Duality

Part 1: Family


The Tragedy of the Flying Dutchman - Part 1


Mission Specialist's Personal Log,

We arrived at Amity Harbor with little to no incident yesterday. The trade goods were offloaded and we are in the midst of loading both mundane cargo and… other items reserved to the Flying Dutchman's private hold.

It really is too bad there wasn't more shore leave, but it was nice seeing Wes play. He seems to have grown at least an inch each time I see him, though I do question the juvenile athletics safety board's practice of allowing feral monsters to play sports.

Anyway, security cameras have been compromised around the pier, compliments of yours truly. The illicit nature of what's being loaded precludes a paper trail. That is and remains Priority One, even at the expense of the hold. We cast off down the Mississippi for Louisiana within the hour.


Duality


Jazz cursed herself over and over as she ran. The reason her dad and brother weren't acting like themselves was because they weren't themselves. She cursed herself again for not identifying the signs for what they were. (If she were in a more rational state of mind, she might realize that nothing short of witnessing it first-hand would've convinced her of ghosts, but now was certainly not the time for rational thought.)

Her 'brother' screamed her name as he chased her down the docks. Hitting him in the face with the cell phone had slowed him down or at least stalled him, but to her disadvantage the weeks of football had given him a running stamina she lacked.

And it goes without saying the inherent idiocy of using a phone as a projectile at the expense of being able to call for help hadn't turned things in her favor.

As it was, the impostor controlling her brother was gaining on her and Jazz was getting winded. She couldn't maintain her dwindling lead for much longer.

"Jazz, wait!"

She ignored him. There was a series of pallets loaded with crates and boxes near one of the larger boats. She veered toward the cargo, entering his blind spot.

"Come on, come on!" Jazz tried the lids for some of the larger boxes. The third one was the first that wasn't locked. She slipped in, and closed the lid after her. The styrofoam popcorn made for soft company. The large metal contraption that seemed to be this box's intended cargo did not. There was a knothole in the box, which was good. It would give her both a peephole and a source of oxygen. She concentrated on taking slow, deep breaths to further mask her presence. It was harder than it sounded since there was still adrenaline pumping through her veins and she had run more in the past few minutes than she had in the past six months. Her lungs screamed for more air.

"Jazz! Jazz, come back!" the fake continued to call.

Jazz peered through the hole. The thing possessing her brother was uncomfortably close. Point of fact: she had a clear view of the back side of his pants. Despite this, he didn't seem to be aware of how close he was to his mark.

Ignoring the protests from her lungs, Jazz refused to breathe.

If she was lucky, he'd think he missed her, then she could slip away and get to mom before things got more out of hand.

"Jazz, I know you're here somewhere. Please come out, I just want to talk."

Dammit.

"It's not what you think." There was a pause. "Or maybe it is… I'm not really sure. But I'm not going to hurt you. I promise," 'Danny' called out.

It wouldn't matter what the monster said; Jazz was going to hear nothing of it. The lack of light made it difficult, and lack of room did too, for that matter, but Jazz felt around the popcorn pellets, hoping to find something solid she could defend herself with. The large metal contraption was not practical, but maybe there were other things in here too.

Her silent rummaging was momentarily paused when through her spy hole she caught sight of blue mist flowing out of her brother's mouth.

Then it was more permanently put on hold when her crate suddenly gave and tilted as it rose into the air.

"BEWARE!" a loud, unfamiliar voice bellowed.


Duality


Maddie collapsed to the floor.

Vlad, still possessing Jack's body, tightly clutched the crowbar used to strike her down. He gave an experimental kick to her side. Satisfied, he slid over a box and sat on it.

He waited.

"Hmm… I wonder how long it'll take for your ghost to manifest?" He clapped and rubbed his stolen hands like a child ready to open a Christmas gift. "Truth be told… I've never been responsible for the death of a human being before. Well… that's not totally true I suppose, but those were… extenuating circumstances… You could say I had a hand in severing young Daniel's mortal coil."

Maddie's eyes shot open. She spun on the floor. Taking advantage of Jack's higher center of gravity she aimed for his feet, knocking him backwards.

When Vlad came back to, Maddie was gone. But a trail of blood betrayed her location.

"Ho ho… I should've known you wouldn't make this too easy, Maddie. Why don't we make this interesting with a locked room murder mystery?" He left Jack's body, turned invisible, and flew off to secure the rest of the warehouse.

"Oooooh, EEEEeeeeeeuahhhhhhgh. Why do I hurt so much!? And where AM I?" cried the suddenly very confused Jack Fenton.


Duality


"I AM THE BOX GHOST! AND I SHALL LIBERATE ALL THINGS CARDBOARD AND SQUARE FROM THE UTILITARIAN WHIMS OF MAN!"

"Look, Boxy, I don't really have time for this. Can you please go be weird somewhere else? Now is not a good time," Danny tried to dismiss the ghost as he looked on, ill at ease with the floating crates.

The Box Ghost looked down from his floating arsenal of stolen cubes.

"Who is this puny child who pretends to be grand enough to wield authority over none other than The Box Ghost?"

Danny muttered something under his breath along the terms of hang nails having enough authority, but aloud he declared, "Danny. Danny Plasmius. Now, I'm kind of busy here so could you please please please put those things back down?"

"Danny Plasmius?" Jazz whispered from within her levitating hiding place.

The Box Ghost laughed.

"You cannot be young Plasmius—you are far too alive and living to be he."

"You do realize you used two synonyms and the wrong form of the pronoun in that sentence, right?" Danny chided.

"It is of no importance! For I have a schedule to keep and boxes to liberate!" The Box Ghost lifted his arms and the crates trailed after him, spinning and tumbling in the air.

Jazz cried out when the weighty machine she was hiding with tumbled onto her.

"Jazz!"

Ignoring Danny's outburst, The Box Ghost and his boxes crossed onto the river, boarded a cargo ship, and entered the hold. Screams of frightened, underpaid sailors echoed across the marina.

Danny ran after them but skidded to an abrupt stop when he reached the end of the dock. He quickly double-checked his powers. The omnipresent elastic sensation confirmed he couldn't de-possess the body he was occupying, and a brief jump in the air reconfirmed that, if he even could fly in this form at all, that he wasn't going to be airborne in the next 20 seconds.

The boat was approaching the river's mouth. No one could possibly keep up with a boat on foot, especially once it started heading down stream. He'd need to come up with something quick.

An idea struck him… and he prayed it would work. Danny slowly backed up, then sprinted to the end of the dock. He leapt into the air and turned his body intangible as he struck the water.

The gambit paid off, he was torpedoing towards the boat. It wasn't flying, not really. He couldn't alter his altitude or even steer. But when turning intangible, the laws of physics acted… a little bit differently.

An object in motion, according to Newton's first law, tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. While intangible, there are no outside forces (most of the time), so inertia can finally tell off friction.

(Though it wouldn't be a smart idea to use this cheat to get airborne. Well, the getting airborne part technically wouldn't be a problem: just jump and let inertia take you the rest of the way. It was the landing part without a means of slowing down that would either leave you a pancake on the sidewalk or see you continuing on and launching yourself into space.)

When Danny phased through the lower hull, he reactivated his tangibility and inelegantly belly-flopped onto the deck.

"Oooh…" he moaned.

When he reopened his eyes, it was to a somewhat familiar form of chaos: red warning lights blinking and klaxons blaring. Sailors were running around yelling as cargo moved itself. Danny dusted himself off and spotted The Box Ghost summoning more boxes and crates into his swirling square maelstrom.

Apparently, the observation was mutual.

"You!" The Box Ghost exclaimed.

"Yes, yes. Me. You. Us. Them. Whatever." Danny waved his arm dismissively. "Look, there's been a mistake. There's a girl trapped in one of your flying boxes. I just want to leave with her. No confrontation, no fighting. You can keep your boxe-"

But he never got to finish that sentence. "Anything that is inside a box is the property of the box! And anything box or boxlike is under the protection of The Box Ghost! BEWARE!"

And with that, The Box Ghost threw his finger like an objecting lawyer and a crate went crashing in its direction. Danny yelped as the crate smashed where his feet had been mere seconds earlier.

"BEWARE!" The Box Ghost echoed, sending another crate at Danny, then another. Danny ducked and rolled and dashed as debris rained from above. Some boxes exploded on contact, while the contents of others lodged themselves into the floor. The cargo ship rocked and its metal hull rang loudly as it poorly endured the punishment it was never built to take.


Duality


Maddie gritted her teeth as she hobbled to the open door. But just as she was about to reach the opening, the door closed of its own volition. Then the distinct sound of a latch from the other side being turned followed. Maddie quickly grabbed for the door, but the handle refused to budge.

"Hello!? Maddie? Are you in here?"

Maddie bit her tongue, careful not to make a sound. She slipped away behind towering shelving as she made her way to the next door. This door repeated the actions of the last. It closed and locked itself.

"Oh GOD, is that blood!? Hello!?"

Maddie self-consciously looked down at herself. Splotches of blood trailed behind her, and a sizable pool was forming at her feet. The impact from the crowbar to her right arm was overwhelmingly painful; the light-headedness from the blood loss was barely registering. She found a secluded spot to hide, then tore and knotted her hazmat suit to better stem the bleeding.

"He-hello?! Madds? Danny? Jazz? Anyone?"

He was getting closer.

Maddie looked up. There were no windows in the warehouse, unless you counted the skylight. Just three doors, one each on the north, south and east sides. An additional large vehicular door occupied the south, but it was also closed and Maddie didn't see a control switch.

Maddie reviewed her options. She could stay here in her hiding spot. But the blood splatter trail would lead Jack back to her eventually. She could relocate, but with Jack being as close as his voice indicated he was, the motion might betray her presence.

She decided to readjust her makeshift bandages. Maddie might not be able to stop the bleeding all together, but if she could further prevent runoff it would remove at least one disadvantage and then she could relocate.

Her mind wandered as she tightened her knots. Jack killed Danny? But… why? Why was he trying to kill her too?

"Oh Maddie! What happened to you!?" Jack cried out when he poked into her hiding spot.

Maddie gave the perfect impersonation of a deer staring at the headlights of a barreling Mack truck.


Duality


Wilma kicked in the door to the bridge. A regrettable action, since having only one foot down on the deck when the cargo vessel was rocking wildly caused her to lose her balance and collide with the railing outside.

"Report!"

The helmsman looked up, "Ma'am, you're not allowed in he-"

"Cut the bureaucrap. There's some flying, glowing lunatic throwing the cargo around like a five year old having a tantrum-"

The vessel suddenly lurched starboard, knocking the feet out from below both adults. The helmsman flailed on the wheel as Wilma's face met with the dashboard.

She pulled her hair out of her face and continued speaking.

"And you're worried about some damn thing like protocol?"

The helmsman rolled his eyes. "You know about as much as I do! Now either get make yourself useful or stay out of my way!" He returned to the radio while pointing at a box on the wall. "Mayday! This is the cargo vessel: Flying Dutchman. Repeat! Mayday! Requesting emergency assistance."

Displeased, Wilma reached into the wall-mounted box and grabbed the emergency flare gun and loaded the red parachute magazine. She saw herself out and fired the distress marker high into the sky.

The illumination from the glowing flare cast an eerie glow in the night sky.

But what really gave Wilma pause was now revealed. Cast in the flare's blood red glow were a series of massive 40-foot steel shipping containers floating menacingly in the air.

She didn't have time to wonder at or fear the revelation, because they soon launched themselves one by one at the Flying Dutchman.

She ran back to the bridge just before the deck became the wall, and the poor vessel continued on to capsize.


Duality


"YEAAAAAAGH!"

Danny crouched as he landed on one of the large, floating steel shipping containers. The sudden impact of his weight drove the canister to bob in the air like a raft on a lake.

A red flare shot up into the air nearby.

There was a loud crash as the steel box he was just on barreled into the ship. The gradual shift in motion told Danny that the one he was currently crouching on would be next.

Reclaiming his momentum, he ran across the roof and leapt off it to the next one. He steeled himself as he landed on the floating container and continued to run towards the next.

Jazz poked her head through the lid of her crate. She was floating only a couple of yards behind The Box Ghost. She tightened her grip on the small, yet hefty, motor she found.

The Box Ghost took no notice, as he was too busy sequentially launching crates and containers out from underneath Danny, cackling with glee as the ghost child struggled to stay ahead of his mobile fate.

In what would be reflected on as a poorly-thought-out plan, Jazz threw the motor at the back of The Box Ghost's head. It hit spot-on and dazed the coverall-clad specter.

… And the moment he was struck, The Box Ghost's will over the boxes was severed. All at once, the airborne cubes and rectangles plummeted.

"JAZZ!" Danny screamed.

He dashed and leapt off the steel shipping container in the direction of the hurtling crate.

Jazz gasped as she caught sight of him. She grabbed another small machine and threw it at the creature possessing her brother jumping at her.

Danny cringed as the metal object flew at him and turned intangible. He phased through the makeshift weapon and continued on to phase into the crate. Without slowing down, he flickered his intangibility just enough to latch onto Jazz and phase them both through the other side of the crate and finally regained tangibility once they cleared.

Jazz kicked, screamed, and clawed at Danny as they collided with the Mississippi.


Duality


"My God, Maddie. What—?" Jack asked legitimately confused.

Maddie was about to scramble, run, fight—her survival instincts and training all rushing to take command…

…But a thought in the back of her head crept forward. The doors all closed as you approached them. They weren't automatic, they were manual. Jack's out-of-character behavior. The locked-down building. She was a paranormal scientist; how had she missed the signs?

Oh god.

Some ghost was using Jack.

Acting on impulse, she pulled the Fenton Thermos out of the satchel with the equipment to show at the meeting and pointed it at Jack.

She flipped the switch and a brilliant blue and white beam blasted out of the can and Jack covered his face in defense.

Above, Vlad watched Maddie assault her husband with the ghost catching beam, a cruel grin plastered his face.

Jack waddled around then collapsed to the ground in a daze.

"Jack? Are you-"

"Oh no no no no." Vlad waved his pointer finger 'no' in tempo in a mock condescending form. "We can't have that," he said to himself from high above. Still invisible he dived back down and possessed Jack.

"You know, I never did truly love you," said 'Jack'. This was a complete lie. But so long as Vlad was posing as Jack, it would certainly be worth his time to burn a few of Jack's bridges.

Maddie threw a punch at Jack and scrambled out of her hiding place in the confusion. But Vlad had released Jack just before the punch would connect.

"Grrraaaaah, Maddie? Why!?" Jack cried as he clutched his broken nose. He stumbled as he chased after his wife.

He didn't get very far before Vlad re-entered his body.


Duality


Jazz hacked and coughed up water as Danny dragged her to shore.

"Hey, are you okay?" he asked.

Jazz coughed up more water, then slowly turned to look at the creature in front of her. "I'm… fine."

Then she jumped at Danny, wrapping her fingers -tightly- around his neck as he fell backwards onto the shore. "But I can't say the same for my brother, now can I? Who are you, really? I want the truth."

Danny cringed. "I… I'm not your brother. My name is-"

"I don't care about your name. Is Danny still in there? MY Danny."

The ghost child's eyes glazed over. "I'm… I'm sorry."

"*Bluuuurb* Help!"

Jazz and Danny both turned their heads back to the river. About half a dozen sailors were drifting in the river. Not all of them had life vests on.

Overhead, The Box Ghost cackled in glee, "I told you all to beware The Box Ghost and his awesome powers over three dimensional parallelograms. And now, me and my rectangular holders of doom shall finish the job!"

He threw both his arms forward and screamed "BEWARE!"

But nothing happened.

The Box Ghost looked left and right in confusion. There were no boxes heeding his commands. There were no boxes left to heed his will. "It appears you shall live another day. But you shall BEWARE The Box Ghost when I shall have my rectangular vengeance on behalf of all the lost boxes today!" With a final parting "BEWARE" he flew off in the direction of the city.

"*Gasp* Heeellpp!"

Danny looked Jazz in the eyes. "We can… I'll tell you everything… but not now. I'm sorry about this."

He turned intangible and phased through her. Jazz fruitlessly swung and tried to regain her grip. Danny dashed back into the water with Jazz yelling after him.

Once Danny was far enough along, he used the 'torpedo' trick to launch himself away.

Jazz slowed to a halt knee-deep in the river, as the form of her brother made off faster than she could reason, much less pursue.

Her dad was overshadowed and trying to kill her mom, and another spook just ran off in front of her after having pursued her. Her body went numb and her knees buckled from the stress. She pulled herself back up and trudged back to shore.

"It's alright. Stay with us."

Jazz turned around at the all-too-familiar voice with the unfamiliar owner. 'Danny' was back and had a half-drowned sailor slung over his shoulders. They made it to shore and Danny laid him down before diving back into the water, this time sending himself to the ship.

Jazz was mad, confused, and more than a little shaky. But, she turned her attention back to the sailor.

"Hey, are you alright?" she asked.

The man hacked, "I'll be fine… physically." The man shivered as he clutched his forehead. "Oh god, how am I going to explain what happened tonight? WHAT even happened?"

By this point a trio of sailors returned, two with life vests aiding a third without. One made a phone call while the other tried to wring out her clothes. The third merely grasped for breath.

Danny, meanwhile, was half way back paddling with another half-drowned woman. "This is everyone… I think. Another woman made it to the other shore."

The most coherent sailor took a silent roll call pointing at everyone present and frowned.

"That's not everyone. Oh god, the rest must still be onboard."

Without hesitation, Danny turned and ran back into the river.

"Hey kid! Leave that to the emergency crews, kid! KID!" the sailor's words echoed as the ghost child dove into the water, heading to the sunken Flying Dutchman.

"The kid's got to have a death wish, trying to play hero."

Jazz, at a complete loss of what else she could do, clicked her tongue at the ironic word choice.


Duality


Wilma slammed her fist into the door of the bridge. It refused to budge. Countless gallons of water weighed on the door, holding it firmly in place. It was simultaneously a curse and a blessing. The forces trapping them in the bridge were also holding the air in. How long they could continue to breathe their own carbon dioxide was another problem altogether.

She turned her attention back to the helmsman. He'd knocked himself out hitting his head hard on the shelf when the Flying Dutchman capsized. The med-kit was strewn all over the ceiling, which was currently acting as the floor. The gauze she had wrapped around his head was starting to turn red again. The bleeding was slowing, thankfully. Wilma took the binding off him and began wrapping the fresh gauze. She couldn't keep changing his dressing indefinitely. This was the third time she'd done this and there wasn't that much left to the roll of gauze.

She was probably doing it wrong, but she was essentially an over-glorified courier and scientist, not a medic.

"Any port in a storm," Wilma said to herself dryly, vaguely satisfied with her handiwork.

Brushing herself off as she got up, Wilma frowned. The contents of the private hold were… incriminating… to say the least. Illegal and of suspect morals were more good ways to describe them. There wasn't much that could be done about the minimal paper trail from where she was trapped, at least not beyond the one laptop that was already crudely smashed at her feet. That wasn't even accounting for the physical evidence still sitting in the private hold, though.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when a black-haired teenager fell into the bridge.

"WHAT THE?!"

The boy, who looked like a drowned rat, pulled himself off the upside-down ceiling, "I'll make this quick: My name's Danny, and I'm here to help you escape."

"… Danny…"

The name sounded familiar in the recent sense.

Before Wilma had the chance to question it, Danny had wrapped his arms around the helmsman and dragged him to the edge of the room. He squatted and steeled himself before they both phased though the wall into the open river.

Wilma forced herself not to think too hard on what she just saw. She was too lucid to be hallucinating. An Agatha Christie quote, 'the impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances,' seemed particularly applicable.

And getting into the inaccessible private holds just became possible in spite of appearances.

While she mostly occupied her mind with how exactly she could pull it off, Wilma did briefly hope the helmsman wasn't submerged for too long. Unconscious people are not known for strategically holding their breath.


Duality


Jazz sat at the river's edge watching things unfold. The creature controlling her brother cried out for help after he surfaced clutching a limp sailor. 'Danny' was looking more and more exhausted, but never actually winded, with each trip he made. He paddled partway with the man to the riverside, where he was met by a couple of sailors who took the man off him before turning around and diving back into the dark, cold waters.

It just didn't make any sense. Why would he be trying to kill her and Mom one second then go through such strain to save these sailors the next? The number of rescued people went beyond a good-publicity scheme.

Guilt for putting them in danger in the first place wasn't the answer. Premeditated first degree murder necessitated more morals be suppressed than manslaughter did.

Jazz mumbled under her breath, "Think, Jazz, think. You're a psychologist in training. You can reason your way through this." She willed herself to discard her emotions and think this out rationally.

"Danny and Dad are both possessed. When did they start acting strange?"

Jazz mentally gave herself pause. Dad was perpetually strange. Perhaps 'out of character' was a better question.

"Dad got really irritable today. But did it start today? Yesterday he was uncharacteristically thoughtful and made breakfast. But the two moods were so different. Were they even connected?" Jazz was about to accept that Dad was possessed sometime this morning, when she remembered that Dad took her advice and decided not to contaminate breakfast with Mom's ecto experiment. Sixteen years of experience told her Dad would never turn down a chance to reanimate breakfast.

"The night before, a ghost had invaded the house. It might be connected. Danny got the portal working then. That was probably how it got here."

Jazz's heart sank as she imagined her brother turning on the portal and being rewarded with having his free will severed by the first ghost that came through.

But not just any ghost, the spirit possessing her brother addressed The Box Ghost as 'Danny Plasmius'. The fact that it shared the same name as her deceased infant half-brother didn't sound like a coincidence.

But there was one other person who was dead with the Plasmius name, someone who would reasonably be in cahoots with a 'Danny Plasmius'.

"Vlad Plasmius."

But why? Why murder?

If Mom did kill them both as Jazz suspected, then this is…

Jazz's eyes widened and her pupils dilated at the continuing train of thought.

"Oh god. This is… this is unfinished business: a revenge killing."


Duality


The crowbar scraping on the concrete echoed in the warehouse. Sure, not dragging the metal rod would've been stealthier and made it easier to sneak up on Maddie, but Vlad liked the sound. The reverberation alone was sinister and ominous. He could only imagine in delight the terror that might fill Maddie's heart with her 'Jack' on the prowl for her corpse.

He would have his family again, and he would get his happily ever after. But loath as he was to admit it, Maddie was loyal to the oaf. It was perhaps her only flaw…

…But that could easily be fixed.

He snickered, "Come on out, Maddie. Let's talk this out." He struck the crowbar against a shelving unit. Its contents smashed to the ground.

"Come on… let's all head home and have some butter biscuits. You like those, don't you?" He hooked the crowbar on the leg of another set of shelving and pulled. The whole thing toppled and crashed.

"We can gather around the kitchen table and discuss our feelings… Do you know what I'm feeling, Maddie? I'm feeling lonely. Why don't you come on out and I can give you a biiiiiiig hug… Why… I could just squeeze you to death."

Something small fell to the floor a bit behind him and made a small noise as it bounced, possibly a washer.

Maddie was probably baiting him. Vlad knew this. Vlad also didn't care.

… Because whatever trap he was walking into, he would enjoy with the full knowledge that it would be Jack who took the fall.

"Oh. What's this?" Vlad clapped Jack's hands to his face in mock surprise. Just inside his peripheral vision, Vlad caught sight of the teal-clad woman with her foot outstretched and airborne.

Vlad smiled as he released Jack from his control just before Maddie's foot made contact with Jack's face. Then, after Jack got knocked back, he resumed control, grabbed Maddie by both her legs and swung her into a wooden crate.

"What's the matter, Maddie? I thought you loved me? Is this what you do to people you love? How primitive."

He picked up the crowbar and threw it at her. Maddie gasped and dodged at just the right moment. The metal rod embedded itself in the crate and wavered an inch from her face.

Maddie lunged back into the fray and jabbed at Jack, hitting all the pressure points in range. The bulky man slumped to the ground, unconscious.

Vlad poked his head out invisibly from Jack's back.

"Tsk tsk tsk. Must we really keep doing this?" He slid back in, but Jack's body was unable to heed his commands. It was no matter. He could still work with this.

Vlad removed himself from Jack. Maddie sat by a nearby wall in outstanding distress, watching with complete paranoia of her husband lying limp on the floor.

And who was Vlad to disappoint her? He duplicated himself a few times, each duplicate grabbed hold of a limb, and they made themselves a Jack Fenton marionette. The human rag doll threw itself at the unsuspecting Maddie.


Duality


"Good, so I'm not hallucinating." Wilma flatly stated when the exhausted teen fell into the room for a second time.

"… It's that or it means I still am." She shrugged. "Either way, I'm not picky."

Danny replied by means of violently coughing up water. Wilma extended a hand and helped Danny up.

"You know… *hack* you're the first person to not pass out when they see me come through. … Well, assuming they weren't unconscious in the *cough* first place."

Wilma shrugged, "It takes a bit to weird me out. You should see my husband make 'tacos'. One of the ingredients: Chocolate bean dip."

Danny raised his finger and opened his mouth but paused. There wasn't really any point in talking about the Fentons' idea of 'cooking'. Instead, he just leaned against the wall in fatigue. "… Yeah, I can see how that's a bit weird."

The Flying Dutchman creaked ominously, returning the pair to the crisis at hand. "Come on, let's get out of here before things get really ugly."

Danny reached for Wilma's hand, but she slipped it out before Danny could grab hold. Danny gave a 'hey, what gives?' expression. But Wilma just held a finger up in silence.

"I'm assuming…" she started, "that if you can get us through walls, you could get into other parts of the ship…"

"Well yeah… I mean, I'm kind of doing that already trying to get everyone out of this sunken death trap," Danny replied, unsure of where this conversation was headed.

"Good, good. Then I need you to get me into a certain area of the Flying Dutchman. There's some… things I need to take care of," Wilma replied.

Danny shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I was actually in the middle of something really uh… important before all this happened."

Not good not good not good.

Wilma kneeled down and put her hands on Danny's shoulders. "Listen, I shouldn't be telling you this, but unless I can get into the hold, sinking is going to be the least of our problems. This boat will go flippin' nuclear unless I can disarm it," she lied.

The story had the intended effect. Danny went from impatient to somber and slightly incredulous.

"Are you serious?" he finally replied.

Wilma reached for her wallet and flipped her badge.

"Nuclear Physicist: Wilma W. Weston. At your service." The badge actually read 'Bioengineering Dept. ~ Chief Specialist', but Wilma folded the object away before Danny could read it… not that anyone ever did. Badges themselves manifest authority and power, and their owners are extensions of that.

"Alright… I'll help. Just… um which way do we need to go?" Danny studied his feet. His shoes were drenched and had a gross film from the river on them. "I, uh, can't exactly steer once we cross the barrier."

Wilma raised an eyebrow. That might explain the complete lack of grace with each entry. But rather than say that, she carefully picked up the formerly framed photo of the ship while it was in dry dock. "The hold where the disaster is waiting is about…" she dragged her finger on the photo, "here."

Danny looked over her shoulder, "Which would make it somewhere in this direction?" He pointed up somewhat angularly at the 'floor'.

"Yes, that's right… but before we go…" Wilma reached up to the cabinet inverted on the ceiling and rummaged until she found a handheld spotlight. "Alright. I'm ready."

Danny took her hand then stopped.

"You're seriously not weirded out by all this? I mean I just came through the walls… twice."

Wilma clutched her forehead.

"Kid, if we don't act soon, the river is going to light up and we're going to have one of the worst non-wartime disasters on our hands. I can afford to have a meltdown after I've prevented this one." The latter half was mostly true anyways.

Danny waved his free hand in a 'calm down' manner. "Okay-okay-okay… just a heads up, it'll tingle a little."

Before Wilma could question what he meant by that, Danny jumped and toggled their tangibility. She held her breath on reflex as they passed through the floor above them. Tingle didn't even begin to describe it. It was like taking a shower with vigorously vibrating cotton balls instead of water. It didn't tickle per se, but there was a distinct, if vague, sense of touch that coursed through her. In the brief moment after the floor passed through her stomach, she questioned if there were any side effects to passing her brain through several inches of metal.

And from there, she had the horrific thought of the floor getting stuck through her brain.

She didn't panic. There simply wasn't enough time to.

"Brace yourself," Danny warned. (Which begged the question of how he was able to talk normally while underwater.)

They passed up through the final floor, once they were clear, Danny dropped the intangibility and the pair landed in a heap. Wilma greedily took lungfuls of air. She probably should've checked if the pitch black room wasn't filled with water first, but thankfully it wasn't.

But no, that first part wasn't exactly true. Two dim green blinking lights interrupted the infinite darkness. They weren't in the hold the last time she was here. Wilma turned on her handheld spotlight and pointed it at the lights…

"AAAAAAAUUUGH"

…which immediately earned her a scream in her ears.

Danny recoiled back and viciously rubbed his eyes. "Ma'am! Watch where you point that thing! GAAAAH"

Wilma apologized. "Sorry, sorry. Do you by any chance wear special contacts?"

"No? My vision's just fine. Why?" Danny replied as he rolled over in a ball of agony.

"Nothing. Just wondering, that's all."

The private hold was a large, sealed-off, airtight steel room. About two dozen human-sized pods lay in various states of disarray on the ground. Capsizing continued to make Wilma's job difficult.

It certainly was unplanned, and certainly an accident, but Wilma wasn't one to turn a gift horse in the mouth. With Danny temporarily blinded and rubbing his eyes, Wilma reached into her pocket and pulled out her PDA and plugged it into the terminal of one of the least damaged pods that had tumbled onto the floor, né ceiling. A cracked and partially inverted screen came to life. She copied her files over.

The sound of muted but the distinct sound of emergency sirens outside gave Wilma pause. Danny noticed them too. The ambulances had finally arrived. The police couldn't be far behind. She silently cursed the scenario. Getting trapped on the bridge had postponed this act of anti-incrimination sabotage far too long. Under more ideal circumstances, she'd have been done by now.

Wilma eyed her PDA while turning it off then looked at the boy who was just now standing up. She couldn't leave… not yet… there were far too many pods that needed to run the purge script, but perhaps she could subtly use him to unknowingly smuggle some evidence out.

It was then that she put two and two together on where she heard the name 'Danny' before… and the gears in her head turned…

"This is going to take some time. You should go," Wilma nonchalantly suggested as she clacked at the keyboard.

"But-"

"No buts. You're being here doesn't do anyone any good. Particularly if there are more people trapped in this rust bucket," Wilma scolded.

That had the intended effect. Danny switched from being still vaguely disoriented to something more aware and concerned. He nodded in understanding and turned to dive to the next trapped compartment.

"I'll be back for you when I'm done," Danny promised.

"Much obliged," Wilma replied.

Now for the hook…

Danny steeled himself before he dove when Wilma interrupted him, "Wait… Are you by any chance friends with my son, Wesley?"

Danny blinked at the question and broke from his pose. "Friends might be a bit too strong of a word…"

"He talks a lot about you, you know."

If Danny was expecting the conversation to go anywhere, that wasn't it.

"… He does?"

"Yes." There was a sanguine pause before Wilma added, "Mostly by yelling at the top of his lungs about how you're some evil ghost planted in the school. And how everyone's too incompetent or blind to see that fact, especially when you're using 'supernatural' abilities."

Danny paused.

"And you believed him? It would explain how collected, relatively, you were when you first saw me come through the wall…"

Wilma laughed so hard her spit became projectile.

"Phwahahaha. Oh man, are you kidding?! Of course I didn't believe him. The boy's got such an overactive imagination, he totally gets it from his father's side."

Danny's face turned incredulous.

She chuckled.

"He says he's going to 'make it his mission to expose you.' Ah, such youthful spunk. Hehe aaahhhh," she wiped a tear of hysterics from her face, "guess that makes me the fool for not believing him." She tussled Danny's hair. "Well, mostly. You're certainly not evil."

Danny gave his best teenage glare at Wilma as he patted his hair back but was secretly somewhat appreciative of the last statement.

… somewhat.

Wilma reached into her pocket and removed her badge and held it and the PDA out to Danny.

"Do me a favor: I travel a lot and this job will see me in Louisiana by the end of the week. Can you see to it that these get to Wes? I doubt he'll be crossing paths with me before then. I forgot to give them to him at the game."

Danny stared at the items. "Don't you need your badge, though?"

"Eh, HQ's going to be giving me a new one down south anyway." It wouldn't be a lie. They'd have no choice but to re-issue one if she 'lost' it.

Wilma was about to add a bogus sob story about the sentimental value of the badge for Wes, when Danny spoke up.

"If I do… would you promise not to tell anyone about me? I mean… once you get back, because you obviously are because I'll be coming back for you."

Wilma gave a sly grin.

"Don't tempt fate kid, but I'll keep that promise only if you promise not to repeat to anyone what's in this hold."

"It's a deal then."

Danny placed his hand on the items in Wilma's right and she clasped her other hand over Danny's and shook.

He then pocketed the PDA and badge and took off into the watery abyss.

"Well now…" Wilma extended her arms forward and cracked her knuckles, "Let's see how well I work under pressure." She humorlessly laughed at her own joke as she copied her purge program over the small local network to the very illegal cloning pods as their contents dissolved.


Wvzgs rh mlg ornrgvw gl lirtrmzo xszizxgvih.


A portion of this chapter was inspired by the rather gut wrenching short story Intangible Tears by Agent Malkere. Saying anything about this Valerie- and Danny-centric fic will likely ruin the effect reading it might have, so I'll simply beg you to go and read one of the best short stories hidden here in the archives of FanFiction.

Part 1 is almost done. So to celebrate, we think it'd fun to try something slightly interactive. We'll tell you what that is next update.

See ya on the 29th.