Sam Manson was picking through her salad, looking for one last little baby tomato when an especially decrepit car squealed into a parking space outside the Nastyburger restaurant. It was a antique Chevette hatchback, half red and half duct tape and bondo. The driver's door creaked open and a familiar person got out and paced towards the door.

Tucker Foley, sitting across from Sam, looked up from his Double Nasty with mushrooms long enough to see who it was and muttered, "wrong Fenton" before stuffing another bite into his mouth.

Sam noted the lack of make-up on Jazz Fenton's face and the subtle disarray of her red hair. "Something's wrong," she told Tucker. He looked up again, checked out the rest of the diner but couldn't see what Sam was talking about. He was about to say so when Jazz reached their table.

"Have either of you seem Danny?" she asked.

"He was supposed to met us here," Tucker said.

"You haven't seen him at all today?"

"No. Why?" Sam asked.

"He was supposed to help me this morning but he was gone."

"You try his cell phone?" Tucker suggested.

"Of course I tried his cell phone. All I'm getting is 'Out of Service'. That's not like Danny. I'm worried."

"It's nothing," Tucker declared. "he'll show up sooner or later."

"He was supposed to met us here," Sam reminded Tuck. "I can imagine him ditching helping his sister but I can't imagine him ditching us!"

Jazz abruptly sat down next to Tucker and rubbed her hands over her face. "Something's wrong. A sister knows these things!"

"Really?" Sam asked skeptically. As an only child she knew nothing about life with brothers or sisters, still she doubted that sisters knew when brothers were in trouble because that would mean boys knew when their sisters were in trouble and Danny had always been especially clueless about his sister.

"Of course. I'm very sensitive about such things."

Tucker looked from Sam to Jazz and back. He decided from Sam's stony face that laughter was not called for. "Well, he does have a lot of enemies..." he suggested.

"Exactly," Jazz agreed. "That's why we've got to find hm."

"He'll be real ticked off if we have a full scale panic when he's just down at the arcade playing video games," Sam said. She pulled out his cell phone and dialed Danny's number. After a moment she went "humph!" and put it away. "'Out of service.' OK, let's split up and check out the places where he might be. Tucker you check out the arcade. I'll check the library and Jazz,

"Library?" Tucker and Jazz asked simultaneously.

"Danny's been known to go there to read up on ghost history."

"Danny reading? Why wasn't I informed of this?" Jazz wanted to know.

"Maybe he thought your sibling sense had told you already?" Sam suggested. "Anyway, Jazz, you check out the places where he might have gone this morning if he were doing other chores."

"What do you mean?"

"The grocery store, drug store, post office. Places your parents might have sent him. Let's met back here in an hour. Tucker! Don't play any games, just ask if Danny has been around this morning. One hour! Remember it!"

Tucker wrapped up the remains of his sandwich and stuck in his backpack then hurried off. Sam found a lost slice of cucumber, stuffed it in her mouth before bussing the table and hurrying out to her scooter. Jazz staggered back to her car which started on the third try and pulled out of the lot with much roaring of engine and grinding of gears.

***

Danny woke to a raging headache. It felt like the back of his head was split open. He reached back and felt a large and sticky lump on his skull. Pulling his hand back he saw covered in gooey red. Blood. How'd he hit himself on the head, and where was he?

Danny looked around with blurry, watering eyes. He seemed to be in some large, darkened room filled with vaguely familiar looking equipment. A small light was directly overhead. He was sitting on a hard and very cold floor, leaning against something equally hard and cold, and curved. He blinked several times hoping to drive the blurriness from his vision but that didn't seem to help. With a deep breath he began to get up off the floor when he noticed that he was completely naked.

"Hey!" he shouted and jumped up. The shout rang in his ears and the suddenly movement filled him with an intense nausea. He froze in place for a moment, waiting for the feeling of sick to pass. He was bent over with his hands crossed in front of his crotch for modesty.

After a moment, realizing that no one seemed to be around, Danny finished standing up, placing his hands on the sides of what appeared to be a glass cylinder for support. The cylinder was about three feet wide and eight feet tall. It stood in a nest of instruments of some sort about knee high off a cement floor. The base of the actual tube, though, was metal, stainless steel or something with a small grating in the middle, like a shower drain. The top of the tube was also metal, but it had a small grating where a light shone through next to another grating where fresh air seemed to be coming from.

Danny pounded on the side of the tube, shouting for someone to let him out. The tube gave no sign of breaking under his assault, nor did anyone come in response to his hollars. It just made his head hurt worse than it already did, something he didn't think was possible. He leaned against the glass tube, resting, his forehead pressed against soothingly cold glass. He looked more closely at the material spread around the room. He could make out two more glass tubes apparently under construction. One didn't have a cap on the top. The other had a cap but only some of the hardware he could see around his cylinder. After a time he realized why so much of the material in the room looked familiar. It was stuff like in his parent's lab -- ghost research material. He tried to think. Had his parents ever mentioned anyone else with an ectoplasmic research lab in Amity Park? He didn't think so. It was hard to think because of his headache, tho. In fact he couldn't recall how he got here, where he had been when he had been attacked, who had attacked him or anything. In fact he wasn't even sure what was the last thing he could recall.

Thinking back he seemed to recall that he was supposed to do something with Sam and Tucker today, but what? He wasn't even sure if this was Saturday or not, though he had a vague sense of going to bed the night before. But he couldn't recall what he had for supper, or the TV he watched that night or anything. The last thing he really could recall was Mr. Lancer standing over him, graded test in hand, telling him how disappointed he was in Danny's grade. How he know that Danny could do some much better if he only applied himself. And that if he didn't work hard to get good grades now he's never get into college or make anything of himself later in life.

Danny was pretty sure he'd gotten that lecture on Thursday, two days ago, but he could be wrong since it was the same lecture he got from all of his teachers at one time or another. They all thought more higher of himself than he did. They all thought he could be a genius like his sister, Jazz, but Danny knew better. He tried as hard he could all the time. He never tried to flunk a test, it just came naturally to him.

"This must be what having a concussion is like," he thought. Then wondered if he would ever get his memory back.

He beat on the glass wall some more before stopping with a grimace of disgust. "Stupid, stupid," he muttered as he changed into Danny Phantom. Why beat on the cylinder when he could just walk through it. The change was over in a flash but when he tried to slid through the material he bounced off it just as he had when he had been mortal. He tried passing through a couple more times with no better results. Danny floated up to the top of the tube but found that the metal there was as resistant to his ectoplasmic form as the glass. The floor, too, was ghost-proof. Danny began to feel worried. OK, it was weird enough to be kidnaped and stuffed into some kind of giant test tube but a ghost-proof test tube? Nobody in Amity Falls knew he was a ghost except for Sam, Tucker and Jazz. No one in Amity Park, or anywhere in the world would have reason to stick him in a ghost proof test tube.

Danny changed to his mortal form while he thought some more/

Plasmeus! Vlad Plasmeus, aka Vlad Master, the world's richest man, knew of Danny's dual nature, and often plotted his demise but this didn't look like Vlad's technology and he couldn't resist gloating. Why wasn't he here gloating?

But if it wasn't Vlad who could it be? Who else knew his secret?

Danny slumped down to the floor of the cylinder as he considered that. While he was sure no one else knew his secret, he had no end of enemies who wished him dead. Ghosts, mostly, who didn't like how he would capture them and send them back to the Ghost Zone. But none of this felt right. Skulker, the self-declared greatest hunter in the Ghost Zone would have just stalked him like a beast. Ember McLain would have tried to hypnotize him with music. Klemper would have just asked to be his friend....

Danny must have dozed off because he awoke with a start from the sound of a door slamming in the room. Lights flickered on as a figured stalked across the floor to stand in front of him. Danny crossed his legs and covered his naked self with his hands. "What's the big idea?" he shouted. "Let me out of here!" but the figure completely ignored him.

The person was dressed in a bulky, pale blue hazmat kind of outfit, one that covered face as well as everything else. Danny couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman standing there with a clipboard on which it was jotting down various reading from the instruments surrounding his tube.

Danny continued to shout and beat on the walls of the tube to no avail. After several minutes the figure went "Hmmm, ectoplasmic activity." The tone was pitched in a mid-range that could either be a boy or a girl.

"Hey, talk to me," He shouted. "I can hear you, you know. Don't pretend that you can't hear me."

His captor finally looked up at him. The visor in the large helmet was tinted so he couldn't see in. After a moment he, she or it, turned away and walked back towards the door.

"You can't just leave me in here!" Danny shouted and throw himself at the side of the glass cylinder. He throw himself back and forth as hard as he could in the confined space and was gratified to feel the cylinder rock just a little bit. Maybe if he kept this up he could topple the tube over and be free.

A pinging from the instruments clustered around the bottom of the tube brought his captor to a halt. He or she came back to the tube and changed a control. The next time Danny threw himself at the side of his prison a sharp electric shock ran through his body. He collapsed to the floor of the tube gasping.

"Behave." the costumed person said and started to walk away.

"Hey!" Danny shouted. "Can't you at least give me some pants?"

His captor turned around and announced, "You won't be needing pants," before finally turning off the overhead lights and leaving the room.

***

Mrs. Hemple, the head librarian at the branch office Sam and Danny frequented was a small, stout woman of about 70 years. Osteoporosis had left her with a profound "widow's hump" that made it hard for her to see who she was talking to anymore but she had never considered retiring because, as she said, "working in the library is what keeps me young."

Sam dropped a couple books in the return slot, the real reason she had for coming to the library, then sought out Mrs. Hemple. She was in the back reshelving some books. "Samantha," she called, refusing to use Sam's preferred name. Mrs. Hemple didn't like nicknames or women in pants, she was just old fashioned that way. "Do you enjoy that book on Van Gogh?" she asked.

"I did, thanks for recommending it. Say, I, uh, have a question: have you seen Danny Fenton around today?"

"Your young fellah," Mrs Hemple began, watching Sam's blush. With a chuckle at Sam's discomfort, she went on. "He hasn't been here today that I know of. I did see him in here yesterday. He wanted to read the newspapers from 1935 and '36."

"Right, there was a big haunting back there he wanted to look into."

"I suppose so, but really, I think he was mostly reading the funny pages. I heard hm laugh several times. Almost had to go back and shush him."

Mrs Hemple was trying to reach the top shelf with one of her books. Sam took it out of her hand and reached for the place she had been aiming for. Even she stood on tiptoes to slide the book into place.

"Thank you, dear," the librarian said as she handed Sam another book and pointed to where it was to go. The shelves weren't that tall but Mrs. Hemple was very short, easily the shortest woman Sam knew. Nor did she mind helping since she loved libraries as much as Mrs. Hemple did. This library had been built nearly a century ago with money from a Carnegie grant. It had a high vaulted ceiling, two long wings that ended with large stain glass windows. set over ornamental fireplaces. Well, they were ornamental today but according to Mrs. Hemple when the library had first been opened fires were lit in the hearths. Oak shelves lined the walls of the building with shoulder high free-standing shelves filling the inner spaces. A couple large round tables were set near the fireplaces as well as some badly sprung sofa chairs. Many people thought the library was old and decrepit but for Sam it was like a second home.

Sam pushed the last book into place and turned to the silver-haired old lady. "Well, if Danny isn't here I'd better go. He's missing and his sister is worried.

"That would be Jasmine. I haven't seen her around in a while. The next time you see her reminded her that we can get pretty much anything she wants through interlibrary loan."

"I'll remind her," Sam said, turning to leave.

"Wait!" Mrs Hemple called after her. "I just remembered something odd about yesterday. After your friend left a young lady asked me if I knew who he was. She seemed very interested in Danny. I don't know why."

"Did you tell her who he was?"

"Librarians are here to answer questions. Of course I did."

Sam stood there for a moment thinking. "What did she look like?"

"Tall, thin, youngish. Maybe in her twenties. She was wearing some of those awful tight-fitting low riding blue jeans and a short T-short, dark, like yours. Oh, and she had on large, very dark sunglasses. I thought it was very odd to be wearing sunglasses inside a library."

Sam asked a couple further questions but that was about the limit of Mrs. Hemple's knowledge about the strange woman. Sam thanked her and hurried back to NastyBurger to wait for her friends to return.

***

"I got the new high score on "Munch Munch Ka-boom," Tucker announced when he entered the fast food diner and slide into his spot opposite Sam.

"You were supposed to be looking for Danny,"

"Hey, I did that too," Tucker replied defensively. "The guy at the cash register remembered Danny coming in earlier this morning, around ten. He played Motocross for a while then left."

"Where'd he go?"

"How would I know?"

"He didn't say anything about having chores to do or anything like that?"

Tucker could see that Sam was pissed. Well maybe he could have investigated more instead of playing "Munch Munch Ka-Boom" but usually there was such a line up for it that he never had a chance to play. Today it had been free. How could he not take advantage of that? Sam never understood what games meant to him and Danny. Since nothing seemed like it would please Sam, Tucker decided not to say anything.

After a bit he got up and ordered some fries so he'd had something to do with his hands. He was just getting back to his seat when he heard the Jazzmobile squeal to a halt. Tucker didn't know much about cars, it wasn't in his area of interest, but even he knew that that car needed work done on it.

Jazz flopped down next to Sam and shook her head.

"I asked around the drug story, the supermarket, even talked to the old men down at the park, none of them remember seeing Danny this morning."

"Maybe he was never at home last night"

"He was home. We fought over the TV, as always. That kid could watch cartoons all day and night."

"Was his bed slept in?" Tucked asked, trying to remember the sort of questions the actors on CSI would ask.

"Have you seen his bed? It's a disaster!"

"Mrs Hemple at the library said some girl was asking after Danny. Know anything about that?"

"Danny with a girlfriend? That seems unlikely," Tucker said.

"Danny hasn't mentioned any one new in his life, other than you two. " Jazz said She sat with her head in her hands, looking back at the table glumly. "What a minute," she suddenly said. "One of the men down at the park said something about seeing a girl hanging around the park. She asked who had the big sign down the street. That would be us, of course. She must have been trying to pump those guys about Danny!"

The Fentons lived in a older brownstone rowhouse modified to be their corporate headquarters and laboratory as well as their home. It had a garish twenty foot tall sign in front that blinked "FentonWorks" day and night.

"Was she tall, thin, in tight pants with big sunglasses?" Sam asked.

"All I know if that she had big cans. Why can't men be more respectful towards woman?" Jazz sighed.

"A woman with big cans looking for Danny? That's what the cashier said!"

"What do you know about that, and why didn't you tell us about it before this?" Sam demanded with a fierceness that made Tucker glad there was a table between him and her.

"I didn't think it was important. I was asking if he had seen Danny and he said some girl was asking the same question."

"What was the girl like?"

"He just said she had - uh," Tucker paused and groped for the right word, considering his audience, "she was well endowed."

"That's it?" Jazz demanded. "What was the color of her hair? How tall was she? What was she wearing?" How soon after Danny left did she ask about him?"

"I don't know. I didn't think to ask." Tucker stammered.

"But he did make the high score on "Munch Munch Ba-boom," Sam added spitefully. Jazz growled.

"Let's head back to the arcade. Maybe knockers boy there can remember more about this woman." Jazz said, getting up. Tucker considered whether it was worth it making a break for the other exit. Having Sam and Jazz mad at him at the same time would not end well. But Sam was already pushing him ahead. His time for escape had passed.

***

The cashier at the video arcade was bobbing his head to the music he as listening to on his iPod when the three arrived. After shouting to get his attention they found that he had little to add to what he had already told Tucker. The girl had asked if that was Danny Fenton and if he knew where he lived, then had followed Danny out of the building. Yes, she was tall and thin. What was she wearing? He didn't recall. Had she been there before? He didn't recall. He guessed she was in her twenties, then recalled she had bright red, almost orangish colored hair and big freckles all over her face, almost like birthmarks or something.

They were heading back to Jazz's car when Tucker stopped and pointed to something down the street. "Come on," he called.

Three blocks away, in the direction Danny would have taken to walk to the Nasty Burger was an office building with a small plaza out in front. Parked at the curb was a small, silver paneled truck. One side was lifted up, revealing cases filled with plastic wrapped sandwiches, friut and cans of drink. A middle-aged man with a carpenter's apron tied around his waist stood beside it. He was taking money from some people holding sandwiches and drinks in their hands.

"Tucker, you just ate," Sam complained.

"No. Maybe the guy at that catering truck saw Danny or that girl."

They left the car where it was and followed Tucker down the street.

***

"Hey, Mister, I'm looking for a lady," Tucker asked when he got to the plaza.

The man was turned away, moving some of his stuff inside the truck. "You and me, both," he answered over his shoulder before turning to see who had asked the question. "Sorry, kid," he said. "I didn't mean to be rude. What can I do ya for? It's gotta be quick, tho. Econodyne lets out at One, and I got to be there. Lotta people want to pick up a bite on the way out."

"We really are looking for a woman," Jazz explained. "We think she kidnaped my brother and may have passed this way. Have you seen her? She's tall, thin, probably wearing tight pants, oh and has orangish-red hair."

"Shouldn't you be talking to the police if she kidnaped your brother?"

"The police won't take missing person claims until after 24 hours." Sam explained. "We don't think Danny has that much time."

"I wish I could help but I see lots of people all day, I can't remember them all."

"She has big cans," Tucker volunteered, then gasped as Sam rammed an elbow into his chest. "Behave." she whispered.

"Big -- uh, yeah, uh, sounds like someone I would have remembered if I'd seen her." He picked up a rack of potato chip packets and carried it into the open back door of his truck. He slammed that door, then removed the brace from one end of the side panel and let it slam shut. "Look. I hope you find your brother," he said, "I really do, but I can't help you."

"Yeah, we understand," Tucker said. "Thanks, anyway."

They turned and walked back towards Jazz's car. They'd barely got to the intersection when the caterer called, "Hey, kids, come here."

"I may have seen this woman you're looking for, after all." he explained when they got back to his truck. "She was walking across the street heading that way." He pointed in the direction away from the video arcade. "I didn't see her face or anything but she had a nice butt, big, you know." He stopped and blushed. "Kind of like you, with the orangish hair and all," he pointed towards Jazz.

"Excuse me, you think I have a big butt?" Jazz asked fiercely.

"Well, yeah. No, I mean. -- Anyway, she was walking on the other side of the street, and turned right at the real estate sign and that's the last I saw of her."

Jazz was left speechless. Sensing he had stepped in it, the caterer fled to the cab of his truck and got in and drove off.

"Tucker, what are you doing?" Sam whispered. Tucker had his head craned back looking at something behind Jazz.

"It doesn't look that big to me."

"This isn't about my butt." Jazz hissed through clenched teeth.

"I'm just saying around my family that wouldn't count as a big butt at all."

"Stop talking about my butt."

"I thought I was paying you a compliment," Tucker whined.

"Let's go back to the car," Sam suggested.

"My butt isn't big!"

"That's what I was saying," Tucker complained, "why is everybody down on me for saying that?"

He turned back towards the arcade.

"No, we're going to the real estate office," Jazz said and lead off the other way.

***

The real estate office was on the ground floor of a narrow two story building. It sat on the corner of the block and featured large plate glass windows looking both north and east. Extending south, beyond it, sloping down to the lakefront was a large area of factories and warehouses, now mostly closed and abandoned.

Jazz lead the way through the door. Inside the store was divided in two by a large, unoccupied secretary's desk. Chairs lined the walls in front of the windows. A table in the corner sported a pile of dog-eared magazine, the top one touting the 1998 new cars.

A bell had sounded when they entered and moments later a short, balding man came out from around a partition, a hopeful smile on his face. It wilted to a puzzled frown when he saw the three teen-agers in the waiting room.

"Can I help you kids?" he asked impatiently.

"We're looking for a woman who may have kidnaped my brother," Jazz began. "We know she went past here earlier today. We're wondering if she may be living in one of buildings in the industrial park?"

"Kidnaping? Shouldn't you be talking to the police," The short man asked in return.

""They don't taking missing person reports before 24 hours have passed." Jazz explained.

"But you say this is a kidnaping. I'd think they take that more seriously than just a missing person."

"There's no ransom note," Sam interjected, "so we can't prove that there's been a kidnaping. But if we can find the woman then we'd have all the evidence the police would need to come in and arrest her."

"But we just want to know a little about the factories in the industrial park. I assume you represent them?" Jazz added.

"Some," the balding man said. "Most. But how will this help you find this woman?"

"We think she lives here, so we're wondering if any of these building would be suitable for living quarters?"

Tucker leaned over to Sam, "When did we decide she lives here?" he whispered.

"Why else would she walk into an industrial park in the middle of the day?" Sam whispered back.

The realtor sighed, "These are factories. People worked there. They needed bathrooms and a breakroom, which would need some kind of kitchen facilities, plus whatever facilities the executives had so really, all of them would be suitable for living quarters though this area is not zoned 'residential' so it would be illegal to rent any of these building for living quarters."

"And she probably wouldn't tell you if she was going to live there either," Jazz thought out loud. "Have any of these buildings been rented in the last few months?"

"None that I represent, no. And if any had been rented I don't think that would be information I'd share with just anyone who walked in off the street. Now if you don't mind, I have work to do. Good-day." He stood there waiting for them to leave.

They stood outside on the corner for a moment considering their next move.

"Let's get the car," Sam finally suggested, "and cruise through the industrial park. Maybe we'll find something to indicate someone is living there."