Ghostbusters: Regeneration

Chapter Four

Despite the usual weekday morning traffic, Melissa made it to the MNN offices back in Manhattan not long after her usual arrival time. None of her colleagues had any reason to suspect that something unusual was going on.

She settled in at her desk to endure what would end up being a largely typical morning for her, spending most of her time rewriting uninteresting press releases. Her work was more of a challenge than normal though, as she frequently had to stop her thoughts from wandering to her report.

While she tried not to clock-watch, midday seemed to take an absolute age to roll around. When time finally ticked over to 12:00pm, she immediately headed to the staff kitchen, hoping to find some privacy for her phone call. Hiroko had not messaged her so she assumed that her Phantasm friends had not managed to identify the creature from the docks.

'Hey. Have you got anything from your ghost network mates?' She asked after Hiroko picked up, unable to hide a twinge of anxiousness in her voice.

'Well, we've got multiple people around the globe poring through paranormal resources,' Hiroko began, her voice masked a little by the usual sonic haze of a mobile phone call, 'including one person in Germany, but we've not got a positive ID yet.'

'Damn.' Melissa uttered, realising she had begun to pace around the small kitchen area.

'I'm sure we'll have somethin' for ya soon.' Hiroko replied in an optimistic tone. 'I've never seen the boards mobilise like this before. I think our collective pride will be wounded if we don't figure this out.'

Despite her frustration, Melissa was impressed by how hard the Phantasm members seemed to be working. With multiple paranormal fanatics helping out, finding the answer to her little mystery might yet be achievable. However, she had devised another course of action just in case they did not manage to come up with anything.

The new plan was to put out YouTube video asking for anyone with information about the dock attack to come forward. If they put all the details about the case in this appeal piece and got local Phantasm members to signal boost it on social media, it might have a chance of finding its way to someone holding valuable info.

With Melissa stuck at work, Hiroko would have to do the bulk of the work. While her old friend did not have much experience with video editing, if she was anywhere near as proficient with software as she was with hardware she would have no problems producing such a short, simple video in a matter of hours.

'Okay.' Hiroko responded, seemingly clear on what she was being asked to do. 'Are you going to get in trouble if someone from your work sees this though? Wasn't the footage you gave me filmed for MNN?'

Melissa figured her chances for getting caught out were extremely small. Even if the video somehow received widespread circulation, someone would have to recognise the footage shot for MNN and go out of their way to report it to Meredith or one of the higher-ups. Leon and Cameron were probably be the only two people in the world who could identify the footage before it aired. Even if she did somehow get busted, such an infraction would likely be considered minor at best.

'It'll be fine.' Melissa told Hiroko. 'By the time the video goes up, the station's official report will be out there, so it's not like I'm scooping them. I'm not going to monetise it, so even if I do get found out they can't say I'm making money off their content. Besides, I'll take it down as soon as we have enough to make our own proper report so it shouldn't come to that. Assuming that some sort of lead turns up, that is.'

'Okay, well, I'll just make sure my name is nowhere on this juuuust in case.' Hiroko replied.

Melissa thanked Hiroko and ended the call before heading back to her desk. Though her stomach was growling for some lunch, she got to work creating a script and her voice-over audio. Recording herself on her smartphone, she explained everything that was known about the creature and the incident, and concluded by urging listeners to contact her at her personal email address should they have any information relating to the case.