We watched on the monitor as the long black limo pulled up and the four men who had called us here got out. Dressed in dark suits like our own, but with modest gold accents at wrist and placket, the first man out had chosen to team the look with a baseball cap.

Peter Venkman turned to help the Ghostbusters head scientist, two time Noble prize winner Egon Spengler, out the back seat. Injured in the Staten Island bust two days ago (despite the new privacy laws the deeds of the Ghostbusters still got heavy coverage in the news) he was leaning on an ebony cane topped with a skull carved from real amber.

As I watched the way the two men moved together the rumours that Spengler and Venkman were lovers came to mind. Venkman, a true wild stud (as my son would call him), had left the busy New York dating scene twenty years ago, never to return. There had been no official announcement however. Watching them now it was clear that an announcement wasn't needed. They 'were' lovers, in every sense of that word.

On the other side of the limo Winston Zeddemore was already out and surveying the building. Chosen for its unremarkable retro mirrored appearance our headquarters was an under-whelming edifice. Dark eyes scanned it unhurriedly, noting fire exits and other points of interest.

Zeddemore was the team's tactician, an ex-serviceman and a man with a fierce reputation. Our head of security, Black, was showing signs of stress at the idea of Zeddemore entering his domain. There's a slight tensing at the corner of the implacable Mexicans eyes that tells a tale of apprehension if you know to look for it.

Every member of the department must be glued to the external monitors, I hear another buzz of excitement as Ray Stantz, Noble winner, engineer and occultist, joins the rest of his team mates and they head in.

"God, look at them." Murmurs Henderson, lifting up his regulation dark glasses to peer at the monitor more closely. "They look - what - early forties? Spengler's gotta be in his seventies at least."

"Feels like they've been around for ever." I say, squinting to see what Venkman's cap had on it. Looked like the interlinked NY of out fair Mega City. Made me smile, I like that cap the best of all the ones he wears. "I wanted to 'be' Peter Venkman when I was a kid. Even joined the Junior Ghostbusters," I say.

"I still got that stupid ring." Henderson admits. A touch embarrassed Black and I nod that we kept our too. Pretty funny, huh?

"Gentlemen, they will be here soon. We should be ready for them." The Old Man -Hudson to lesser beings - reminds us. The Old Man looks cool as ice, as always thank god, at least one of us will be keeping his professionalism in front of the Ghostbusters.

Henderson closes down the monitor and sends it into the slot in the wall before joining the rest of us. The imposing presence of four similarly dressed, emotionless members of the department sit implacably facing the door. Okay, one implacable and three barely controlled but hiding it well fan boys wait to greet the four legendary Ghostbusters. God, don't let my training fail me now. Focus. Focus. Okay - I got it.

Zeddemore is first in the room, he grabs one of the chairs and drags it off to the side of the door. Unexpectedly the power of the mans presence stuns me. The less well known and most obviously open of the four, his aura is incredible. It's a living thing - strong and watchful. Very watchful.

The rest of the team comes in and sit at the table, Venkman in the middle, the others flanking him. Stantz makes like a tourist and gawks around the room in open interest, Spengler props his cane between his knees and rests his elegant hands over the grinning scull. His look is polite but vague as Venkman begins to speak.

"I suppose you're wondering why I called you here today." He begins cockily. I watch the Old Man tense in response. Yeah, that got his attention - in the worse way. Peter Venkman is not known for his tact. We were usually the ones making an invitation 'our' guests couldn't refuse.

"We have been a touch curious." The Old Man answers carefully.

"Did ya hear that, Winston?" Venkman continues, turning slightly in his chair. "And you said they wouldn't want to talk to us! They're enthusiastic, they're inquisitive, they're pleased to have us here!" He smiles and sweeps us with amused, laser sharp eyes while Zeddemore grunts unconvinced in the background.

"You're very lucky, we usually charge for appearing in conference rooms like this. Nice painting of a waterfall, by the way. Stylish, without being to over the top about it all." He indicates the large picture at one end of the room and we turn to look at it. When we turn back Venkmans grinning like a shark. Why not, he just got us all acting like trained seals. I think I can hear the Old Man struggling to 'not' grind his teeth.

Still looking at us Venkman suddenly reaches to one side and grabs Spengler's wrist as the tall blond brings his hand back from the curtesy snack bowl. It was filled with those tiny, individually wrapped Twinkies that had just come out on the market. Guess we know who our caterer wanted to be when they grew up. Peter shakes the other mans hand until he drops the treat then lets him go. Looking shame faced Ray Stantz puts back the sweet he'd snatched up while our backs were turned as well.

"It's all right." Hudson (there's nothing 'old mannish' about him now) tells the Ghostbusters evenly. "There are no drugs in any of the food provided." To show the truth of this he pours himself a cup of tea and sips it. A safe enough gesture, we used to put the drug on the teaspoon. Five years ago there 'would' have been drugs on the spoons, and in the Twinkies. Times have changed, thank god.

Venkman narrows his eyes a minute, then nods and releases Spengler's wrist, but none of them move to take up any of the treats again.

"Lets put the chit chat aside and get down to nuts and bolts, shall we?" Venkman has become more serious now, perhaps the perceived threat to his friends has rattled him. "My esteemed colleagues and I have been studying the Etheric Continuum for some time now and have reached the conclusion that its not going to go away. When we first started this gig we assumed that that party animal Gozer had created what we call a temporal rend. Further more we thought this gravy train would eventually run out and the rend would heal itself. It hasn't and after beating Egon here with a calculator for the last several months he came up with the conclusion that it wasn't going to. Ghosts are here to stay."

He paused dramatically, going so far as to look off to the side so as to show us his noble profile. Spengler moved his cane so that it rested across his knees, possibly to grip it and prevent himself from going after more treats, but more likely to stop himself from clocking Venkman over the head with the cane. The guy was a total show-pony, but I found myself liking him anyway. That brashness was what I had admired about him what I was a kid.

"Its time to look at the big picture." Venkman intoned, drawing the last word out a little to get our attention. "Time to take the long view, time to plan ahead, invest in the future - but not to heavily because investment is a mugs game. Time for us to realise that, yes," he gave Stantz a mock glare," I know you've always maintained this Ray, that we are not Gods." Stantz just shrugged and grinned at his friend companionably. "Its time, gentlemen, for nothing less than the Real Ghostbusters to find themselves some successors."

Another dramatic pause before he began talking again, using a far more ordinary voice. "That's where you guys come in. We know you've tried to set up covert teams in the past. You've paid people to get copies of our notes, tried to ghost nap Slimer, had a go at capturing high index goopers for your little 'experiments'."

We sat in feigned unresponsive silence, not a twitch showing the panic we felt. On one level we had guessed that this was what they were calling about, but on the other - the entire affair had a triple security rating. When it had been in operation only the head administrator and the president had known about it. After waiting for a response to his revelation, Venkman figured he wasn't going to get one, so kept talking.

"What we want is the information you've gathered. Don't expect anything in return, we aren't going to help continue your sick research into espionage and the paranormal. But we need to know where you went wrong, so we don't repeat the same mistakes. We want to talk to your failed recruits, get their ideas, see what did work best for them, stuff like that. And if you are wondering why you should help us - just consider it your civic duty. The fate of the free world could rest on our getting a strong replacement team up and going."

They don't know. They know enough....but they don't know that. I shoot a look at the Old Man and catch Henderson doing the same.

"We can't do that." Hudson tells them. "Not because we don't want you to, but because it is no longer possible. We lost all five of them."

"Five people!" Stantz gasps in horror.

"Five teams." The Old Man corrects him, and now the word 'old' really does apply to him. Old and tired.

Shocked silence greets his revelation. Stunned beyond words the Ghostbusters sit, absorbing the news. You can see it doesn't make them happy. We weren't so thrilled about it ourselves, the members of those teams were our co-workers.

There is the sound of splintering wood and to our surprise, but not apparently Venkmans, we see that Doctor Spengler has snapped his cane in half. His eyes are a piercing blue as they pin us across the table with unspoken accusation.

"The man in charge of supervising that particular operation has since been incarcerated in a mental institution - a high security one." The Old Man rushes to reassure them. "What notes we still posses are yours, we will arrange for them to be delivered to the front desk, you can collect them when you go."

Hudson speaks for several minutes more, but I'm not sure the Ghostbusters are paying attention. They say the four of them are telepathic, along with more outrageous claims, but I'm starting to wonder - there is definitely some kind of wordless communication going on. On the other hand, they seem damn comfortable with each other, so it could just be that they're anticipating each other's reactions merely by reading each others shifting facial expressions.

The Old Man runs out of things to say and Peter stands, taking his hand in a farewell handshake. The Ghostbusters don't look happy, but then again - who would at that kind of news. I wonder idly as I watch Venkman shift to help Spengler cope with the loss of his cane, I wonder if they had been planning on some long delayed retirement or something. They certainly deserve some down time, after the decades of service they've put in.

When they are gone the Old Man keys in the listening device he planted on Venkmans sleeve and we settle back down, Henderson breaking open a mini Twinkie and hoeing into it. As one we trigger our personnel recording units with a touch to the standard dark glasses handed out by the department.

We listen as downstairs Spengler uploads the information they requested into his wrist computer, Zeddemore collecting the printed documents that went with them. They go and enter the limo and I hear Venkman talking softly to Ray Stantz, reassuring him that their training methods would not place their people in danger. After awhile he switches to saying there was nothing they could have done to prevent the department's blunders either, which is quite true. The former project manager was something of a lunatic, from what I hear. Glad I shifted over after they had already locked him up and thrown away the key.

"We'll do better, won't we Zed?" Peter called. Zeddemore was up the other end of the limo, with the equally silent Spengler.

"Yeah, we will. For one thing, I've already figured out where they went wrong."

Probably everyone in the car looked at him and leaned further in to hear what he had come up with. I know that every one in our conference room did.

"What is it?" Stantz asked for the rest of us, sounding hopeful.

"They tried to recreate the team. Our team. Two scientists, an engineer, strategist, phycologist, what have you. One team bloated out to eight people, they were trying so hard to cover all our bases." A sharp gasp let us know that Ray Stantz had caught the 'eight people' thing, which Zeddemore had belatedly tried to skate over, but Ray didn't say anything. Like us he wanted to know how they were going to fix things. He'd probably mourn for those lost people afterwards though. His profile indicated he was that kind of a guy.

"Our replacements won't have to have that great, I should say intense, of a working background knowledge. They'll just have to identify and capture goopers." He explained. "We've already got the technology down pat, the containment and even the identifying indexes are all but complete.

All the field guys would need is training in basic pack maintenance and duck'n'cover skills. Plus the ability to hold a proton beam steady without crossing the steams, stamina, determination, a little background in the occult...okay, there's still a lot of things they need to know, not every Joe off the street is going to be able to handle it. But if we break it down, have more of a ground crew working behind the scenes doing the heavy science but not the field work, it should be able to fly. What do you think, Egon?"

"Hmm?" Spengler sounded distracted. "Oh yes, a more efficient procedure, for certain. Well done, Winston."

"Okay Deep Thought, whatcha' got happening on that miniature Marcia you've got strapped to your wrist that's more important than this conversation?" Venkman sounds annoyed and exasperated, but not too surprised.

"The logarithm that our former hosts are using to evade our de-bugging device." Egon replies and my team sits up abruptly and exchanges concerned looks.

"They've been listening to us all this time?" Now Venkman sounds genuinely upset. "Are you out of your king sized gourd? You could have told us! Now stop analysing their bug and block it!"

"Your concern, while understandable, is quite unnecessary. They won't be using any of this conversation as research material, in fact they shall not be perusing our operations in depth to any great degree at all." Spengler tells him calmly.

"You see the reason I didn't block their listening device as soon as I became aware of it is because to do so would have interrupted my own attempts to siphon off their main computer backup log. Which I have now done successfully and e-mailed to a friend of mine for safe keeping."

Nobody in our room dared move. I think I saw a muscle on Blacks cheek twitch, but that was all.

"And now, gentlemen - if you are still listening, and I believe you are, here are our demands. We will not expose those files, we will not even read them, we have far to many things to deal with ourselves to bother with your chicanery. No, we simply ask that you leave us alone. Do that, or see your entire organisations work published not only on the net but in paper form at street corners and even as billboards and TV commercials. Please, take this seriously. After all the lives you have wasted, it is only fair that you allow the professionals to come in and do the job properly, without interference. Good bye."

As the sound feed disappeared into static I caught one last comment from Venkman to the effect that he knew why he loved Spengler after all and was going to buy him his own plasnomiter as soon as they got home. Scientists - they're weird.

"I think I may have to go and have a word with McMillan." The Old Man said smoothly, pushing back out of his chair. "For now, forget what you just heard in this room. Is that clear?"

"Sir." We chorus obediently. I glance at Black and sure enough he's looking at me. There's one thing on our minds and I'm willing to bet its on Henderson's as well.

Just what sort of criteria were the new Ghostbusters going to have, and could three thirty something's with training in covert ops, hand to hand fighting, information gathering and some fairly heavy, recent occult study under their belts fit the bill? Only one way to find out.