Chapter 110:
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"You can find him, right?" asked Sam.
She had, perhaps, asked the question too often, because the Unstoppable Mailman scowled. "I can find anyone," he said, one hand on his hip, the other on his horse's reigns, "so long as I have a message to deliver. You do have one, don't you?"
"Yeah," said Sam, offering up the hastily written letter. It had been thankfully easy to find stationary, but the letter would have been a lot easier to write without Tucker marveling about how fancy Sam's handwriting was. He meant well, but gosh, he could be annoying sometimes.
The Unstoppable Mailman looked down on it, mouthing Danny's name. Then he nodded, the ends of his turban fluttering as he did so. Sam was never going to tell him, but he looked incredibly anachronistic. He was wearing clothing from what must be a dozen different cultures. Sam guessed that they must all be somehow related to postal or courier services, but, for most of them, she couldn't see how.
"Yes," he said, "I can do this. It may take some time."
"Thanks," said Sam, sighing.
The corner of the man's mouth jerked up, before his lips once again settled into a straight line. "Thank her Majesty Pandora, she's the one paying for my services." He gave Pandora a small bow as he said this. "A pleasure doing business with you, your majesty."
"And with you, Angaros," said Pandora.
The Unstoppable Postman gave another quick smile, and jumped on his horse. "Until next time."
Jazz sighed. "I hope that will work."
"He always finds the recipients to his letters eventually," said Pandora. "We will just have to wait to see if this avenue of inquiry bears fruit, or if one of my men find him first. Contacting Angaros was inspired," she continued, a note of pride in her voice.
"Thanks," said Sam. Then she yawned.
Pandora raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps you ought to get some rest," said the ancient ghost. "I admit that I am not exceptionally well versed in human physical needs, however, I do believe that you have far exceeded the length of time that humans typically stay awake for."
"It's fine," said Sam, waving off concern, "we do this all the time."
"Yeah," said Tucker, voice pitched low, "we're fine, we do this all the time."
"We probably could use a rest," said Jazz. The other two glared at her. "What, it's true!"
"I don't think I can sleep," said Tucker, after a moment. "Didn't think that you could, either, with Danny missing."
"Perhaps you could try something a little more restful," said Pandora.
"Reading, maybe," said Jazz. "You and Danny do say that puts you to sleep, right?"
Tucker snorted, but rolled his eyes. "Dude, that's a joke. You can't program and be completely illiterate." He adjusted his glasses. "My bad grades are a lifestyle choice, Jasmine."
Jazz groaned.
"Okay, yeah, that's not true. It's more like a lifestyle side effect, but word. Woooords. I know words."
"You sound like you're on drugs," said Sam.
"Yeah, because awesome is a drug- Okay, I'll stop now. Uhm," he said, looking up at Pandora, who had been walking alongside them. "I think I will grab a book. Do you think that your library has anything about Duulaman?"
"Certainly. He was a sorcerer on par with Inanna," said Pandora. "Do you remember how to get to the library?"
"Yeah, I think so. Thank you," said Tucker.
"Ehhh," said Jazz. "I'm going to go with him. You know. Just in case."
"Okay," said Sam. "Have fun." She waved at them halfheartedly as they disappeared around a corner. She sighed.
"Troubles?" asked Pandora.
"Just that I have no idea what I'm doing," said Sam, rubbing her face.
"Very few people do," said Pandora.
"Yeah, I just w- I just want to be one of them."
"Even ghosts do not instantly know everything they can do," said Pandora.
"I know," said Sam. "But what am I supposed to do? I don't want to be the useless friend."
"I doubt that anyone thinks of you that way," said Pandora.
"Basilissa Pandora!" exclaimed a ghost from the end of the hallway. He ran up, and continued on in Greek.
Pandora frowned. "I apologize, I have to take care of this. Be safe, Sam."
"Yeah," said Sam.
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Danny was seriously beginning to regret asking the wisps to come out of his leg. For one thing, his leg really hurt. It was giving him a great deal of pain. As in, 'seriously considering amputation, it'll probably grow back' pain. For another, this situation had been much funnier, and easier to deal with, when he had been, for the lack of a better word, high. But now that he was back in what might be tentatively termed his 'right' mind he couldn't just abandon reality, no matter how inconvenient it was. Correction: he couldn't abandon his classmates not matter how inconvenient they were.
On the other hand, he would happily abandon Vlad. Vlad could take care of himself, and he was being twice as fruitloopy as usual. Maybe Vlad had chilled out a bit since Ellie almost melted, maybe he had made up with Ellie a bit since the last big fight, but neither of those things had translated into a) people skills, or b) reduced creepiness.
Back on the subject of his classmates, he was freaking out just a little bit. Missing Theory wasn't a safe place. Actually, it was a really exceptionally dangerous place, especially for people like Danny, Ellie, and Vlad. This was where Mengele set up shop when he died. Some of the ghosts here would commit mass murder for the chance to cut up a hybrid like Danny.
(It was actually a good thing that Smith was there, assuming that this was the Smith. Danny had heard stories, mostly from Clockwork and Ghostwriter, about Smith. He sounded like a decent person, and they were unlikely to be attacked when there was such a powerful ghost with them.)
Then there the fact that Hannah had straight-up asked him whether or not he was Phantom. Maybe he should have confessed at that point, at least then he could float instead of awkwardly sitting on Cujo and having Mr Lancer hold on to him. He was probably giving Cujo major back problems. Or he would be, if Cujo wasn't a ghost.
(It just then struck him that he was riding a dog.)
But he just couldn't, and he didn't know if it was out of some spirit of perversity, because he was scared, or what. Because they were going to figure it out. Hannah had already figured it out. He had known that it would come out sooner or later. During the trial, if not before then.
Thinking of Hannah, Danny let his eyes sweep over his other classmates, cataloging their injuries, assessing their mental states, trying to build contingency plans, trying to figure out how to keep their fragile human bodies in one piece when his own was so screwed up. Dash kept giving him weird looks. Mikey looked like Danny had offended him on a deep and personal level. Rebecca and Tiffanie looked like they were in shock, which was bad, but at least they hadn't had a breakdown yet. Sarah and Mia were holding hands (part of Danny was pleased with this development, but he couldn't quite say why) so that Sarah could lead the vision-challenged Mia. Paulina was ranting to Star, who just looked bored, and Kwan, who looked confused. Elliot had latched onto Ricky. Dale was glaring at the ground in front of him. Lester was trying to talk to Valerie. Nathan was looking at Ellie in a way that was really starting to grate on Danny's nerves.
Danny could hardly even look at Valerie. He wasn't sure that he could forgive her. Sure, she wasn't attacking Cujo right now, so there was hope, but it was pretty distant. She had ignored basically everything he had said, everything she had seen, and attacked Danny and Lancer dragging them along with Spectra, of all people. Just because she had looked human, and didn't she realize at this point that humans could be just as awful as ghosts? Didn't she- He forced himself to stop. This wasn't helping, he was shaking and Mr Lancer was looking at him strangely, not to mention Ellie.
He didn't deserve Ellie. She was working so hard, and she had kept his classmates (and Mr Lancer) safe when he couldn't. He wasn't sure how she had gotten them all to listen, all to go, because he'd been having trouble with that under much more favorable circumstances, he was just glad that she had. So glad. (He was so incredibly proud of her.)
They were getting closer to the Tower. Close enough that some ghosts had stopped what they were doing to watch their progress up the path. Danny kept his eyes on them trying to spot potential trouble makers, but no one approached them. The path was clear up to the door.
The door, which was too small for Cujo to fit through.
Both Danny and Ellie sighed heavily. "Figures," they said.
"I should have remembered this," added Ellie. "You're going to have to get off."
"Yeah, I kind of figured. How do you want to do this?"
"I don't know. You're the one that will have to move."
"Sure, but you're the one that can move."
"Could you float, maybe?"
"Uhm," said Danny, tilting his head to the side and experimentally brushing his core. Even that light touch sent jolts of pain through his body, radiating from his core to the tips of his fingers. He could try to float sans core, just pushing on the ectoplasm with willpower, but one moment of inattention and he'd fall. "No. Best not. Uh. You should float Mr Lancer down first, I think, and then come get me?"
"I think that should work," she said, drifting to Cujo's shoulder and extending her hand. "I'll take you down."
"Will you be alright?" asked Mr Lancer.
"I can stay upright on my own for a few minutes," said Danny, with no confidence whatsoever.
"Yeah, sure," said Ellie.
"Dude, seriously," said Danny. "Give me a break here."
"You already have a break."
"Very funny."
"Come on, Mr L."
Mr Lancer took Ellie's hand, albeit with some reluctance. Danny could emphasize, Ellie looked pretty frail to be lifting a grown (slightly overweight) man like Mr Lancer. But Ellie, like Danny, could easily bench press a bus. Besides, sharing flight wasn't really lifting, it was more like sharing invisibility or intangibility than anything else.
Ellie brought Mr Lancer to the ground then came back up for Danny. For Danny, she slipped closer, coming up under his arm, supporting him with her shoulder. "How do you really feel?" she whispered.
"Awful. Is it really going to be safe in there?" he asked at the same volume.
"Probably. I mean, this floor is just swapping turning left for turning right."
Danny sighed. "Here's to hoping that no one almost turned into traffic and would have wound up paraplegic or something."
"Gosh, Danny, how does your brain work that way?"
"Look at my leg and ask me again."
"You have a point there, cuz. I'm lifting off now."
"Mhm," said Danny, trying to shift his weight to make it easier for her. Of course (remember, Ellie could bench press a bus), she didn't have any trouble picking him up. They floated down to the ground, Danny's ankle pulsing at the change from a mostly horizontal position to a vertical one. Even his knee was starting to hurt at this point. Although, after all that he had been through in the last few hours, he'd be more surprised if his whole body didn't hurt. So.
Ellie stopped a good foot above the ground, and looked around. "Okay," she said, pointing at Kwan. "You, muscles, get over here."
"Uhm," said Kwan, taking a few mincing steps towards Danny and Ellie. Oh, Danny knew where this was going, and he didn't particularly like it.
"I'm going to hand him to you, okay?"
"Ellie, I don't think-"
"Clearly. Okay, dude, uh... What's his name again?"
"Kwan," said Danny. He made a face that he hoped communicated apology.
"Kwan, you're going to take him, don't worry, he's super light-"
"I know," said Kwan, nervously. "I mean, um-"
"Look, I'm not going to get into whatever it was you were doing. Just put your arms out and don't drop him, okay?"
Grudgingly, Kwan held out his arms. Danny, equally reluctant, allowed himself, to be transferred. Ellie leaned in.
"I know about the bullying," she said, "and if you hurt him, I'll hurt you."
"Oh my gosh, Ellie," said Danny, feeling himself turn pink. "Turn it down a notch, would you?"
"Like you do?"
"Point." He shifted, bouncing on his good foot, trying to lean on Kwan as little as possible. "Thanks Kwan."
Ellie smirked in victory. "Okay, Cujo, time to shrink!" The huge dog popped back to puppy size. "Now, remember, we're going to stay on this floor until we get picked up."
"Unless we get attacked or something," said Danny.
"Then we're going to the casino next to the seventy-seventh."
"To pick up Ellie's boat."
"Questions?" asked the two Phantoms.
"Nah," said Ellie a minute later. "It looks like they're just going to stare at us."
"Actually," said Danny. "I've got a question."
"Yeah?"
"Smith?" he tried to say the name as politely as possible. "Why haven't you gone in? We aren't blocking the door, are we?"
"No," said Smith, face as impassive as ever.
"Okay," said Danny. "Well, thank you for traveling with us. It was nice to meet you."
Smith merely nodded.
"Right," said Ellie. "So. Let's go!"
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Issitoq growled. If he had been any less angry, any more in control of himself, he would have been disgusted, infuriated, that the abominations had brought him so low. As it was, he was more focused on the fact that they had just entered the Digressed Tower, one of the few places in the Infinite Realms Issitoq's oracular sight and temporal tools were rendered useless, curse Sojourn and his infernal artifacts. Issitoq would have prevented that, but Smith had been with them. Smith. It was a conspiracy, the whole High Council working against him, but then he had known that from the beginning.
Well. There were other ways, and perhaps he had been too hasty, too willing to get his own hands dirty. This was something that could, and should be delegated. Yes. Yes. As he had already demonstrated while organizing the attack on Elysium, there were always fools willing to take risks and break truce and Taboo for appropriate compensation. Issitoq would have to increase the compensation, of course. He would need a higher class of fool for this.
