The Bar at the End of the Universe

The door opens on a chilly grey day in an alleyway in New York and closes behind a Ray wearing his winter dark bluegrey Ghostbusters duds. "Wow," he says, looking around the Bar. "What'd I miss?"

He doesn't stop for an answer, though. He heads for the Bar to drop off a note ("give a copy of this to anybody who asks about me, please?"), and then to the bulletin board to pin up the same thing for people who go there first.

( The note reads: )

Once the note is up he heads for the Bar, because this is going to be his last time here, and he'd like to make some use of that fact while he's saying goodbye to people.


[OOC: As I mentioned in the Back Room a few week ago, I'm retiring Ray. This is his goodbye post; it's open as long as people are finding it, basically.]

"Spengs, you owe me big for this," comes Ray's voice around a stack of books that smell of leather and age. "Just because you- oh. Milliways."

Well, he can stagger over to one of the tables and set down the pile of decrepit volumes for a moment, right? No one's going to object. Much. Just because Egon went on another one of his apocalyptic lore binges and had to send Ray to the auction house to bid on the books for him because the restraining order was still in effect doesn't mean anybody's especially likely to be wigged out by the results of said trip, unless they transliterate some of the more battered volumes' titles out of Greek or Hebrew or- okay, the Sumerian one's title is in English, it's only cuneiform on the inside, but-

THE POINT IS: Ray gets to put the books down and get a glass of blue stuff the color of Windex and then go back to his table to start reading Egon's books. Even if people bug him here, none of them will be Slimer, which counts for an awful lot.

Sometimes, it's just That Kind Of Day across the multiverse.

Ray stomps through the door in his winter blue jumpsuit, which is rather shinier and stickier than the original fabric manufacturer intended. Ectoplasm. What can you do. He's going to order himself a Third Rail caffeinated beer and plop down at one of the tables near the window to work on a bust report as best he can; washing up would just take too long. He'll do that later.

Arcade, on the other hand, is currently in both a great deal of pain and a state of advanced thankfulness, because there are some really good cazador antivenins available if you know the right tribals. Can't mix them with alcohol, though. He's just getting some fried gecko with agave sauce and trying not to swell up too obviously while the antivenin does its thing.

Shephard has been working with his houndeye pack all goddamn day and wants a beer, dammit. He's staying at the bar thank you very much. Probably won't bite if approached, though.

And Gordon just got done with solitary child care duties after Alyx slept for about sixteen hours straight. Not that she hasn't earned it, but Gordon would like to do something else now. Fortunately Bar has been kind enough to provide an old collegiate-level plastic molecular modeling kit or three; he's currently assembling a reasonable replica of cholesterol, because why not.

Appearances to the contrary, they're all botherable. Just indicate who you're bothering.

The robot thing wore off. Thankfully. None of Egon's procedures were any help other than to give Ecto a migraine while she was in Ray's body. Ray was gonna come to Milliways to celebrate, but... well, it was October, and where some worlds have global warming Ray's is subject to massive cycles of global weirding. The Ghostbusters were nationalized for a reason, and this year all available units were pressed into service keeping major cities as stable and calm as possible during the massive surge of PKE activity leading up to Election Day.

Which is a long way of saying that while there are still a few days left before the world goes completely back to baseline (you can't really call it normal any more), things are quiet enough in Ray's New York that he was able to step out of the Firehouse, get to the Bar, and order a glass of something dark green and faintly iridescent to drink while he sat down to read this month's issue of Who's Who And What's THAT?.

Botherable, though. Just as long as you're not dripping slime or something. He gets that at home.

All of Times Square was crammed full of people doing yoga today. That wasn't the problem. Ray's New York, after all, is not New-York-Of-The-Slime, where a river of psychomagnetheric substances flows under the city's surface, gathering all the emotional vibes above and discharging it at random. Nor is it New-York-Of-The-Doors, where it seems like hardly a week can go by without discovering some door or hole or passageway in an otherwise perfectly normal city construction project leads to an unspeakable dimension or the end of the world. (Although there was that incident with the Second Avenue subway line's construction, but that was last year.) No, the problem today was that, while all of those people were tranquilly performing mass synchronized yoga in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world, several blocks over there was an Incident. It involved a class six eruption, three NYPD mounted officers posing for tourists near Rockefeller Center, and the fact that the vast majority of horses haven't got anything even remotely resembling enough willpower to fend off spiritual possession.

The Post is gonna have a field day with the image of those cops hanging on for dear life as their suddenly-ten-feet-tall-and-black-and-snorting-fire mounts rampage through the crowds of screaming yoga practitioners. At least Ecto picked up on the officers' radios during a run to Queequeg's for coffee and the whole mess was brought to a screeching halt before the Three Unwilling Horsemen Of The Not Quite Apocalypse could wreak too much more havoc, but good Lord, this was not a good day at all.

Ray's out back with his lightsaber and his training drone and his concerted effort to forget what happens when ectoplasm, horse manure, and fire all come together at once. It's not going well, so please, if you want to talk to him stay out of saber range until the drone's routine is done. He kind of needs to work some of this off.

It's been busy in New York. And Boston. And DC. And New York again. Seriously, it's just been busy as anything, both on the spook front and in the oceans, and there've been really unpleasant pictures coming back from space probes indicating that while Pluto might not qualify for planetary status any more its dimensional shadow Yuggoth sure as heck does, and-

Well. Ray's been busy. But hey, he got the door open now.

"Aw, man," he says as he spots the calendar behind the Bar. "Did I miss Cubefall? I was looking forward to that."

Oh well. He'll get the quantum blue stuff and find himself a place to sit, and maybe catch up with people he recognizes. Or talk to people he doesn't. He's good either way.

"... does somebody mind explaining why there's a two-headed cow out back being guarded by what looks like Mad Max's dog?" Ray says as he comes in from the back door. "Not that I'm objecting, you understand, but I was hoping to get in some saber practice today and I'd really rather not spook half a ton of bicephalic angry pot roast in the process."

A hole opens in the ceiling, and a pole appears.

Screeeethunk.

"... really?" says Ray as he dusts himself off. "The pole still works for that? Sweet."

He was on his way to- oh, who are we kidding, this isn't job related, he'll use any excuse for the pole. And if it happens to bring him into Milliways when there's need of a bartender, that's fantastic in its own right.

Specials:

Who Am I Kidding, I Don't Have Any Specials In Mind
But If You Can Swallow A Manchurian Candidate Without Complaining,
The Next Drink Is Free


Also Half Off All Milkshakes

"Batter up, folks."