Barbara was almost ready for her conference, but it was barely 7 am. The paper bags of equipment she'd picked up the night before lay propped up on the floor next to the door to the basement, just begging her to take it down there. When she'd gotten back last night, her worry for Jim distracted her from taking care of the stuff. She wouldn't have to leave for another hour…

She carefully walked down the stairs with her heavy shopping bags, trying not to make too much noise and wake Jim. She took a look at what she'd gathered - all of it in order - and turned to find a space on one of her tables to set them down. As she looked around, her eyes naturally fell on the biggest part of her project, the Ghost Portal. And she realized it looked wrong.

Dropping her bags on the floor, she ran over to the portal. There were scorch marks inside, and after following the marks, found that they originated from a missing panel, where there were exposed wires. She looked around the floor to see if the marks went very far, but she instead found her box of spare jumpsuits open, with some of them spilling out. She knelt down to get a closer look. She hadn't gotten this out for months…

Standing back up, she took another glance towards the portal. If the panel was loose, and there were exposed wires, there could still be a danger. She had to unplug the portal to assess what that danger actually was. But when she walked over to the outlet, it was already unplugged. The entire power strip was unplugged, in fact.

"Hmm," said Barbara, brushing a strand of red hair out of her eye. She thought about what this really meant. Someone had been down here. It was unlikely that someone had broken in, but Jim had never shown much interest in the portal, as much as she tried to get him to. Unless…

Her eyes shot wide as she realized. "Jim isn't feeling well," Toby had said. "Probably some bad food." Jim hadn't gotten food poisoning in ten years - he was so in tune with food and how to cook it. Why didn't she question it?

Within seconds, she was out of the basement. In another five, she was at the threshold of Jim's room, scanning everywhere inside. The door was already wide open. He wasn't there, and neither was Toby. If they'd turned the portal on… she hadn't even done that once yet. Who knew what they'd been exposed to? She was the one person on Earth qualified to know, and she didn't have the slightest idea.

Frantically, she took her phone out and called her son. It rang to voicemail once, twice, three times. Trying not to fall to tears, she tried Toby's number. He answered right away.

"Dude, hang on, I only just now got the phone tracker open," said Toby, irritated.

"Toby, where's Jim?" asked Barbara, a shiver in her voice.

"Oh! Doctor Lake! What a surprise! I thought you were someone else, haha." Toby's voice halted a bit as he spoke. "Uh, he should be in bed where I left him? I just ran out to get, uh…. Some-"

"Don't lie to me, Toby," interrupted Barbara, falling to sit on Jim's bed. "He's not here. You two turned on the portal, didn't you?" She could hear Toby gulp loudly on the other side. "Listen, I am definitely angry, but I can be mad at you two later. First, I have to know if my son is safe. Where is he?"

"Well - uh - that's the thing, see -" Toby stumbled through words, his voice getting higher with every one. "I don't actually know, because -" He took a deep breath. "He left on his own. I called him, but he doesn't even know where he is, other than down in the sewers. He said he turned his location on, but I'm still not getting anything…"

"Sewers," repeated Barbara. "Got it. I'm gonna go look for him. Call me if you get anything." She hung up the phone, and stood up. Rushing down the stairs, she grabbed her keys off the dinner table, put her shoes on, walked out the door, and -

And there was someone outside, wandering vaguely in her direction. She squinted at them, but didn't stop. Whoever they were, their hair was white, and they were wearing all pink. She had to find Jim, who had black hair and always wore the same blue sweater. She walked down the driveway to her car, unlocked it, and got in. She took a deep breath, put the keys in, and was about to turn the ignition when something thumped against the passenger side window, making her jump. She looked up, and saw it was the person with white hair.

"What do you think -" she started saying, but she was interrupted.

"Mom," groaned the person, sounding like a sleepy teenage boy. He slumped over, putting his whole weight on the car.

"Who are you?" asked Barbara. She examined the boy's face, which was long. His eyes, unfocused and aimed downward, glowed white, which was very odd. His outfit was strikingly similar to her own jumpsuits, but the colors were wrong. And the boy's hair was short, but still a little long, like he needed a haircut. It had a tiny cowlick in the back, and a bit poked out down below his ears. A thought tugged at the back of her head, warning her, begging her to realize. But it was all wrong, it wasn't making sense.

"Mom, I messed up," said the kid, and he closed his eyes, losing consciousness. He slid off the car, landing with a thud Barbara could hear through the windows.

"Oh, my goodness!" she shouted, getting out of her car. She ran around the front and knelt down next to the boy. She picked up his head, cradling it in her lap, and noticed he was extraordinarily cold. She put her hand on his forehead. Did he have hypothermia?

In an instant, there was suddenly a bright flash of light. Surprised, Barbara closed her eyes. Someone across the street must have just turned their car on for the morning drive to work, and had left the brights on from before. She waited until it died down, then opened her eyes again. Lying in her lap was her son Jim: black hair, blue sweater, and all. What was going on?

He opened his eyes, slowly, lids fluttering. "Mom," he groaned. "Sorry."

"Well, you better be sorry," said Barbara. "You had me terrified. Let's get you inside before more people start coming outside and start to worry. Also, be sure to text Toby that you're safe. I'm not the only one who was looking for you."

She helped him to his feet, and hugging around the shoulders, they both headed inside. "This is so stupid," muttered Jim, tapping at his phone as he texted his friend. "I can't even walk right."

They sat at the dinner table, across from each other. Neither one of them was really sure how to start the conversation.

Suddenly Jim grunted. "It's a waste of time, Mom," he said.

"What's a waste of time? The portal?" she asked pointedly. Suddenly, he has thoughts and opinions? She was skeptical. She'd spent so many years trying to include him in her research, but he'd refused. Perhaps, she thought, it was because she hadn't actually been very honest with him...

"Yeah, the portal. We turned it on, and it didn't even open to anything. It just hurt a whole lot."

Barbara sat there, frustrated that was what he'd gotten out of all this. "And you know because you're suddenly an expert? It wasn't ready to be fully turned on yet! I only had it plugged in for some minor tests of specific sections. That's why some pieces were out of place, Jim."

Jim's expression didn't soften, and he kept staring at the table. "I know why you're making it, you know." He raised his eyes to meet his mother's. "You wanna find Dad."

In that moment, the face Jim was making, the way he said those words, struck Barbara in the heart. Painfully. She felt anger cover the pain. "Yes, I do want to find him. But-"

"Dad's dead," said Jim, grimacing. "Even if the portal starts working. Even if you figure out all the math. You won't find him." It was such a dark perspective, and it shocked Barbara to hear it from her own son.

Barbara failed to retain a scoff. "You need to take a step back, James," she said. Using his full name like that caught his attention, brought his eyes back to hers. "I haven't been completely honest with you, either, you know. You think you know things, but… the truth is, your father didn't die in that accident. Not in the traditional sense, anyway." She tried to chuckle, but it came out more like a huff of air.

"We weren't working on radiation like you think. I mean, I guess we were, sort of, but we were working towards a larger goal: building a Ghost Portal. All those years ago, we had a whole team for it, and it seemed so much easier. I guess it was easier. Eight people are better than one, that's for sure."

Jim's expression lessened a bit. Confusion started to peek through the anger.

"We did a test, and it worked! Not for sending people through, though, it was too unstable for that. But we were able to make a window to the Ghost Zone. We were studying it. And then, on the third day, something went wrong. I was working, too focused on something else to see what caused it - but I heard shouting, and turned, and there your father was, falling into that small window we created. It wasn't stable enough, and the whole thing collapsed instantly, too fast to do anything. And your father, along with the portal, was gone. For half a second, we thought that might have been it. Just him and everything we were working on, vanished. But then the shockwave hit, and the whole place started to collapse. As much as I hate to say it, we were so lucky to only have lost James that day."

"So - what are you saying? That he's still out there?"

Barbara sighed. "Don't fight with me about this. I'm worried that he's out there, all alone. And even if he isn't… It's important to finish what we started. Either way," she said with a sigh that pulled her shoulders down, "it'll end in closure."

They sat for another minute of silence, a question burning through Barbara's mind, taking up more and more space until it burst out of her.

"Why don't you want to talk about it?"

"What?" asked Jim. "I thought we were just talking about it!"

Barbara looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Seriously, I need you to tell me what happened. You're acting like you're fine, but I don't want you lying to me anymore. Please."

Jim's eyes winced shut, and he seemed to be thinking of where to start. "I just wanted to help," he said, eyes opening, focused. "I was worried you were too close, missed something simple. I saw that a panel was loose, so I tried to fix it. But I must have touched an exposed wire. It shocked me…" His eyes widened, and his hands fell to the table. "But, like… it wasn't a normal shock, Mom. There was… so much more. I felt it creep up behind me, look at me. It almost took me… but… I think it decided to stay inside me, instead."

"Honey… What's 'it?'" She asked the question, paralyzed, waiting as if she didn't already know the answer.

Jim looked his mother in the eye once more, his own face pale, eyes brighter than they should be. "Death," he whispered.