Mood Slime 1989

1. Doe, Ray, Egon

It's the missing mood slime testing scenes from Ghostbusters II.

CW: this chapter is PG13. chapters will get more explicit as mood slime effects take hold...

The Psychomagnotheric Mood Slime Incident of 1989.

When they discovered the river of pink slime flowing under the streets of New York City, Ray barely managed to collect a sample before the river tried to eat him. Now, in their makeshift lab, the sample sits benignly in an ordinary, clear plastic, food storage container, looking like harmless strawberry jello.

Ray is not fooled. He eyes the sample with suspicion. It might just be his imagination, but he thinks it eyes him back.

Ray and Egon are trying to come up with experiments to do on the slime sample with what they have on hand. Kitchen implements mostly. The firehouse lab needs to be fully re-equipped now that the Ghostbusters are back in business.

Nobody else is in the firehouse tonight but the two scientists. It's late. Peter has his own apartment now, paid for with his TV show money. Winston and his wife Tiyah moved to the suburbs in '87. Ray and Egon sleep at the bookstore apartment usually, but are now, some nights, back here in the old bunkroom.

Three years ago, they'd had to close down Ghostbusters. They'd been required by law to continue maintaining the containment unit downstairs, yet court ordered not to operate as paranormal investigators anymore, so they'd done their best to make other use of the building. Until recently reopening, the firehouse had been mostly storage, all the forbidden Ghostbusters gear boxed up. It was a place to park Ecto1. They rented the top floor out to Louis Tully's accounting firm. Venkman keeps his pool table there. A couple arcade games that no one but Slimer ever plays, given to them five years back by a promoter during the Ghostbusters fame.

It's exciting to be investigating anything paranormal again. Ray's sparkling eyes are wide. He's talking fast. Egon smiles to see him engaged like this. It's been too long since they stayed up late in a lab together.

Ray is currently documenting his experience in the tunnel under Dana's street. He's saying into an audio recorder, "At first, I was just surprised and fascinated, you know? The old transit tunnels are pretty cool. It was neat to be under the street like that. The river of slime was glowing pink! There was so much of it! It was sorta ethereal, um, pretty, I thought, at first."

Then, looking up at Egon to be sure he's listening to this part, Ray continues, "When I was happy, the slime was happy. I know how that sounds, Spengler. When you guys didn't pull me up right away, I got scared. I could hear you talking to the cops up there. Yikes. Then, get this! When I got frightened, suddenly, the slime seemed to notice me! Egon, I swear this stuff has some rudimentary sentience and it reacts to human emotion! When I got scared, it acted scary! Tentacles reaching for me!"

Ray presses stop.

"You're proposing that the slime river under Dana Barrett's building has psychoactive properties? The river perceived your emotions and reflected them back to you?" Egon is holding the Tupperware of slime up to the light.

It is rose pink, completely transparent. His curiosity piqued, he turns the container this way and that under the lab lamp, and for a moment, the slime seems to regard Egon back. That is unlikely, as it has no eyes nor brain to process visual stimuli, yet Egon feels the distinct sensation of being "looked at".

Egon "hmm"s thoughtfully.

Other men would have put the slime down immediately. Egon decides to poke it.

First, he turns out the light.

"Not glowing," Egon notes. He turns the light back on.

"Maybe there needs to be a certain amount of movement or kinetic energy to generate the glow? The river was flowing. Or maybe the mass caused the glow? This could be too small an amount," Ray notes aloud and on a yellow legal pad in ink. No one else but Ray can read Egon's writing, so Stantz almost always takes the notes. Peter and Winston will want to know all about this. He tries to jot down everything for them.