Three
Clockwork's Tower
The Ghost Zone
Danny felt like he was going to be sick. They were picking their way through the debris in what used to be the entryway to Clockwork's Tower. Smoke was rising from the ruins, and in some places, a few remaining licks of blue and green flames could still be seen. Danny used his ice powers to put them out.
"What was this place?" Valerie asked. The only one among them who had never met Clockwork, nor seen his impressive Tower, she seemed to have an easier time finding her voice than the rest of them.
Tucker made a stab at answering. "It used to be this big, giant, clock thing. Clockwork watched over time from here. He had this sort of viewscreen that showed all these different times, and he had the power to make more wherever he wanted. You could even travel through them, like portals. But only if you were wearing one of those medallions."
"So if he could see any time, how did he not see this?"
Danny closed his eyes. That was the million-dollar question, wasn't it? The Observants look at time like they're watching a parade, Clockwork had told him once, referring to the creatures that were sort of the passive watchers of ghost activity in the Human World and supposedly Clockwork's "employers." One thing after another, passing by in sequence right in front of them. I see the parade from above. All the twists and turns it might—or might not—take. "He should have known. He doesn't just see one future; he sees… all the potential futures. There's just no way this should have happened. There's no way it could have happened."
"And yet…" Sam's voice sounded hollow.
"Where are the viewscreens anyway?" Tucker asked. "I don't see anything that looks liked wrecked tech."
Danny looked up to where half a wall of the Tower reached into the green mist above his head. "His main… control room, I guess, was up at the top, in the bell tower. It doesn't look safe up there, though. I don't think the staircase is even standing anymore."
Valerie looked at him like he'd lost his mind. "Hello. You can fly. I have a jet sled. The two of us can go check it out."
"Yeah, but really carefully. The Ghost Zone is kinda backwards from the Human World. You and Sam and Tuck can go intangible here, but I can't, not without changing back to human form. And I can't fly that high unless I'm in ghost form, so…" He looked up at the crumbled wall. "If the thing comes crashing down on me, I'll get buried under it."
"Don't be such a big baby, Phantom. Race you to the top." With a click of her heels, a black, rocket-powered sled formed under her feet. She kicked down on the throttle, and was off.
Danny sighed. Normally, he didn't mind Valerie's cat-and-mouse games. It was the leftover remnants of their days as adversaries, and there were parts of that he'd actually enjoyed. But right now, with everything as it was, his heart was too heavy in his chest for any banter to come. He kept picturing Clockwork and the strange way he'd mutate from buck-toothed child, to broad-chested young man, to gaunt old man with a flowing white beard. He was like a ghostly version of the New Year's Baby and Father Time all in one. But where was he? Had he escaped? If he had, wouldn't he have come for Danny himself rather than sending one of the Ancient Ones? And if he hadn't, what might they find up in the bell tower?
Suppressing a shudder, Danny flew up after Valerie and in through a gaping hole in the wall of the Tower where the face of the clock used to be. The bell was still there, although it was cracked and blistered from the flames and looked like it might fall at any moment. Along the part of the wall that was still standing was an empty pegboard from which used to hang more of Clockwork's medallions. There was a gear or two still in place, but most of them had fallen into the rubble below. There was no sign of the big portal/viewscreen through which Clockwork could both view and travel to any time and place he wished. There was also no sign of the time master himself, nor of the staff with the stopwatch on it that he could use to freeze, restart, and reset time.
"Nothing much up here," Valerie said.
"No," Danny agreed. "Whatever did this did a pretty thorough job. There's nothing left." He landed lightly on the floor and leaned his hand against a part of the wall that looked somewhat stable but, when he touched it, it zapped him with a sort of electrical shock. "OW!" He shook his hand out, trying to get the tingling out of his fingers.
"You okay?"
"Yeah. I just got shocked or something."
"Shocked? By what?"
"By the wall." He looked at it, frowning. "Why would the wall shock me?"
Valerie landed beside him and stepped off her sled. Tentatively, she reached out and touched the wall with her own gloved hand. "Hm. Whatever it is doesn't affect me."
"Could your gloves be protecting you? They are pretty…" He trailed off, not quite sure how to finish that sentence. Valerie's suit was just something he couldn't quite comprehend.
She shrugged, and without any warning, the suit disappeared in a swirl of pink light, leaving her standing in her street clothes. She looked oddly vulnerable like that, in the Ghost Zone without her battle armor. Touching the wall again, she shook her head. "Nothing." Another swirl of light brought the suit back.
"I wonder…" Danny morphed himself into human form, and touched the wall again. As soon as his hand made contact, he got another unpleasant zap. It wasn't quite as strong, but it was still enough to really hurt. "OW! Okay, so it affects me in human form, too. Note to self—stop touching the walls." He changed back into his ghost form. "Can we get out of here now?"
"Fine by me. There's nothing up here to see." She got back onto her sled, and the two of them returned to the ground level where Sam and Tucker were still picking their way through the wreckage trying to find any clue that would tell them what had happened here.
"Anything?" Tucker asked as Danny and Valerie alighted beside him. Valerie kicked her heels again, and her sled disappeared. One of these days, Danny decided, he was going to have to find Technus, the ghost who had created the suit out of the destroyed remains of an older version Vlad Masters had given her, and force him to explain exactly how the thing worked.
Danny shook his head. "No viewscreens, no medallions, no Clockwork. But there's something weird with the walls up there. Every time I touched them, I got shocked, kinda like what a Specter Deflector does. It didn't do anything to Valerie, but I got shocked whether I was in ghost form or human form, just like the Specter Deflector."
"I never did get that," Sam said. "Doesn't the Specter Deflector operate on the same principle as a Ghost Shield? You can walk through those just fine in human form."
Danny shrugged. "I dunno. I still have an ecto-signature, even in human form, but it's weaker. Maybe the Ghost Shield only affects strong ecto-signatures, but the Specter Deflector is more finely tuned? You'd have to ask my parents, though. On second thought, don't. If it isn't something simple like that, my mom will come up with some sort of series of experiments to run on me to figure out why they affect me differently."
"But why would the walls of Clockwork's Tower act like a Specter Deflector?" Tucker asked. "You never had any problems like that here before, did you?"
"Nope."
"Is it just the walls?"
"I don't know. I didn't really touch anything else."
Tucker bent down and picked up a bent piece of metal. It looked a little like part of a cog. "Think fast!" He tossed the chunk in Danny's direction.
Out of reflex, Danny reached out to catch the piece of metal, but as soon as it hit his hand, he got another shock. Dropping the chunk like it burned him, he shook his hand and glared at Tucker. "Thanks a lot!"
"So it's not just the walls. Everything from the tower is zapping you. Weird."
"No, wait. I was standing on the floor, and that was fine."
"Okay. So, the walls and cogs and junk from the tower zap you, but not the floor. Even weirder."
Sam bent down and picked up the cog piece again. She turned the chunk of metal over in her hand, studying it. "Remember when we first borrowed the Infi-Map and we went through that one portal into seventeenth century Salem, Massachusetts? Remember those blood blossoms they used to ward off spirits? Do you think it could be something like that?"
"I don't know. But the blood blossoms affected me even just being near me. It was like Superman with kryptonite. This only seems to be a problem if I touch it, like the Specter Deflector."
Sam waved the cog piece in his face. "Anything?"
"Hey! Stop that!" He batted her hand away, being careful not to touch the cog itself.
"Okay, so not like blood blossoms. Hey, what about these?" Sam held up her hand, and Danny saw two medallions hanging from it. "We found a couple medallions down here, but that's about it. Think they'll shock you, too?"
Danny folded his arms. "Okay, so is this a game now? I get to touch things just to see if they zap me into oblivion? I think I'll pass."
"We do need to know what's doing this and why," Valerie said.
"She's right, dude."
Danny scowled at them. "Great. Three against one." Annoyed, he grabbed the medallions from Sam's hand. Sure enough, he got another jolt and dropped them. "Happy?"
Tucker bent down and retrieved the medallions. "Okay. So we don't know what happened to Clockwork, most of the tech seems to be gone, and everything Danny touches shocks him. What does that mean?"
Danny looked around him. "I have no idea. What could have done this? And why?"
"Not sure about the what, but the why might be to control time," Sam suggested.
"The fact that all the tech is gone would support that theory." Tucker held up the two medallions in his hand. "Clockwork had dozens of these, but we only found two. Whoever did this must have wanted them and the viewscreen."
"Don't forget that 'time-out' staff of his." Sam hugged herself as she gazed up at the ruined tower. "But look at this place! It looks like a war zone! How could Clockwork have missed something this huge? About himself?"
Valerie put her hands on her hips. "Maybe that's just it. If he's some sort of time guardian, maybe he's so busy watching other people's pasts and futures, he couldn't see his own."
Danny frowned. "Maybe. But I'm not so sure whoever did this just wanted to control time. Clockwork was a pretty unique ghost. I don't think his time powers were all in the viewscreens or the medallions or even his staff. It doesn't seem like even with all that stuff, just anyone could control time."
"Let's hope not." Tucker put the medallions around his neck. "But maybe your mom can figure out why everything's zapping you."
"At least that's something," Danny agreed.
"Are we done here, then? 'Cause I'm about ready to get out of the Ghost Zone," Valerie said.
"Yeah, I guess there's nothing much more—hey, what's that?" Danny saw something on the ground near Sam's feet, glinting in the eerie green glow from the mist that swirled around them. "Do you guys see that?"
Sam nodded. "What is it?" She bent down and retrieved the object. "Looks like a shard of something that got blasted apart. Maybe they didn't take all the tech after all."
Tucker took the white and green piece of whatever it was from her and examined it. "This isn't Clockwork's; it's Fenton Works. It's part of a Fenton Thermos."
"A Fenton Thermos?" Danny looked at the piece back over Tucker's shoulder, but it was too small for him to tell what it was. "How can you tell?"
Tucker arched an eyebrow at him. "Please. Sam knows her creepy legends; I know my tech gear. That's part of the containment cell of a Fenton Thermos. Look." He pulled his backpack off his shoulders and dug out his own Thermos and held it next to the broken piece for comparison. The latter was twisted and bent, but Danny could tell that Tucker was right.
"That's weird. What would a Fenton Thermos be doing at Clockwork's Tower?"
Sam took the shard from Tucker and turned it over in her hands. "If it was ghosts who did this, maybe he was using it to fight back?"
"A Fenton Thermos?" Valerie looked skeptical. "If this ghost has all of time at his command, I don't think a Fenton Thermos would be the first thing he'd reach for."
Sam gave the piece of Thermos back to Tucker and crossed her arms. "Okay, then what do you think it's doing here?"
Danny didn't like the direction this was heading. Stepping in between the girls, he cut off further discussion. "It doesn't matter. There's nothing more to see here. Let's go."
The Ghost Zone
He watched the four children on Clockwork's huge, cog-shaped viewscreen, his lip curled in displeasure.
This was not good.
He'd made a critical error in allowing the Ancient One to escape. Granted, he'd been preoccupied at the time. Mere moments after she'd made her escape, a new and unexpected threat had arisen. He'd subdued this new opponent, although with a surprising amount of difficulty, and he still had no idea where it had come from and only an inkling of an idea who it might be or how he might use such a surprising creature for his own ends. But that was a puzzle for another day, when he'd unlocked more of the secrets of Clockwork's apparatuses. The more immediate problem was what the Ancient One had done. She'd seemed so insignificant at the time. A single ghost. What could she do?
A lot, apparently. Like warn the boy. Now he and his insipid friends not only knew that the Tower had fallen, but they'd found evidence that could lead them back to him. Not good. The one thing that was keeping them from figuring it all out just with what they already had was the fact that they were under the mistaken assumption that he was gone for good. That was the critical error that would cost them dearly.
And then there was Valerie's presence with them, which was unexpected. When exactly did she become his ally? She'd always hated ghosts, and him more than others. And now she was trooping around through the Ghost Zone with him? A lot had changed in the time he'd been gone.
This, at least, could work in his favor. Valerie had always been one of his favorite playthings. Putting her into the mix would make everything that much sweeter. But it was too early. He wasn't ready for them yet, and here the child already knew about Clockwork. If he started poking around the Ghost Zone now, it could ruin everything.
He looked at Clockwork's staff in his hand. Time. He should have all the time in the world—this one or the Human World. And yet, he'd only managed to master a few paltry parlor tricks. The time viewer, the medallions—none of it helped him actually see time, let alone control it. He'd need a few more days at least. Then maybe he'd have cracked enough of Clockwork's devices to manage a few well-placed illusions. It would be enough, but not if the child got curious too soon.
What he needed was a distraction; something that would keep the boy preoccupied so that the goings-on in the Ghost Zone wouldn't even be a blip on the radar.
All he needed was a little… time.