Collateral Damage
(c) 2004 scary_librarian
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February 18th, 1985, 1:03 pm EST
Ghostbusters Inc, LLC
New York, New York

"Dr. Bradford's family does not believe there is solely a medical nor psychological cause for his current condition, and I concur after the morning's activities."

Dr. Egon Spengler was holding court in the second floor lab, or more specifically, a morning staff meeting.

Dr. Peter Venkman, seated behind him and to one side, was twirling a finger at the ceiling in a whoopidy doo gesture of boredom while he doodled on a pad in his lap with the other hand. He was tipped back in his chair so that the front legs were clear of the floor, balanced precariously.

Winston Zeddemore glanced between him and Egon, thinking there was no way Egon didn't see the motion in the reflection of his glasses. Nothing changed in Egon's expression, but he said, "...and I imagine Dr. Venkman would like to share with the class."

Peter dropped his hand with a grin, still leaning back in his chair so that the front legs were clear of the floor. He flipped the pad upright to show his latest work of art: a buxom cartoon caricature of a demoness doing something predictably obscene with her tail. Winston snorted as much at the gleam in Peter's eyes as at the picture itself. Dr. Ray Stantz, occultist and engineer extraordinaire, sat across from Peter and Egon and tried to hide both a smirk and a blush. Finally he settled for looking at the ceiling.

"Oh yeah," Peter said with a leer, nodding.

"Fascinating," Egon said without turning. "Now that you have everyone's attention as usual, perhaps you'd like to lend your limited insight."

Peter shrugged, dropping the pad back to his lap. "Psychosomatic catatonia resulting from either a shock of undeterminate cause, or a chemical imbalance. Tox screens came back negative, so that rules out psychogenic medication or narcotic toxicity. Without talking to the poor schmuck directly, nothing more we can do but put a bullet in his head."

"Peter," Ray said with faint recrimination.

Egon raised an eyebrow at the resulting silence. The offhanded diagnosis had ended with a complete lack of habitual flippancy. A nerve had been struck somewhere, and Egon let the silence draw out, glancing between Winston and Ray. The latter had gone pale, unaccustomed to a remark like that being delivered with such brutal honesty.

"His neural activity is zero," Peter said in a softer tone, letting the legs of his chair come back to earth with a thud. "Nothing but a brain stem with a shell. Living death is a little much to ask, isn't it? He's gone. Takes a special kind of masochism and stupidity to hold onto someone that hard." He paused, dropping his gaze back to the pad and scribbling on it aimlessly. "Special kind of mean." He cleared his throat and leaned back in his chair again, crumpling the previous picture and throwing it at the back of Egon's head.

"In other news," Peter said with an abrupt change of tone, "some asshole reporter keeps calling and asking Janine -"

"Whether we would be inclined to 'bust' one of our own, should the need arise," Egon finished, pushing his glasses further back on his nose. "I have already addressed the miscreant."

"What? Ray said, leaning forward. "He wanted to know, if one of us died -"

"Yeah," Peter said, grinning. "The 'miscreant' ignored you, Spengs, because he called again while we were out. You need to remember that it takes more than a journalism degree to understand half of what you say. He just couldn't flip pages in his dictionary fast enough. I'll take care of it."

"No," came a chorus of voices.

"I'll do it," Winston said. "Ray's too nice, and you'll make it worse. I'll talk him down."

Peter shrugged, but nodded with approval. "Whatever. Fine with me."

Egon had flipped a page and opened his mouth to move on to the next item on the agenda when Peter said, "So, would we?"

"Aw, man," Winston said, slumping back in his chair. "Here we go."

"Dr. Venkman," Egon said patiently, keeping his eyes on his documentation, "I am willing, at this juncture, to attempt it prior to your demise."

Peter snorted, genuine amusement on his face. He noticed Ray's sudden fidgeting and said, "Nah, me and Slimer'll just hang around, spreading snot all over the place, starting with you, 'gon."

"I was already assuming your hygiene was the underlying cause of your current state of abstinance," Egon said with dry aplomb.

Peter's face was a study in offended surprise. Ray and Winston laughed outright, and longer than Peter liked.

"Now, that said, we can discuss the anomaly we encountered this morning and the residuals that existed in Mr. Bradford's residence," Egon said.

* * *

February 18, 5:56 am EST

"It's six in the morning," Peter said yet again. The business line had rung nearly twenty minutes earlier, and Winston had gone down to answer it. It had taken all three of them to dislodge Peter from slumber, and they were all worse for wear as a result.

"Yeah," Ray said from the front seat, cranking Ecto 1's heater up another notch. "And the snow is fresh. Isn't it great?"

"Winter in New York is never great, Ray," Peter groused from the backseat, where he leaned against Egon, ignoring the physicists' attempts to calibrate his PKE meter. "At six in the morning, it's...aw, shit, I hate it. What the hell couldn't wait until a decent hour?"

"Someone obviously thought we were serious about that whole '24/7' thing in the ad," Winston said from behind the wheel. One more word from Peter would earn the psychologist a faceful of snow. He'd already threatened to do so once that morning, while trying to get Peter into his jumpsuit. Peter was a button-pusher of the third degree, and when he was sleepy and pissed he was more than even Winston could take. "Imagine that."

Peter was already asleep on Egon's shoulder and heard none of it.

A stately brownstone walk-up in Brooklyn was their destination, and Winston never used the lights or sirens that time of morning. From what he'd been told, it wasn't much of a rush, just a frightened family who had brought a loved one home from the hospital and feared they'd brought something else with them. More they couldn't say, only that they'd been up all night watching for signs of...anything.

Winston could sympathize with that. Sometimes it was better when the specters started actually throwing things and broke the tension.

He pulled up to the curb, seeing lights on in the third floor of the walkup. "I know this address," Egon said, withdrawing the support of his shoulder from the sleeping Dr. Venkman's tousled head. Peter fell over on the back seat undisturbed as Egon stepped out of the hearse onto the icy sidewalk. "Dr. William Bradford. An astrophysicist of high regard who was at Berkeley before moving out here to consult with NYU."

"It's Mrs. Bradford who called," Winston said, opening the very back of the hearse to get at their proton packs. "Said he's had a stroke, they think, but the doctors couldn't find proof of it."

"Shame," Ray said, looking crestfallen. "That's hard on a family, something like that."

"Peter," Egon said. "You have moments, at best, to get out here and join us."

Snoring reached them from the open back door of the hearse.

Winston took a long stride past Egon, scooping snow as he went, pausing when Egon caught the sleeve of his coat. "His attitude will be exponentially worse, if you proceed," he said.

"He'll live," Winston said, then scooped a double handful of powder into the open door and got Peter right in the face.

An explosion of sputtering and cursing followed, during which Peter exited the backseat of the hearse with the kind of grace that would have done any college quarterback proud, much less the former star quarterback of the Columbia Lions. "Zed, you -"

His intended string of expletives was cut off by one of Egon's gloved hands clamping over his mouth. "It is, after all, six thirty in the morning. Perhaps you can continue this later." He waited to see confirmation in the angered, half-awake green eyes before he removed the hand. Then he lightly shoved Peter a step back with it and gestured at the stairs leading up to the brownstone.

Peter shrugged and followed along after shooting a glare at Winston and shaking himself off. Ray was already at the top of the stairs, Winston a step behind, and Egon had cleared the sidewalk and made it to the steps. The nearest streetlights tried to push the blackness off the buildings, struggling in a faint layer of fog. Grumbling, Peter stepped onto the sidewalk -

At first he thought he'd slipped, since the world turned over on him and all. Up was a concept he no longer had a solid grasp of, and he meant to flail for purchase with his arms, but they remained at his sides. He tried to speak and couldn't; nothing worked the way it was supposed to. He stood, eyes half open, looking obstinate to those on the stairs.

"Peter," Egon said with no small amount of admonishment. Then he paused. Something in the way he was standing... "Ray," he said.

Ray was the only one wearing a pack, and he kept a close eye on the air around Peter, waiting to see what developed. Egon descended the few stairs he'd already taken, hitting the sidewalk and standing a few feet away from Peter. He aimed the PKE meter at him, watching it react with little surprise. Something had Peter in its thrall, and he watched the green of his eyes spark with a phosphorescent yellow.

"Oh, shit," Winston said from above.

Then Peter opened his mouth and spoke, the tenor voice his but the diction and syntax far from his usual capabilities. Peter Venkman had never studied linquistics, but he spoke something that sounded like Hebrew that morning as if it were his native tongue. There was a short sentence, punctuated with a vehemence that didn't show on the psychologists' face. Then he fell silent. When his eyes darkened and the PKE meter with them, Egon lowered the instrument and approached to lay a hand on Peter's shoulder.

Peter struggled with true consciousness for a moment, then focused on Egon. "Damn, it's cold out here."

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