milliways_bar | (no subject)

Ray probably thinks Milliways is safer because he hasn't seen the jungle out back yet.

Annabelle is coming in from out back after checking the undergrowth for bones again. She's fending off a particularly persistent tendril with a whip, ala Indiana Jones. "Back, you bloody weed!"

The whatever it was finally expires, and Annabelle chucks it out the open back door before shutting it and coming in. She sighs, "I think I need a drink."

Noooooo, even the jungle's a step up from being on the same landmass as Garion in a certain kind of rage, really...

Anyway. Ray looks up, blinking. "Don't tell me, let me guess- we've had another weirdness wave again?"

This is true..

Annabelle looks over at Ray, "You mean this sort of thing happens often?"

"All the time. Not outside, usually, but there's nearly always something incomprehensibly bizarre going down at some moment or other around here," Ray says. "I take it you're new here?"

"I suppose I should be grateful that I'm accustomed to the strange then. Yes, I'm new. I've only been here about a week."

She smiles then as if at some private joke, "Annabelle Newfield at your service Mr...?"

"Ray Stantz. Parapsychologist, Ghostbuster, and extremely reluctant and in-over-his-head ambassador-at-large for non-human sentient issues, New York City, Earth, 2008. Pleased to meet you, Miss Newfield."

"Some of that sounds like what I used to get up to with AEon in my own world Mr. Stantz," she grins, "you have my sympathy."

"I was based out of Chicago, Earth, 1938 myself"

"Did you say Ghostbuster?"

"Yes, ma'am," says Ray, and fishes his duct tape wallet out of his pocket. He flips it open to a pair of cards, one of which is a license from the City of New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (Sanitation Division) to investigate, trap, and remove ghosts, spirits, dimensional beings, and other paranormal or supernatural threats to human health and livelihood. It's signed by Public Health Commissioner Thomas C. Frieden and Mayor Leonard Gonick, and it expires in 2009.

The other card is the Ghostbusters, Inc. business card of Dr. Raymond Stantz.

"The card's a little out of date. The company's been nationalized as of earlier this year- not without compensation, but still. I keep the card for sentimental reasons."

"There's nothing wrong with sentimental reasons."

"As far as I know we never had any actual ghosts in my home universe, although we had plenty of creatures that some people thought were paranormal."

Annabelle says dryly, "Considering that we often dealt with man-made zombies and other creatures created by scientists as weapons, I can't say that I blame them for that assumption."

"Ironically enough we don't really have much in the way of zombie activity in my world, whether of the living dead variety or the classical will-less human sort," Ray says. "And other than the Mina Harker case history written by Bram Stoker we're a little low on vampires, too. Other supernatural creatures, though? Got 'em out the wazoo," Ray says, putting his wallet away. "It's part of the slow culmination of an overall paranormal trend affecting pretty much the entire planet so far as we can tell- helped along by a couple of extremely brilliant whackadoodle froot loops with too much education and too much time on their hands, unfortunately."

"The whole mess started in my world with a literal bang rather than a slow build. Dr. Hammersmith's Telluric Engine exploded in 1922 and released massive amounts of something called 'z-waves'."

"Do you have any individuals displaying talents that are superhuman or psychic in nature or even impossible luck or skill?"

"Oh, sure. My nephews are psychokinetics, along with a couple of other minor psychic powers," Ray says. "It erupted surprisingly early for both of them, though. Alex is eight, Joey is just about six, and they've both had the talent for a few years now. Among other things, for that matter. There was a boy in Harlem a year or two ago who accidentally summoned fire elementals when he was upset, too, and let's not talk about the girl in Douglaston who was simulating poltergeist activity through emotionally linked psychokinetic outbursts. And that's just for starters. We don't have anybody who goes all the way up to superhuman so far as I know unless you want to count Dr. Ramsey Campbell's ability to adapt to being a brain in a jar, but for all I know that's just a case of freedom from body chemistry making a bad situation easier to bear." He smiles. "We spent most of our early career at Columbia investigating even the slightest hint of psychic abilities before the Shandor architecture in Manhattan achieved critical energetic mass and initiated a massive four-fold dimensional crossrip."

"That is young. How are your nephews handling it?"

She explains, "AEon was one group of people in my world who had the kind of abilities I mentioned. We were dedicated to investigating and exploring our world in the hopes of helping humanity achieve its full potential."

Annabelle smiles,"One of the things we explored were these new powers that people like us were exhibiting. It's a pity Whitley Styles isn't here, his powers were psychic in nature like those of your nephews. My own talents, I'm afraid, manifested in extraordinary skill and luck rather than anything more dramatic."

She pauses, "Have you met anyone here who goes by the name of Michael Donighal? He's an old friend of mine and he would likely be able to explain the science behind what happened in our world."

"Pretty well, actually. I'm completely head-blind for the rest of my natural existence myself- and possibly into any unnatural existence I might later have- but I've been teaching them meditational and philosophical techniques to help them keep it in line and learn to use it wisely where I can."

"Oh, yes, we've met plenty of times!" Ray grins. "He came to my world and helped save our bacon at least once, when we were under threat from one of the more monstrous Great Old Ones being summoned into our reality. Neat guy."

"I'm glad that you're able to help your nephews and that they are handling their new powers well."

She laughs at Ray's enthusiasm over Michael, "I'm glad you've met, and I'm not surprised he was willing to lend a hand. I'm not familiar with the Great Old Ones, however."

"You're probably better off," Ray says. "Incomprehensible powers of what amounts to madness in our world from beyond the bounds of space and time as we know them, with a hankering for a big old chunk of Earth and human sanity. Nasty bunch. My world's got problems with them every few hundred years or so and we're heading into an active cycle now."

Normal, perhaps saner, people who heard things like 'incomprehensible powers,' and 'from beyond the bounds of space and time' would be either questioning the teller's sanity or fleeing in terror.

This, however, is Milliways: The Bar at the End of the Universe. More specifically, the listener is Annabelle Newfield, who is at least partly responsible for inspiring the use of the term "Daredevil" for her type of Inspiration.

Annabelle looks seriously at Ray and informs him, "If they can be killed by conventional or unconventional weapons and you need a hand, just let me know. Max didn't call me AEon's aiming system for nothing."

"I appreciate the offer," Ray says, "but I have to admit that it can't be done. They can't actually die, they're that different from ordinary beings of any kind of matter and most kinds of spirit energy. Their physical forms might be temporarily dispelled under precisely the right circumstances, but they can't genuinely be killed."

"That being said, if we need help with a materialization and the arcane means aren't available, I intend to come here and scream like a schoolgirl for help."

Annabelle frowns at the explanation that they can't be killed. "Well, damn, so much for that solution then."

"Coming in here for help sounds like a perfectly sensible solution to me. As strange as this place is you're likely to run into several someones who could lend a hand.

"It's amazing how often it works out that way," Ray says. "Purely out of curiosity, now, what is it that brought you here?"

Annabelle's smile turns a little sad. "My luck ran out. It's a long story, of love and blood and betrayal but when I took out the Earthquake generator it caused the cavern it was in to collapse on top of me."

Annabelle gives Ray a wry smile,"You can't exactly dodge that many tons of scaffolding. This is apparently what lies between life and the afterlife for me."

"I'm sorry," Ray says. "I mean, I'm glad you found this place, but I'm sorry about the dead thing. It can't have been fun."

Annabelle gives Ray a genuine smile, "I'm glad I found this place myself. I don't know that a traditional afterlife would be a good fit for me."

"You said something about being an ambassador?"

"It wasn't my idea," Ray says. "My world... well, it turns out that for the past four hundred thousand years there've been a species of fish-men called the Deep Ones living in the Atlantic Ocean. They've been interacting with humanity in a few isolated communities in secret for a hundred and fifty years now, but they officially came out in public to the whole world last year. The first three or four people the State Department appointed as America's ambassadors to the Deep Ones quit after maybe a week each. I have a reputation for dealing with all kinds of weird creatures on a daily basis, including some of the beings I've brought from Milliways to help out with this or that crisis, and my older daughter's a sentient machine, so they finally wound up coming to me and saying they were running out of actual diplomatic possibilities and would I consider accepting a post for dealing with non-humans in general. I wouldn't've said yes, but they offered to make Ecto a citizen if I took the job, so..."

"Your daughter is a sentient machine? I'd ask how that happened, but I'm almost certain that I wouldn't understand it."

"I'm glad that you managed to get citizenship for her though, even if you did have to take on that position to get it. I'm glad no one ever made me an ambassador. I've never been very good at dealing with problems I can't shoot, " she admits sheepishly.

"Long story short? Someone here built a lot of upgrades into the company car. When it achieved consciousness its first act was to call me 'daddy'," Ray says. "That was in 2005. It's 2008 in my world now. Ecto's about on par with a human teenager old enough to join the Army now."

Then he laughs. "I have to be honest. I'm really not all that good with people. Non-human beings, sure, I can deal with those any day of the week, but I'm terrible at reading all the subtle signs and indicators that accompany human politicking. Give me fish-guys and sentient octopi any day of the week."

Annabelle grins, "I'm glad I'm not the only one whose untalented at that sort of thing. I haven't the patience or the inclination for politicking."

"I'm glad that you have better luck with non-humans, it sounds as if your world needs it!"

"That would be putting it mildly," Ray says. "Let me put it like this: a while ago, I was asked by a friend here at Milliways if I didn't come to the Bar for something approaching normalcy, since it was obviously in short supply at home. Said friend is a giant space alien robot, several million years old, who can turn into a truck without batting an optic. My world needs pretty much all the shoring-up it can get."

"It certainly seems that way. You have my sympathy Mr. Stantz. If that 'shoring-up' is anything that I can help with, please let me know.

"Will do," says Ray. "You're welcome to come and visit any time, by the way. As long as you don't mind the potential for getting slimed- we've got a ghost living with us who hasn't quite worked out how not to slobber all over guests yet."

"So it is true that the dead can visit other patron's worlds? I'd heard that, but I wasn't sure if it was fact or legend."

"It's true," Ray says, "although you lose your coherency and start turning into an actual ghost if you stay anywhere outside the Bar for more than a day or two. Back when the Armageddon Clock manifested here and it looked as if the Bar stood a chance of being destroyed, I offered to bring anybody here who was dead and who didn't want to take their chances on the actual Afterlife just yet over to my own universe, because even if they went ghostly they'd still have a chance to continue existing. Some worlds don't take kindly to ghosts at all. Mine? My grandfather manifests at his favorite delicatessen once a week for an hour of lunchtime conversation, and he's been dead for twenty years."

"I'll have to remember that. Thank you Mr. Stantz."

She grins at Ray's mention of his grandfather,"Your world does sound interesting. I'd love to visit whenever it is convenient for you."

"I'm in the middle of Nevada at the moment, but when I get back to New York City I"ll let you know," Ray says. "Egon's going to the Bahamas for the investigation we were planning instead of me, so I've got some time once I get back."

"That would be lovely. Thank you again Mr. Stantz."

OOC: Fade here?

[OOC: Works for me!]