Chapter 288: Fly on the Wall
.
Spying on the president's meeting with the ghost experts had been interesting, so far, but not particularly useful, in Dmitri's opinion. None of the people, with the possible exception of Danny's aunt, had any idea what they were doing. There were so many priests, too. Or were they all called priests? Religious leaders? Clergymen? Women? There had been a nun. What were they expecting to do with a nun?
Not that he had anything against nuns. Maybe there were exorcist nuns? Still.
He shook his head.
"First order of business," said the president, having given a 'rousing' speech where he went over everyone's (lack of) credentials. "As you may have heard, we briefly had a man by the name of Frederich Isak Showenhower here, in a position similar to yours. Unfortunately, he wasn't as trustworthy as he seemed. We would like you to survey the areas he was allowed to access and make sure he didn't leave any influence."
Dmitri winced in his hiding place. That was a mixed blessing, at best. On one hand, he could follow this group as it was shown around, see the places Freakshow would have gone. On the other, the humans could find the anchor before him.
Offshore Flo raised a hand.
"Yes, Florence."
"I genuinely know nothing about ghosts," she said. "I don't think I can help you."
The president's smile was pained. "Give it a shot? You were one of only a few people we could find who had a confirmed contact with a ghost."
.
.
.
"Tucker! You're back!" Danny hugged his friend. "You haven't even been buried in sand."
"Nope," said Tucker. "But, y'know, I've been gaining a new appreciation for sand." It had been so long since he'd seen Danny.
"Really?" asked Danny, pulling back and grinning.
"I've done some thinking," said Tucker, "and I realized, sand is silicon, right? I'm practically living in Silicon Valley."
"More like Silicon Island," said Danny.
"Islands," said Tucker. "We've got a bit of an archipelago going on. Floating around the river. Sprinkled around." He mimed the positions with his hands. He'd mostly memorized the maps at this point.
"How are your parents doing?"
"They're still a little bit in shock," said Tucker. "But they're doing a lot better, now. We all really like the food, if you can believe it. Like, even the vegetables."
"You have to let me see when you tell Sam," said Danny. "Her face will be amazing."
"Come on, you always think Sam's face is amazing."
"Oh my gosh, you're awful. Why do you always go there?"
"Because my calling in life is to be a wingman." He spread his hands out in front of him.
"You are Pharoah of Egypt."
"And you are King of All Ghosts. Plus, that was a past life."
"Also your current life."
"Eh," said Tucker, dismissing it because it wasn't important at the moment. "Anyway, we've come with a bunch of research on aglaophotis." He gestured behind him at the small caravan.
"Great," said Danny. "I'll show you where the research is happening right now. Walker should get his prison moved up here in just a few more days, hopefully. Will you be staying for the Truce?"
"Most of it. Egypt apparently does something, too, which is weird because, like, Egypt is in the tropics, right? So, solstices shouldn't really matter all that much to them."
"Solstices shouldn't matter that much to the Ghost Zone, either," said Danny. "I mean. No sun. No planet. I don't know that the actual dates are what's important."
"That's true," said Tucker, following Danny into Libra.
"I think there are some physical events that happen at the same time, though," said Danny. "Like, it is getting colder, and there are some things going on with the light and… atmosphere? But I'm not sure if that's just because we're in northern hemisphere equivalent or if there's something else going on."
"I did notice that even in Egypt, actually," said Tucker. "But people seemed to think it was because you're king now."
"Ah, yeah, I guess I am cool enough to make an entire dimension chill."
Tucker groaned. "Good to see your new social status hasn't damaged your pun-making abilities."
"I like to think of them as a sort of pressure release valve," said Danny.
"I thought misplaced aggression was your pressure release valve."
"I'm trying not to do that anymore," said Danny, hunching slightly. He straightened. "Anyway! We're here!" He gestured at a carved door, then grabbed the handle and pulled it open.
Inside were several scientists, both ghost and… Human.
Jack and Maddie Fenton were here.
.
.
.
"Is it true," began Maddie, "that you're ruling a version of Ancient Egypt? All by yourself?"
"Mostly true," said Tucker, uncomfortably. "I'm not running the whole bureaucracy, and I'm still learning how everything works together. Plus, there are a lot of ceremonial parts, so most of my time was taken up by that."
He was used to answering questions from Jack and Maddie, although he wasn't used to being entirely honest. He still thought of them as his friend's parents, but… He glanced over at Danny, who was talking animatedly to one of the Egyptian alchemists.
Danny didn't even know they were here.
"It's weird, isn't it?" asked Damien, leaning over to whisper in Tucker's ear.
Tucker jumped. Maddie frowned at Damien.
"You kids alright?" asked Jack, looking up from a microscope.
"Fine," said Tucker. "I'm just… not sure what's happening here. This seems like a lot of chemistry stuff for a botany project."
"Well, Tucker!" boomed Jack, making everyone in the room except Danny wince. "It isn't just a botany project! We're looking into what makes this stuff tick!"
"Maybe," said Tucker, hoping to get the conversation onto a different track, "you could explain it to me?"
.
.
.
"Sir?" said the aide, offering up a phone. "You told me to tell you if he called."
The president stared at the aide, trying to keep his eyelids from twitching. He did not recall who, exactly, he had told this aide to get in contact with. "Who?"
"Vlad Masters."
The president grabbed the phone immediately. "Mr. Masters," he said, warmly. "It's good to hear from you. I understand that the past months must have been very stressful for you."
"Terribly so," said Vlad, his voice a deep, almost-purr. "Shut away from my best friends and constituents… the home I made for myself… And that business with the children! I'm just happy to know that they're safe."
The president felt his eye twitch. What was with that voice? Was Masters just on a bad line, or was the man trying to seduce him? He wracked his brain, trying to remember what Vlad Masters sounded like normally. He… actually couldn't remember the man speaking publicly, which was unusual for someone as rich as he was.
"As are we all," said the president. "We were hoping you could come to DC. You may have extra insight into what's happening, given your position."
"After the threats I've had from the GIW?" asked Masters, somewhat histrionically.
"The – What?" There were still enough GIW out and about to be sending credible threats to a billionaire.
"It was only a year ago, if that," said Masters. "They blew up my house! It was one of the reasons I moved to Amity Park. I had friends there, and a measure of protection from our local heroes."
"They blew up your house?" The president hadn't even heard about it.
"No one wanted the incident to be publicized, and, ultimately, the expense was a drop in the bucket next to my overall wealth," said Masters. "But it was far from top secret, and it was traumatic."
"I will have to look into that," said the president. "But the GIW has been largely disbanded. You aren't in any danger anymore."
"Well," said Masters, "if you are quite sure… I must confess, I can't see what my role would be if I did come."
"We've been reviewing your background in ectoscience, of course," said the president, "and you were an elected official in Amity Park. We'd like to pick your brain about popular sentiment and get a better understanding of where people stand."
"You must know that I've been entirely out of touch with Amity Park since the shield went up," said Masters. "Even before that, communication was sketchy, what with the occupation."
There was something… odd about that statement. More than just one thing, actually. Sketchy. Not nonexistent. Which the president had already known. Vlad Masters had been quite vocal about what was happening in Amity Park, on and off. But…
Entirely. Hadn't he been in contact with the Amity representatives? With his wealth, he'd be an incredible ally for them. He had been an incredible ally for them, in fact. Even ignoring the interviews, someone had to be paying for those ads.
The man was suspicious. But the president was used to dealing with suspicious people… and at least he didn't have a personal connection to this one, and he knew he was suspicious.
"Even so," said the president. "We'd like you to come by."
.
.
.
Another thing to add to his list of things he wasn't sure he liked: Vlad coming by. Vlad being near one of Freakshow's artifacts was… Dmitri didn't know what it was. Vlad wasn't really like the GIW, wasn't like Freakshow, but…
He was still sort of an immoral jerk, character development aside.
The rest of the day wasn't very fruitful, either. It turned out that Freakshow hadn't been housed in the White House but some other secured location (obvious in retrospect), so that wasn't even the place the 'experts' were going… Although it seemed the religious people were staying. Maybe they had a different job?
He was reaching the time limit set out for him. All that was left was extraction.
.
.
.
Mar arrived early for her meeting. She usually tried to be punctual, but today she had another purpose in doing so. She was making a pickup.
She waited for the security people to search her, not entirely sure what the point was. As a ghost, her body was much more flexible than a human's. She could hide anything in there.
For a short period of time, anyway. She had no desire to replicate Prince Phantom's vice.
She felt the little prince zoom up one of her sleeves, but she didn't react. She was used to Lie, who frequently masqueraded as her coat or cardigan, twitching and moving independently from herself. She continued to wait, humming slightly under her breath as Dmitri tucked himself into an inner pocket.
So far, all according to plan. How unusual.
"Miss Mar?"
"That's me," said Mar.
"This way, please."
The young woman led her into a small conference room, full of people, mostly men. There was a table of refreshments pushed up against one wall, and the rest of the tables in it were arranged in a rough circle. Cameras had been set up in the room's corners.
A man came up to greet her. He was smiling, but his aura tasted sharp and wary, not at all receptive. In fact, many of the people here felt like that, tempered by the kind of curiosity that one reserved for learning about horrors and tragedies.
"We're glad you were able to make it," said the man. "I'm Michael Delapay. I run the chapel here and act as President Klein's spiritual advisor." A small handful of the other men in the room sent Delapay disgruntled looks, but no on disputed that claim.
Mar looked a little closer at the other people. A good few of them were wearing collars or other vestments that indicated their position in the clergy.
Oh. Oh no.
She retrieved her hand from the handshake, a bit disappointed to feel the brush of silver against her skin.
"I'm Mar," she said. "But I think there may have been a misunderstanding."
"You did volunteer to speak to anyone about ghosts and their culture, to help further mutual understanding."
There was a spike of doubt behind the word 'ghost.' With effort, Mar bit back a rather sharp question about their beliefs regarding demons.
"Yes," she said, "and I stand behind that, but I'm hardly the best person to talk about religious and spiritual trends. I tend to focus more on the scientific aspects of things." That wasn't to say she knew nothing about religion. Some people were harder to get her toll from than others, and people of all sorts used her doors. Religious awe could be a sufficient substitute for wonder for the outliers.
Still. It wasn't something she was exactly well-versed in.
"The view of a layperson about these things is also valuable," said a man wearing a small skullcap. It was red. Was red the color for bishops or cardinals? Or were they both red? No, one of them was pink, she was sure. "We're just trying to get the lay of the land, so to speak, and the president kindly facilitated this meeting."
That was starting to sound like the president wouldn't even be here. Oh, Mar was not a fan of this. She did not want to talk religion in a room where if felt like half the people in it thought she was a demon of some sort.
"Please," said the priest, earnestly, "we're all just seekers of knowledge, like yourself."
Oh, dear. She was going to do this, wasn't she?
