Chapter Text
“My name is Ed Mulgrave, and I’m the senior historian at the Aldridge Mansion. I was just wondering if you could come in and take a look around— we think the place is haunted!”
The woman straightened out her crisp maroon pantsuit and fiddled with the perfect bun pulling her hair back (not a strand out of place). She assumed her appearance gave off a no-nonsense attitude, but apparently she was mistaken and her façade had faulted to reveal the true, meek personality that she harbored. Ed Mulgrave saw through her like... well... a ghost.
“What do you want me to do about it? I teach applied engineering.”
“I read your paper— the one about paranormal apparitions appearing in sites of historical engineering accidents, I wanted to know if you could help me identify what is going on at the Mansion!” the elderly gentleman pleaded.
Jillian adjusted her horn-rimmed glasses, not a smudge on their crystal-clear lenses, and sighed, “Look, that was for a cryptids class that I took as extra credits for graduating a few years ago. I went to the sight of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory and did a little poking around for a class I didn’t even take seriously. If you want me to raise a nephew’s grade a few points or give you a perfect study guide for an upcoming exam, I can hook you up. But ghosts? No scientist believes in the paranormal.”
“A class you didn’t even take seriously?” Mulgrave scoffed, flipping through the forty-five-page analysis that he’d printed out. “Ten of these pages are personally dedicated to an apparition you spent twenty-four hours watching through binoculars.”
“Sir, I have a class to teach, a-and unless you are here to learn about Margaret Hamilton’s software design process for the Apollo missions, I would s-suggest you take your ghost business to the NYPL archives!” Jillian stammered, the slight hint of anger hiding in the back of her throat. “I don’t know how you even got ahold of that copy, I thought I rescinded the publication before graduating...”
Ed deadpanned, “A website had it on PDF, I think I wrote the URL inside the report if you would like to check out the link.”
“No thank you, Mr. Aldridge, I have a class to take care of. Have a good day.”
Ed Mulgrave looked dejected, but set the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory report on Professor Holtzmann’s desk. As he made his way out the door, students began shuffling in for the nine-o-clock class. The doctor quickly stuffed the ghost analysis into her computer bag and began the lecture with a ruffled expression.
. . .
“No. No, no, no, no!” Jillian whispered. “Who the hell are you?”
She’d been scrolling through some blog called Ghost News which had a direct download to her paper— and just when she was performing well at Columbia! No one could see this, they would kill her for sure. Or worse, expel her from academia. Holtzmann ran through all the computer codes she’d memorized in college, trying to think of one that would override the website into allowing her to remove the link. But whoever had designed the website had paid good money for their firewall. Jillian nearly cried, but regained her posture and took a deep bre—
“Dr. Holtzman,” a deep voice called from the doorway.
Jillian looked up and, with a single stroke of her hand, shoved the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory report into her desk. Barely moving her fingers, she managed to tab out of the Ghost News blog as the Dean of Columbia University strolled into her office... she hated the way entitled men strutted like peacocks, but kept a pristine, ass-kissing smile on her face as she listened to him.
“We’re set to submit your CERN portfolio on Thursday,” Dr. Filmore smiled.
Jillian fiddled with the collar of her maroon pantsuit, “Oh, excellent.”
“However, I saw that you have a recommendation from Rebecca Gorin at MIT. Their business reputation is not all that its worked up to be, and I would appreciate a more qualified science department for your CERN application.”
“A. Better. Science. Than. MIT.”
Filmore didn’t even register the stupidity of her statement, merely turning on his heel and walking away, “Yes. Oh, and about your clothes!”
Dr. Holtzmann glanced down at her pantsuit, knowing full well what the other professors thought of the outfit, “What do you think?”
“It’s...”
“Too feminist for academia?”
“Nevermind.”
“No, what is it?!”
“NEVERMIND!”
Jillian turned back to her computer as soon as her superior had left, feeling as though she’d known less than when she’d first checked out the website. She wrote down an address for... Kenneth P. Higgins Institute of Science? That laughingstock? She gulped and grabbed her computer bag and the ghost report from her college days, hoping that she could figure out who these people were and if they could be reasoned with.
. . .
They couldn’t be reasoned with. No sooner had Jillian walked through the doors that a woman wearing a huge helmet covered in electronics had instantly assumed she was the delivery boy and demanded her wonton soup. Then, when the actual delivery boy arrived, the helmet-clad woman gave him a tip to forcibly escort Jillian from the lab, claiming she was busy. A bit of a pathetic lab, to be perfectly frank, there wasn’t even a single machine up and running, just whiteboards everywhere covered in post-it notes.
“You put up a paper I wrote when I was twenty-five without my permission!” Dr. Holtzmann whined, pulling away from Benny. “Do you have any idea what kind of pressure I’m under? I need to get this job at CERN, and if my peers find out about this paper, I’m toast!”
“Ooooh, I have a job at CORN,” the woman in the strange helmet mocked.
“Hey, take this seriously!”
“Are you kidding me!”
Jillian grew angrier by the second, “What!?”
“I got one wonton! I got a tub of soup, and one split wonton! There’s not even any meat in there.”
Was... was this woman for real? Jillian was standing here with her career on the line, and this Spaceballs-looking scientist was more concerned about broth than vocation. Jillian stood there with her mouth gaping and backed into a table... covered in papers. She glanced down to find equations at her hands and feet— thousands of them, but scrawled in perfect handwriting.
She turned around and her eyes sparkled in wonder at the wall behind her— finally appreciating the whiteboards for what they were. Though absolutely unorganized, whomsoever these formulas belonged to was absolutely passionate about the math of the paranormal. For a moment, Jillian felt a little wistful for her stakeout nights at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, writing down observations about any little noise she heard.
“Are you an eighty-nine-degree angle? Because you are acute-y.”
Dr. Holtzmann froze up, her loafers pinching her toes as she turned on the spot. There was a woman sitting in the office chair to her right, whom she could have sworn was not there thirty seconds ago. This one was different than the lady with the helmet— she had messy brown hair kept at bay only by a tweed beret (she could make tweed look good???), was wearing a men’s flannel two sizes too large and a black skirt that was a little too short for a professor (not that Jillian meant any slut shaming, of course, but students did tend to stop noticing your lectures at a certain percentage of leg exposure). But what struck Jillian was the amount of pencils. She had one sticking out of every pocket, two tucked behind her right ear, and another pen sticking out of a notebook that this woman was clutching to her chest as she awaited a response to her pick-up line.
“I-I’m sorry, who are you?”
The woman with the tweed beret sighed and then instantly perked up again, “Ah well, it was worth a shot. Gilbert— Taurus, part-time aquarium volunteer, flaming bisexual, and absolutely thrilled to show you around the lab!”
Helmet Woman, whom Gilbert called by the name of Abby, reappeared— though this time lacking the notable piece of equipment she’d been wearing upon Dr. Holtzmann’s embark into the lab. She slung an arm around Gilbert’s shoulders and mentioned something about the latter currently developing equations necessary for a reverse tractor beam. Gilbert made a little two-fingered gesture towards the closest whiteboard, prompting Jillian for a peek.
And it made perfect sense; th-their calculations were absolutely spotless! Designs began swimming through Jillian’s head on how to build the tractor beam when Gilbert interrupted her train of thought.
“Abby! We should let her listen to the EVP!”
“W-what’s an EVP?”
“Electronic voice phenomenon!” Gilbert smiled, so brilliantly that Dr. Holtzmann had to stop and collect herself. The physicist then grabbed Jillian’s hand and tugged her along, “Come on, I’ll show you! A few weeks ago, we spent a few nights at the Chelsea Hotel. We thought we didn’t get anything...”
“Well... then we replayed the tapes,” Abby nodded solemly.
Jillian let curiosity get the better of her, leaning towards the spinning tapes with interest. And then she heard the fart noise, letting herself stomp towards the exit in anger.
“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” Gilbert spoke in a soft voice, a hint of giggles bubbling in the background, “It was just an immature joke... I’m sorry. I really am. I thought it would be funny. But... why are you really here, if you don’t believe in any of this stuff?”
The slender fingers resting on her bicep caused her to stammer out some response about Ed Mulgrave and his stupid ghost claim. Before Jillian knew it, Abby was rushing past her with a silver duffle bag, and Gilbert was eagerly pulling down pages of equations and empty notepads for jotting down descriptions of the Mansion. Dr. Holtzmann stood there, dumbfounded, before Abby gestured at her to follow.
“I don’t want to come with you,” Jillian murmured, shifting her MIT computer bag.
“Oh— YOU WERE NEVER INVITED. I need you out so I can lock the lab!”
“Come on, Jilly, we’re wasting time!” Gilbert smiled encouragingly, pulling out yet another pencil from behind her left ear and jotting down some reminders.
“Just shut the door on your way out!” Abby huffed.
“Wait! Wait!” Jillian yelped as she followed the pair of women, “Please take the report off of your website!”
Abby thought about it for a moment, glancing at a shrugging Gilbert, and then turning back to the blonde, “Alright, but you have to introduce us to Ed.”
“You bet your ass!” Dr. Holtzmann agreed.
“Then I will consider taking the report down, until you get your stupid CORN deal or whatever.”
“CERN!”
“Hey, ladies!” the cabbie interrupted, “are you taking this car or not?”
. . .
“Ma’am, can you tell me how you managed to steal an outfit directly from the Clinton Treasury?” Gilbert whispered, holding up a camera.
Abby was somewhere ahead with a homemade device that spun around and around— Jillian was ninety-percent certain that it was programed for little use other than continuous spinning, yet Abby claimed that it would detect a paranormal entity if there was one present in the Aldridge Mansion. She gently pushed the camera away.
“I bought this online.”
“Is it comfortable to wear your hair like that all the time?” Gilbert asked, pointing the camera back at Dr. Holtzman’s taught blonde bun.
“It’s not fun.”
“Alright,” Gilbert smiled amusedly, focusing the camera on the Aldridge living room.
“Hey, Erin! Come check this out!”
“Un momento!”
So... her first name was Erin? The engineer wistfully smiled at the new knowledge, and then shook her head. She could not seriously be having those thoughts again, after years of careful practice and making sure that that bullshit stayed hidden. Good luck, or bad luck perhaps, struck her from such feelings as her loafers got stuck in some sort of green goo and she heard the basement door creak open.
Their afternoon became a spectrum of confusing and annoying to downright impossible then and there. While Gilbert munched on a box of Cheez-Its (“You try saying no to these cheesy death wishes!”), Dr. Holtzmann had attempted to initiate contact with some sort of blue floating ghost that’d come from the basement door. Abby filmed the whole thing; Jillian being spat upon with ectoplasm before the ghost of Gertrude Aldridge passed through the window and flew into the sky. The trio of women ran out the building and began cheering ecstatically as the blue spirit spiraled up, up, and away.
“What... what just happened?” Dr. Holtzmann trembled, still covered in slime. “Abby... Gilbert... what just happened?”
“I’ll tell you what just happened— you saw a ghost!”
“I saw... I saw a ghost... we saw a ghost! We really did it! My report was right all this time!” Jillian cried, hugging onto Gilbert and Abby and then screaming into the camera, “I believe in ghosts because I just saw one! Ghosts are real! They’re real!”
CERN never received Columbia’s recommendation for one Jillian Holtzmann.