"Star date, 555555, we've entered the lair of McDonough Electric, the largest energy supplier in the Tri-State area, on a vitally important mission to save an important relationship. Our going may get a little rough here, but I'm remaining optimistic about our...."

"Do you really have to do that, Ferris?" Cameron asked him.

"Well I think it adds some flavor to the experience, Cameron," Ferris said in defense. He slipped behind a tree just out of view of the McDonoughs' bedroom, which fortunately for what he had in mind was conveniently located on the ground floor. He waved the rest of his party forward to join him.

"I don't really like what you have in mind here, Ferris," Cameron went on, "Remember my father the horror film nut? This is basically the exact same thing he did to me all those years he forced me to watch back to back showings of Halloween every October 31st. I couldn't sleep for three days afterwards, thinking Michael Myers was going to get me, and you're going to give these people an even worse case of it."

"Cameron, your father WAS Michael Myers, and we're not, so I really don't consider that a fair comparison," Ferris told him. "And furthermore, I'd like to...."

The sound of shouting and the bedroom door slamming open cut him off. "Okay, let's see what the score looks like," Ferris said, straining to listen to what was being said. Fortunately, they were shouting so loud that just about the entire block could hear it. "...lay out hundreds of my hard-earned dollars for you to give to her, without knowing she was some street cockroach!" Mr. McDonough could be heard berating his son, "When were you going to get around to telling us about where she came from!?"

"I was afraid," Blaine tried to rationalize with him, "Afraid that the two of you would act just the way you are now! It's not easy to....!"

"Well if you'd chosen to love someone just a little more in your league, you wouldn't find us yelling at you now!" his mother shouted.

Blaine's face contorted into rage for the first time. "And who do you think you are telling me who I can love!?" he exploded at them, "Andie is the sweetest girl on the face of the earth, and for your information I'd rather have her than a single cent! You hurt her feelings tonight, and if I can't get her back, I'd rather stop living altogether!" He stormed for the door, then turned and finished his rant with, "You know, there were cockroaches here tonight, but she certainly wasn't one!!" before slamming the door in his parent's faces.

"Very nice Blaine," Ferris gave him a belated golf clap, "I'd give that about a 9.2, how about you guys?"

"Um, well, I wasn't keeping track, but that sounds about right, I suppose," Wyatt guessed.

The phone inside started ringing. Mrs. McDonough picked it up, said a few words into it, then opened the door and snapped down the hall, "It's for you!"

"Miss MacIntosh, do you think you could tap into the phone lines for us and make this conversation public?" Ferris asked Lisa.

"This is probably a private conversation, Ferris," Cameron pointed out.

"But maybe important," Ferris argued. Lisa grabbed hold of the nearest visible phone line and opened her mouth, out of which the phone conversation could be heard. "Hope you're having a nice evening, Blaine," Steff could be heard saying cockily over the line, "Have your parents threatened disownment yet for hanging out with the wrong crowd?"

"You!" they all heard Blaine snarl, "You have the gall to rub it in on me! How.....how did you know to....."

"Oh, if you haven't forgot, our fathers are very good friends even if we aren't, so yours told mine last night that you were bringing your date over, and he told me and I quickly put two and two together. I hope you realize now that you made the biggest mistake of your life when you pushed me aside in favor of her."

"Just shut up, all right!" Blaine screamed, "Don't you care that I'm breaking up inside!"

"Not really," Steff told him coolly, "after you screwed me over for her, Blaine, I think it's only fair you feel the same crush you put me through. And don't think about crawling back to me, because I'm not taking you back. Have a nice life, Blaine."

He hung up the phone. Blaine tossed his receiver contemptuously into the wall and collapsed in a sobbing heap on his bed (this was all visible to the group on the ground from where they were standing, as his bedroom was only one floor above them). Ferris paced around a little bit (as the older McDonoughs had flicked out their lights and gone into bed, he now had more freedom of movement). "Looks like this is a little more far reaching than I thought," he commented out loud, "Oh well, all the more satisfying when we pull it off."

"Run by me what we do again?" Sloane asked her boyfriend as he put on the Druid robe and hood he'd used only two months ago as a Halloween costume.

"Just stand by, you'll come into play after I take them on their grand journey through time," Ferris told her. He examined the rudimentary smoke machine Wyatt and Gary had managed to assemble. "Give me about ten seconds worth before I wake them up," he instructed them, "I want to look like I'm really from another dimension."

"When do we hit the lights?" Gary asked.

"After I moan their names for the first time," Ferris said, "That'll wake them up good and well." He examined everything one more time, then nodded and said, "OK, we're good to go. Cameron, the window, please."

"I still think this is a mistake," Cameron muttered to himself as he slid open the McDonoughs' window. Ferris made the "shhhh" gesture to the others and slid inside as quietly as he could. Both McDonoughs were already snoring. He look up at the clock. Fifteen seconds till midnight. He counted off five ticks then waved for the smoke to come in. He was counting on it to conceal his face, for although the McDonoughs had never met him before, he knew they'd know the whole thing was a scam if they got a good look at him. As the clock struck midnight, Ferris crept closer to the bed, immersed in a sea of smoke. "Bill and Joyce McDonough!" he rasped in the most haunting voice he could come up with, "Arise, Bill and Joyce! I have come for you!" He flicked the trigger that turned on the bright lights inside his robes just as the McDonoughs were awaken from their slumber.

They jumped in surprise at the odd figure staring over them. "Who the hell are you!?" Mr. McDonough demanded.

"I am the ghost of Christmas Always!" Ferris said in his most intimidating tone, which seemed artificially amplified for maximum effect, "I have been sent by the powers that be from the Great Beyond to tell you that by refusing to grant your son your blessing for his choice of girlfriend, you have set off a cataclysmic chain of events that will destroy you and all you care for!"

"I knew we had too much champagne for dinner, honey," Mrs. McDonough confided in her husband.

"I am not a figment of alcohol!" Ferris thundered. More smoke surrounded him, maybe a little too much, but he didn't care, because dramatic effect was what he was now aiming for, "I am real and very mad at you, just as your son is! And to prove it, Bill and Joyce, let us take a trip into the future I have foretold!"

He winked out the window at Lisa, who winked back and waved her index finger around in the air. Instantly the McDonoughs bedroom started spinning around in a daze of flashing lights and colors. The McDonoughs screamed and held onto the bedposts in panic, unaware that they weren't actually going anywhere. Ferris smiled at the effectiveness of the illusion. One thing he always lived for was bringing down the high and mighty, and this was a prime situation for him. "We will now be arriving twenty-five years in the future, a future created out of your inability to accept Andie Walsh," he told them, "Be warned, it is not something you will like."

He gave Lisa thumbs up out the window, and instantly the room settled into a exact replica of downtown Chicago. The McDonoughs took deep gasping breaths as the "ride" came to a stop. "Take us back right now, you haunted creep!" Mr. McDonough demanded Ferris.

"That I cannot do, Bill," Ferris told him, "You must see what your actions will bring about. Follow me yonder."

He took their hands and led them toward a "newsstand" half a block away, although in reality it was probably only about ten feet. There, his associates, who through Lisa's powers now looked like adults in their late 40s, were huddled around the front of the stand, papers in hand. "It's amazing really," Sloane said, glancing at the front page of her paper (for some unknown reason, Lisa had made Sloane's adult persona a redhead), "I thought they'd died years ago."

"Well after they dropped out of sight after--it--happened, so did I," Wyatt's older self said to her.

"What?" Mrs. McDonough called to him, looking nervous, "What happened?"

"They can't hear us," Ferris told her, "As these are shadows of things to come, we are but shadows to them."

"I'm not surprised it ended the way it did, though," Cameron said, using his fake "Mr. Petersen" voice, "If my son jumped to his death off the Sears Tower, I'd go straight to skid row myself. The stories I've heard say that they started going to transsexual bars every night afterwards for God knows what reason. And to think they once ran all the electric power in Illinois."

"Well the higher they go, the harder they fall," Gary said to him, "From what I've heard, they don't even have enough money left for a proper burial. So what do they do with their bodies?"

"Throw them in Lake Michigan, I suppose," Sloane proposed.

"Ah well, I always thought they overcharged, anyway," Lisa said, taking a bite out of a donut, "Lomax Electric was always better with their customers than the McDonoughs were."

"Agreed," Cameron said, "Still, you have to admire it--three generations in charge of power in this city, now that's an accomplishment. I don't know what set their kid to kill himself, but he threw away a great career."

"Well that was his choice," Wyatt said, glancing at his watch, "Well, we'd better get going, Mr. Lomax'll be waiting for us."

The five of them trotted off down the street--out the window, really. Ferris turned back to the McDonoughs and was pleased to see them thoroughly horrified by what they'd heard. "You see," he told them, "Everything you've worked for all your lives will fall by the wayside--including your own son.

"I ask you now, was it worth the price of rejecting his date?"

"We...We....We had no idea...!" a terrified Mr. McDonough stammered. He fell on his knees before Ferris and grabbed his robe. "Please, spirit, save us from this fate! Anything to keep Lomax Electric from running this town!"

Ferris had to try hard to keep himself from laughing at the brazen cowardice before him. "Well, I suppose I could return the two of you to the point in time where I picked you up," he told the two of them, "but to avoid the shadows of events yet to come, you must consent to Andie Walsh being Blaine's chosen."

"Agreed," Mrs. McDonough said quickly, "We'll do whatever you say! Now take us back!"

"Then close you eyes and see me no more," Ferris gave Lisa the thumbs-up out the window, and she sent the room into colorful spirals again. While the McDonoughs were distracted by the light show, he extracted chloroformed rags from his pockets and held them over their faces. They put up mild resistance before collapsing to the floor. "And so you will awaken with a new lease on life," he told them jokingly.

Outside in the street, the Wet Bandits were watching the curious display going on inside the McDonough mansion with hesitance. "Uh, I think they look kinda wide awake right now, Harry," Marv said.

"Yeah," Harry conceded, "Maybe we'll hit the other address we saw first and come back after."

"Works for me," Marv hopped back into the van. They were pleased with the fact that with the weather as bad as it was, practically no cops were out and about now.

"Can't see two feet in front of yourself out here," Harry noted, putting the windshield wipers on their highest setting, "Ah, but look at the bright side; by this time tomorrow night we'll be on our way to the Caribbean, where it never snows."

"And best of all, no kids to get ya when ya least expect it," Marv added.

"True," Harry said. He glanced out the window. "Here it is, Kovalchuks. And it don't look like nobody's up here."

The burglars piled out of the van and climbed up over the high wall surrounding the Kovalchuk estate. "The alarms should be down with the weather like this, since nobody would expect a burglar to strike in the dead of a snowstorm," Harry theorized. "While you were eatin', while I'm at it, I talked with Eddie over the phone, to see if he needs us tomorrow. The bad news is he does, but I'll bet we can weasel out of it early. He says he wants us to see we can get people to help in his plan to get the Crueller kid."

"Did ya ask the guys?" Marv asked as they approached what looked like a basement window.

"I can't call them all in one night with the funds we got," Harry said, raising an eyebrow, "I did get through to Morrie, though, and he said he'd see if he could fit it into his schedule before he heads to the airport."

"Good," Marv said. Then he frowned. "But Harry, he only kills at night; shouldn't he be free?"

"Lord knows what he thinks," Harry said, "Like why he didn't plant enough evidence to frame the guy he chose to pin his first murder spree on. Then nobody would be on his tail now."

"They're on his tail?"

"Some of the cops are talkin' about him, he told me," Harry scraped a rock out of the snow and tossed it through the window. He listened for a few minutes and announced, "Good, no alarm," he told his buddy, "come on, we got the big one waitin' here."

The two of them slipped through the window--only to find out the hard way that the room they'd chosen to invade was two stories tall, and the window they'd broken in was where the second floor should have been. They fell hard to the floor. "Was that trip really necessary?" Marv lamented as he shook himself off.

"Shhh!" Harry whispered. He reached into his coat pocket and extracted a spray canister, which he sprayed around them, revealing several lasers arranged in a diamond pattern. "Whatever ya do, don't step in the beams," he warned Marv, stepping carefully in the middle of the diamonds. Marv followed his every step. "So what are we looking for anyway, Harry?" he asked in a whisper.

"Wherever they keep the wealth here," Harry told him. "As long as we stay and...." his voice trailed off as he peaked around the corner. "Looks like an office in here," he said, "Come on, this a good place to start. Look for a safe or something."

The two of them spread out after Harry sprayed for more alarm lasers, which weren't there. "Nothin' on this wall," Marv said, smacking it with his crowbar.

"SHHHHH!!!" Harry hissed at him, "Ya wanna wake up the whole house!?" It was then that he noticed something on the desk. He picked it up and examined it thoroughly in the dim light available. "Hey Marv," he whispered, "I think I just got us our payday for today."

"What?" Marv rushed over.

"Bank book," Harry showed it to him, "And these people just leave their whole fortune in here--over four mil."

Marv stifled a chuckle of delight. "We're millionaires!" he said.

"Once we turn it in at the bank tomorrow we will be," Harry said, searching through the desk drawers. He found what he was looking for--another notebook that looked much like the bank book--and tossed it on the desk.

"Can't let them know we took it until we cash in, though," he commented,

"We'll have to use some of our phony Ids to make it seem like...." Just then the alarm went off. "Whatdya do!" Harry demanded.

"I stepped in the beam, Harry," Marv said from the doorway, looking incredibly guilty. Harry rolled his eyes in frustration. "Ya can't stand still, can ya!?" he snapped, "Let's beat a path outta here quick!"