"Ok, Jack. Goggles!" The person in question shot a thumbs up the other's way before pulling his goggles down as requested."All set Maddie!"Jack called to his wife, grin stretching from ear to ear. Maddie gave him a single thumbs up before turning back to their project. It was sitting on the table in front of her, and she was anxious to activate it. Reaching for the cords lying on the table, Maddie took in a deep breath, heart pounding in her ears. She aligned the plugs before turning to Jack again.
They had finally fixed their first portal, though upon further inspection they discovered that what caused the error was some kind of soda getting into the device. The remains of the liquid had lingered in a black coating of burnt sugar after the rest must've evaporated away in the previous explosion.
"Proto-portal 2.0 is a go!" Jack rhymed. Judging by his expression, he knew exactly what he just did, and -knowing him- he'd probably been waiting for a chance to say that for at least a week. At least that was about how long they'd been working on it. Maddie smiled nervously, she just hoped that this one didn't cause anyone to be hospitalized or injured, like the last two portals they made. She turned her gaze back to the hexagon before smiling to herself. To think, this small machine had the capability to puncture a hole in the very fabric of the universes. These including Earth, dubbed the 'Real World,' and the Ghost Zone. Taking a moment to refocus first, Maddie plugged the cords into each other.
A beat of silence was the response. Maddie held her breath, hoping. Jack's heart sank. He was about to frown when an explosion ignited out from the invention. The house shook in its foundations, and a bang echoed out that would've deafened the entire block if not for the precious soundproofing. The explosion was kept in by the metal confines of the walls, but it screwed with the electricity, thus causing the power on the entire east side of town to flicker out. Something had changed, for better or worse.
A loud bell rang over the intercom and Danny let out a sigh of relief. Fighting the crowd to set his half-finished test on the teacher's desk, he darted out of the room. He breathed in the half-freedom as he finally got out of the classroom. In the room, it was like the teacher had the air conditioning on instead of the heater. He could barely imagine what the other students felt, though he hadn't failed to notice the slightly scrunched look on Sam's face as he sat down next to her. Speaking of Sam;
"Hey," She greeted, falling into step beside him. It was just second nature at this point. Soon Tucker would join and it would be just as it had been since elementary.
"Hey." They walked in comfortable silence for a moment, at least until they reached Danny's locker. He sat his book bag on the floor, careful not to drop it on his locker neighbour's foot.
"So," He started, turning the knob while barely thinking of the numbers in his head as he spun the dial. '14,-spin spin- 32,-spin- 6.' Those numbers were ingrained now, but in a year he'd be hard pressed to remember even one of them. Tucker, meanwhile, probably remembered his first locker combo from sixth grade.
"It was horrible in there, right? I mean, I think Mrs Trein had the A.C. on," Danny slid his finger under the latch and the locker popped right open. Reluctantly, but it opened. He quickly shoved a hand into the mess to keep everything from scattering onto the floor. Keeping one hand in place, Danny managed to get out his social studies book from the mess. One down, two more to go.
"Yeah, though sitting next to you made it worse," Sam said. Danny raised an eyebrow at her and almost allowed his math textbook to slide out of his grasp. He caught it before it could completely escape.
"And how is that?" Danny shot her a sideways look of confusion as he grabbed his science textbook. They never really used it, but you never knew when a teacher might make it essential to have in class one day out of the blue. As his Mom always said, better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. The books dropped to the ground in front of him with a thud, piling on top of each other.
"Because you're a human air conditioner." Wait, what? Sam smirked and turned away, headed down the hall towards her own locker. Danny grabbed his books for his afternoon classes, shoved them into his bookbag haphazardly and started off after her while dodging through the crowds that were trying to pull him towards the cafeteria.
"Seriously, Sam!" He called out. What did she even mean by 'human air conditioner?' What could it mean? He spotted an opening and ducked between two startled juniors. He was so short for a freshman that it was doubtful they'd even seen his mop of black hair before he was suddenly in front of them. The move had him flattening himself against the wall in an effort not to be dragged away by the crowd, almost all of whom towered over him. Why couldn't he have been one of those superheroes that wakes up super ripped after their accident? Sliding past the flow of bodies and getting out of the way, Danny found himself by Sam's locker.
"What do you mean I'm a human air conditioner?" He huffed whilst leaning against the lockers. It took a moment for him to catch his breath, he was much more accustomed to exhaustion from flying than from human physical activities. Sam took her time in loading her books into her spider bookbag before caring to deign a curious Danny with an answer.
"You literally radiate cold air," Sam explained. At that moment Tucker walked up. His PDA was safely 'tuck'ed under his arm, completing the nerd look that he tried oh-so-hard to get away from when he went through his Sam-induced goth phase.
"Who does what?" He questioned. His boots made a horrible squeaking on the tile, as he had just walked in front of the drinking fountains. It was a Paulina-sized pool in front of them, though you could actually get your feet wet in this one. Even Sam winced at the odd squeak. But it was promptly forgotten in exchange for conversation. Tucker's red backpack was already on his back, and -judging by the strained way he walked- it was already filled with his books.
"Sam says I'm a human air conditioner." Danny crossed his arms and pouted. Said person only chuckled at the face.
"Technically he's a half-human air conditioner." Tucker corrected, earning him a 'scary eyes' glare. Both of these elicited a snort of laughter from our resident goth. Tucker sent a smile her way before continuing.
"In all seriousness, she kinda has a point," Sam closed her locker and the trio suspended their conversation as they joined the dwindling crowd of people making their way to the cafeteria. They met up again at their usual table -dubbed the 'loser trio' table- before starting up their conversation again.
"What d'you mean she had a point?" Danny reached into his bag and pulled out a lunch box. Sam and Tuck followed suit. Danny's was a plain blue fabric with sharpied-on white dots, his lunch box from elementary. The handle was a grey strip of the stuff used for backpack straps. Tucker's was a metal cube-ish shape with some vague Star Trek symbol. It looked a bit like a half-erased triangle. On the opposite side was an image of the popular ship from Star Trek. Sam's was a mini version of her backpack, though there were fewer pockets and it was insulated like a normal lunchbox.
"I dunno, man. Whenever you're near it makes the air a few degrees colder. Kinda like when a ghost attacks." Did it really get colder? Danny never noticed. Tucker took a bite into his ham sandwich and Sam made a gagging sound.
"Don' nof i' fil you fry if," Tuck added in response, his mouth full. Bits of ham peeked over his lips, threatening to spill out onto the table. Even Danny found it disgusting, and a bit unappetizing.
"Yeah, no." Sam sassed and rolled her eyes. She pulled out a Tupperware container with a salad and some kind of dressing in a smaller container, which she dumped onto the leafy-green and crouton combo.
"Anyway Danny, maybe it's because of your..." She paused, surveying the room for anyone listening in, and -finding no one- continued. Really, they tried their best not to draw attention. If only for privacy in conversations such as these.
"Icy abilities." She crypted. Danny toyed with the idea for a moment, taking a bite of his PBJ. He had that, along with a drink, bag of chips, and a few store-bought cookies. Or at least he hoped they were. No one in his family could cook. Though the turkey had been pretty good until it came to life. Even if they were homemade, it was probably better for him than the stuff they served at school. He'd stopped trusting school lunches after the Lunch Lady's attack last week. There were some things you just can't unsee.
Going back to his unintended icy exposition, the reasoning seemed sane. After all, he could literally touch something at any moment and cause ice to form on it. Though that led him to a brief curiosity. Was he able to create his ice in space? On Earth it made sense, he was just freezing the air and water vapour in it. But in space, there was nothing to freeze. A hand waving in front of his face shook him out of his scientific self-rant.
"You okay there, bud? You went all spacey on us. Pun intended." Tucker had a goofy grin on his face as he stood and waved a hand in front of Danny's face. Danny shook his head slightly to get back into the conversation.
"Yeah, I'm fine," As Danny's eyes focused, Tuck drew his hand back and started picking at the apple in his lunch. Honestly, why did his Mom keep trying to get him to eat fruits or veggies? The only time he broke his 14-year streak was to eat blood blossoms. And even then he was halfway to getting sick from the sudden vegetables.
"I was just wondering if I could make ice in space." He shrugged and popped the tab on the soda in his lunch. It was a Pepsi, his favourite. Jazz really was the best big sister one could ever have. He'd talked about starting to pack his lunch, and Jazz offered to make it for him while she made her own for the next day. The next night he went down to the kitchen to make his lunch, but Jazz had already made him one and set it on the counter in his lunch box. It'd just continued from there. He made sure to thank her for each lunch she made.
"You probably could," Sam said.
"I mean, you can create a form a plasma, as shown in your blasts, so while I don't think you could just create your ice like that," She snapped her fingers for emphasis.
"You would probably be able to freeze your blasts." She shrugged and took a bite of her banana.
"You have a point. How was this even brought up?" Tucker remarked and looked up from his still-pristine apple.
"My parents are scientists, I was raised to ask questions no one else thinks of." Danny shrugged. It was true, after all.
"Even if they are kinda oblivious," Danny added to himself with a chuckle.
"Can't argue with you there," Tucker agreed.
"Yeah, they wouldn't know it if a full-on ghost lived under their roof." Sam chucked. Danny shot her a 'say another word and I keel you' glare. With a toned-fown scary eyes to boot.
Suddenly the flourescent humming that filled the air blinked out. The room went dark. They were questioning glances all around the room until an explosion sounded somewhere off in the distance. You'd think anarchy would ensue soon after, but people stayed calm for the most part. They stayed in their seats, using their phones and the such as flashlights set in the middle of their tables, and continued talking. Even though their subjects had changed to asking if anyone else knew what had caused the explosion. No one did, of course. A few rose from their seats and darted to the windows. It was the dead of winter and the early sunset, coupled with the thick layer of clouds, made it almost look like night time outside. Our trio overheard someone mention smoke near Fenton Works."Why do I feel like this is somehow my fault?" Danny asked.
"Knowing you, it probably is."
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2-2-19
Just fixed some missed spelling errors and the such. Added a sentence or two in places where it was lacking.