Chapter 2
Danny held tight to the paper he had been given as he stopped just outside the parking lot to Axion Labs. He looked down at the paper in his glowing white hands and realized it had gotten a little crumpled. He leaned over and tried his best to flatten it out against his thigh when a familiar voice called out something. He looked up and noticed Damon Gray waving as he stepped out of the lab's front door. Danny stood straight and waved, realizing the man wasn't in his security guard uniform but instead a business suit. Danny gave the paper he had been given as an invitation of sorts another look over, only seeing the two doctors' names as before. Mentally shrugging the curiosity away, he made his way up to the front of the building to the man as he carefully folded up the paper and put it back in his pocket. Damon was one of the few people in Antarctica that knew but he hadn't had the time to really find out where he stood with the Red Huntress's father.
"Danny, you're early," Damon said once the teen was in earshot.
"Mom practically dropped me off," Danny said, throwing a glance down the road to see if the Family Ghost Assault Vehicle was still in sight. Coming to a stop in front of the large man he admitted, "I didn't expect to see you."
"Working back up the ladder," Damon offered, holding his hand out. "I'm here to take you to Dr. Wakeman."
"Thank you." Danny took the handshake offered to him before following the man inside the building. Damon used his badge to get them through a door passed the lobby before Danny asked, "How's Valerie? She's been…" Danny threw a glance up at the man as he tried to find the right word. "Avoiding me, I guess."
"Between the end of school and her job, she might just be distracted," Damon offered, keeping his eyes forward as they stopped at another door for him to put his badge to. The door opened and they continued up a set of stairs. Silently they went up to the second floor landing only for Damon to stop with his hand against the handle. He looked over at Danny and said, "Give her some time. She also just learned the ghost she had been hunting down was the same person she had dated. She's working through it all."
Danny found himself unable to look at his friend's father as he mumbled, "Yeah, you're right."
"Don't be too hard on yourself," Damon offered, reaching out to pat the teen on the shoulder with his free hand. "You're a good kid with a good heart."
"You're only saying that 'cause I'm dating someone else's daughter now," Danny said, forcing a smile on his lips as he looked up at the man.
"That might have something to do with it," Damon said with a laugh as he pulled open the door.
Danny followed the man down another hallway as the two fell into a respectable silence. They came to another door and Danny waited for Damon to open it. Damon held this door opened for Danny, letting the teen see a room he didn't remember from the past times he had come through the labs. Instead of office equipment or stuff that looked like it belonged in his parent's basement the room looked more like a lounge with overstuffed chairs and wide windows that let in natural light. A pool table sat behind a sofa, leading his eyes over to where two men, a red head that didn't look like he could be any more than thirty and a man with darker hair that looked to be only a few years older than the first, stood in front of a plasma screen TV with controllers in their hands as the red head let out a laugh.
"Finally, I win one!" the red head exclaimed.
"Congrats," the other said with a smile as he turned towards the door. "Oh, my apologies." He bent down to place his controller on the coffee table in front of him as he hissed in a low voice, "Brad, our special guest is here."
Brad turned and quickly sat his controller down as a wide smile pulled at his face. "Welcome! Damon, thanks for bringing him." The red head stepped over, his companion following close behind as Brad offered his hand. "I'm Dr. Bradley Wakeman, but you can call me Brad."
Danny gave the red head a nod, shaking his hand, before Brad motioned to the other man.
"And this is Dr. Robert Hendrick," Brad offered.
"Call me Rob," the man offered with his hand.
"Uh, Danny," the teen said, shaking the second man's hand.
"Danny, you need anything before I head out?" Damon asked, getting Danny to turn and face the man.
"No, thank you, Mr. Gray," Danny offered with a polite smile.
"Okay, I'll be in my office than," Damon said before taking his leave of the room.
"Hey Danny, does your type of ghost drink?" Brad asked, turning towards a small fridge behind the pool table.
"Yeah," Danny said, a part of him amused.
"You wanna Boyel?" the red head asked as he pulled out two cans of the local soda.
"Sure, thanks," Danny said, taking a step forward to take one of the cans.
"Come over here and take a seat," Rob offered, sitting down in the armchair as he reached forward and picked up the TV remote. Turning the screen off, he ended the victory screen and looping music before picking up a water bottle left on the coffee table in front of him.
Danny walked around the sofa, taking a seat on the edge only for the sofa to bounce him a little. Once it felt safe enough to do so, he popped open his drink and took a sip.
"Man, if I had your powers, I'd just walk through the sofa," Brad admitted, dropping down on the other end of the sofa. He looked at Danny and asked, "You ever do that, even if it's only cutting out a few steps?"
"Sometimes, but I guess I try to keep in mind who I'm with," Danny admitted, unsure how to take the question.
"I'm sorry, that might've sounded a bit rude," Rob offered, noticing Danny's discomfort. "Think of today like the first day of school, if you remember your time alive. We want to get to know you and for you to get to know us. How much do you understand about why we asked you to come here?"
"You're gonna be my councilor and," Danny looked over at Brad to add, "you're gonna run tests on me. Really, didn't expect to be brought here. Guess I expected a lab or something."
"Eventually we'll get to the lab tests," Brad threw off, leaning forward to sit his drink on the coffee table, "but before that I have a long list of questions that all could be answered in a more friendly environment." He motioned around them as he added, "That's why I got this place put together. This is where you'll be meeting me when we're here."
"It goes along the same idea as to why I keep my office looking as much like a living room as I can," Rob tried to offer. "You'll see that Thursday. I figured it would be easier to meet us both at once."
"Don't worry, today he's not gonna pick apart your mind," Brad said as he leaned over to Danny.
Danny let out a polite laugh, a part of him worried about how well these two could do their jobs and his secret in the mix of it all.
"That's not for today anyway," Rob said, throwing a look at his co-worker. "Today we're just gonna try and get to know one another."
"I'll start," Brad said with a smile. "I graduated from Duke with both biology and ecto-biology degrees. I've got a wife of three years and we just got a puppy."
"That ghost dog that's seen with you, is it yours?" Rob asked, getting Danny to turn to the brown-haired man.
"Not really, but I've tried to train him," Danny admitted, sitting his drink down. "He was a guard dog when alive so he already had the basics. I just tried to convince him he didn't have to guard anything anymore." He looked back at Brad and asked, "What type of dog?"
"He's a shar-pei," Brad said with a smile. "All wrinkles and energy. Maybe I'll bring him in one day."
Brad turned to look at Rob, as if signaling it was his turn. Rob took a sip from his water bottle before starting. "I got my counseling and psychology degree from Regent, working with military patents before moving out here when I changed my focus on pediatric and ecto-trama. That's all probably why I was picked to help you, Danny."
"You'd love to talk to my-" Danny caught himself in enough time to change out the word sister, "my friend, she's been psychoanalyzing me since we met."
"That would be interesting," Rob said with a nod. "Are they a ghost?"
"No, she's human." Danny froze as a cold breath left him in time for green lights to overpower the ceiling ones. Quickly he rose to his feet as he eyed the large windows, ordering, "Get to safety, now."
"We were trained for this," Brad pointed out, rising to his feet as he pulled out an ecto-pistol from beside the sofa. He came up to Danny's left side as Rob mirrored him on Danny's right.
"Any idea what it is?" Rob asked.
Danny gave the two men a look before subtly nodding his head, agreeing more with himself he could trust them to fight. He stepped over to the window he felt his cold core pulling him towards and let out a sigh. "Come on, really?" he let out in frustration.
Rob and Brad stepped over to stand so they could look out the window only to see what looked like a green glowing pigeon flying around in circles above the parking lot. "A bird?" Brad asked, standing his ground, abet a bit confused.
"Since the Disasteroid, a lot of elementals have been appearing. The Fenton's think it was because a lot of wildlife panicked during it all and ended up like this, but this is the first time I've seen a normal looking bird," he said, reaching into his pocket to pull out a Fenton Thermos. He let the intangibility feeling leave his hand, covering the thermos in a blue glow, and stuck it through the glass. The bird circled back to inspect this new object only to be sucked in with a blue net. Danny pulled his arm back inside and capped the thermos as he made himself and it fully solid.
The green lights in the room disappeared, the defense system powering down after the threat had disappeared.
"Thanks," Brad offered, lowering the ecto-pistol in his hands. "None of the bigger known ghosts have shown up since the Disasteroid, have they?"
"Nothing that would draw any attention," Danny threw off, storing the thermos back in his pocket. "I know there's rumors going around the Ghost Zone that a few are getting restless so the break I've gotten isn't gonna last too much longer."
"Maybe they'll at least give us the rest of the day," Brad said, returning his pistol to its spot in a cubby built into the side of the sofa. Returning to his seat he added, "You didn't get a chance to tell us about yourself. Maybe let us know something the public doesn't?"
"You don't have to tell us anything you don't want to," Rob reminded, placing a hand on the teen's shoulder.
"No, I'm fine," Danny offered, looking up at the man with a smile.
Rob removed his hand and stepped back to his chair to replace his own ecto-weapon.
"Sure, I didn't graduate, but I've always wanted to be a part of the space program," Danny admitted.
"That's a tough wish," Rob pointed out as he sat down. "Even if you weren't a ghost."
"That's what I'm hoping on now, I guess," Danny admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. "I mean, I could do more out there than anyone else could."
"Huh, true," Brad realized, leaning back in thought. "You wouldn't have to worry about any equipment if you had to go on a spacewalk."
"I'd still need some equipment," Danny admitted, a slight green blush appearing on his cheeks. "I still have to breathe."
"Oh, what?" Brad asked, sitting up in his seat.
"His last name is Phantom," Rob commented. Two sets of eyes fell on him, getting him to clarify. "I always understood the term to mean a more human like ghost."
"While it does mean that, I didn't expect the line to be so blurred between our different species," Brad admitted. "Do you know of how many other ghosts are similar to you?"
"There's a few," Danny admitted, walking around the coffee table to get back to his seat. "Probably more, the Ghost Zone's big and I've only seen a small part of it."
"Ghosts that need to breathe, hum," Brad said more to himself as his eyes wondered towards the windows. He looked back at Danny, realization on his face. "That's why you took a part of our prototype last year."
"I'm still sorry about that," Danny admitted, reaching forward to pick up his can. He held it in both hands between his knees, without taking a sip. "The jet pack got destroyed the day I took it."
"That was when a ghost took over our supercomputer, wasn't it?" Rob asked.
Danny gave a subtle nod, not looking away from his can.
"Well, thankfully we already had a second one in the works and you left us with the actual suit," Brad admitted. "Also the oxygen crystal technology has gotten better since then. The helmet you took could only last a couple of hours in between recharges. Now we can max it out at three days."
"Danny, you did what you had to do," Rob offered, placing a hand on Danny's knee to get the teen to look up at him. "The world we live in today is run on technology and especially the internet. Take that away and society would've collapsed."
"I was more worried about what Technus would do after he managed to take control," Danny admitted as the man released his knee.
"I've gotta question that might be rude, and if you don't feel up to answering that's alright," Rob said. "How long have you been a ghost?"
Danny thought a moment, unsure if to tell them the truth or not.
After the silence drug on Brad said, "Hey man, how'd you like to be reminded of when you died?"
"No, it's okay, really," Danny offered, mentally answering his own question before theirs. "It was sometime in September of 2004. I'd just started high school."
Rob stared at him a moment before offering, "I'm sorry. That was far too young."
"No, it's fine," Danny tried, not wanting the man to feel pity for him. "Anyway, I've done more now. At least I'd like to believe that."
"You were, what, fourteen when you got thrown into this life," Brad pointed out. "I think you've done a lot of good. Just don't let our boss hear us saying that. He's still touchy from back when you and the dog came bounding through here."
"The camera's show it was the dog's fault," Rob quickly said. "The timing was just bad."
"Hey, I'm just glad Mr. Gray's not mad at me," Danny offered, throwing his thumb towards the door where they last saw the man.
"Damon's gone through a lot even before that whole incident with the dog," Rob commented, throwing a glance over his shoulder towards the door.