A/N: Finally! An up-date! XD :)

Chapter Ten

Clap

Buzzing. That stupid buzzing sound coming form the corner of the large, vast white/gray room. It was coming form a light bulb incased inside what looked like a gray, metal grill. Violet eyes scanned around the room, looking at the mirror-like glass to her right that stretched about five feet across and three feet high about two feet above the ground. Eyes narrowed, knowing who stood watching beyond that glass.

"I'll ask again," came the husky voice. Sam turned towards the voice. Valerie sat there, out of her ghost hunting uniform. She figured Sam had figured out it was her behind the clear, red glass that covered her face. She stood and pounded one hand on the table in front of her. "Why were you with Phantom? Who is he? What were you doing?"

Sam tried to tug her hands free of the cuffs that bound them, never taking her angry violet eyes off of Valerie's pale green orbs. "Sam, answer me!" Valerie growled, slamming her hands on the desk now. Her voice lowered into a dangerous tone, her eyes narrowed. "And answer me with the truth, Manson!"

"I already told you," Sam snarled, baring her teeth to show she meant business just as much as Valerie did. "I was there to investigate on my own about the whole murder. Phantom showed up, and I decided to help him clear his name!" She slouched in her chair again, refusing to look at Valerie and staring at the pale, white ground.

She heard Valerie sigh and begin to pace, her feet clicking against the ground. Sam frowned. Before she knew it, the head-ache working up behind her eyes had turned into a stinging sensation, and her expression softened. "Valerie, please," she said, closing her eyes, then turning to her. Valerie stopped and stared at her, nose high in the air. Sam opened her eyes and kept down a sob. "Please, Valerie, let him go. He didn't do anything," she whispered, shaking her head. "He's innocent. I know it...I know-"

"You know nothing," Valerie snapped, causing Sam to blink her eyes, sparkling droplets of salty tears springing into the air at the quick movement of lashes. "Phantom isn't telling us anything! He's not telling us he's the killer, but he's not saying he isn't either." Sam inhaled sharply, enarly gasping. "All he's telling us is that he wants a chance. How are we supposed to take that? How are we supposed to know if he's admitting to the crime, or telling us he doesn't know who it is?"

"Just trust him, Valerie!" Sam shouted all of a sudden, scowling. "Just like you would have trusted Danny, you trust him! Phantom's just like any other guy! He's got his problems, he's got his ups and downs!" Her voice trembled. With anger or from her tears, Valerie knew not which. "At least...at least let me see him. Please."

Valerie stared at her for a long while before making up her mind.

A bubble. Of all things it had to be a glass bubble. Wow...to think the Guys in White got his motehr's help for this.

Danny was lying down inside his glass container, obviously everything but interested in what the the people dressed in white yards from the encased halfa were saying to each other. He could hear them just fine and he, for one, didn't care about the "what an interesting ghost he is!" comments they were sending his way. All he knew was that they'd taken him and Sam to the Guys in White head quarters and there he found his moethr finishing up this stupid machine that was deemed "Ghost proof" and that they'd asked him a few questions which he had failed to answer because he was worried about Sam. Were they interrogating her? What kind of story had she come up with? He didn't know. And he didn't want to blow it. So at the end of the questionare, all he asked for was a chance to set things right. He didn't know how they took it, but it was better than switching this baby on and frying him...

...or whatever the heck this thing did.

Danny fiddled with a few more stray locks of silver hair in his face boredly, then blew at them, only to have them land back down onto his nose. He sighed exasperatedly and crossed his arms, stoic on the outside but frozen on the inside. He still wondered about Sam. had they let her go already? Are they keeping her under custody or what? And even more, he wondered what they'd done with their newly acquired evidence and the sort. They'd taken his utility belt and Sam's prior to splitting them apart. He could see his belt draped over a chair near the edge of the room he was in. So far they hadn't come to search through the items inside the pockets.

He sighed again and stared up at where the bubble was had a metal plate with what looked like wires and cables attached. The wires and cables were then trailed form the metal plate all the way up to the ceiling and then down to the wall to what looked like a generator. There, the control panel held a small keypad with numbers on it and a small screen and dial right under it. Danny figured the keypad was for a type of password to either let him out to lock him in and the dial with numbers was some sort of control for whatever this thing did.

He had started to try to form more conclusions in his head when a sound caught his ear. The sound of a door opening, and soft hushed voices sounding. He ignored them for awhile before the conversation began to include him. He shifted his eyes and bolted straight up, pressing his hands against the glass, green eyes wide. "Mo-" he started but quickly shut up. "I mean...Maddie Fenton!"

The red-haired, violet-eyed woman turned to look at him, frowned, and turned away to speak with the man before her. Danny only stared until another figure caught his attention. In a blur of black and orange he found himself staring into the dark blue eyes of his father Jack. In his surprise, Danny yelped and fell backwards at the bright, grinning face. "WHOA!"

He fell against the glass and groaned, wincing. "Ow..." he murmured near silently.

"Haha!" Jack bellowed, stood back a bit, and jerked a thumb at his orange spandex-covered chest. "Do you know my name ghost? Do you?"

"Uh..." Danny muttered, running a hand through his hair. "Jack? Jack Fenton?"

"YES! He knows my name!" Jack bellowed with such pride the man looked like he would go on an excited rampage. Danny only watched with a pained expression as his father punched a fist into the air in a "Score!" expression.

"Now, now, Jack, calm down," Maddie instructed, the man she'd previously been talking to walking out the door. She walked over to the control panel of the "bubble" and started to punch in the code. Jack walked over to the panel as well and looked at the dial, childishly excited. "Okay," Maddie mumbled, turning back to Danny and Jack getting ready to turn the dial. "Listen, ghost, we're going to ask you a few questions. If you don't answer, then Jack will turn that dial." She pointed at the cables connecting from the panel to the top of the "bubble." "These wires will maginfy a little shock created by a generator. That shock will become an electrical pulse that is so faint, it won't hurt any human. But for you, a creature of ectoplasm, the same can't be said. As the dial number increase, so does the amount of electricity." She narrowed her eyes. "Answer the questions and you won't be put through this."

Danny gulped and said in a hardly audible voice, "Oh man..." This was in no way going to end like a fairy tale when the wrongly accused gets let out free and gets numerous apologies for being put into prison for something that he didn't do. He braced himself for the worst.

"First question: Why did you kill Reginald Sirls?"

"I didn't..." He said, the words bursting out form inside him. His nerves got the best of him, and he found himself sweating and his eyes shifting from Maddie to the hand on the dial and back and then at the cables leading form the machine to the bubble.

"Something tells me you're lying, ghost," Maddie said.

"I-I'm not!" he shouted.

"Then make us believe it," Maddie said. "Next question: if you didn't kill him, then why were you caught at the sceneof the crime tonight?"

"I...I was...I mean..." he stammered, searching for an answer.

"Taking too long..." Maddie said, narrowing her eyes and signaling for Jack to turn the dial.

Jack grinned, face beaming.

Danny's body tensed.

His eyes squeezed shut.

He braced himself for the worst...

...and...

Then there was a loud clap.

E/N: EVILNESS WITH THE CLIFFIE! XD:B sorry for leaving you there... Don't kill me! XD