(Untitled)

[gone_byebye]

"Bar," says Ray as he walks in, "I really hate doing this, but the library at the Firehouse is more than a little bit specialized and I'm currently persona non grata at the New York Public Library's main branch. By any chance could you recommend a book on negotiation for me, and possibly a really good biography of Andrew Jackson? Specifically the

Comments

[gone_byebye]

Well, she'd been one of the shareholders. When she was, y'know, alive.

"Long story short? There's inevitably construction and renovation going on around the Empire State Building," Ray says. "Ivan spent the better part of a year embossing as much of the construction scaffolding and other safety equipment with the arcane symbols necessary to create localized PKE vortexes that would earth themselves into the building proper. It's a very unstable configuration at best and it's not the sort of thing you want to do if you need long-term psychokinetic or paranormal effects, but for what von Stabbington was planning, it was suitable."

"It's just that one of the ways energy storage of that nature can be disrupted is by damaging the physical collection matrix. My daughter Ecto rammed the scaffolding hard enough to take out a major portion of von Stabbington's work and the energy discharged harmlessly through the building's main antenna, at which point Ivan flipped out and tried to forcibly transfer her consciousness into a programmable toaster oven he'd stolen out of the Walgreens on the ESB's ground floor."

[riversinger]

River's expression goes from amused to intent. It doesn't matter that such a transfer was ludicrous, Ecto is Ray's daughter and one doesn't go after pack like that. Not without consequences.

"I take it he didn't succeed."

[gone_byebye]

"Thankfully, no, but it was an awkward week or two for the both of us," Ray says. "I got in the way, and we spent a week with my consciousness in her body and vice versa. She wasn't exactly used to not having wheels."

[riversinger]

"Or flesh, I'd imagine." River's cheeks flush for a moment. "Yes that could be terribly awkward. But all's well that ends well, I take it? Unless that grounded PKE is what's responsible for your restless history going out for a stroll?"

[gone_byebye]

"Well, that incident was ultimately what wound up leading to Ecto becoming half Cybertronian," Ray says. "But no, the source of the problem was von Stabbington himself. He was arrested on a number of charges, mostly involving desecrating a corpse and trespassing and terroristic threats. When he got out of prison on parole he had a serious mad-on for revenge, since his one attempt to do anything arcane from behind prison walls ran afoul of the fact that he tried to summon the greatest enemy of the Ghostbusters and said enemy's soul is currently our legal property. Not on purpose," he hastily adds. "A lawyer from the firm of Wolfram and Hart showed up some time ago with a quitclaim deed for Walter Peck's soul, signed by every demonic entity with any possible interest in said item.... anyway. Von Stabbington wanted revenge, but you need money to get revenge plans properly laid out."

[riversinger]

River blinks rapidly. Information dump from Ray often makes River blink rapidly. It's one of the things she adores about him.

"Let me guess. Your currency bears the portraits of these unseasonably spry gentlemen."

[gone_byebye]

"Got it in one," Ray says. "Ulysses Grant, the fifty dollar bill. Alexander Hamilton, the ten. George Washington, the one- von Stabbington only skipped the two, with Jefferson's portrait, and the hundred thousand, with Salmon P. Chase's portrait, because he couldn't get his hands on a sample of either."

[riversinger]

River's smirk turns into a chuckle, and eventually, a full blown guffaw.

"Oh Ray, oh my stars and garters, he didn't!? I mean, I've had to raise funding of my own, but that's a little extreme, even for me!"

[gone_byebye]

"Eeeyep. What was supposed to be a prosperity spell inadvertently raised several zombie Presidents, a couple of zombie Founding Fathers- and one exceptionally potent case, that of the gentleman on the twenty, which is the single most commonly used paper money on my Earth," Ray says. "Andrew Jackson actually got his mind as well as his body raised, and now he's mad."

[riversinger]

"Well you can hardly blame him now, can you? I mean, here you are, resting peacefully in the hereafter when you get yanked back to do a fundraiser for some overblown social misfit with no sense of decorum."

"I confess, I think I'd be a bit put out myself."

[gone_byebye]

"This is true," Ray says. "On the other hand, Mr. Jackson's apparently taken control of the other zombies away from Von Stabbington- he's got the bills that were being used as the templates for the spell- and he's holding the man hostage until he gets what he wants. Which we're unclear on ourselves, since von Stabbington got a very short phone call out to the police before Jackson ordered the others to tear up his phone lines."

[riversinger]

Again, River blinks, trying to parse all that information. She shifts in her chair to face him.

"So you're going to go in and negotiate said misfit's release. With zombies."

[gone_byebye]

"Something along those lines," Ray says. "If nothing else, we'd like to send the dead back to where they belong. Ivan's release is sort of secondary."

[riversinger]

River ponders this. "Is it possible that's what part of his demands might be?"

[gone_byebye]

"Possibly. von Stabbington wasn't exactly a man to whom fear meant very much," Ray says. "He might be unwilling to send back the zombies simply out of sheer cussedness. I'm hoping to find something to back the possibility up in the Jackson biography."

[riversinger]

"Well, I wish you all the luck. You seem to have a knack for sorting this kind of thing out. The New York Public Library should be grateful to have you around."