"Gee, that's right," Ray replied. "You shouldn't have been visited, Peter, not after all Egon's work on the generator. Unless you projected that guy out of your subconscious."

"That shouldn't be possible," Egon replied. "Although perhaps it is the best explanation yet. Perhaps your subconscious mind controlled the dream, Peter, and produced the image you saw. Yet, remember, Ray, the figure produced a fear reaction in Peter."

"Hey," objected Venkman. "If the Bogeyman had popped into your dreams out of your subconscious, I bet you'd have done a little shaking in your boots, too. Maybe it was some kind of gut reaction, especially if he popped up out of my subconscious."

"Naturally," Egon replied immediately, unoffended. "I wasn't indicating a lack of courage on your part, Peter. Simply that we all have hidden bugaboos in our subconscious minds. You, as a psychologist, should know that."

Peter did. He also knew weirdness occurred in everybody's dreams. What made this one so different was that he hadn't been in a typical sleep state; he'd been in a position to program his own alpha brain waves, and he didn't understand how he had managed to produce a dreamscape capable of evoking such a violent gut reaction. He'd been relaxed, content. Now he was edgy and nervous, half afraid to glance over his shoulder for fear he'd see something dark and deadly creeping up on him. Drawing his knees up against his chest, he wrapped his arms around them to try and still the near-subliminal shivering that affected his body.

"Yeah, and who's to say what triggers stuff like that," Winston said. "Come on, Pete, think about how you talk to us after a rough bust. Sometimes we need to let go, sound off, work through it instead of holding it in. You had a rough one this afternoon; maybe it dished up a nightmare when you were relaxed and not expecting it."

"Hey, yeah," Ray replied. "That was a nasty fall, Peter. It scared all of us, but it had to have been worse for you."

He grinned weakly. "Okay, yeah, you've got me there. Heights bug me sometimes. Maybe it did open the floodgates a little. But... Egon, he wanted me to listen. He was desperate for me to listen. He said I'd taken away everything that gave him a reason to live. I never did anything like that to anybody in my whole life. I never even wanted to do that to anybody, not even Walter Peck. Maybe Nexa, but I didn't even trash the big tower of blubber for 'eating' you guys. Maybe this character just wandered into the wrong dream."

"Did he look at all familiar?" Egon asked.

"No." He shook his head then stopped, trying to think. "Well, there was something... I can't pin it down. It was one of those subliminal things. He didn't sound familiar either but he had a really raspy voice like the fire had damaged his throat or lungs or something. I don't know who he was or why he was bugging me. I don't like this. Are you sure it's not just bad chili?"

"Something does appear on the video tape, Peter." Egon pointed to the image he'd frozen with the pause button. In it, it was possible to make out the blurred outline of the circular table and see something white lying on it, but the burned stranger was nothing more than a shadow, man-shaped but undefined, as if the tape had only recorded the memory of his passing. "It's not clear enough for the rest of us to recognize the figure, but it was definitely real. What was he doing, could you tell? It looked as if he had books and papers."

Peter explained as best he could. "Science and magic all thrown together," he concluded. "Like he was desperate and he didn't want to close away one of his options, even if it was farfetched or he didn't entirely understand it."

Egon stared at him with sudden interest. "You're projecting motivations upon him, Peter. Do you realize that?"

"No I'm not. I'm...interpreting what I saw. At the time I was just reacting, and it gave me a terrific fear response that I didn't understand. But what I did feel was how desperate he was. He wanted something from me, and I had the feeling I was the only guy in the world who could help him."

"Gosh, we've gotta try to contact him again then," Ray breathed. "Even if I can't see him any clearer than that, he gives me a kind of visceral reaction, too. Like we have to do what he wanted."

"Hey, me too," agreed Winston. "You'd think I'd be pissed at him for sneaking in and messing with Pete's head or crowding into his dream, because it might be my dream next, but I'm not. I can feel the fear, somehow, just looking at that blurry picture, but what I can't feel is any kind of threat at least not from him." He gestured at the screen. "Count me in for trying to help."

Peter glanced at Egon, who was frowning. The physicist's glasses had slid down toward the tip of his nose, a certain sign he was fascinated. "Hmm. What we have is a dream invasion that does not register on the P.K.E. meters. Ergo, it is not a ghost. I checked biorhythms as well and only detected Peter's, although slightly enhanced, but I'm not certain I could detect an astral projection with the current settings. In essence, there is no way to prove anyone but Peter was in the dream other than the blurry image on the video tape and from Peter's emotional reaction, which is valid evidence, and which has carried over, although to a lesser degree, to all of us. Peter. I'm certain you were hoping for a different dream, perhaps one with Kim Basinger in it."

"Or Sandra Bullock," Peter volunteered. "Yeah, I was thinking of a good time when I went to bed. Unless my subconscious mind dredged up something that wasn't openly familiar, I was invaded."

"Invaded by someone who didn't leave a psi trace," Egon concurred. "And that, I find alarming. If you go back in "

"Egon, I have to." Peter didn't understand why, but the other man's desperation was contagious. He felt it as strongly as if it had been his own emotion. "I don't get it, but I know it's important."

"In that case, one of us will have to remain outside the dream as a control. I do think you must return to the dream state. All of us can feel the urgency. Someone is trying to contact you about an important matter. Perhaps I would be best qualified to monitor the dream."

"Yeah," Ray replied. "But you might be best qualified to interpret it from the inside, too, Egon. And I just thought of something. What if it's some kind of trick, a lure, you know, a way to trap us in the dream forever? It isn't only ghosts who are out to get us. The Bogeyman was a physical entity."

"The Bogeyman's safe in the containment unit," Egon said hastily. When they gazed at him, he said, "I check the unit daily to monitor the spirit energy within. Some ghosts eventually deresolve, even in the unit, but they're mostly class threes and fours. I've developed an equation to allow for that. But I do monitor the powerful entities confined there to make certain none of them could have broken out."

To make sure the Bogeyman was still safely locked away, Peter realized. "Yeah, but physical entities have a negative valence, don't they? I remember you saying he was a minus 9."

Egon nodded. "A P.K.E. meter will record a negative valence automatically, and it didn't when I monitored you when you first woke up, Peter. All I picked up were your normal biorhythms, which were slightly elevated, either by the adrenaline the dream produced in you or by the alpha state induced by the generator."

"So whatever was in there isn't a ghost and it isn't a physical entity, and it doesn't have a biorhythm," Peter said, checking off the possibilities on his fingers. "You saying it's something that I dredged up out of my subconscious and gave life to or something like that?" He didn't like that idea at all. The dark things that lurked waiting in people's minds didn't need to be brought to life before they were ready to emerge. "How could we trap something like that if it broke free and went rampaging through the city?"

"Wow, Peter." Ray found that possibility exciting. "I wonder if something like that could really happen."

"Not as a by-product of the alpha wave generator," Egon replied, "and I'm sure Peter will claim that the subconscious doesn't produce anything vivid enough to appear on film."

"It does, though," Peter said. "Remember when we had all the trouble in here before? Winston was messing around with Star Trek stuff and you could see it. It even made him bald. I was on a game show and Ray was playing Tarzan or something. None of that was real, but it showed up on the tape you made, clear as a bell. So whether this came out of my own deep, dark, unconscious mind or whether something from outside sneaked in, it was real, even if it doesn't show up clearly."

"If it was from your mind, Peter, I believe it would have been clearer," Egon replied. "All of us have learned to control dreams within the workings of the generator. But right now, I do think we have to try it again. I shall monitor the dreams and will wake you immediately if I perceive any threat. Since you were able to come out of the dream on your own just now, I don't believe you could be trapped in there, especially since you're alert to the possibilities, but I still want to monitor the results." He adjusted the machine to configure it for three sleepers. "I don't plan to put Ray and Winston into your dream, Peter, although I could do that if necessary. If you personally are the target of the scarred stranger, perhaps he will come to you again. If it's not aimed at you specifically but is in fact a generic cry for help, either Ray or Winston might pick up on it separately."

"So what should we do, Spengs?" Peter asked.

"Just try to relax and go with the dream, Peter. I know it produced a fear response, but try to ignore that as much as possible. Interact with the figure if you can, and find out what he wants from you."

"It was the urgency, Egon. I don't know why but the urgency scared me."

"Then let the device relax you enough for sleep, Peter. And remember, I'll be here and awake, watching over your dreams. If he appears again, we'll find out what he wants. You won't be in danger. I shall be prepared for every contingency and, if necessary, I can send the dreaming Ray and Winston to your aid." He settled the helmet over Peter's head again while Ray and Winston took their own helmets and retreated to their beds.

Peter would have been too tense to have slept again if not for the machine's soothing effects. His muscles were taut and aching, his bruises tender, and it was impossible to find a comfortable spot, no matter how he turned and twisted. But all of a sudden sleep caught him and he sank into it, deep and comfortable, relaxing automatically.

No matter how hard he tried to guide his dreams to the man who claimed to need him so desperately, he couldn't find him. It was as if the 'astral plane' had shut down for the night. Eventually Peter sank into restful dreams and when he awoke in the morning, his body felt refreshed.

But in his mind he knew something waited, something needed to be done.

"I had him. I had him." The scarred man bolted upward so quickly his arm gave a painful pull, the puckered flesh across his shoulder twinging, reminding him he'd sold his youth and health in a futile quest five years earlier. "I had him. He was right there. He saw me and he heard me."

"Did you tell him?" asked his companion. The two men stared at each other across the round table. Behind them, the woman watched, unspeaking, her eyes huge and anxious. The atmosphere of the room was full of hidden tensions, unspoken shadows.

"I tried. I . He didn't know me. He didn't understand. I didn't know how to tell him and when I tried to look him in the eye, he panicked and woke up."

"But you have to," his friend persisted. "You've been saying for months now this might work. It's our only chance."

"Crazy, isn't it?" He massaged his temples, one smooth under his fingertips, the other puckered and wrinkled. Sometimes the dead nerve endings gave him flashes of an old pain, something long ago accepted, something almost welcomed. There were times when he poked at the dead flesh, trying to induce pain deliberately, as if the disfiguring scars weren't reminder enough. "But it worked. All these months, preparing, setting it up. It worked. I remembered... You should have seen him." He made a frustrated gesture. "He didn't know me. He didn't understand."

"Can you try again?" asked the woman anxiously. She stretched out a slender hand and touched his good shoulder gently.

"I have to. Even if I have to spend weeks sleeping. I have to. It's the only chance we've got the only chance they've got." His eyes stung as he gazed at his two companions. "I've gotta make it work."

"But..." began the other man.

"You never believed it," he accused bitterly, frustrated by his failure when he had come so close.

"No. I hoped, though. You did it because you had to but you never hoped. You did it because you took it as a debt. But it was never a debt. It was an accident, plain and simple, and you did everything you could. More than anyone else could have."

"Yeah, well, it wasn't enough, was it?" Even now the memory of the accident was vivid in his mind, the roar of the explosion that had jarred him from sleep, the crackle and heat of the flames, the agony that seared his body as he plunged into it in a desperate rescue attempt, the misery that filled his mind as he sat for weeks, bandaged and weak, beside the hospital bed, watching life trickle out of the battered form he guarded. When the eyes that had watched him with a knowledge that transcended the broken body had finally dulled into nothing, he had ranted and cursed and raved, and they'd had to sedate him and take him back to bed. He'd known it would happen, known there was nothing but death, but he'd held on as long as he could, ignoring his own pain, battling the stubborn doctors, every waking minute there, watching life slip away, trying desperately to hold on because the other was already gone.

His companion had been there with him; they'd lived the death-watch together, but he'd shut him out, shut everyone out but the woman who wept at the foot of the bed and then found the courage to come forward and smile, to tell little stories, to hold the unmarked hand and squeeze it, to talk of hopes and dreams. When the eyes had dulled she had gone away and stayed away for more than a year. He hadn't blamed her.

Now he looked past the companion to the woman and said, "I have to do it again."

"I know. I'll help you," she said, as solemn as a vow.

"But it's over," the companion said. "It's over long ago. You can't change what happened. I hate seeing you tear yourself up like this."

"But it isn't over. I can change it. I'm going to. Because otherwise, what's the point in anything?"

"The point is that you're alive. We're alive. This may be a lousy hand, but it's the one fate dealt us. I'll back you. I'll do anything I can to help you. You know that. But if it doesn't work, you can't go on blaming yourself, punishing yourself. No one could have done more."

The woman put her arms around him. "You'll do it. I know you will. I know you can."

"You'll help me?"

"I'd do anything..."

Once he would have smiled at such a blanket promise, but those days were long ago. Instead he reached up and ran scarred fingers across her cheek, wiping away the tears that sparkled there. "I know you will. I couldn't have done this without the two of you."

"So you want to try again?" asked the companion.

"I have to."

The other man snapped his fingers. "I've got an idea." Crossing the room, he opened a dresser drawer and pulled out a folder from which he produced an old newspaper. "Take this with you. If you can't find the right words or if you can't make him listen, show it to him. It might be the proof you need."

His eyes fell upon the stark headline and the old pain hit with full force, the agony as vivid as it had been that morning, when he had awakened in the hospital to find his life in pieces. The hand he reached for the page trembled but the other two kindly ignored it. They were the only ones who understood, the ones who helped, who didn't keep saying, "It's time to move on." They knew his dream was worth everything he had to pay for it: time, effort, years of learning disciplines not his own. But he'd made a promise to the dulling eyes and to the eyes that had never opened again after the fire, a promise he would break only by dying. And, god help him, he was still alive.

At first, there had been no answers, no solution. It wasn't until a few months ago after everything else had failed that he remembered one more possibility. Maybe he even dreamed it. But if there was a way across the void, a way to reach into another life and salvage what had once been good, he was determined to try it, even if it killed him.

The woman turned her head away from the newspaper as if she couldn't bear it either. "You can do it," she repeated under her breath. "I know you can."

But when he fell asleep again, he could no longer touch the other.

Egon was dozing over the controls of the alpha wave generator when Peter finally aroused. It wasn't that late, but he knew he was mostly slept out. The weary angle of Egon's body as he leaned his forehead against the console made Venkman realize he'd better wake up so Egon could have some sleep of his own.

A glance around the room showed him Ray just rousing, lifting off his own helmet. Winston was up already, and Peter could hear his distant voice raised in song from the shower. Peter sat up, still wearing the helmet, and caught Ray's eye. "Anything?"

Ray shook his head. "Just normal dreams. No guy with scars, no mysterious papers and books, no warnings." He sounded disappointed.

At the sound of their voices Egon roused, lifted his head, and blinked at them dazedly, the lenses of his glasses magnifying his eyes, making him look sleepy and owlish. "Oh, you're up."

"I'm not sure you are," Peter replied. He scratched his forehead without dislodging the dream helmet, wincing as his fingers inadvertently encountered one of his bruises. "Did you get any sleep at all?"

"Yes, in between monitoring you. I checked the readings every half hour, as well as wiring in a fail-safe alarm that would alert me if anything unusual happened. I watched your dreams in turn, but saw nothing other than the most ordinary dreaming."

"Gee, too bad," Ray said, rubbing his tousled hair. He always appeared much younger than his years when he awakened in the morning, even with his beard stubble. "How do you feel, Peter?"

"Still achy, but not as bad as I expected." He hesitated then added sneakily. "I don't think I'm up to washing Ecto, though."

"Ordinarily we wouldn't let you get away with a remark like that," Egon replied with carefully suppressed amusement. "But when you shave and see yourself in the mirror you'll understand why you have a few days grace."

"Yeah, Pete, that's a great shiner," said Ray, leaning closer to tilt Peter's chin and take a good look at it.

"Oh, no! Tell me I don't have a black eye," Peter moaned. "I'm supposed to take Mallory out dancing tonight and I just know she'll throw a fit when she sees me." Of course there was always the sympathy angle. If he played his cards right...

"I didn't dream about that guy with the burn scars," Ray said as he opened his dresser to dig out clean shorts and a tee shirt. "Did you, Peter?"

Reminded of the man, he felt all the urgency come crowding back and he turned to Egon with a near-frantic need he still didn't understand. "He didn't show up again. Egon, what am I gonna do?"

"I've been considering the possibilities," the physicist replied as if he understood the strength of Peter's desperation. "As yet, I have no valid hypotheses. I have a vague theory, though."

"What theory, Egon?" Winston asked from the doorway, his voice muffled as he pulled a knit shirt over his head.

"That the scarred man didn't return because Peter was not alone in the dreamscape. Even though you and Ray didn't share Peter's dreams, the device was configured for three sleepers instead of one."

"You mean if I want to find out what's going on, I have to go in there alone?" Peter asked, unhappy with the theory. "He'd counted on Ray and Winston arriving to stand with him if the scarred man reappeared. The thought of facing him alone disturbed him.

"You say this man did not look at you, yet he accused you of harming him in an unspecified manner?" Egon asked.

"Accused me of destroying his life," Peter reminded him. "Or something like that. "Trashing everything that mattered to him. Gosh, Egon, what if it hasn't happened yet? What if I have a thrower accident and neutronize an innocent bystander or something?"

"Hmm," Egon said, Peter's words striking a chord. "You bring up an interesting point. Not that you might have an accident with your particle thrower, of course, though anything is possible, but that the dream visitor came to warn you of something, a danger you haven't yet foreseen. An omen."

"Oh, great, I can see myself living in this helmet for the next six months while you do tests," Peter groused. He wanted to get up and shave, and brush his teeth, and the thought of the hot water of the shower on his aching muscles was as much to be anticipated as his date with the lovely Mallory. But he couldn't let it go on any longer. He had to know, and know right now. "Bring on the electrodes, big guy, and let's get it over with."

"That's odd, Peter," Egon said, glancing at the machine.

Ray had been halfway out the door, heading for the shower, but now he returned. "What, Egon?"

"I'm picking up a reaction from the machine as if you were using it, Peter, but you're wide awake. Let me try something." He reached over to the dials and changed the configuration, deleting the stations in use for Ray and Winston so Peter's helmet was the only one activated. This time, they all saw it. The screen fuzzed, blurred, and an image glowed there, so faint as to be nearly invisible as if it weren't really there but were a mere reflection off a nearby pane of glass. It wasn't clear enough to be recognized, but it could have been the same shadowy figure the tape had detected before.

"Wow," breathed Ray, craning his neck to see over Egon's shoulder. "I think it's him. I think he's in there right now, even with Peter wide awake. That's not possible, is it, Egon?"

Peter reached up as if to yank off the helmet but at the last minute he paused, hands inches away from it. "Egon, what should I do?"

The physicist glanced up from his unresponsive P.K.E. meter. "I think you have to know the truth, Peter. You have to communicate with him. I don't know why, but you feel it's important, don't you?" He looked Peter straight in the eye.

Peter nodded. "I don't understand it, Egon, but when I see him well, I know he's not gonna lie to me. He's desperate and I'm his only hope. I don't know how I know that, but I do. It's something I can feel all the way down to my bones."

"But you said it was scary, man," Winston reminded him.

"I know. But I have to do it anyway. Half our jobs would be scary if we let them, but we still go after the ghosts." He hated this. It still might be a trap, a means of destroying one of the Ghostbusters. It might be something nasty that had been long-trapped in his subconscious mind and was only now struggling to be free, perhaps aroused by the panic created by his fall, but Peter didn't really think so. "He's...familiar, Egon," he said. "I don't understand it, I don't really recognize him, and I don't know why, but I have to go in and listen. This time I won't panic and wake up. All I'll need is one of you to hang out in here while I'm sleeping in case I'm wrong and it's a trap."

"I'll do it," Winston volunteered. "I've had my shower, I'm dressed and ready. Egon ought to catch a nap, too."

"No, I'm awake," Egon contradicted him. "I slept well until Peter aroused at three. And I've dozed off and on since then. However, I'll shower and dress and stay nearby in the lab. I want to work on the upgraded EAE."

"And what's that when it's at home?" Peter asked. Egon always had some new alphabet of a gizmo he was playing with.

"The Ecto Aroma Eliminator," Ray reminded him. "Remember a few years ago when Egon worked on it, but it had an unstable isotope and nearly blew up that kid, Kenny, the one who hung around here wanting to be a Ghostbuster."

"Oh. That EAE." Peter remembered the incident; he'd given the device to the boy who had followed him around with such hero worship and he'd felt bad about the crisis that followed. "I didn't know you were working on a new version. Are you sure this one's safe, Egon?"

"It's not yet ready for field tests, Peter, but I've designed a containment interface that damps down the force of the explosion and substituted what I hope is a more stable isotope this time around. It won't take out a whole city block if it does prove unworkable."

"Oh, good. I knew I could count on you to be safe, Spengs. You haven't blown up the lab in months. Could it be you're learning caution in your old age?"

"It's still in the development process," Ray replied. "At least we figured out how to turn it off when it builds to overload." He turned and headed for the shower again, sublimely unconcerned about the possibility of danger. That was Ray. Not even the thought of a new demon had power to daunt him.

"At least if we catch it in time," Egon replied.

"And you're gonna work on it in here, in our home?" Peter echoed in disbelief.

"We've designed a mini-bunker to contain it," Ray reminded him, pausing in the doorway. "If we can get rid of the stink from certain ghosts it's gonna be worth it."

"Not if we put a crater in the middle of Chinatown, it's not," Winston said darkly.

"We're employing state of the art security measures, Winston," Egon replied. "I'm going to clean up, then Ray and I will put in some time on it. If you'll monitor Peter while he sleeps, you can alert us if the screen reveals anything."

"Gotcha," agreed Winston and grabbed the mystery he'd been reading the night before. Dragging up a comfortable chair he plopped down on it. "Okay, Peter, here's your big chance. For once, we want you to sleep in."

"Finally," Peter said with a sidelong glance at the almost-shape in the screen. "My life is complete." But he lay down and closed his eyes with no little sense of nervous anticipation.