(Untitled)

[gone_byebye]

[OOM: " What have you been DOING, Ray?"]The door opens and a considerably more sober-faced than usual Ray walks in. Francis is at his heels, doing the best 'worried' impersonation that a robot dog with no visible facial features or tail can manage. "Bar?" Ray says. "Could I get some Ovaltine over here, and maybe something in the way of a guide to

Comments

[wellthrownstone]

Brain injury? comes a startled voice from below the bar. A white wolf's head pops out from under the counter. He looks a little bleary, but not too bad. Something had shocked him awake.

[gone_byebye]

Ray glances over in Garion's direction. "Oh, hi, Garion," he says. "Apparently I talked to one of the wait-rats in their own language the other day without being aware of it. I don't seem to be able to do it on cue, though. It got Egon worried, among other things."

[wellthrownstone]

His head quirks.

Why's it got him worried? Everything talks. It's not so odd. My Aunt Pol chatters with birds all the time.

[gone_byebye]

"The part where I can't do it unless there's a rat in front of me, and where I'm not aware that I'm doing it when there's a rat in front of me, is a little similar to certain cases in our world where people who've had strokes have demonstrated an inability to tell what language they're speaking," Ray says. "I don't mind being able to communicate with them, but I don't want it to be because of something that's gone wrong in my head."

He hesitates.

"And there's the other thing."

[qsilver_md]

That catches the attention of the man sitting a little down the Bar wearing a lab coat, and he looks over at Ray sharply.

"Brain injury?"

[gone_byebye]

Ray looks over and nods. "We weren't able to get much of a scan in with our portable unit, but my colleague Dr. Spengler's worried about certain linguistic incidents I've had lately and my apparent total lack of certain energetic wavelengths normally put off by the human brain. Unfortunately, neither of us are MDs."

[qsilver_md]

"Well, if you wanted a full examination, I am", Kevin offers. "A neurologist, even, or I was. Kevin Fawkes."

[gone_byebye]

"That would be very helpful," Ray says, sticking out a hand for the shaking. "My name's Ray Stantz. I'm a parapsychologist."

[_romana_]

"Ray, I don't suppose you've seen the last three pages of my notes..." Romana asks distractedly as she thumps her pile of scibbled-over paperwork on the Bar, but the distraction fades into worry when she gets a good look at him.
"My goodness, is there something wrong, Ray?" Good luck putting off a concerned Time Lord, Ray.

[gone_byebye]

"I think I might've retrieved them thinking you'd left them behind by mistake," Ray says, looking up. "Uh, I told Egon about the thing with the rats, thinking that I might have some lingering effects from the spook encounter. It sort of looks like it might be the opposite."

[_romana_]

"The opposite?" Romana frowns, trying to extrapolate that out logically. "Perpetual out-of-body experiences?" She hazards, figuring that the opposite of too much ghost interference is too little. "I don't remember that being a complaint."

[gone_byebye]

"No, it... well, okay. The human brain puts off a certain extremely low level of PKE no matter how psychically inactive the individual. It's just there, like the background radiation of the Big Bang, you know?" Ray produces his PKE meter and sets it down on the Bar. "These things don't even notice the baseline amount unless we've tweaked the settings down to extreme sensitivity. That's how low-level it is.... only Egon ran a bunch of scans on me when I told him about the rats, and according to him I'm not putting off any at all. He says he's seen higher PKE readings on Jell-o fresh out of James Randi's kitchen."

[doc_venkman]

Later, enter another.

Namely another Ghostbuster.

Peter yawned some from the long day.

"Hey, Ray. How you been?"

[gone_byebye]

"Doing okay, I guess," Ray says. "Romana's checked over nine tenths of my equations and found them sound, K-9's started calling me Master which is a little weird, and apparently I spoke Rat the other day without realizing it. I have no clue how or why."

[doc_venkman]

Peter blinked, "...you spoke Rat? Please don't tell me we got wacky spells going on again."

[gone_byebye]

"No, it was just me," Ray says. "K9 recorded it. I ordered dinner in Rat, except that the words for the wine Romana suggested came out in Human. Kind of weird, but it seems to've worked okay, and I haven't been able to replicate it since."

[politestpirate]

From down a little ways, Wellard looks over at Ray with a bit of concern.

"You're not... looking to get back to the infirmary any time soon I hope, Mr Stantz?"

[gone_byebye]

"Not likely," Ray says. "I've just been having a few weird things happen lately and some of it seems like it might have been caused by a head injury. Or possibly not, which is why I'm trying to figure out what's going on."

[politestpirate]

"If not caused by a head injury- what sort of things would cause..." He blinks, and looks at Ray curiously.

"What sort of odd things, if you don't mind me asking, sir?"

[gone_byebye]

"Well, for one thing, I tried to speak English to one of the rats here and what came out was rat noises. But I heard myself speaking English."