Holes in the Firmament

Part XII

Egon Spengler, Raymond Stantz, Winston Zeddemore

"Egon!"

The aforementioned scientist looked up at the sound of his name; long, crystalline strands drooped from between his lips, and combined with his lifted eyebrows, wide eyes, and round, red-rimmed glasses perched at the end of his nose, he looked like nothing so much as a particularly erudite catfish.

Raymond Stantz bounded up the last of the steps leading to the upstairs restaurant of Sal's Deli.

"There you are!" Ray flashed him a sunny smile and slid into one of the chairs around the table, wary of the bits and pieces spread across the top.

Egon transferred the delicate fibers from their place between his lips to the table, careful not to damage any of them. "Good morning, Raymond. Did Winston come with you?"

Ray nodded. "He's ordering for us. Are those the new fiber optics Langley was talking about?" He selected a strand from the small pile on the table and held it up to the light. He watched the pale glow from the ceiling fixtures dance along it, fragmenting as the slender strand moved in the currents. An idea teased at the back of his mind, something about spectroscopic indexes, but when nothing solid came to him he gently tucked it back in a corner to percolate in his subconscious.

"Yes. After our experiences yesterday, the preliminary data suggested some minor modifications to the PKE meter." He set aside the surgical forceps he'd been using to manipulate some to the strands and reached for the stack of printouts on the extra chair he'd pulled over for the purpose. "Here, this is the baseline we had previously established for this type of entity, while here," he overlaid a second set of readings above the first, "are the actuals."

Ray gave a low whistle and traced one of the curves with a blunt finger. "Wow, looks like we were pretty close, huh?"

"For the most part yes, although you'll note here and here, we were off by a magnitude of two."

"But if the ionization rate does remain the same for all entities, we could really bust some heads!" Ray emphasized his point by tapping the series of equations hastily sketched along one of the curves.

"In a spiritual sense," Egon agreed, letting his pleasure at the discovery brighten his eyes.

The two exchanged smiles, Ray's as openly delighted as any child's and Egon's just a slightly wider version of the Cheshire grin that Ray knew meant the physicist was thrilled. The two went back to their separate pursuits, Egon carefully manipulating delicate threads of coated glass and Ray flipping through page after page of printouts, many with quickly penciled in notes or equations in the margins.

"Egon?"

The physicist finished tightening a screw before he looked up, watching Raymond over the edge of his glasses. The younger man was frowning at the pages he held, flipping back and forth between two sets of readings. Apprehension feathered along Egon's spine until it perched like a raven on his shoulder.

"Egon, what is this?"

"What is what?" Egon hedged. He snapped the cover of the meter shut and turned it on, watching it begin the new diagnostic set he'd programmed.

"This!" Raymond flourished the pages he held in the air between them. "This! The second set of readings! Where did you find another ghost? Why didn't you tell me? This is fantastic!"

"Ah, actually--," Egon started.

"Look at this! Not as strong as the library's Four, maybe a Class Three, but the readings show the same ion trail." Raymond frowned briefly. "There's something odd about the degradation rate, but the correlation is almost identical. This is great! Where did you find it?" Raymond finally wound down enough to notice that Egon was looking as uncomfortable as he'd ever seen the physicist. "Egon? Something wrong?"

Egon was saved by Winston's appearance. The third member of their party pulled out the fourth chair at the table and dropped into it.

"Winston," Egon greeted the other's appearance with a nod and a great sense of relief.

"Hey, Egon." He glanced over at Ray, loosening his tie and undoing his collar button. "They're out of chocolate chip so I got you blueberry, okay Ray?" Winston let out a relieved sigh when he finally managed to work the tiny button through its hole.

"Blueberry is fine Winston, thanks. Egon?" Ray was starting to worry. Egon never avoided a problem, no matter how uncomfortable it made him.

"How is Winnie?" Egon kept his eyes firmly on Winston.

"At the hospital; Janine went with her to finish up the pre-admit paperwork. Man, I'll be glad when my defense is over; these meetings are killing me, and I hate not being able to take Winnie myself." It was Winston's turn to frown, glancing quickly between his two friends. Had they been arguing?

"I hope Winnie can talk Janine into seeing a doctor while they're there," Ray glanced down at the charts he held without seeing the looks Egon and Winston exchanged.

"Is something wrong with Janine?" Egon asked.

"Just the flu, I think. She hasn't been feeling well the last few days, and the last two mornings she's been throwing up. I don't think its food poisoning 'cause we've eaten the same things the last few days and I feel fine." Ray ruffled through the papers in front of him and pulled out one of the first charts he'd seen. "Egon—"

Egon blinked in surprise and threw a quizzical look at Winston in time to catch the other man rolling his eyes and smiling at the oblivious engineer.

"Yes, Raymond?" Egon hid his sigh; Raymond could be such a bulldog when something caught his attention. If he hadn't wanted Raymond to see the readings, to second-guess his own conclusions, then he should never have brought them, he castigated himself. He turned his attention back to his oldest friend.

"Where did you get these readings?" Raymond's voice was surprisingly gentle. It was obvious to him that the test results were somehow distressing to Egon, but until he knew why there was nothing he could do to help his friend. Could the Three be a family member? Maybe his dad? The idea of his own parents failing to pass on to the afterlife, bound to the site of their death gave him the chills.

"Readings? Is this from yesterday at the library? What did you do, stay up all night analyzing the stuff?" Winston glanced at the lines of waveforms and pages of equations in different colored inks and pencils; they reminded him of an abstract rendering of spaghetti, but obviously meant something to the brain trust.

Egon closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose before resettling his glasses. "Yes, from the library. These," he slid a printout across the table for Winston, "are the theoretical ranges for the different classes of entities based upon Tobin's. Now here," he overlaid the first sheet with a second, just as he had for Raymond. "Are the readings for the entity we encountered; you will note that except for these lines, the readings fall well within the predicted parameters."

Ray opened his mouth to ask about the readings he still held in his hand, but snapped it shut with an audible click when Egon plucked them from him and laid them next to the readings of the Four.

"These…are a second set of readings for a second entity, also from the library. As Raymond noticed earlier, they would indicate the presence of a Class Three."

"Wait a minute," Winston interrupted him. "I don't remember any other ghosts. You're saying there was a second one there? One that was, I don't know, invisible or something?"

Egon shifted in his chair. "Not…invisible." He looked at the other two. "Immediately after the diagnostic program finished, I began scanning with the meter. Initially I expected only to find residuals as we have at the other sites, but instead the meter almost immediately picked up two very strong, very focused areas of spectral activity. One was the Four, while the other," Egon hesitated a split second before forcing himself to continue. "The other was Dr. Venkman."

"Venkman?"

"Oh Egon!"

"No way, Egon," Winston broke the silence that followed his and Ray's initial outburst. "I saw him, talked to him, shook his hand; there's no way. For one thing there was none of that…that goop, that ecto residue stuff. C'mon man, there's a reasonable explanation, I'm sure; maybe the meter malfunctioned, it's the first real field test of the thing after all."

"Hey! Wasn't he next to that librarian lady? She had a pretty close encounter; I bet the meter was picking up strong residuals from her," Ray nodded.

In answer Egon plucked two more sheets from the pile and laid them next to the first ones. "I considered that a strong possibility. When the entity attacked us in the reading room I dropped the meter; although the screen was fractured, the working parts were intact and I spent several hours monitoring my own PKE levels. They were, of course, highest immediately afterwards and gradually dropped over the next six hours." He sighed and looked down at his hand tracing out the graph that indicated his own readings. "At no time did they ever approach the duration or consistency of Dr. Venkman's."

Ray shook his head; this was awful, but maybe there was another explanation. "Egon, there's other things that this could be, the readings aren't 100% consistent with a Three."

"Nor were the readings on the Four entirely consistent with theory; our sample pool is too small to draw a definitive conclusion as yet."

"Exactly my point Egon," Ray said, leaning forward. "There could be a dozen different reasons why the meter is reacting this way."

"Yeah, 'gon, don't let science overrule common sense," Winston added, feeling a slight headache start at the base of his skull; he twisted his head left and right to ease some of the tightness.

Egon leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table; he steepled his fingers and studied them before he spoke. "After due consideration, I realized there was quite a bit of circumstantial evidence to support the theory beyond the meter readings," he glanced up and met Ray's eyes briefly, seeing pained sympathy there, "readings, may I also mention, that the meter was able to track and that remained firmly centered on Dr. Venkman."

Winston sighed to himself, recognizing Egon's stubborn need to face the facts he had and have them dispelled. "Okay Egon, we'll try it your way. Shoot."

"I cannot recall ever seeing Dr. Venkman in daylight, but always inside, in the evening, or during an overcast day, nor do I ever recall actually hearing or seeing him approach. Further, upon returning to campus yesterday I questioned Arlene about the same thing; she was very apologetic about not noticing Dr. Venkman entering the office, and given both the weather and the condition of the lobby doors I find that highly unlikely." The diagnostics program finished with a bleep, and Egon began running the first of six scanning programs.

Winston realized probably shouldn't have skipped breakfast, but who knew he was going to have to chop logic with Egon before he ate? "Egon, it's New York; it's overcast here a lot. And I'll bet Arlene didn't notice because she was busy or thinking about something else."

"He visits my mother in Ohio frequently, and hasn't missed a stockholder's meeting since the labs became a public offering," Egon countered. "But I've still never seen him in daylight. Also, the cold does not seem to bother him and," Egon hesitated, "his skin is cool to the touch."

"But Egon, when you're working usually you work late, so you might not see him until well after dark," Ray added, but there was an edge of doubt to his voice.

Damnitall, Winston growled in his head, the thought making it throb painfully. "Lots of people don't mind the cold, Egon, and if he doesn't wear a coat of course his skin is gonna be cool." Why was he even arguing this? If Egon wanted to believe Venkman was a ghost, so what? Let him. Who was he to try and change Spengler's mind?

Winston looked around for their food. What was taking it so long? If they were eating at least Spengler and Stantz wouldn't be talking nonsense. Winston began rummaging through his pockets, pulling things out and tossing them on the table. Maybe he had some aspirin, he usually did.

Ray snapped his fingers, the sharp sound going straight through Winston's brain. "Hey, I know! What about Fluffers? If he was a ghost, she wouldn't like him as much. All the research I've done shows that animals are pretty wary about spirits and things."

Egon shook his head. "Fluffernutter is not the most – discerning of creatures, Ray; she's also excessively fond of my uncle, the dryer and artichokes." Egon watched the pile of pocket debris in front of Winston grow and frowned; the older man was wincing, lines of pain around his eyes. "Winston?" he asked quietly.

Keys. Wallet. More keys, three business cards with notes and money clip. Two more business cards. A Lego and a button. The chirping of the meter was starting to aggravate him and Winston wondered how badly Egon would take it if he were to throw the damned thing out the window. He patted his jacket pockets. What? Ah, card case, there it was. He pulled out first his reminder notebook and tossed it on the table before pulling out his card case and emergency aspirin stash.

Winston gasped and convulsed around a wave of pain and nausea that nearly drove him to the floor, forced over the edge by the sudden shriek of the PKE meter. Distantly he heard his friends calling to him. "Notebook," he gasped, then the pain disappeared in a wave of gray and he floated into peacefulness.

"Winston!" Ray lunged for Winston, catching him before he could slide out of his chair to the floor, Egon helping to support the older man a moment later from the other side. Winston recovered quickly, waving off their hands and shaking himself; the gray cloudiness had lasted only seconds, and when it lifted more than his eyes had cleared.

"Are you all right?" Ray's voice was worried, his normally cheerful face drawn tight. He kept one hand on Winston's arm until Winston nodded.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm okay. " Winston blinked and reached for Egon's full water glass. "What a weird feeling, like something inside my head just – exploded."

"Should we call a doctor? Maybe the hospital?"

Winston shook his head and finished gulping down his drink. "No, not – physical; more like thoughts, memories. Like I had amnesia, and my memories came back all a once."

"Ray, look at this," Egon motioned to the still-flashing meter; Egon had turned down the signal volume, but the needles were just beginning to drop off.

"Looks like some kind of residual, but not like the ones from ghost exposure." Ray ran a hand over the graph of Egon's compiled readings of near misses and latent exposures. "Or, maybe ecto-residual overtones on something else."

"You are certain you're feeling well, Winston?" Egon shoved his glasses back up his nose absently, waiting for the other's nod. "Are you – do you actually have things you don't remember before?"

"No, I –" Suddenly Winston's eyes widened and he snapped his fingers. "That's it!" He grabbed at his pocket notebook and flipped through the pages frantically. "Ray, Egon, look." He shoved the opened pages in front of them. In Winston's neat printing was the note: 'Tell Ray about Shandor Building. Weird Materials and Feelings.'

"The Shandor Building?" Ray frowned again, puzzled. "I thought it had been torn down years ago."

"No, still standing on Central Park West, and usually it's in great shape. That's where your Dr. Venkman lives, Egon; one of the penthouse apartments."

Egon looked up from making notes on the readings left by the supernatural power surge. "Really. Shandor, though, the name sounds familiar to me although I cannot place it."

Ray nodded, his grin back now that the momentary scare was past, and he was fast on his way back to his customary bounce.

Winston smiled at his friend's fast turnaround. "Doesn't that ever bother you?" he had asked Egon one day, when Ray had been particularly excitable. He hadn't known either of them very long, and the friendship between the two scientists baffled him.

Egon had just nodded. "Once. Exam week, Fall Quarter, 1972. I finally had to switch him to decaffeinated coffee for exam weeks from then on."

Now Winston was accustomed to it, using it as a barometer of sorts to Ray's thoughts much as Egon did.

"Ivo Shandor was an up and coming architect just after the turn of the century," Ray broke into Winston's memories to answer Egon's question. "He used a lot of materials and techniques that are still considered cutting edge technology, it's too bad so few of his buildings are still standing. Most of his contemporaries considered him either a certified genius or an authentic wacko."

"Well if the Shandor Building is any example, he was both at the same time; the girders are totally cold-riveted with cores of pure selenium, and the brickwork is like nothing since the pyramids." Winston shook his head. "What ever happened to the old coot?"

"He died." Egon looked up from his calculations, scrawled tidily across the sheet Winston recognized as Venkman's readings. "Look at this."

"Or was murdered," Ray took the sheet and turned it around between them. "Or maybe committed suicide, nobody was ever really sure."

"Murdered?" Winston asked, before looking over Ray's shoulder.

Egon leaned back and took up the story. "In the early 20's, Shandor publicly declared society as too sick, too technologically dependant, to be allowed to survive. He withdrew from the public eye and by all accounts resurrected an ancient, secret sect dedicated to ending humanity. This sect centered around the worship of a Sumerian deity called Gozer, an entity it has been theorized that is one of the bases of Lucifer in modern religious thought, Baal being another such." Something about the mention of Gozer was tickling Egon's mind. Was it possible he'd been influenced as well? If so, what about Raymond? Pulling the meter towards him, he quickly roughed in a new program based on the numbers he'd gotten from Winston.

"This is great, Egon. Look, Winston, the gradient curve here is almost identical to this one on Dr. Venkman. Maybe these readings are just from him living in the Shandor Building for a long time."

"Hmm, could be, but there's no match for any of these here. Unless…," Winston rubbed his chin. This was turning out to be less of a ghost chase and more of a mystery. "Ray, how did old Ivo die?"

Ray looked up, doubt on his face. "In the late '20's, after the building was done and he'd been living there awhile, he fell to his death from the roof. There were rumors that he'd actually been pushed by one of his fellow cult members, but no proof ever surfaced."

"It was also believed that like many he'd invested heavily in the stock market, and the crash left him destitute. However, his family never said anything, and while Shandor was infamous in certain circles, there were so many stock-related suicides that it was almost commonplace." Egon finished the program and waited for the bleep that indicated it had been accepted. He set it to scan and began running the program, waving the meter gently at himself and Ray, then once more over Winston. "Hmm, fascinating."

"What is it, Egon," Ray asked eagerly.

"Trace readings, similar to Winston's. Yours is the weakest, mine is slightly stronger while Winston's, logically, is strongest." Egon shut the meter down and began repacking it in the case.

"I can see why Winston's is strongest; your company services the building, right?"

Winston nodded, seeing where Ray was going. "Why would Egon's be stronger than yours, though?"

"I did have lunch with Dr. Venkman yesterday, and spent several hours in his company since last Friday," Egon pointed out.

"Egon!" Ray blushed a sudden and fiery red.

"Whoa! Way more information than this man needs to know," Winston held his hand up as if to ward off any other confessions.

Egon frowned, attempting to quell his friends but not really expecting to. "Gentlemen, I was referring to the dinner on Friday, during which he was sitting next to me, as well as having taken refuge under the same table in the library yesterday. Speaking of which, did anyone see what hit me in the back? The entity did not seem solid enough to strike such a blow." It was a bald attempt to change the subject, but he refused to discuss his personal life even with his best friends.

"Not the ghost, man, it was Venkman. One of the sweetest tackles I've seen outside of pro-ball in a long time. That thing might not have been solid enough to take you out, but the chandelier it dropped would have been."

"Egon," Ray had a thought that made him a little queasy. "Ivo Shandor died violently, however it happened. Do you think…is it possible that maybe he's…still around?"

"What do you mean, 'still around', Ray?" Winston demanded. "You mean, like a ghost?"

Ray nodded. "According to legend, people who die violently, or with unfinished business might be bound to where they die until the business is resolved. Maybe the ghost of Ivo Shandor is bound to the building."

"It would explain the Class Three overlays," Egon mused. "But the readings were very strong, indicating long exposure, perhaps over several years."

Winston nodded. "He's been a tenant there for a while. And Egon, there's something very weird going on there. It's like there are two different people living there, but I don't recall any signs of anybody but Venkman. Or maybe more like the person that lives there only lives in one room."

Egon studied Winston, one eyebrow lifted, and watched the realization of what he'd just confessed hit the other man.

Winston groaned and buried his face in his hands muttering something that sounded vaguely like, "Winnie made me do it."

"Two people," Egon continued, obviously deciding to let Winston stew for a while. "Perhaps there's something to your theory, Ray. Shandor's death was violent, regardless of the reason for it. If Shandor is, indeed, haunting the building he lived and died in, it would be the perfect opportunity for long-term exposure, possibly even influencing the unwitting resident. And Dr. Venkman had been making inquiries at the library about the Sumerian language, ostensibly on a patient's behalf."

"Like possession?" Ray's expression was somewhere between excitement and doubt.

Winston looked up from his hands, embarrassment forgotten. "Ray, didn't you just say that people become ghosts because of unfinished business? Because while I hate to rain on anybody's parade here, I'd like to take the opportunity to point out that since civilization still exists, Shandor's business is very unfinished."

One of the Goldstein clan chose that moment to show up with two plates, one overflowing with blueberry pancakes, the other with eggs, ham, hash browns and toast.

"There ya go, guys. Anything else, you know where it is."

"Thanks, Michael, it looks great!" Ray reached over to another table and grabbed a glass pitcher of syrup. He started to pour it liberally over his pancakes, only to have it intercepted by Winston. "Hey!"

"I promised Janine," Winston said, setting the pitcher on a third table.

There was silence at the table while the two dug in, and Egon took the opportunity to rise and refill his coffee mug from the decanter across the room.

"You know," Ray said around a mouthful of syrup and dough, "if Dr. Venkman really is possessed by the spirit of Ivo Shandor, he might be trying to start up his cult again. It would explain why he's looking for somebody who speaks Sumerian." He swallowed and reached for his own coffee. "Dr. Kirkwood just got a copy of some Mesopotamian scripts that he thinks they may be end of the world prophecies. Maybe there's something in there that would tell us.

"I agree we should pay Dr. Kirkwood a visit, although it's unlikely these prophecies are relevant; the end of the world is a common theme. When dealing with legitimate prophecies I doubt very much there is such a thing as coincidence." Egon blew across the top of his mug before sipping.

Winston looked up from his plate; these two were incredible. "I almost think I liked it better when we thought Venkman was dead and just didn't know it."