Act II, Scene 8
"T-minus five minutes and counting," intoned the computer voice.
Sam and Tucker watched and listened in horrified silence as footsteps thundered up the stairs of FentonWorks to the Ops Center. A dozen white-suited agents streamed into the circular control room, fanning out to open the steel shutters that had kept the room in shadows all day long. Agent Ecks blinked in the bright sunshine for a few seconds before donning his regulation Ray-Bans. He was now nominally in command of the most delicate phase of the operation; before him, the array of computers were tracking the systems of the Ghost Zone Missile as the countdown proceeded.
Without warning, Agent Kew loomed over the pair of teens. He smirked down at them and said, "Seems like your little friend gave up the password without a fight. So I guess we don't need you any more."
Sam's heart seized inside her chest. Tucker grabbed her hand and squeezed it, hard—he was as stunned as she was, and was trying to communicate something to her. Support? Sympathy? Possibly dread. It was one thing for Danny to stay behind and leave them do the grunt work; after all, there were no ghosts here and she always wanted to be in on the action. But for him to deliberately betray them, to simply hand victory over to the bad guys. . . Despite the hand gripping hers, so hard it was starting to hurt, she had never felt so totally alone in her life.
The agent just stood there, grinning and toying with his miniature weapon. He was certainly enjoying this turn of events, far more than mere professionalism might require. Eventually he grew bored and leaned over to unlock their handcuffs. As Tucker pulled Sam to her feet, the man added, "Take my advice: Run far. Run fast." One last, creepy grin. "And don't look back."
They fled down the stairs. Behind them, the computer intoned, "T-minus three minutes and counting."
Vlad Plasmius and Danny Phantom shot through the Ghost Zone at unprecedented speed, barely noticing the handful of ghosts who marked their passage. Johnny 13 skidded his motorcycle to a screeching stop to avoid being flattened; for a brief second he thought about ordering Shadow to chase them, but they were moving far too fast for Shadow to catch up. Youngblood, dressed in a astronaut costume and braced in a massive slingshot rig, paused the countdown on his space-rocket fantasy. He called out a friendly challenge for the halfas to come and play, but his voice was lost in the wake of their passing. Skulker observed them approaching from a fair distance, read the signs as a good hunter should, then quietly retracted his weapons and headed for safer hunting grounds.
No ghost should be so foolish to take them both on at once.
For a while Danny maintained the lead, but as they drew closer to their goal, Vlad pulled ahead and gave Danny a view of the bottom of his boots and a bitter taste of his ectoplasmic trail. Danny ground his teeth in frustration and strained for an extra burst of speed so he could take the lead again. His hatred for Vlad was a powerful motivator, multiplied exponentially when they were both in ghost form, and it galled him to have him so close. The last thing he wanted to do was follow him, not anywhere, not even to the apocalypse.
There couldn't be more than five miles or so between Porter Heights and downtown Amity Park, but the distance from portal to portal seemed to be nearly halfway across the Ghost Zone. Several minutes passed in grim silence before the two half-ghosts caught sight of the bulky, hexagonal frame of the Fenton Portal in the distance. Even from nearly a mile away, they could see a tiny glimpse of the FentonWorks lab through the open door.
The open door.
"No-o-o-o-o!" Danny screamed.
Agent Kew reached into the refrigerator and pressed the red button located to the right of the emergency ham. "Procedure 12-G commenced," he announced.
From his seat at the Ops Center controls, Agent Ecks began to review the checklist. "Procedure 12-G, commenced. Hatches sealed, docking clamps released…" A few seconds ticked by. Suddenly the floor of the Ops Center lurched, sending a couple of agents tumbling to the floor. "Blimp deployed."
The computer added, "T-minus thirty seconds and counting."
The entire Ops Center, now suspended beneath an enormous blimp bearing the smiling face of Jack Fenton, lifted slowly away from the roof of FentonWorks and began to drift westwards in the breeze. On the sidewalk below, Tucker and Sam stared upwards, mouths gaping, and backed slowly, slowly away from the house.
Tucker pulled out his cell phone and dialed without looking. "C'mon, Danny," he pleaded. "Answer the phone. Answer already. We need you!"
A gleaming white sedan screeched to a halt in the street directly in front of them. Agent Wye climbed out and looked up at the blimp, nodding with grim satisfaction at the impending completion of his mission. His radio, lying on the dashboard, transmitted the computer's voice: "T-minus fifteen seconds and counting. Commencing ignition…." From the house came a muffled roar, and the whole street began to shake. One of FentonWorks' ground floor windows shattered, and soon a cloud of thick, black smoke began to billow out.
Wye picked up the radio and barked, "Good work, men. I'll meet you at the rendezvous." He jumped back into the car and sped away.
Author's note
In the episode, this part of the story featured a slapstick sequence down in the lab, at the end of which the Guys decided that the whole operation was jinxed and that they no longer wanted to be there. That was, in turn, a development from the earlier notion that the Fentons' lab was full of shoddy equipment. In my story, Jack and Maddie took all their well-made equipment with them when they left, and the Guys in White are quite competent (and thus, far more dangerous).
The logical outcome of putting the Guys in White up in the Ops Center instead of down in the lab was to use the blimp for their getaway. I hope I was able to surprise some of you with that! And I hope you'll forgive me for bypassing the whole Danny-on-a-motorcycle shtick. I did think long and hard about bringing Johnny, Youngblood and Skulker along to help Danny and Vlad fight the missile, but in the end decided to leave that job to Danny and Vlad alone. Arranging for a crowd of ghosts set aside their differences to help save the world twice in once season (see also: Phantom Planet) would have been a bit too much, don't you think?