need to know." Bill holstered his gun, wondering if it was a mistake.

"But we already know," Peter said, hanging back to glance over his shoulder. "Egon says that fancy outfit is a psi boosting apparatus and that it's paranatural, like it didn't come from our dimension or our world. Ray says a lot of superheroes in the comic books have come from other words or other dimensions. Look at Superman, after all."

Maxwell grabbed his arm to halt him. "Are you telling me that you and your crackpot pals experimented with it?" he demanded hotly. "Are you ever in trouble now!"

"Maybe I'm not the only one," Peter challenged in return. "Your pal in the hospital is a teacher not a Fed. He's not even a scientist, as far as I can tell. So how does he rate top secret clearance, other than being your buddy? Where'd you come by the suit, Maxwell? Did he find it?"

"No, he didn't find it and even if he had I wouldn't tell you so. He has it legitimate, so don't try to make trouble when there isn't any."

Peter gave him a shrewd gaze that made Bill revise his opinion of the young Ghostbuster. Maybe under that smart-mouthed exterior there was somebody a lot more clever than he wanted people to think. Maxwell doubted it, but he couldn't take the risk there was more to Peter Venkman than he let on. What's more it was obvious they'd tried the suit, and it had worked, at least for one of them. That should have been impossible, unless it was because Ralph was laid up and couldn't use it. Bill knew he couldn't use it himself and he wasn't exactly keen to try flying, not the way the kid had such a habit of crashing every five minutes, and dropping Bill if he was carrying him. So how could this Stantz character manage it?

"I'm not making trouble," Peter said with such innocence Bill disbelieved him on general principles. He pulled his arm free of the agent's grip and reached the third floor, Maxwell one step behind him. They stood in a hallway with doors opening on the three sides in front of him, one into a dormitory bedroom, a bathroom directly across from the staircase and to the left was the mad scientist's lab. In there was a blond man holding some weird kind of gizmo in one hand. In the bedroom, a stocky man with auburn hair was hastily throwing on his clothes and a well-built black guy awaited them in the hall.

Bill was entirely capable of adding two and two together. Waving his badge in the black guy's face, he pushed past him into the bedroom and yelled, "Stantz! You've been messing with the suit. You're under arrest." Spying Ralph's bag on the nearest bed to the left, he lunged for it and flung it open. Hastily folded, the suit lay on the top layer. Bill grabbed it and checked it hastily to make sure it was all right.

"I didn't hurt it," Ray assured him with such sincerity that Bill found himself believing him immediately and had to catch himself and narrow his eyes in suspicion. This guy was good, really good. But it had to be a scam.

"Really," Stantz continued. "I wouldn't have hurt it, but, well, it -- wanted me to put it on. I could feel it, somehow. It didn't work for Peter or Winston, and Egon didn't want to try, but I knew it would work for me. That's how we knew Mr. Hinkley was in the hospital. I picked up a book from the suitcase and I could see it, right on the cover. Is he your partner?"

"Yeah, he is, and I don't want you spying on him," Bill insisted.

"Typical Fed, paranoid as hell," Peter said in an undertone to the black guy. "Guys, this is Bill Maxwell, FBI agent. He even has a real badge, although it looks kind of like the sort you get out of cereal boxes. These are the other Ghostbusters." He introduced Bill to Ray Stantz, the guy who had messed with the suit. "He's a friend of the Hinkley guy and he wants his suitcase -- but I think he really wants that superhero sleeper set. I have an idea the red getup isn't part of a secret government project even if he says it is. I think it's something he and his buddy came up with and they're playing loose cannons with it. He won't arrest you, Ray, not when you're the only one who can use it. He probably needs it for some secret mission."

"Hey, yeah," enthused Ray, his whole face lighting up. "I could help. I know I could with only a little more practice. What is it, terrorists, murderers, kidnappers? We know a lot about crooks. We were Crimebusters for a while a few months when there weren't many ghosts, and we still have a few pieces of equipment configured that way. We could help. It'd be really neat. We'd like to help the FBI."

"Would we?" The black man, Zeddemore, asked doubtfully. It was the first sensible thing Bill had heard since he walked into this fun house.

The blond character from the lab, the one with the strange haircut, Spengler, waved his peculiar device at Bill, frowning over the readings. "He's human," he remarked, sounding slightly disappointed, as if he would have enjoyed announcing that the agent was a zombie.

"Right, Egon. You mean he's homo sapiens," Peter corrected as if the term 'human' had a certain kinder meaning he felt Bill didn't deserve.

"I'm not homo anything," snapped Bill. "The bottom line is that you four clowns have messed with things that don't belong to you and are hampering an investigation. So here's the scenario. I take Ralph's suitcase and everything in it and you never mention one minute of this again, because if you do I'll find out, and you wouldn't like serving time in a Federal prison."

"Find out what?" Peter asked, outraged. "The suitcase opened with Ray's key. We didn't break into it. After that you couldn't keep Ray from that getup. He reads comic books all the time. He loves Captain Steel. Imagine how he could possibly resist something like that," he continued. "We didn't know it was classified. It didn't have any warning signs. For all we knew it was a costume for a dress-up party. But it fit Ray really well, even although it doesn't look like his size, and that got us going. We're giving it back. You can't charge us with anything. You try and it'll be lawyers at twenty paces at dawn."

"Peter, really," Egon chided. "That isn't wanted here. Calm down. But you should consider, Agent Maxwell, that with our special detection equipment we might be best equipped to run tests on the suit. We've already learned a great deal about it. For instance, it's evidently intended to function as a psi enhancer."

"What the heck is a sigh enhancer?" Maxwell asked.

"P-S-I," Spengler spelled the word.

"Oh, cripes, not that New Age mystical mumbo jumbo. Fortune telling and seances and all that garbage? Well, chasing ghosts ought to fit right in."

"He doesn't like us," Peter said with pretend distress. "He thinks we're frauds."

Egon's face tightened. "If you require scientific proof of the validity of our profession, Agent Maxwell, I can give you complete specifics to guarantee your understanding. How well versed are you in quantum mechanics, Newtonian physics, the collective unconscious and the theoretical background of parapsychology?"

"Just tell him what we've found out, Egon," Ray urged, his face full of excitement. "The suit is great, Agent Maxwell. I didn't have time to try everything I could think of but I know it lets your friend fly, and he can see images, and it makes him extra strong and extra fast. I bet he could do x-ray vision and hear things far away, and all sorts of other great stuff if he tried. Does it bounce off bullets and everything?"

Bill stared at Ray in disbelief. It almost sounded like the kid had read the Instruction Book, but that was impossible. He nodded involuntarily. "When he's wearing it," he mumbled, remembering the time Ralph had taken off the suit and then been shot up pretty bad, necessitating an intergalactic rescue.

"And can he get really big or small? And stretch like he was elastic? And hold his breath under water for hours?" Ray seemed prepared to go on enumerating super powers all night.

"Enough, kid. I don't know what it does, and there's sure no reason to tell any of you."

"We, on the other hand, may have some information that would benefit you, Agent Maxwell," Egon put in. "I've done a series of tests, naturally not a comprehensive one in the time allotted, but I've managed to detect several patterns. My theory is that the suit is of alien origin. The readings we've taken from it are strange, at the limits of our detection equipment's parameters. The only readings we ever took that were remotely close were from a paranormal entity that did not belong in our world and from an entity that obviously came from off the planet. Judging by the valences I detected, I theorize the latter is probably correct, although I have no idea where it came from and how you and Mr. Hinkley acquired it. I suspect you don't mean to share that information with us, and I can understand your need for secrecy. We are fortunate that the suit is in the hands of law enforcement personnel, although I feel it would benefit you to allow us to study it further…"

Bill felt his eyes glazing over. "Enough of this crap," he snapped. "I'm taking the suit and I'm leaving you fruitcakes alone. Never mind where it came from and don't think I'm going to let you play games with it. Be glad I didn't arrest you, lock you up, and throw away the key."

Egon looked disappointed at what he considered the removal of a promising field of research, and for an instant Bill hesitated. That would be something to tell the kid, the reason why the suit worked. But it was probably some paranormal bull they'd dreamed up and worked out to sound good. In spite of the little green monster downstairs, Maxwell was a confirmed skeptic. Okay, so there were green guys from other planets and his buddy could fly, but that didn't mean every psycho and weirdo who had an 'out-of-body experience' or made the Ouija board spell out satanic rituals was on the up and up. He wadded up the suit in a less-than-tidy ball and shoved it into Ralph's open suitcase and was just about to slam it shut when Stantz stopped him with a question that rocked him on his heels.

"But what about the little girl?"

That question surprised his buddies, too, because they gaped at him blankly, especially Peter. He studied the shorter man with alarm, noting, as Bill did, the fact that his face now radiated distress when only moments ago he'd been excitedly volunteering to put on his Ghostbusting paraphernalia and rush out to blast assorted crooks and sleazebags.

"What little girl, Ray?" Peter asked, his voice surprisingly gentle and sympathetic.

"It was when I was ready to take off the suit. I heard you yelling and I, well, had a crash landing."

"Again," muttered Winston in amusement.

Ray ignored that. "I pulled myself to my feet and sat down on the bed to unfasten the suit and my hand landed in the suitcase. On a crumpled up old hat. And as soon as I did it I had a flash, one of those psi moments. There was a guy, probably around thirty, dark haired and kind of mean and nasty looking."

"Like Peter when we wake him up in the morning?" asked Winston quickly, possibly to defuse the tension building in the auburn-haired man.

"No, really mean," Ray replied, clearly unhappy with the memory. "He had a little girl by the hand and he was pulling her along with him, and she didn't want to go. She was crying, and that's when I heard you on the stairs and thought I'd better change back to my own clothes."

"You saw Keller and Jamie Lee?" Bill asked in disbelief, realizing Ray must have touched the one item of Keller's clothing he'd managed to locate, the hat Ralph had used to image Keller and the little girl boarding a plane for New York. He hadn't a lot of hope of the stakeouts he'd ordered; the last thing a scumbag like Keller would do would take the girl he'd stolen to any of his prison buddies. Child molesters didn't get a very favorable rating among other inmates, and even now he was out, a pervert like Keller would probably go to ground alone. With Ralph down for the count, Bill's only hope had been getting the kid to slide his arm into a sleeve and see if he could image on Keller that way. Now here was Stantz offering him just what he needed. "Where were they? Could you tell?" he demanded, forgetting for the moment that he didn't think much of the Ghostbusters and that he resented Ray like crazy for being able to use the suit.

Ray shook his head. "I yanked my hand away fast. There was something, well, nasty about it, and then you came charging in here and threatening us and I forgot about it. But that little girl was scared." He jumped to his feet. "That's what you're here for, isn't it? Was she kidnapped? You're searching for her, and I bet Mr. Hinkley could track her down with the suit's powers."

Bill hesitated. The last thing in the world he wanted was to take on these four clowns as allies. But if Ray could really image on Keller, maybe it would help the little girl. That was the bottom line. By this time tomorrow she could be dead, and Bill had already seen the bodies of the two other little girls, and it hadn't been a pretty sight. It had made him sick. He wanted Keller more than he could remember wanting anybody in a long time, and if that meant partnering with Stantz, and probably his whole team, maybe he'd have to put aside his skepticism and his dislike of their gung ho attitude and deal with it. But he hated it.

"The kid's just out of surgery," he admitted. "Last thing he's gonna want is to put on the jammies, and the doctors and nurses might see them."

"So you need my help," Ray said, not as if he were scoring points but as if he really meant his offer. "I want to help the little girl, too. Does that hat belong to the bad guy?"

Bill nodded reluctantly. His desire to rescue Jamie Lee and bring down Keller was far stronger than his negative attitude toward the Ghostbusters.

"Then let's do it," Ray burst out.

"Hold it, Ray." That was Peter. "It's okay to use the superhero pajamas to try to figure out where some creep is holding a kidnapped kid, but you're not going out there to play Captain Steel. I saw how hard it was for you to fly and, knowing you, you'd be clamoring to do it even if the bad guy had the kid at the top of the World Trade Center."

"Flying's the hard part," Bill admitted reluctantly. "Look, you clowns. Saving that little girl's more important right now, but I want the four of you to know this is still classified and you can't talk about it to anybody. I don't even want you talking about it between yourselves later, although I suppose I can't stop that," he added reluctantly.

"Why is it so hard to do certain things with it?" Egon asked practically. "Did you find it by accident?"

"No, but we lost the instruction book," Bill admitted. "I can't tell you where it came from. You don't need to know. And Venkman's right. I don't want you at the scene playing gung ho, Stantz."

"You need me at the scene," Ray insisted with determination. "Maybe I can't fly very well but there are other things I can do, and it might save the child."

"If Ray goes, we all go," Peter insisted. "We were made a special task force on crime once, and now that I think of it, nobody ever revoked it. So we're official, even if we're out of the public eye for busting bad guys. Besides, I think we still have one thrower and trap configured for catching bad guys, don't we, guys? That'd help. We could set our other throwers to, well, zap the guy without killing him, couldn't we, Egon?"

"Theoretically possible," Egon replied. "The throwers are harmless to humans at low settings. By boosting the settings fractionally, the throwers could emit a particle stream which might act upon a human being in such a way as to temporarily render him unconscious."

"Oh, great," Bill groaned. "Just what I need, a lot of gung-ho civilians cluttering up the scene, blasting everything in sight with ray guns. But Keller usually kills his victims on the third day. He spends the first day treating them pretty good, trying to win their confidence, the second day taking advantage of that in some pretty unspeakable ways, and the third day he kills them -- slowly."

"What day is this?" Ray asked, his usually-good-natured face full of alarm.

"The first, just coming up on the second," Bill admitted. "He hasn't taken any of them out of L.A. until now, but we had a tip and figured out who he was and we had all his known haunts staked out. Maybe he felt he had to run. It might give us time, but he might stick to his same timeline even allowing for the delays caused by the flight. He's from here in the first place, and though he doesn't seem to own any property, he evidently knows somewhere to go to ground. The local Bureau office has been watching all his known acquaintances, but the thing is, he's bound to know a lot of people we don't have a record of. That's why I brought Ralph along with the suit."

"I'll put it on again," Ray said quickly. His mouth had hardened into a taut line when he heard about Keller's scenario. He jumped up and began to strip off his street clothes.

"I have the feeling not even the Bureau knows about Ralph and the suit," Peter said, proving to Bill that the brown-haired man was shrewder than he usually wanted people to think. "This is your own private scam for getting the jump on the bad guys, isn't it?" When Bill glared at him, he said quickly, "We're not gonna give you away and rush to the newspapers or anything, and we might even be able to play it with a low profile now that it's dark and starting to get late. But it'd help Ray and the little girl both if you could tell us more about the suit. If it will help you we do have a low level of top secret clearance."

Bill's eyes narrowed, wondering how that had come about.

"The suit doesn't work for everyone, we know that," Egon added.

"No. So far, it's only worked for Ralph." Bill hated this. Only Jamie Lee's peril would have made him tell as much as he had, and he still didn't want to give too much away. He'd seen this Venkman character on the talk shows, come to think of it, blabbing to Carson about his team's busts. "If any of you talk about any of this, I'll find a way to lock you up and throw away the key."

"Pretty nice when all we want to do is help," Venkman retorted, giving Bill a dirty look.

Egon gestured at Peter to stop. "My theory is that the suit is somehow imprinted to one particular user at any given time. I don't understand how this is done, but it seems to have powers I don't yet completely understand; in other words, I'm beginning to discern what it does in general and even in particular, but as yet I don't know how it works, or why. If your friend Ralph was hors de combat and the need was great, would it be possible the suit itself or whatever makes it work could have directed it into the hands of Ray, someone who fit the general parameters for enabling it to function?"

Bill eyed Egon uneasily. It wasn't just the scientist's high-flown language that bugged him, it was that he'd probably hit on what was going on here, right on the money. The green guys had a lot of power, after all, and they hung around out there and seemed to know what was going down. When Ralph had been shot, they'd taken over control of that stupid hot dog truck and guided it out to a rendezvous with their ship to save Ralph's life, even brought the counselor along after them. Who's to say they hadn't know Ralph was sick and made it possible for Ray to pick up the suit. Bill didn't like that, it made him as uneasy as hell, but the suit really did seem to work for one person at a time. Did this mean it had permanently switched allegiance to Ray? Or that once Ralph was on his feet again it would turn into just a weird red costume for the Ghostbuster?

"Okay, yeah, you got me," he admitted grudgingly. "I wouldn't be surprised if that happened. Well, not very surprised. But if you mad scientists think this gives you leave to ask snoopy questions and play around with your Rube Goldberg equipment --"

Egon didn't like that description; his face hardened slightly, but Peter elbowed him quickly as if he guessed. "Any snoopy questions we ask have to do with saving the little girl," Peter said. "One of my degrees is in psychology, and I've gotta admit you provide a textbook study of rampant paranoia. Ease off. We're the good guys. We're all on the same side here." He let his voice soften. "We all want the same thing, to save the little girl. And Ray wants to play superhero too, just like his favorite comic book heroes, but we'll restrain him. We do it all the time anyway." He grinned. "I have a sneaky feeling you're one of the good guys here, even if you don't buy into our line of work. If you'd told me yesterday a Fed would show up who used a Superman suit to bust the bad guys I'd have laughed. So cut us as much slack as we're cutting you."

"Ready, Ray?" Winston cut in as Stantz finished adjusting the cape and straightened up, reaching for Keller's crumpled cap.

"Yeah, give it a go, kiddo," Bill urged anxiously. "What do you see?"

Ray stared at the hat in deep concentration and for a few minutes nothing happened, then his eyes grew wide and Bill realized it really did work for the kid. He crossed his fingers, hoping they weren't already too late.

"I see the little girl," Ray said. "She's in a room; I think it's a cheap hotel room. She's in a bed, and she's pretending to be asleep. She's wearing pajamas with a bunny on the chest. She doesn't look hurt."

"Great. He's sticking to his usual scenario," Bill exulted. "Can you see him?"

Ray concentrated, and Peter and Winston edged closer to him as if in encouragement, while Egon held up his gizmo and passed it over Stantz. It reacted, antennae rising, tipped with blinking lights, and a soft beeping sound filled the air. Bill gaped at the device, fascinated in spite of himself. "What does that do?" he asked Egon.

"It measures psycho-kinetic energy. Generally we set it to detect ectoplasmic residue," Egon responded. "However, it can be modified to detect various forms of psi energy; before we found our first ghost we sometimes used it to study test subjects who claimed to possess psychic powers. It's possible the suit functions as a psi enhancer, causing certain electrical impulses in the human brain --"

"Okay, I get it," Bill said hastily, cutting off the lecture. "Ray? What have you got?"

"He's there," Ray said, his voice vague with concentration. "He's sitting on the other bed and he has a huge knife in his hand. He's sharpening it."

"Shit," muttered Bill, and the other three Ghostbusters tensed in alarm.

"And he's got a gun right beside him, a really big one," Ray said. "I … think it's a .357 Magnum. I saw one in a TV movie the other day."

"Yeah, he's been known to use guns, although he might've had a hard time getting it here."

"In his checked luggage?" Peter suggested.

"Either that or he knows someone here to sell him one," Bill replied. "Come on, kid, anything to tell where he is?"

Ray squinted at the hat; at times like this Bill always wondered what Ralph saw; was it like tuning into a TV picture, or was it vaguer, a set of random images? He was glad the kid could do it, but it wasn't something he really wanted to try himself.

"I think I can take us there," Ray said hopefully.

"Great," said Peter. "Egon, where's that old equipment we used when we were Crimebusters? We'd better roll."

Ralph Hinkley emerged from a confused and vague dream state and blinked, trying to focus. His head still felt stuffed with cotton wool and he knew he'd probably drift off to sleep again in a few minutes but a part of his mind remembered the urgent flight to the East Coast and the little girl who needed his help. He was pretty sure he couldn't put the suit on the way he felt right now, but maybe if he just touched it…

"Bill?" he muttered vaguely.

"I always thought I was prettier," said a soft voice in his ear.

"Pam?" Ralph blinked again in surprise and turned his head and there was his wife watching him, a combination of anxiety and affection on her face. She bent her head and kissed him, and he asked, "How did you get here?" lifting his hand to touch her face

"I flew," she told him, capturing his hand and squeezing it. "I always had reservations about you going off with Bill on his cases but I never expected anything like this. If I hadn't been so caught up in the trial I'd have paid more attention; you haven't been feeling very well for days, have you?"

Ralph shook his head. "I thought it was a flu bug. I never guessed it was my appendix. I didn't want to bother you with it when you were so caught up in the trial. And I couldn't let that little girl be hurt. Only now I can't help Bill, and if something happens to him because I'm not there -- Where is Bill?"

"I don't know. He phoned me while you were in surgery and then called to say you were okay, but I still hopped the first flight here. I just got in. Bill wasn't in the waiting room when I arrived and you were asleep so I called the hotel, and they said he'd checked in and then gone to the airport to pick up your bags. I figured he was after the suit, but we know he can't wear it. He didn't come back to the hotel."

"Probably checked in with the local Bureau," Ralph theorized.

"Maybe they had a lead and he went out with them on it," she agreed. "Don't worry about anything. Even if Bill and I don't always see eye to eye, he does know his job. If he can't use you and the suit, he'll find a more conventional way to track that killer and rescue the little girl."

"But I should be helping him," Ralph insisted. "Maybe I could wear the suit --"

"No, you couldn't. You just had surgery. You'll be fine, but you're not up to super stunts right now, and besides, imagine what they'd think when they came to give you a bath or change the dressing." She smiled at the idea, even though she wasn't fond of the suit or the problems and powers that accompanied it.

"Maybe the suit would help me heal."

She shook her head. "It didn't when you were first learning how to fly and knocked yourself out." She eyed him consideringly, still clutching his hand. "You look sleepy and the doctor said I should only stay long enough to let you know I was here. You'll feel a lot better in the morning."

"No, Pam. I want to stay up until I hear from Bill."

"There might not be word till three a.m." she pointed out. "No, you sleep. You probably will anyway, no matter how hard you try not to. I'll wait up for Bill. It's too bad he can't wear the suit. If he did, I'd take photos and never let him live it down." When he smiled at her words she tucked his hand under the covers and smoothed them into place, then she bent and kissed him again, this time more lingeringly. Ralph reached out and stroked her hair, but it took too much energy to go on doing that. He let her cover him again and watched her as she headed for the doorway. "In the morning," she said, blowing him a kiss. "You'll be fine."

Ralph tried to stay awake, but everything faded around him and he drifted into sleep.

Peter Venkman couldn't help frowning. This wasn't his kind of bust. True, he and the guys had busted all kinds of crooks before and had their share of danger in the process, but they hadn't gone after many as bad as this Keller creep who killed little girls.

Besides, he knew Maxwell had a low opinion of the Ghostbusters and didn't believe in ghosts even after meeting Slimer, especially with the spud hanging around looking hungry for whatever goodies the Fed kept in his pocket. Maxwell was using Ray right now, even if he didn't want to, and Peter didn't like that. He was pretty sure the Bureau wouldn't pay them for their help, and while Peter would do it anyway -- he couldn't let anything happen to the child -- he tended to resent being used.

Winston didn't seem particularly happy about it either, but it wasn't because of the suit. Winston was probably not very happy about the criminal aspect of the whole thing. He was comfortable enough with busting ghosts but the team was out of practice with the other kind of trouble, and the one pack, thrower and trap that was still configured that way wasn't much in the way of a defense. It was enough to make anyone glum.

Egon had elected to wear the specially-configured proton pack. He didn't appear glum; he seemed intrigued and fascinated, the way he always did when exposed to a particularly challenging scientific problem. He meant to reason out the functions, purpose and use of the suit before they had to return it to its proper owner, or know the reason why. Even now as Ray checked with the old hat every few minutes, Egon recorded his readings, then entered figures into his calculator. While he was worried about the child as they all were, his primary function at the moment was studying the suit.

Ray was in a comic book hero's dream. He had a chance to play superhero, and even if Bill said the suit bounced off bullets, Ray's head was uncovered. Bill had reluctantly demonstrated how Ralph protected his head when being fired at, using his suited arms as a shield, and Ray had practiced it a time or two, but it wouldn't be instinctive the way it was for the teacher. In his excitement, Ray might well forget.

Peter eyed Maxwell surreptitiously, delighted to find he looked thoroughly uncomfortable at riding in Ecto-1. As a rule, Peter enjoyed shooting down skeptics and had loved springing the spud on the FBI agent, but Maxwell's mind was closed on the subject of ghosts. He was probably something of a red-neck and a chauvinist -- Peter would have enjoyed siccing Janine on him but she had gone home even before Ray and Egon had returned from California. Their feisty red-haired secretary didn't take that kind of crap from anybody.

At the last minute Slimer had emerged and announced his intention of coming along, which had caused Peter to groan, "Now my life is complete." Slimer hadn't done much on the trip except to hang around Ray, sniffing at the suit when Ray tried to focus another image of the bad guy. He was doing that now.

"Slimer," said Egon abruptly, "have you ever seen anything like the outfit Ray is wearing before?"

"Superman, Captain Steel, Batman," Slimer began, ticking off each superhero he named on his fingers, projecting a third hand from the middle of his chest and using that too.

"Slimer can't count that high," Peter said to Maxwell. "After all, he's got only three fingers and a thumb on each hand and he has to use one hand to count with."

Slimer made a face at him, sticking out his massive tongue, and Peter sneaked a quick glance at the agent to see how he took that. Maxwell's eyes widened and he shook his head as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing, edging surreptitiously closer to the door as if he meant to jump out at any moment should the spud come too close to him. Peter grinned.

"I don't mean comic books, Slimer," Egon interrupted, stifling his impatience. "I mean in reality. Do you know where the suit comes from?"

Slimer thought that over for so long Peter began to suspect his attention had wandered and he had forgotten the question. Then, just when Egon opened his mouth to prompt him, Slimer pointed at the roof of Ecto. "Up there," he said. "Outer space."

Maxwell jumped, gazing at the ghost in complete disbelief, his eyes narrowing, convincing Peter that, for once, Slimer was right on the money. The agent was still suspicious of the whole team.

"How do you know that, Slimer?" asked Ray, setting aside the cap and turning around in his front seat position beside Winston, who was driving. "Have you ever seen people from outer space?"

Slimer thought that over, then he shook his head. "Slimer just knows," he insisted.

"Because he heard you talking about the possibilities," Bill put in, unwilling to accept Slimer's statement at face value even if it was true. That made Peter wonder. He couldn't remotely picture anyone as stiff-necked and uncompromising as the agent calmly meeting with little green men to get the suit. Or believing there actually were little green men, if it came to that. No wonder he had such a disgruntled expression a lot of the time.

"Not in a way he'd understand it," argued Ray. "He knows things about ghosts that he can't always explain, and sometimes even when he does explain it doesn't make sense, but I think he knows what he's talking about even when he can't get the point across. It's not like he has a huge vocabulary, and his whole perspective's different from ours."

"Yeah, like we know he's hungry because he eats everything in sight," muttered Peter. "It takes a real genius to understand that, right, guys?"

"You're not helping, Peter," Egon pointed out, raising his eyes from the calculator long enough to favor the psychologist with a dirty look.

"Just stating a fact," Peter said, holding up his hands to fend off more verbal attacks before turning to Maxwell. "So let me get this straight. You and your buddy in the hospital made a deal with outer space guys for the suit? They come around and pass things like this out to help the Feds? I bet this is one of those things the government doesn't think ordinary citizens should know."

"I bet the government doesn't know," observed Winston without taking his eyes from the traffic flow. "Because I can't quite see aliens popping up and giving things like that to the government. Don't they have prime directives or anything? What did you do, find the suit?"

"Where I got the suit doesn't matter," Maxwell said firmly, "and it doesn't matter how many wild guesses you clowns make, I'm not telling you anything more. Bad enough I had to give the boy wonder here some hints about how it worked to help save Jamie Lee. And I suppose once I'm outa here I can't stop you from waving around wild and crazy theories, but you don't need to know more and I'm not going to help you guess. What we hafta do is work out a scenario for getting Jamie Lee out of there." He frowned at Ray. "You showed me you could fly, but I can't say your landings are any better than Ralph's were when he started. So if you fall, try to land on a part of you that's covered with the suit. What I'd like you to do is zip on up outside her hotel room. Only I don't want you crashing through the window because he's got a gun and a knife we know about, and he might shoot or cut her before you could reach her."

"It's late enough he might be asleep," offered Winston. "If they're at this hotel Ray thinks they're at, I've gotta say the neighborhood is lousy. I wouldn't want to go in there at night without my proton pack. Good thing Pete and I have our throwers adjusted so we can knock people out if we have to. Egon can lock the scuzzbag up in a forcefield the way we did when we were Crimebusters. But we go in there to find out what room he's in and the odds are the desk clerk might warn him we're there."

"No, he won't," said Peter confidently. "Not while I'm aiming Old Betsy at him. All we need is to figure out which floor he's on and where the window is and Ray can zoom up there." He reached forward to clasp the occultist on the shoulder. "So listen to me, Tex. Just remember it's the outfit that turns you into a superhero. You're still Ray under it, and you can be trashed. This guy kills people. Don't take any stupid risks because you're so gung ho. I hate funerals."

"Don't worry, Peter. The suit'll protect me. And I'll be careful. It's okay for me to take risks when I'm the only one in danger, but I wouldn't do anything to endanger Jamie Lee. She's only nine years old, and I know how scared she is, all alone without her folks."

Ray hadn't been much older than that when he lost his own parents permanently. Peter could hear the thread of sympathy for someone who was facing a loss that had some similarities to his own although Jamie Lee, with luck, might see her folks again as soon as tomorrow. Ray would love reuniting her with her parents.

Bill looked like he was suddenly in sympathy with Ray, causing Peter to wonder if, under his abrasive façade, he didn't have a center of pure mush, at least around kids. Better not to say anything. They shouldn't alienate the guy any more, not if they wanted to make it through this with the minimum amount of trouble.

"And another thing to think about," Maxwell said quickly as if he'd felt Peter's gaze and found it uncomfortable, "Keller doesn't know we're onto him yet. I think he knows we figured out who he is and that's why he came to the Big Apple, but there weren't an army of cops and feds waiting to meet the plane, so he probably thinks he's home free. He'll be wary and suspicious but the odds are he won't be expecting everybody who walks down the hall outside his room to be after him. I'm not counting on this being a snap, but we've got an edge." He eyed Ray sternly. "I don't want any improvising here, kid. I can tell you're a wide-eyed dreamer and you think it's gonna be great to play Superman, but what's important is that little girl's life."

"I know," Ray agreed without taking offense. "I wouldn't do anything to hurt her. But we don't know how things will turn out. I'm going to have to go with the flow. Give me some credit for being able to think on my feet."

"He means don't get all carried away and take your usual crazy chances," Peter told Ray. "That it, Maxwell?"

"Crazy chances?" The FBI man shook his head unhappily. "Yeah, that's what I mean. Follow orders and if you have to do something different, try to do it in a way that separates Keller and Jamie Lee. Got it?"

Ray nodded. "I got it."

"Good, because the hotel's in the next block," Winston muttered. "It's about ten stories high. Are you sure you had enough flying practice before we left, Ray?"

Peter remembered Ray's wobbling flights up to the roof of the firehouse and back again, some brief periods of graceful flight surrounded by reckless weaving across the sky and concluded by a number of wild landings that included skidding into a trash bin, almost giving a taxi driver a coronary when he nearly crashed into the guy's windshield and a couple of running landings with Ray windmilling his arms and slamming into first Peter and then Winston, who had tried to break his fall. Peter suspected he'd have major bruises on his shins and his ribcage when he woke up in the morning.

"I can do it," Ray said. "I was getting the hang of it there at the end."

Egon's face held a dubious expression. "If you have to fly with Jamie Lee, Ray, it will be important to protect her when you land."

Peter groaned. Ray had tried flying carrying him, just once, because he was the lightest of the other four men. It had not been a success. Grateful for the bush in the open area next to the firehall, Peter knew he wouldn't risk such an experience again, at least not unless it was the only way to save Jamie Lee. "Yeah, and don't drop her, at least not unless you can drop her to one of us."

"I won't drop her," Ray insisted as Winston pulled Ecto into a no-parking zone and turned off the key.

"I'm going in," Maxwell said, checking his gun. "You --" he pointed at Egon as they climbed out of the car, "-- can come with me. You've got that special stuff that can make a cell around him." He sounded highly dubious but willing, if reluctantly, to give the benefit of the doubt to the Ghostbusters' description of their crime fighting days. He'd winced more than once in the telling but at least had grasped the concept of what they had done and how they'd trapped criminals until the police could arrive to take them away. "You too," he added, pointing to Winston. "I want you to stay out here, Ray. We're not gonna display the suit unless we can't avoid it. Stick with him, Venkman. At least it sounds like you can sit on him if you have to. When we find out where she is, then Ray can reconnoiter."

Ray grinned at the idea, and Peter settled his pack on his back then turned to Ray. Slinging his arm around the occultist's shoulders, he gave him a pretend chokehold, although he knew the suit would enable Ray to break it if he chose.

Accompanied by Egon and Winston, Maxwell led the way into the hotel, gun concealed in his shoulder harness but his badge in hand.

"I'll wait until I hear from them, Peter," Ray promised. "Come on, let go. I want to see if I can tell what's going on upstairs."

Peter complied, but he didn't back off. If Ray tried to zap up there without warning, Peter would just grab the end of his cape and go along for the ride.

Egon thought the desk clerk in the hotel looked just like such characters in seedy detective stories, sullen, unshaven, wearing a dirty white tee shirt that spread over an expanding stomach and made his suspenders slide to the sides to accommodate it. He glanced up at them, his face dark and narrow, eyes full of suspicion that deepened as Bill waved the badge in his face, and resentful to be distracted from the program he was watching on a small, portable television set turned away from the new arrivals.

"Maxwell, FBI." He produced a picture of Keller, the man Ray had identified as the one he'd seen with the gun and the little girl. "You have this character staying here. I want to know what room he's in, and don't even think of trying to warn him or I'll have you in as an accessory to child molestation and probably murder."

"Never saw him before," the clerk said, bored. "Get out of my face, Fed. I'm not trying to hide anything, but if that guy's here, he came in when I wasn't on duty."

"Then pull out your register and check on which ones did come on when you were on duty and which rooms have a child listed, although I can't believe anybody would bring a kid to a pesthole like this."

"You gotta have a warrant," whined the dark-haired man.

"I don't want to search the place. I don't have to have a warrant unless I want to search. This guy has a nine year old girl and he's going to rape and butcher her, so you better play ball or you'll be doing time yourself."

For the first time the desk clerk softened. "A little girl?" Egon wouldn't put much past him but even hardened criminals have some limits, and possibly Bill had discovered his. Then he caught himself. "Anyway, there aren't any ghosts up there, so what'd you bring the Ghostbusters here for?"

"Would you believe crowd control?" Winston asked, unshipping his thrower, although he didn't aim it directly at the man behind the desk.

"You blast anything in here and I'll sue," wailed the desk clerk, but he sounded uneasy. A New Yorker, he probably saw the Ghostbusters on television occasionally--the TV was playing in the background, evidently turned to some porno channel from the sounds emerging from it. Egon was grateful he couldn't see the screen.

"Who said anything about blasting the building?" Winston asked pointedly, letting the tip of the thrower swing slightly closer to the desk clerk.

"He's a maniac, you've gotta protect me," the man demanded of Maxwell.

"I might consider it if you'd help me out," Bill said. He displayed the photo again. "What room is he in?"

"Three-oh-nine." Although the man's eyes were angry, he didn't hold back.

"Nice work." Egon wasn't certain if Bill was speaking to Winston or the hotel clerk, but he clarified it immediately. "I'm going up and taking Spengler with me as soon as we notify Ray. You stay with Mr. Sophisticated here and make sure he doesn't get the urge to make a few quick telephone calls."

"You got it," Winston agreed, stepping forward to lean against the counter, his particle accelerator firmly in his hand.

The elevator was probably an antique, one of those numbers that resembled a metal cage, with an accordionlike grill they had to close manually before pulling the inner door shut. Peter would have complained at the very sight of it, but Egon had seen his share of them in older apartments. They notified Ray by walkie talkie then rode together up the two floors, Maxwell checking the setting of the safety on his gun, Egon adjusting the setting of his modified thrower. He'd tested it quickly at the firehall and it had held, but it had been some time since the Ghostbusters had been required to bust a criminal.

The corridor on the third floor was deserted, a dimly lit stretch reeking of stale tobacco, urine, marijuana and other unpleasant odors Egon didn't try to identify. Maxwell peered along its length as if it were filled with murderers and perverts that he would love to arrest as he scanned the visible numbers for 309. It was probably a place where murder was commonplace, and Egon couldn't help taking a P.K.E. reading to see if there were any lingering residuals. He found a quiescent class three or two, which was interesting, but they were not manifesting, and at the moment there were more important things to consider.

Bill made a triumphant sound to himself as he discovered 309, and pointed it to out Egon. "Stay behind me," he urged. "I hate taking civilians into anything like this. When we get down there, be ready to blast but don't do anything until I tell you to."

Egon nodded. This was a criminal proceeding not a normal bust. He had the sense to obey the one in authority.

Bill made his way slowly down the corridor, his every sense alert and paused before the door, holding his breath to listen. No sound came from within; Egon hoped Keller was sleeping. Then Maxwell gestured him back a few paces and shifted position himself so he wasn't standing directly in front of the door. Egon realized Keller might fire through the door if he realized he was trapped.

Reaching up his hand to knock, Maxwell tightened the grip of his gun in the other hand and opened his mouth to speak.

From within the room came the sound of breaking glass and an angry curse from an unfamiliar male voice, followed immediately by a heavy thud. It sounded like Ray had jumped the gun.

Bill raised his foot to kick the door in.

After Egon, Winston and Bill had gone into the hotel, Ray went over to Ecto and beckoned. "Come on out, Slimer. I need you."

Peter, who had been prepared to jump between Ray and flying, nodded at this idea. Sending the spud up to window-peek was a great idea. He listened while Ray led Slimer and the doggedly pursuing Peter around the building to a dark and particularly odoriferous alley that was miraculously free of any thugs, hookers or street people -- although it boasted a rat or two -- and gave hasty instructions to Slimer.

"I think it's that window, Slimer. There should be a nasty man and a little girl in there. You saw the picture of the nasty man that Bill had, didn't you?"

"Uh huh, uh huh," Slimer confirmed bobbing up and down in the air as he nodded with his entire body. "Bad man. Slimer doesn't like him."

"Neither do we. I want you to go and look in that window. The one with the fire escape under it. I'm afraid he'll hurt the little girl. Bill wants to arrest him so he can't hurt anybody any more. But I think it would be better if we could protect her when Bill arrives."

"Hey, wait a minute," Peter objected, grabbing Ray by the arm even if a part of him suspected Ray was right. At the first hint of trouble outside Keller's room, Jamie Lee would be in greater peril than before. Peter took out his thrower and powered up, ready to back Ray and to defend them from anybody who thought it might be fun to mug a couple of Ghostbusters.

"Go on, Slimer," Ray urged and the ghost zipped skyward to peer into the darkened window. The occultist turned to Peter. "I've gotta, Peter," he said. "If Keller's just asleep, it might be okay, but what if he goes so crazy he tries to kill her before Bill can break the door open. Besides, Bill's, well, gung ho. I can see him kicking open the door. He can't pretend he's room service, not in a place like that, and Keller doesn't seem the type to give up tamely just because the FBI is at the door. He's a serial killer, and a really nasty one. I've have to go up there if Jamie Lee is in trouble. I've gotta."

Peter hesitated because he hated the thought of Ray tangling with serial killers, especially this one, but he had a feeling Ray might be right.

They received the walkie talkie call then that Maxwell and Egon were going upstairs. As soon as he returned the communications device to his belt, Peter turned to Ray again.

"They've got it under control. Hang in there."

As if he sensed Peter's ambivalence, Ray grinned. "I won't take stupid chances," he promised. "It's okay when it's just me, or all of us together because we know the risks when we bust ghosts. But Jamie Lee doesn't know the risks. She deserves the best chance she can have." He raised his eyes. It was hard to see Slimer against the window.

"Okay, Ray," Peter said. "I hate it because we're out of practice dealing with the bad guys and it was always all four of us so we could warn each other and cover each other's backs. But Jamie Lee has nobody to cover her back. Go for it. But for Pete's sake, use the fire escape. You're not about to set any Olympic records if you try to fly." They could pull down the ladder and go up together, Ray protected (Peter hoped) by the suit, and Peter armed with a proton rifle.

Before they could make a move for the fire escape Slimer swooped back, babbling. "Bad man scare little girl," he managed to say clearly enough for Ray to understand then he went off into a spiel that left Peter way behind. In the light of the streetlamp he could see Ray turn pale.

"I've gotta go now, Peter, he's holding the knife and telling her bad things," Ray said, evidently paraphrasing Slimer. Gathering himself, he backed up a few steps, took a running leap and launched himself into the sky. He must have thought the fire escape was too slow.

Aerodynamically, Ray was a total bust. He wobbled wildly, jerked this way and that, and nearly took a nose-dive right into the pavement, then he gained strength and lurched his way skyward. He managed enough accuracy to crash through the right window, putting up his arms first to shield his face. A huge, if distant, crashing sound signaled his landing, then a gun fired. Peter's stomach tied itself up in knots. He launched himself at the fire escape and jumped to try to catch the hanging ladder for the first flight, missing it by inches. Desperately he looked around for something to stand on, yelling, "RAY!" at the top of his lungs. He'd just spotted a nearby dumpster and was heading for it to drag it over when the remaining glass in the window shattered outward and Ray launched himself from the room, his cape wrapped around an unwieldy and struggling bundle. Gunfire followed, and a second, distant crash from inside the room, probably Bill and the other guys kicking in the door. They'd have to deal with Keller because Ray had no balance and was struggling valiantly not to crash land and hurt the little girl.

Peter ran, trying to gauge Ray's intended landing spot in an attempt to break the fall, but Ray managed to catch his balance. It wouldn't be a neat landing but--

A gunshot came from the fire escape and Peter turned to see Keller, or at least a shadowy stranger he assumed was Keller, racing down the fire escape, gun in hand. The shot had gone wild, thank goodness, because he was moving.

"Look out, Ray, he's shooting at you!" Peter yelled, trying to get a clear shot at the moving man with his proton rifle so he could blast him.

Ray landed hard, rolled once, his arms around the child to protect her, then he bounded up, pushing her toward Peter in one hasty motion, and that was when Peter realized Keller wasn't shooting at Ray but at Jamie Lee. He grasped the sobbing child by the arm and pulled her against him, wrapping his arms around him. "It's all right, Jamie Lee," he soothed as she struggled and screamed. "We're here to rescue you. It's all right." He pulled her down behind the dumpster and she shrieked as if she were being butchered.

Keller stood on the lowest fire escape landing, paused as if to free the ladder, then took aim at Peter and the child. From his angle, he had a fairly clear shot. Peter pushed Jamie Lee flat and tried to shield her with his body, at the same time working to free one arm so he could fire. He could almost feel the imagined impact as the bullet would plow into his unshielded back…

"NO!" Ray launched himself into the air between Peter and the gunman just as Keller fired and the shot hit him hard in the middle of the chest. Ray jerked, tumbled and spun around in the air, then crashed down with a horrifying thud into the dumpster, causing the open lid to bang shut on him.

"RAY!" screamed Peter, but he didn't dare move for fear the struggling child would break free and run out into the line of fire. He could feel the gun swinging around to point toward him, and the dumpster was ominously silent. His heart plunged into his boots and he gathered Jamie Lee more tightly in his arms and bent over her, trying to shield her with his body. "Come on, Ray, answer me!" he yelled again.

"Freeze, dirtbag!" Peter had never heard anything more welcome than Bill's voice as it rang out overhead. "Drop the gun, I've got you covered."

And over his voice came Egon's, yelling, "Stay down, Peter."

Two guns spoke at once, and when no bullet hit Peter's exposed back he dared lift his head. Keller stood poised over the ladder opening on the alleyway, his body hunched as if someone had clicked the 'freeze frame' on a VCR to hold him in place. As Peter watched, the gun squirted from his hand as if it had been greased and came clanging down, bouncing off the rungs of the metal ladder. Peter ducked again in case it went off accidentally, but it didn't. He heard it land in a pile of rubble and dared raise his eyes again, pulling Jamie Lee up with him into a more comfortable position and muttering soothing words to her, although she was still shaking and crying.

Keller began to fall then, as if in slow motion, reeling against the ladder, one arm hooked over one of the metal rungs, and it finished its descent in a fierce clatter, yanking the criminal with it. When it hit bottom, his body jerked and he slowly slid down, his arm coming loose, to drop the rest of the way and land in a heap not ten feet from the dumpster. He didn't move.

"It's okay, Jamie Lee, he can't hurt you any more," Peter told her over and over. "It's over. It's over now."

As if she finally realized she was safe, the child's arms came around Peter's neck and she clung to him, limpetlike. He pushed himself to his feet, one arm around her for balance, and flung open the lid of the dumpster with his other hand as Maxwell, Egon right behind him, thudded down the fire escape toward them.

"Ray, don't do this to me," he breathed.

"He's not hurt," Jamie Lee whispered reassuringly in his ear. "Bullets always bounce off superheroes." Her voice still quivered but she sounded dead certain of her facts. Burying her face in his neck, she clung even tighter, starting to impede Peter's already-ragged breathing, but he didn't try to loosen her grip. She needed something to cling to, even if it was only a panic-stricken man who might have just lost one of his best friends.

"Peter? Is he…" Egon clattered down the fire escape in Bill's wake just as a yell from the end of the alley signified the arrival of Winston. Maxwell stopped, gun at ready, and knelt beside Keller's inanimate form, but Egon ignored the fallen criminal and kept on coming.

It was dark in the dumpster. Peter freed his belt flashlight with a shaking hand and switched it on, shining it into the depths of the trash container. There in a heap lay Ray Stantz, as if sleeping, his eyes shut, his body deadly still.

"It's not fair!" Peter yelled accusingly at Bill, ready to lash out in ten directions at once because it was easier to be angry than to accept what his eyes were telling him. "You said the suit repelled bullets! You said he wouldn't be hurt!"

Egon pushed past Bill as the FBI agent bent over Keller's inanimate form and joined Peter, his fingers resting on Peter's arm. "The suit does repel bullets, Peter," he said quickly. "Where was he hit?"

"Chest," Peter mumbled. "Come on, Ray, wake up. Don't do this."

"Bullets just bounce off Ralph," Bill said as if in justification.

"Yeah, but Ray was hit in midair and he wasn't the world's best flyer," Peter said.

"Then it knocked him off balance," Maxwell returned, straightening up with a wicked-looking knife in his hand which he passed to Winston before bending to cuff the unmoving Keller.

That made so much sense Peter handed the light to Egon and reached into the trash container to touch the side of Ray's neck and feel for a pulse, careful not to unbalance Jamie Lee who was still holding on tight although the worst of her chokehold was beginning to loosen.

As his fingers found Ray's neck, the occultist's eyes opened and he gazed up at Peter with an expression of momentary confusion. "Ouch," he muttered. "I think I bumped my head when I landed." His hand came up to feel the supposed injury.

"You're okay?" Peter cried in exultation. "You're okay, Ray?"

"Well, yeah, sure," Ray reassured him, pushing himself up on his elbows. "Bullets bounce off the suit, remember?" His face wrinkled up.

"Then why the hell didn't you answer when I was yelling your name?" Peter demanded hotly, finding relief in a burst of anger.

"Easy, Peter," said Egon in his ear. "I think he was momentarily stunned when he fell into the dumpster. Does your head hurt, Ray?"

"A little. I think I'm gonna have a bump there. I could, well, hear you, Peter, but I was too groggy for a minute to remember what was going on. I'm okay though. The only reason I fell is because I don't have any balance when I'm flying."

"That's quite right," Egon agreed. "It's my belief the energy of the suit distributes force from blows evenly through the material so there would be no danger of broken ribs or bruises, even from a close-range gunshot, On the ground, Ray would have been able to withstand it without moving, but in flight his balance was not as steady and he had no purchase with which to resist the force of the blow."

"Yeah, it was like a giant hand pushing me sideways," Ray agreed, grabbing the edge of the dumpster and trying to pull himself upright. "Can somebody help me out of here? It smells."

Relief pulsed through Peter. Ray sounded fine, and he probably hadn't even been stunned for a full minute. It had just seemed that way to Peter. Egon sounded quite content with his rationalization. Grinning, Peter grabbed for Ray, while Egon and Winston leaned in, one on either side of him, and they pulled their friend out of the garbage container, all three of them grinning a mile a minute as they brushed him off. When he was standing on solid ground, Peter rumpled Ray's hair affectionately and studied his buddy, who had no evidence of a bullet wound anywhere on his body. Egon and Winston crowded in for a round of back-slapping. Peter couldn't help grinning all over his face.

"Looks like you were right, Jamie Lee," he told the little girl. "Bullets do bounce off Super Stantz here."

That made the little girl loosen her chokehold enough to pull back and stare at Ray with wide, adoring eyes, already starting to regain her equilibrium, although Peter could tell she was still shivering with reaction. "Gosh, you were great," she blurted. "I thought I was sunk, in there with that--that pervert." She shivered. "My mom warned me not to talk to strangers, because some of 'em are really nasty, but I guess I didn't know how nasty until he grabbed me. I didn't talk to him, though, he jumped out of an alley and grabbed me."

"It's okay, Jamie Lee. We got him," Peter said, his voice carefully reassuring. "He won't scare you any more. We're not strangers, we're the Ghostbusters and we wouldn't lie to you. And our pal over there is with the FBI." He didn't let her turn in that direction. She didn't need to see Keller splatted messily on the pavement, a widening circle of blood around him. Peter was pretty sure he hadn't needed to see it himself.

Jamie Lee tried for a minute to crane her neck and see; kids experienced an unhealthy dose of blood and gore in TV and movies anyway and probably got a charge out of it, but Peter would prefer she didn't come face to face with it in reality quite yet. Then she gave up and smiled at them all. "I didn't know the Ghostbusters were superheroes," she said.

Peter grimaced extravagantly in an effort to make her laugh. "Then I haven't been doing my job right," he told her. "Publicity is my business."

She giggled faintly. "I can't wait till I tell all my friends the Ghostbusters rescued me. Can we call my mom right away? She's going to be worried sick. That's what she says when I come home late, when I'm playing with my friends. 'Jamie Lee, I was worried sick.' I know it's just what she says but, this time, I think she'll mean it, don't you?"

"I know she will, honey. We'll go find a phone right away. He glanced over at Maxwell. "How about it, Bill? Jamie Lee wants to phone home like E.T."

At once Bill abandoned Keller and came over to join them. "Hey, Jamie Lee," he said in the gentlest voice Peter had ever heard from him. "You've been a really brave girl and we're all proud of you. Are you hurt, honey?"

"No. But he had a … a knife, and a big gun, and …" Her voice wobbled.

"And he didn't have a chance to use 'em," Peter said quickly. "We wouldn't have let him use 'em. We even had Slimer helping you out. Have you seen Slimer on TV?"

She nodded. "Funny little green ghost." She sounded sleepy and the tension had begun to ease from her muscles.

Peter whistled shrilly. "Yo, Spud, front and center."

Slimer drifted up and hung in the air. "Aye, aye, Peter." He sketched a sloppy salute.

Jamie Lee relaxed immediately, and Peter could feel excitement spreading through her as she gazed rapturously at the little ghost.

"Slimer, this is Jamie Lee," he said. "We're gonna go find a telephone so she can call her mom, and we want you to come with us, okay?"

"Okay," Slimer said, grinning. The little spud loved kids and it showed. Peter knew he had to take her out of the alley before she saw Keller or had a chance to dwell on what had happened to her much more.

"Hi, Slimer," the little girl said. Kids were pretty resilient, but she'd been through a tough one.

"Hi, Jamie Lee."

Peter cast a meaningful gaze at Egon and headed out of the alley, hearing Egon begin an explanation behind him.

But not before he'd seen Maxwell pull something that looked remarkably like a dog biscuit out of his pocket and flip it to Slimer, who gulped it down in delight. The minute the Fed realized Peter had noticed, he put on a haughty expression and pretended it had never happened.

An hour later they were back in the firehouse. Bill had arranged for Jamie Lee's mother to hop a redeye flight out to claim her and tried to arrange a hotel room for her, but the little girl showed signs of distress at the thought and a reluctance to go very far away from Peter and Ray, so the agent had finally decided the little girl should stay at Ghostbuster Central for the night. Although Venkman could be mouthy and annoying, the others had assured Bill he was a trained and gifted psychologist and it was plain he had achieved a good rapport with her. She adored Ray, who had actually saved her, but it was to Peter she clung.

Bill had to give it to the ugly little ghost, it was good with Jamie Lee, too, teasing her and playing with her, and never scaring her. The more Bill watched Slimer the more he had to accept that it was really what it seemed, a weird and ugly little ghost. That didn't mean he bought everything these four clowns had told him, but in the long run, they were pretty good men to have around in a crisis.

Keller was in Bellevue, a bullet in his shoulder, and five or six broken bones from the fall. He was alive and likely to remain so but he couldn't be moved yet to be taken to L.A. for trial. That would come later. Bill had checked in with the local office and called Carlisle back home to report success. He was hesitant to mention the Ghostbusters because Carlisle didn't know about the suit and Bill wasn't sure what to say about how he'd encountered the Ghostbusters. The fact that they'd once been Crimebusters and were still an official task force appointed by the mayor, if only because no one had thought to revoke their status, would figure large in his report when the time came.

Jamie Lee would stay here, sleeping in a bed set up for her in the lab, near enough for Peter to hear her if she had nightmares. Slimer had volunteered to watch over her and had even given her a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man doll to sleep with. Bill eyed it dubiously, wondering why four guys would have a doll, but then he remembered the Gozer case and how the Ghostbusters had blasted a giant figure that looked just like the Stay Puft guy. Probably a memento of their first major case. Jamie Lee had been enthralled.

After that, Bill had checked in at the hospital and was told that Pam had arrived and had seen Ralph a couple of times. The kid was doing fine and could have visitors in the morning. Bill planned to be the first one in line, complete with the suit.

It was weird about the suit. Ray had gone to change as soon as they'd reached the fire hall and had come downstairs to the second floor, where Jamie Lee had been sitting at the dining table drinking hot chocolate and being gently teased by Peter. The expression on Stantz's face had pulled the psychologist away from the little girl with a muttered excuse and he'd gone to Ray, causing Egon to follow. Seeing that Winston had taken Peter's place with Jamie Lee, Maxwell trailed along.

"…doesn't work any more," Ray was saying sadly. "I tried to do a couple of things more, one last time, with the suit and zip. Nada. It just didn't work for me any more."

"Probably because you don't need it any more," Peter had explained, his voice soft and reassuring. "It was just a loan. It really belongs to this Hinkley dude."

"I know, Peter. I know I can't keep it. But, gosh, it was great while it lasted."

"Well, I, for one, am glad you can't keep it," Peter told him. "Knowing you, we'd have nothing but trouble; you'd want to wear it on busts, and I've gotta say, it just doesn't match the rest of our uniforms."

"Quite right, Peter," Egon agreed. "While I would value the opportunity of further study, my belief is that the suit is, in actual fact ego-specific."

"Which means?" Bill asked suspiciously.

"Yeah, don't let him get away with his fancy terms," Peter muttered encouragingly, winning a mildly-irritated look from Spengler. "I think he swallowed a dictionary when he was a baby."

"It means it only works for one person at a time," Ray had volunteered. "It was probably geared to your pal Ralph, however it works. But when he was down and there was a real need, I think it found a temporary home. I'm usually careful at the airport and check the label of my suitcase. This time I didn't. There must have been something about me that made the suit work."

"Yeah, your lifelong dream of being Peter Pan," put in Winston from behind them.

"And your Captain Steel fixation," Peter added affectionately. "Just think, Ray, some higher power thought you'd make a nice, temporary super hero."

Ray grinned at that, and Egon took up his explanation once more. "It is my belief the suit is a psi enhancer. When it bonds, for want of a more specific term, with the wearer, it fits, regardless of size. It wouldn't fit Peter or Winston, nor would it perform its functions with them. Winston's nature is practical and I doubt he would willingly believe such an outfit could enable him to fly, for instance, or develop super strength. Peter's a born skeptic and he's also vain enough to be reluctant to wear such an outfit in public. I'm sorry, Peter, but you know it's true."

"No argument, Big Guy." Peter spread his hands to make his point. "After all, I have a reputation to maintain. That's not the fashion statement I wanna make. What about you, Spengs? You never even tried it on."

"While I understood the function of the suit, such abilities are not within my level of interest. I was able to tell that Ray's openness and enthusiasm made him a natural for the suit, not to mention the other 'superhero' qualities he already possesses, a desire to save the day and the way he cares about the safety of strangers. Ray is the idealist of our group, and perhaps the suit requires one. Is your friend Ralph an idealist?"

Bill grinned. "You called that one right. Even when he tries to be a cynic, it doesn't work."

Ray appeared embarrassed. "Aw, come on, guys, you make it sound like I want to go out slaying dragons like in a fairy tale."

"Bingo," teased Peter, causing Ray to redden.

"My point," Egon said, "is that, once having fulfilled the need, the suit could revert to its normal state."

"Are you saying the suit is conscious?" Bill asked, mouth dropping open. "Like it's alive?"

Egon pondered that a moment. "No, I wouldn't say that. It's an article of apparel, but it's an article of apparel imbued with psi. Perhaps that links it to its place of origin. This is, of course, sheer speculation, something in which I generally do not indulge, but perhaps the theories will mean more to you, since you are in regular contact with the suit. A pity you misplaced the instruction book. But I suggest a careful study of paranormal phenomena to determine other possible uses of it. Perhaps it would enable telepathic contact or precognition. We didn't have time to do more than study the basics."

Bill remembered that conversation as he prepared to leave. He would never have given any credence to psi powers, not knowing the suit came from the little green guys. But according to the Ghostbusters, most psi powers were functions of the brain and if the average person couldn't do them, it was either a question of lack of practice or lack of ability. Intelligence varied from person to person. Maybe the ability to fly did too. Bill thought it was a cockeyed theory but he would run it past Ralph later anyway. It made a lot of sense in a way, because Ralph had to learn to do the things the suit let him do. He didn't instantly do them perfectly. Look at flying. Maybe it was like the man who asked, "How do I get to Carnegie Hall?" and was told, "Practice, practice, practice." If Egon was right and the suit enabled dormant or latent powers in the human brain, then it was up to the wearer to develop them.

"And think of this," Peter had said as they waited for the taxi to take him back to his hotel for the remainder of the night. "Maybe if the kid practices enough, he'll reach the point where he won't even need the suit as a focus."

"Yeah, right," Bill had responded dubiously, but a part of him couldn't help wondering if it might be true.

Ralph felt sore but alert in the morning. They'd already had him up and walking, clearly pleased with his progress. Pam had come first thing, as beautiful as ever, and greeted him with a kiss, although she reported she hadn't heard from Bill yet. He was probably out somewhere on stakeout. Ralph hoped he hadn't needed the suit. The two of them were talking quietly when Bill walked in carrying his suitcase and trailed by four men who looked familiar, although Ralph couldn't place them. Pam gasped at the sight; maybe she had recognized them.

At the sight of Ralph, sitting propped against the elevated head of the bed, Bill's face relaxed and lit up into a one-thousand watt grin, proving he'd been worried, although Ralph knew he'd never get the Fed to come right out and admit it. "Look at you, kid. You'll be out doing the two step any day now."

"Well, give me longer than a day, Bill," he said. "But I'm okay. Sorry to give you a scare like that yesterday. So tell me. What happened? You look like the cat who swallowed the canary. Did you arrest Keller?"

"Did I arrest Keller? Did you ever doubt it?" Bill demanded smugly.

One of the four men, the one with brown hair, cleared his throat. "Come on, Maxwell, it was a team effort. Credit where it's due, remember?"

"Anybody ever tell you how pushy you were, Venkman?" Maxwell asked, the resentment in his voice more tolerant than Ralph would have expected.

"The rest of us do it all the time," said the black man.

The shortest of the four approached the bed. "Hi, Ralph," he said. "I'm Ray Stantz. I think the suit is great!"

Ralph felt his mouth drop open and was aware of Pam boggling beside him. He stared at Bill in astonishment. "You told them about the suit?" he asked involuntarily.

"No, we found out on our own," said the blond man with the red-rimmed glasses. "How do you do, Mr. and Mrs. Hinkley. We're the Ghostbusters." He introduced each of them by name.

"I recognized you," said Pam, deliberately ignoring the admiring smile Peter Venkman bestowed upon her. "Am I to take it Bill actually came to you about the suit? I don't believe it. If there was ever anyone in the universe who wasn't likely to believe in ghosts, it's Bill Maxwell."

"He didn't," Ray said. "We had to show him Slimer and that didn't really help either. I came by the suit by accident and it, well, it wanted me to wear it, so I did."

"And it worked for you?" Ralph asked, not quite sure how that made him feel. Sometimes the suit felt like a burden that weighed as much as the Matterhorn, but it was his suit, and it worked only for him. He was afraid Ray's words meant the suit had moved on to a new owner. He had known that might happen one day, but he realized with sudden fierce possessiveness that he wasn't ready to give it up yet.

"Temporarily," Ray said, disappointed himself. "It was great. I could fly and do all sorts of neat things."

"Yeah, and until I tracked down your missing bag, they did all sorts of research on it," Bill said. "I thought they were crackpots. Phonies. Frauds."

"That's right, Bill, rub it in. Belabor the point," said Peter. "Besides, we're not crackpots. Admit it, you came around."

"Yeah, well, that's only because you sicced your slimy little ghost on me, and Ray was able to fly."

"It really worked for you?" Ralph asked in wonder.

"Well, not great," Ray admitted. "We think it takes a lot of practice and that it enhances mental abilities or boosts what little is there. Egon did a report on it late last night and we brought it along. It's probably not as good as your lost instruction book but we think it might help. I was probably the world's worst flyer, but it was still great."

"The best part was saving Jamie Lee," Winston put in. "Her mom just came and picked her up a little while ago. She's gonna be fine."

Ralph finally let himself relax although he cast a dubious glance at Bill. He could hardly image his stiff-necked buddy blabbing about the instruction book to the Ghostbusters, of all people, but then there was a little girl in danger and that made all the difference. Besides, knowing Bill, he'd told them only a bare minimum. Ralph would bet good money Bill had never mentioned the 'little green guys' to them. He took the folder Egon passed him, grateful to have something on suit management even if it was entirely theoretical. What mattered was that it had worked and now, apparently, he had the suit back.

He stretched out his hand to Pam and felt her lace her fingers through his. "Okay, Bill. All of you. I want to hear what happened and I want to hear it now," he said.

"You got it, kiddo," Bill told him and sat on the edge of the bed while the Ghostbusters dragged up chairs, and the five of them started to describe their adventures.

To return to the main page, click here