Chapter Ten: Dr. Spengler, I Presume

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Chapter Ten: Dr. Spengler, I Presume

The subway station was a lot more crowded the following morning than it was in the previous evening, just after Christina, Genevieve, Cody, Alex, and the Ajax Exterminators departed from Jay’s ravaged bookstore. They were still distraught and even confused over J.G.’s sudden actions last night as his “date” arrived; it even caught Alex by surprise, working with “Dr. S” for so long.

“He never told me anything about having a girlfriend,” she said, waiting with her new friends for the subway train to arrive. “I’ve never seen him go out with her until last night.”

Meanwhile, Christina was in the process of trying to reach J.G. through her cell phone; but she still got the same voicemail message, telling to leave a message and how he’ll get right back as soon as he can. “That’s the fifteenth time I’ve tried to call him…and I’ve already left ten messages.”

“He must really be in love with this girl,” Cody assessed.

Genevieve shook her head negatively. “What good is love when the world’s coming close to its end?”

“Don’t worry, Genevieve,” Mickey said. “We’re not done for yet.”

“That’s right,” Goofy added. “We’ve still got three more Ghostbusters to look for, including your Aunt Natalie.”

Genevieve rubbed her eyes in frustration over this apparent running joke; but it was not just him; it was the thought of what would happen if they did not succeed in their mission. Hades could take over everything in the blink of an eye. And where would they be when it happened? Either dead or left alive as slaves were her two best guesses for the worst case scenario. Suddenly, she was snapped out of her moment of thought when the overhead intercom made an announcement. “Ladies and gentlemen, the ten o’clock train from Waverly Place to Morningside Heights will currently be delayed, due to a blockage in the tunnel. We assure you that the situation will be handled as quickly as possible, but please bear with us.”

Alex frowned. “Blockage in the tunnel? What is it? A huge pile of…?”

“Dang,” Christina moaned in frustration. “We’ve got to get to Columbia U. before noon. Sean’s classes end after then.”

“Are you absolutely certain that Dr. Spengler will be easy to convince?” Genevieve asked, as they made their way out of the station.

Christina smiled. “When it comes to that brainy hunk, I’m definitely certain.”

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            “You’ve got to be kidding me with this!” The foreman bellowed as he stood with several other maintenance crewmen in the pitch-black subway tunnel, their flashlights shined straight ahead.

Wide-eyed and baffled, they stared at the massive green steel set of double doors with the face of a raven imprinted on the center of it. It came as quite a frightening display to the subway maintenance crew, who hoped that it could’ve been at least a brick wall that wasn’t torn down before operations began or even equipment left over from recent construction; but definitely not something like this.

One puzzled worker asked, “So whaddya think we should do with it?”

“Beats the heck outta me,” said the foreman. “I’ve been in construction and maintenance for thirty years and never seen anything like this.” He approached the surrealistic door and gave it a knock. A creepy, hallowed version of the knock echoed throughout its massive structure. The foreman placed his ear against it but quickly bounced back, as soon as he realized how incredibly cold it was.

“There’s a lotta people who need this tunnel available by this afternoon, boss,” another worker clarified. “Maybe we should just blow it open.”

“I’m afraid if we did, we might bother what’s on the other side.” The foreman said and quickly began to have second thoughts. “Ah, it’s probably just some old, forgotten relic…or some moron’s idea of a practical joke.” He turned to the workers and gave an order. “Get Nicky over here with the dynamite - Pronto!”

Within minutes, the hardhat worker named Nicky placed seventeen different explosives around the massive door. Just as soon after he placed the last one at the foot of the center, an ominously dark voice spoke to him in a whisper. “Do not interfere, mortal.” He looked behind him at the maintenance crew, who stood far enough to make it impossible to even hear what any of them were saying.

“You fellas say something?” Nicky asked.

“Yeah,” said the foreman. “We said, ‘Get that dynamite set up and get your butt back here - Pronto!’”

Nicky chuckled, directing his attention back to the last explosive he was setting up; but, then again, he heard the chilling voice whisper to him, “Leave now, mortal. You do not know the horrors that lie behind here.” He looked upward, seeing the face of the raven, and he wondered for a moment if it had just spoken to him. Was it possible? Or was he just spooked because of the dark atmosphere that was barely lit by the flashlights the foreman and the crew were carrying?

Either way, Nicky was getting away from the door; his job was finished, and it was time to regroup with the others. The worker dashed back over to the group, standing right behind them all and holding a medium-sized detonator in his hands. “Youse guys cover yer ears. This is gonna make a huge pop,” he instructed.

The team did as Nicky said, and Nicky himself stuffed earplugs in to protect his own hearing; he then pressed the button that set off the explosion, creating a tremor small enough to avoid causing any disturbance above the street. It was a sure bet that some pedestrians and passing vehicles probably felt it and wondered if there was an earthquake in Manhattan.

The tunnel quickly filled up with smoke and debris, causing the crewmembers to cough uncontrollably. They shined their flashlights through the smoke, attempting to see if their attempt had worked; but they were unable to make out anything right away. Stepping through it all, they started to see chunks of broken metal lying in certain areas; even Nicky spotted pieces of the bronze raven insignia in one place. The foreman was quick to express his delight. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about! Let’s clear out this stuff and get that train through here. Pron…”

Before the foreman could even finish saying that word again, he suddenly felt something grab him by the ankle and pull him down; he was yanked across the ground, screaming while being hauled into the pathway of the tunnel that was once blocked by the strange door. The other workers watched in horror as he vanished into the smoke, crying out his name several times before the screaming suddenly stopped.

Then there came a loud, inhuman roar that echoed throughout the tunnel, scaring the life out of the workers. A pair of glowing red eyes emerged through the smoke from the direction that the foreman disappeared in. Seeing the eerie eyes made the workers run in the opposite direction. Nicky was the only one who hadn’t, keeping his gaze focused straight ahead. There was an expression on his face that was enthralled as he started to walk towards the pair of glowing red eyes that seemed to be directed solely on him.

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            Columbia University was busier than usual that afternoon with several students rushing between department buildings, trying to get to class; Genevieve, Christina, Alex, Cody, and the Ajax Exterminators walked among them. Alex and Cody felt a little taken aback by the busy scene, both of them getting a preview of the future to come; it was horrifying to Alex, while absolutely thrilling to Cody.

Goofy, in the meantime, was feeling a sense of nostalgia. “Being here sorta takes me back to my old college,” he said.

“You went to college, Goofy?” Donald inquired, seeming almost surprised.

“Sure did,” Goofy proudly remarked. “Got my degree in Chemistry.”

“C-Chemistry?” Mickey stammered, equally as surprised as Donald.

“Yep. My professor said I had such good ones with the folks on campus.”

Mickey and Donald shook their heads as the group approached the science building. Walking in, the first thing the group smelled was some kind of unusual aroma that was a cross between strawberries and dirty sweat socks. It seemed to have gotten stronger when they headed upstairs to the fourth floor where Dr. Sean Spengler’s office was.

“Man! What is that?” Alex asked, holding her nose.

“I don’t know, but I just want to find Dr. Spengler and get out of here,” Genevieve uttered. “The more time we waste, the closer Hades gets to ending the world.”

Christina noticed a couple of professors pass by and give them awkward stares as Genevieve mentioned that. “Uh, Gennie? How ‘bout we ixnay on the end-of-the-world-nay in public? At least ‘til we get the team back together.”

Genevieve nodded in understanding, just as they came near an office door that had Sean Spengler’s name printed on it. The weird smell reached its peak as they opened the door. It was by then that they realized the source of the smell was Spengler’s office. This made it really hard for some of them to walk in, because it was so foul and close to rotten; but they simply held their breath and stuffed their noses underneath their shirts to fight it long enough to give Spengler the message.

The group found him standing near a table and wearing a lab coat with several beakers, measuring cups, and other scientific utensils in front of him. He had a mask over his face to protect his own senses from the bad smell, and there were gloves over his hands as he poured some red liquid (which looked like “Kool Aid” to the common observer) out from one beaker and into another that was filled with an acidic liquid. The combination of the two created a billow of purple smoke that filled the entire room in less than a minute.

“This is the brainy hunk you were referring to?” Genevieve asked Christina.

“He sure is,” she remarked in a very sultry manner.

Spengler heard the voices in the room and directed his attention away from his chemistry set and towards his visitors; he recognized Mickey, Donald, and Goofy almost immediately; but it was Christina who he took notice of the most. “I don’t believe it,” he said as he set down the beakers and approached her, giving him a nice, warm hug. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you.”

Christina nearly melted in his arms when they hugged; the last time they did was before he left to fight Gozer with the other three Ghostbusters; at the time, she was afraid she would never see him again because of the whole “fighting a Sumerian God” thing. Of course, at that particular moment, it was out of sheer bliss. “Oh, Sean…I missed you so much,” she told him.

The others looked on with a bit of uneasiness, seeing two people hug each other in a foul-smelling room with a shirt and mask covering their faces. “Uh,” Genevieve began, “Could we skip the formalities, please? Because I think we all would like to escape the funkiness of this room.”

Sean and Christina let go of each other and looked to the group. Spengler was quick to change to his usual formal attitude, sounding almost deadpan as he said, “Certainly. Let’s talk downstairs in my classroom.”

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            A few moments later and a few floors down, the group met in the fresh-smelling classroom where Sean Spengler taught every Monday and Friday morning. The smell still plagued their senses, but not so much that it kept them from telling all that had happened to them in recent days to Spengler. Not a single thing was forgotten, from the incident on the rooftop of the Tipton Hotel to the attack at J.G.’s bookstore. It all sounded very intriguing to Spengler as he munched down on three Nestle Crunch bars, just halfway into his fourth. “It appears the doors of Gozer’s Temple weren’t strong enough to contain even Hades,” he said. “Not that it should, considering the fact that he’s a god himself.”

“So what do we do to stop him, Dr. Spengler?” Genevieve asked with great hope.

“Well, it’ll certainly take a lot more than Proton Packs and Ghost Traps to prevent him from altering reality as we know it.” Sean apprised. “A god like Hades cannot be easily defeated.”

Mickey rubbed his chin, thinking. “So…we get Hercules to help us?”

Spengler chuckled. “No, no. We need something much stronger.”

“Gwarsh,” said Goofy. “Ya mean Herc’s not strong enough?”

“If what you told me about Jafar and the copies of the Necronomicon that he sent to Jay’s store is certain, then Hades could be working with our old enemies to destroy us,” Spengler assumed. “In that event, we’ll need more powerful tools to fight such otherworldly forces.”

Genevieve seemed as if she was starting to catch on with what he told them. “You mean you can invent something that’ll help overpower them?”

“If I am, then it’s going to take quite some time,” Sean elucidated. “It took me months to develop the equipment that we used back in the day. It’ll take me that same time frame or maybe even more to invent something twice as good.”

Genevieve shook her head. “With all due respect, Dr. Spengler, we don’t have that kind of time.”

“I understand.” Sean finished off the Crunch bar and tossed the wrappers into the nearest trashcan, dusting his hands off afterwards. “I really want to help you all out. But without the whole team back together, we’re pretty much useless in this situation. I need Jay’s expertise to assist me in the development of the new equipment.”

“And, as we said earlier, he’s off fooling around with some girl named Vanessa,” Alex said.

Spengler pondered over that name, feeling as if he had heard it somewhere before and whether it had to do with his old colleague. A lot of things seemed out of place in the story that Genevieve and the others told him, especially the part involving Jafar. He studied up on Hades enough to know what kind of company he kept; although he and Jafar worked in the past to destroy their respective adversaries (Hercules and Aladdin), there was no possible way he would consider another team-up. What was Jafar’s motivation in this? Revenge? Or just aiming for the same “Ruler of the World” opportunity?

There was a knock near the door and Sean turned to see a young, attractive woman standing there and smiling; her appearance made Christina somewhat unnerving as she wondered if this woman had any romantic involvement in Spengler’s life. It was shocking enough with J.G.; but, with Sean, it would put her in such intense jealous rage. “Dr. Spengler? There’s a package waiting outside for you. It’s from a ‘Madison Le Ficent’.” Sean’s eyes widened in surprise in conjunction with the woman uttering the name. “It sounded like a fake name, so I just told the delivery guy to leave it out…”

“Thank you, Mrs. Mills,” Sean remarked. “I’ll see to it immediately.”

Christina was delighted to know that the woman at the door was married and not in any way involved with Sean; but she started to worry of the woman who sent the package to him. How did she fit into his past? Then again, the name did ring a bell, but not a very good bell.

Sean walked out of the classroom with the others in tow; he stepped outside and spotted, near the foot of the steps, a large package sitting there. It was at least four feet in length and seven in width, and the name of “Madison Le Ficent” was labeled on the side, above an address that came directly from Paris, France.

“I never realized you knew anyone from France,” Christina told Sean.

Spengler shook his head. “I don’t.”

He then cautiously walked over to the package and, with a Swiss Army Knife that he kept in the right pocket of his lab coat, began to tear open the package. When it finally opened, the object in question was revealed: a spinning wheel. It all started to make sense to them—the name, the address, and the object itself; only Genevieve seemed not to have gotten it.

“What is this supposed to mean?” Genevieve asked.

“It’s a threat,” said Spengler. “She knows about Hades’ plan for us and the world…and she wants to take part in it all.”

Mickey scratched his head in confusion. “I just don’t get it. What kind of history did you all have with Maleficent?”

Even though Mickey’s question was directed solely to Spengler, he didn’t answer right away. He just quietly stood and gazed upon the spinning wheel, as an old memory flashed back to him…a moment that had taken place five years prior to the existence of the Ghostbusters.