𝐒𝐂𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐒 || ᴘʜᴏᴇʙᴇ ꜱᴘᴇɴɢʟᴇʀ

phase three - become closer over a science experiment

chucky.

that's what they were watching in summer classes. well, except for podcast, nova, and phoebe of course.

"hi, I'm chucky, wanna play?"

today they were in the first row, and they were observing a big machine trinket that phoebe had found the night before in her house, and podcast was trying to open the machine with a ruler, which eventually snapped. nova sat between her two friends, watching one of them observe the other be a bit stupid, trying to split the trap open. "it probably won't open because its locked in by some kind of components in the machine, pod." nova shrugged. during all this time that phoebe had know her, she had forgotten that nova was a huge nerd in science too. plus, her dad was a seimoligist.

phoebe was an attractive 12 year old. her hair, curly waves and short made her look more sophisticated, as well as her button-up shirts and belts she wore with her pants. nova had noticed that whenever there was an awkward silence or she was nervous or thinking, she always pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. and her bright blue eyes made the sky look as dull as grey clouds.

sitting back down, he put his forearms on the desk. "i need to know what's lurking inside." he remarked. from his desk, gary saw the machine and immediately perked up. "no way," he said, getting up and walking over, picking it up and observing it. "killer replica." "totally... a replica of what?" podcast asked, making nova roll her eyes, though she would have asked the same question if he hadn't done it first. "a trap." gary said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the whole entire world. "a ghost trap." he extended. podcasts jaw dropped, and nova put her hand under his chin, pushing it back up to close his mouth, without breaking eye contact with the apparent 'ghost trap'.

"seriously? how do you of all people not know about this?" gary asked the boy that was basically his son with the amount of times he had visited their home and how long he's stayed there. so, you can bet he was surprised when he found out that podcast didn't know what the machine was.

"im ashamed." podcast looked at the desk. "ugh, i was obsessed. new york in the 80's, it was like the walking dead." gary reminisced. "then it just... stopped?" phoebe asked. "there hasn't been a ghost sighting in 30 years." he observed the trinket further, when (what seemed like) steam started to string out of the top, then retracted, which made him drop the machine back onto the desk, electrical circuiting around the trap. "wait," gary said, squatting to be eye-level with the trap. "wait a minute. this thing is real?" "maybe," the girls chroused. "absolutely." podcast stated with all the confidence he could utter. the girls looked at podcast with quizzical looks, and phoebe looked back at him.

"i found it in my living room." "she lives on the dirt farm." podcast blurted. "oh, the really spooky one?" phoebe nodded. "yeah, nova told me about that." at that, phoebe and podcast looked at nova. she looked at them with a face. "what? i talk." she shrugged. after a moment, they moved on with the matter.

"what happened in new york?" asked phoebe.

/\/\/\

the kids all sat around gary's computer, watching the youtube videos of children and adults freaking out, fleeing the city wherever they could.

"the whole city was freaking out. then these physicists showed up with these portable proton accelerators and blew the roof off of manhattan high-rise." gary looked back at his daughter and her two peers, watching as they watched the old live video from the news 30 years ago, mesmerised by it. "none of this rings a bell?" nova had heard her father speak of this multiple times, but never got to see the videos of it. it had this depth of how interesting it was. "it happened 20 years before we were born." phoebe pointed out. "i believe it." podcast gave in immediately. whenever he saw something he wanted to be real, he put his whole mind into it because he wanted it to be real so so bad.

on the laptop, the video started to chant:

"ghostbusters! ghostbusters! ghostbusters!"

"i mean, your dad never mentioned this?" gary brought up awkwardly. "it's.. just my mom." his eyebrows shot up at this, and nova immediately covered his face, pushing it away gently yet with aggression. turned out, they were both crushing on spengler gals. "...just your mom, huh." gary nodded, bringing himself back from nova pushing his face away. "um... cool." nova looked at phoebe face, seeing her suspicion on her face, making her looked at her dad in disbelief as well. he was so bad at hiding stuff.

"'cool'?" podcast quoted, almost catching onto the drift that was happening in the room from gary. almost. he could never fully catch onto something that quick unless nova tended to help him.

"i wonder if this still works." gary said, looking at the ghost trap, seeming to completely ignore the awkwardness from 5 seconds ago. podcast raised his eyebrow.

"should we... open it?"

/\/\/\

right as the bell rang, the trio and gary stood outside. gary was hooking wires up to the machine on a car hood, podcast was in the driver's seat of a school bus, and phoebe and nova were outside of the school bus, right beside gary as he wired up the trap. "alright, gear up." he showed the girls some safety goggles, and they took them, chuckling. "two millimetres of plastic eye protection?" phoebe asked. "you sure this is safe, dad?" nova asked. "that is mr. grooberson to you, sweetie, and safe?" he chuckled as nova muttered a "then its nova to you, mr. m.". "no. no. history is safe. geometry, thats safe." phoebe started to undo the long wires connected to the trap, to be set next to the school bus door and gary handed a pair of safety goggles to podcast through the bus window.

"science is all particle accelerators and hydrogen bombs. science is giving yourself the plague and gambling on the cure." "science is reckless." phoebe said, holding onto the bus door with nova beside her, goggles on her head like sunglasses. "totally! yes! it's punk rock. its a safety pin through the nipple of academia." "ouch." podcast commented. "science is asking 'why does mr.grooberson, a grown adult, have safer-looking goggles than the three of us, the growing preteens?'" nova asked sarcastically, looking up at her seismologist father. "because," he flicked down the goggles on his daughter's head, onto the bridge of her nose, "i saved up for these bad boys." nova just rolled her eyes.

"fire it up!" gary instructed podcast. podcast turned on the engine, making electricity crackle around the trap. "don't you think it may be a good idea to take the trap off our car hood?" nova asked, common sense coming through her. "what? no." gary waved off. "alright then." nova mumbled, getting a small nudge of the elbow from phoebe, sending her a small smile. nova's stomach went crazy. "i've always wanted to do this." gary put his foot over the step, and phoebe and nova started to nudge each other behind the bus door, to make sure nothing happened to one another. stepping on it, they all waited a couple seconds, but nothing happened. he lightly stepped on it a couple more times, but nothing. gary turned around, putting out a hand to the girls to tell them to stay there, then walked up to the trap on the car hood, raising his eyebrows as he put his hand out again towards the girls, before lightly tapping his palm on the trap.

then, something escaped from the trap, big and scary, like a big shadow yet glowing at the same time, shaped like a wolf. gary fell to the ground, eye glasses falling off his face. the big shadow flew past the school bus and towards the mountains on the horizon. phoebe and nova held each other, screaming as the shadow flew by. the energy ball of light flew towards 'the grapefruit', seeming to go inside of it.

they all watched it fly away, and podcast walked out, yelling, "yes!" while nova and phoebe starting to slowly dissolve away from the hug, the longer time passed by and confirmed to them that the shadow wouldn't come back. "uh... we should probably get out of here." gary said. the kids looked back at him. "you're an adult." phoebe deadpanned. "yeah. and liable." "great father, i tell you." nova sarcasms. "you know what this means?" podcast asked the girls. podcast put his hand on phoebe's shoulder. "you're grandpa was a ghostbuster." she nodded. "yes, im aware." she took of his goggles, then took novas off for her, which made nova blush and make her stomach flip, all watching the direction in which the shadow took off in while gary got ready to go in the background.

•••
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