Egon adjusted the straps of his uniform with mechanical precision, the familiar weight of the proton pack grounding him far more than the faint shrieks of laughter drifting up from the street below. Halloween night in New York City was an overstimulating parade of chaos, children disguised as ghosts, monsters, and superheroes flooded the sidewalks while their parents trailed behind, plastic pumpkins swinging like pendulums. To Egon, the whole thing was an inefficient ritual of sugar consumption and poorly conceived disguises. Still, he’d purchased a single bag of candy this year. It sat on the kitchen counter in a perfectly aligned row beside a half-eaten apple and a pile of open notebooks. He’d told himself it was for data, tracking caloric patterns, sweetness preference, and behavioral response in early childhood, but truthfully, it was for Callie.

The apartment above the firehouse was quiet except for the hum of his spectral containment monitors. The readouts glowed steady green, a comfort against the erratic orange pulse of Halloween lights from the window. Egon’s fingers twitched toward his notes, where he'd been analyzing ectoplasmic particle decay rates in low-humidity environments. He had nearly lost track of time until he remembered Callie’s excited voice earlier that afternoon, her insistence that this year she’d “be a real Ghostbuster like Papa.” The thought drew an involuntary twitch of his mouth, not quite a smile but the muscle memory of one.

Downstairs, Ray’s voice echoed faintly through the vents. He was laughing, again, probably letting another group of children climb into the Ecto-1. Ray had set up a small table of candy outside the firehouse doors, turning the legendary car into a photo backdrop for eager parents. Winston was absent, of course, spending the evening with his wife and kids. Peter had vanished hours ago with Dana and little Oscar in tow, off to play the part of domestic hero. That left Janine, who was perched behind the reception desk with her nails glinting like wet cherries under the flickering fluorescents. Egon could practically hear her disinterest through the floorboards.

He reached for the landline. “Janine, can you check the interference readings on channel four?” His tone was even, clipped, and without preamble. He heard her sigh through the receiver before she even spoke.

“Uh, yeah, getting some weird signal noise down here,” she said, her voice sticky-sweet with the unmistakable sound of a candy wrapper crinkling. “Might be solar flares. Or ghosts. Who knows?” A pause, then a decisive click as she hung up. Egon frowned, lowering the phone with slow deliberation. The line hadn’t even crackled. Solar flares indeed.

He turned back to his instruments. The steady rhythm of his pen against paper filled the space, precise and consistent. He noted that even on a night dedicated to superstition and synthetic fear, actual psychokinetic activity remained statistically insignificant. It was, by his standards, disappointing. Callie would have called it “boring.” He supposed, by her definition, he was boring too. She’d said as much before, in her matter-of-fact, four-year-old way: “Papa, you don’t like fun.” He hadn’t corrected her. Fun was a subjective measurement with no stable baseline.

The soft tap at the door came exactly seventeen minutes later, disrupting his train of thought mid-equation. “Come in,” he said, though his voice lacked inflection. The door creaked, and a small figure shuffled in, a flash of purple tulle and glittering wings. Callie. Her costume was crooked, one wing bent slightly at the frame, her candy bucket clutched like a mission-critical device. Egon’s eyes flicked to it, then back to her face, which was painted with uneven streaks of silver.

“You forgot to say trick or treat,” he said gently, crossing his arms in what he hoped was a relaxed posture. She giggled, a sound that pinged something electric in the quiet room. “Trick or treat, Papa.” Her voice carried the certainty of someone who already knew the outcome. He handed her the candy bag.