Danny was cuffed with ghost handcuffs that were attached to a machine strapped to his chest. Even if he had tried to phase through or vaporise in an attempt to escape, it wouldn't have worked. With a laser shoved up against the back of his head, Danny was marched over to an elevator. They went up to Level 1. Here, tunnels were replaced by long, damp, old hallways and corridors, made of rock and with green lighting.
"Let's go," the major dragged Danny down one hallway to a room with ominous lights flickering out from it. He was thrown in, and the room locked. As the major left, he did not notice a vapour coming down from the ceiling, nor it's forming into a girl. Sam, halfway between her full ghost form and her normal self, examined the door. It blocked ghosts from entering. Before fully transforming and losing her sanity, she pulled out her phone and dialled the number of the Beachside Resort...
---
The room was filled with machinery, control panels, and a menacing looking chair. Danny slowly got up on his knees and noticed that someone else was in the room. Frost. She grabbed Danny by the neck and threw him into the chair, where the handcuffs and machine fell to the floor and he was strapped into the chair by the hands, feet, and head. Frost kicked the cuffs away. Danny looked around the room as much as he could. He just now noticed something...
"That generator," he eyed it suspiciously, "That's what Volpe was stealing the first night we were here."
"Amazing, how a simple distraction can give a person the wrong idea," Frost flipped a switch, throwing all the lights on the machinery on as Danny eyed the generator. No...it couldn't be!
"Volpe...works for you?" Frost smiled coldly.
"We had no plans to distract you so when you first arrived. Our plan was to set you up and get the rights back to that old place for use in operations. But after that first night, I felt we might be better off if we had a few more ghosts around. Besides, it was fun, watching you and your family wandering cluelessly through our little mystery."
"What're you using to control him?" Danny was now trying to escape the chair by physical human means, with no success. Frost laughed, both at his comment and at his attempt to get free.
"Nothing," she said, "He does it all from his own free will," Danny couldn't believe this.
"Friends while he was alive?" he asked.
"Lovers," she leaned against the machinery, "The air force was used as an excuse when I convinced him to build all this paranormal technology. The CIA was short on money, and I had state funds. When I became head of Paranormalics, I had him build this base for us. We delivered the technology to him, and he carved the tunnels to the base. When he died, he decided to continue working for us...for me."
"And I wonder who you picked as your guinea pig for all this stuff," everything was going downhill in Danny's mind. He'd been completely off-track in this whole thing. He was beaten, mentally.
"He volunteered," Frost nodded, "but you've become his replacement for this. Being half-human, though, you won't survive long enough for the big surprise of this evening. He'll do that without regret."
"What big surprise?"
"Your likelihood of escaping is virtually nil, but I won't take any chances. What am I, a typical cartoon villain who tells all their plans to the hero when she's caught him?" she pulled one of seven levers lined up on the side of the machinery. The lights started flashing. Electricity travelled around the room. And Danny felt pain like he'd never felt before surge through his body.
---
"Got it," Tucker was running down the hallways, "Good luck, Sam," he ran into his room and jumped by his computer. He began searching quickly for the frequency that Paranormalics relied on.
---
Frost had pulled the second lever. Danny had only been shocked twice, but he looked like he'd been under torture for years while sick with fever. The ectoplasmic surge had caused smoke to come from the wound in his shoulder again.
"Now I'm not even so sure that Sam's being taken over was an accident," he managed to cough out. Frost laughed.
"Five more levers, and you will die. That was an accident, but it worked so well to my advantage. Your little girlfriend will be taken care of soon."
"She's not my..." Frost pulled the third lever, preventing Danny from saying anything more. He felt like he was going to die of sheer pain. The wound on his ribs was open again, ectoplasmic smoke pouring from it. He looked even worse, with bits of electricity coming from his body.
"All this," he coughed again, "because you hate ghosts? You said you keep them from hurting people. I have to fight off ghosts all the time, but not all of them are nearly as bad as you...
"You're lying!" she threw down the fourth lever.
---
Tucker was frantically searching on his computer. He'd never attempted hacking into a government system before, and he wasn't even sure if he knew how to do it, but there was no time for self-doubt. He'd gotten into the security camera system; now he needed to find the room Danny was in. Kitchen...no. Weapons room...no. That next room he didn't even want to think about.
"Finally," Tucker found him. Danny was strapped to a chair, looking like he'd been sick with a fatal disease for months. A woman Tucker knew was Sarah Frost was standing by some machinery. Seven levers were in a row; she was just now pulling the fifth. Seeing what it did to Danny, Tucker pulled his eyes of the screen and slammed down at his keyboard, trying to get the machine's frequency...
---
Frost pulled the sixth lever. Danny's hair now looked dark grey. His eyes, though still green, no longer had a glow. His skin was much more pale, ectoplasmic smoke flying out of his wounds and now his mouth. He could barely speak.
"Last..." he spit out blue glowing fluid, "...one."
"Don't worry about your girlfriend," Frost fingered the last lever, "We'll put her out of her misery," Danny didn't even try to correct her about his and Sam's relationship. He just waited for the last shockwave...
---
"Hang on, pal!" Tucker hit the last code in before pressing Enter. The display on his screen over the image from the security camera: "FREQUENCY JAMMED."
---
Danny's confinements that kept him to his chair suddenly pulled back, letting him fall forward to the floor. He coughed up more of the liquid as he hit, slowly rising up on his knees. Frost stared in disbelief. How...? Danny was wondering that himself, but he didn't have time to think about it. Frost began digging around in her pocket, yanking out an ectoplasmic laser. Still weak, Danny managed to form an energy blast strong enough to disarm her before she could fire, but it took the last of his energy. He collapsed back, reverting to human form. In human form, some of the pain went away; the machines were meant for ghosts, not teens. Still, he was too weak to fight. Frost had re-gained her weapon, now holding it right between Danny's eyes.
"Slight delay," she said. Danny looked around. Her leg had been caught in a cable. Danny pretended to raise his hands...and pulled the cable, throwing Frost back into the mess of wires around the chair. He caught her weapon and used it to disarm the major, just barging in after seeing the mechanical failure on the security cameras. The major charged forward. Danny had enough strength to quickly duck and knock him out by hitting him on the back of the head. Frost, though, had caught his weapon, and now, caught in all the wires, was coming towards Danny. To help herself move forward, she grabbed the last lever.
"Wait!" Danny shouted, "Don't! That's..." too late. The room lit up with blue sparks before blowing up completely, knocking Danny and the major right through the wall and into the safety of the hallways. Coughing up normal smoke, Danny checked the major; he was still alive. Looking inside, he could vaguely see the broken machinery, but not Frost. It looked like she was gone for good...as horrible as she was, that wasn't the best news Danny had heard. There was no time to worry about that. Having rested enough to go back into ghost form, Danny took over the major's body. He had to find the control room to see Frost's "big surprise." Above, on another level, Volpe had heard the noises. He didn't know what caused them. He kept working on Frost's "big surprise."