Chapter 295: The (Almost) Final Deposition of a Really Ugly Vase
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"We've got a meeting with the president at ten today, everyone ready?" asked Jazz.
"No," said Sam, lying face first on the couch. "Frickin'… lobbyists. Didn't stop talking until midnight. Why're we even putting up with lobbyists?"
"Because Amity Park would like to have trade with the rest of Earth, and unfortunately that often means dealing with conglomerates and people who want special treatment. Hence, lobbyists," explained Pamela, putting something in her shiny new purse. "Has anyone seen my paler lipstick? I think I might have lost it in the fighting… Can't remember if I had it in my bag…"
"Nope," said Sam. "Want to see how you look in black or purple? I think I have a green, too."
"I don't think I could pull those colors off like you can, dear," said Pamela, returning upstairs.
"We could try to organize something with small businesses," said Sam.
"They usually don't have the resources or organization for large international ventures!" called Pamela, her voice echoing.
Sam groaned.
"Well," said Jazz, consolingly. "You have another hour before we have to leave."
"I still don't understand why the president is so insistent that I don't open portals," said Sojourn, passing by with a large red rock.
"It's a security thing," said Jazz, checking the clasp on her charm bracelet.
"Yes, yes, but he has no way of stopping me from opening portals except diplomacy and social pressure. If I wanted to send something there, I could simply slip it in."
"Speaking of things, what is that rock for?"
"Ah, a senator I spoke to yesterday expressed an interest in space exploration. I thought I would get them a gift."
Jazz squinted. "Is that a piece of Mars?"
"Why, yes. I asked Sojourner to pick out a nice one."
"Sojourner?"
"Yes, the ghost of that little rover. Very nice girl."
Jazz had known that things and ideas could generate ghosts, but… One on Mars hit different, somehow. Later. She'd process that later.
"Did you get one for Danny?" Because otherwise he'd sulk. A mild reaction for someone with a space Obsession, honestly. At least he'd never tried to steal anything space related. Except for that one time, but it had been Vlad, so it hardly counted.
… Unless there was something Jazz didn't know about.
"Why, yes. Sojourner gave me one for him as well."
The way he phrased that… "Are you saying Danny's been to Mars?"
"You didn't know?"
Jazz had not, but she honestly wasn't surprised. She shook her head. Still, now that she knew there were Danny-and-Space activities that she didn't know about, she'd be fretting about the stealing thing for ages.
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"You know what we need to do?" asked Tucker. He and Danny were under observation, in case the ointment had any other inconvenient effects on them.
(Well, Tucker was mostly here because Danny had latched onto his arm and refused to let go. Details, details.)
Dan and Johnny were…
Well, Ellie hadn't come back yet, so presumably he was busy passing on his skills in arson. Johnny might as well be on his way to the Time Locked Lands to become a monk for all Danny cared.
Wait. No, actually, he cared about that quite a bit. Kitty would be devastated, for one, and for another, it really did seem like he and Dan could be friends. It'd suck for Dan to lose that over what was essentially terrible bad luck.
"No?" Danny ran his thumbs over his fingertips for the umpteenth time, confirming that they were clean.
"We need to go on that Pilgrimage thing. Well, Sam, Jazz, and I do."
"Yeah, I don't think I'm supposed to go with you. At least not all the way."
"Right, right. But, honestly…" He sighed. "We get into so much stupid dangerous stuff. I joke about it, but…"
"Yeah," said Danny. "I'd be lying if I told you it didn't keep me up at night, sometimes. But the Pilgrimage will be dangerous, too."
"Sure, sure. But I'm kind of hoping that by the end of it, I'll be able to have enough influence on my surroundings that I won't be worried about you accidentally squishing me with shields."
Danny winced. "Sorry about that…"
Tucker shrugged. "It isn't like you hurt me, or anything. I'd just like to have a bit better grasp on everything." He twirled his staff between his fingers.
"Maybe," said Danny, "after the Truce really kicks off? That way you have at least some time to travel without having to worry about people attacking you."
"That makes sense. Hey, I was thinking—"
"No way."
"Dude, that joke is so old. I was thinking, for the internet thing, we can't have fiber optic cables everywhere. Can't even have electrical cables. Islands move too much. What about satellites?"
"Huh, yeah," said Danny. "But satellites aren't exactly easy to make."
"Most of that is getting them in the air," said Tucker, confidently. "But, I mean, not so much the structure of a satellite, we can have them on the ground or in buildings, but just how they work in general. Connect different realms that way and have the realm itself on a LAN or something. Technus said something about some of the scientist-oriented communities having stuff like that."
"Getting around all the ectoplasm interference wouldn't be easy."
"Sure, but—"
Danny was suddenly hyperaware of his hands again. "Sorry," he said, "I zoned out for a second. What did you say?"
"Uh," said Tucker. "The satellites connected to the Ops Center have some kind of system for that, right? Those and the Fenton Phones."
"Oh, yeah," said Danny. "I'm not sure if the blueprints for those are still there, though." He hadn't had the time to really check the Ops Center computers to see what the GIW hadn't stolen. "But in theory, yeah. Yeah, I could see that working. Those satellites kind of use the interference to find ectoplasm, but the general idea… Yeah."
Tucker looked like he was about to say something else, then stopped himself.
"What's up?"
"I don't know," said Tucker. "Just… It's weird, isn't it? I'm in charge of a country and I'm planning on bringing the internet to a whole new dimension. I never really…" He waved his hand. "To be honest, before ghosts, the future was so far away I never thought about it, or at least I avoided thinking about it. Then, after, all that career stuff seemed secondary to ghosts. But now? I'm planning for stuff that'll happen after I'm dead."
"Yeah, but we know now that dead doesn't mean gone. So, really, you were right about career stuff being secondary to ghosts. Ghosts are your career stuff."
"Ew. Don't say it like that. It makes me sound like… like a ghost hunter or something."
"I hate to break it to you, but you kind of are a ghost hunter. Well. Were is more accurate at this point, I guess." Danny shuddered. "Oh, no, I am not getting nostalgic for having my ectoplasm scraped off the streets of Amity Park."
"It was a simpler time," reminisced Tucker, pressing a dramatic hand to his chest.
They both burst out laughing.
"Oh my gosh," said Danny. "It wasn't."
"It really wasn't," agreed Tucker. "Can you imagine? Trying to go to school now?"
"Stars," said Danny, wheezing, "we'll probably have to go back to school eventually. Jazz will nag me to… a fate worse than death if I don't get a high school diploma."
"I can almost hear it now. Just because I'm ruling a realm and making internet work in a different dimension, doesn't mean I can ignore my education!"
"It does—It does make sense, but—"
"The contrast—"
"Hey, Mr. Lancer, I need to leave class early, so I can go to the meeting about revising the tax code. Ha!"
"Do you even have taxes? No one in Kemet mentioned it to me."
Part of Danny winced, but the rest of him was prepared to find this funny. "The answer to that is so complicated I can hardly think about it, but it boils down to yes, but actually no, but kind of yes, conditionally, but not really."
"Why?"
"Two words: tax Obsession."
"Oh no."
"I've got to keep my subjects happy, Tuck. As long as there've been taxes, there have been people who are insane about avoiding them. Then, there are the undead tax collectors. That's before getting into whatever is going on with the treasury. I still haven't gotten a straight answer about that from Moneta." He wasn't laughing anymore. "Oops, I've launched myself out of hysteria and right back into massive stress."
"Ah, the catapult of humor is ever fickle."
"That doesn't make sense."
"No, no it does not."
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They got to the White House early, then spent more time going through security that was, in Sam's opinion, reasonable. Still faster than airport security (and pointless because what weapon could they be bringing that could be better than any of the ghosts' natural abilities?), but they wound up being late for the meeting. This was fine, because the president was also late to the meeting. Something about taxes. That old saying might have something to it, after all. Go figure.
In the meantime, there was something very much like an attempt to interrogate them about Freakshow and what happened while Sam and Pamela were his captives. Or, no. Interrogate was probably the wrong word here. Debrief?
But the interrogation was, in turn, interrupted by a senator who made an obvious play to curry favor, although what for was a question that went unanswered, because he'd come with a lobbyist who, in turn, interrupted him, and what she wanted was… Something about grain subsidies.
They did want to open up trade, especially food trade, for Amity Park and the humans there, but this seemed… sketchy. Very sketchy.
Before the lobbyist got very far or they were forced to be rude to her, however, the president arrived with the usual fanfare (aka Secret Service agents and aides) and all the extra people were chased out.
"Thank you for meeting with me today," said the president. "I hear you've been enjoying the capitol."
Wow, what a way to say that they'd been watched. Sure, they'd already known they would be, but still.
Or maybe the president was just having his people monitoring social media.
"I understand you've found some popularity, Miss Fenton," the president was saying, now.
A little of column A, a little of column B…
Jazz blushed. "Yes, we're aware of the memes," said Jazz.
"The what?" asked the president. "Is that a ghost thing?"
Listening to Jazz try to explain memes to the president was painful. The guy wasn't that old. It wasn't like Sam was going to try and jump into that, though. That would be more painful, because then she'd be directly involved.
"Now," said the president, shaking his head as if to cast off the confusion from the previous conversation, "you are probably wondering why I called for this meeting without giving an agenda."
"It had crossed our minds, yes," said Sojourn, with good humor.
"We assumed it was something you wanted to keep relatively secret," added Sam. Relatively, because there was no way to keep meetings like this completely secret.
"Yes, well," said the president. "Our interrogation of Showenhower revealed that he left an item here that we believe might have been used to effect control over the ghosts in the holding facility."
He couldn't just say prison, could—
Sam realized a second too late that they should have tried to look more surprised. This was going to turn into a we know that they know that we know, and we know that, but no one can acknowledge it situation.
She hated those.
"After some research, we believe we have found it, and we would like to turn it over to you at your earliest possible convenience."
"What kind of item is it?" asked Sojourn, leaning forward and steepling his fingers.
"A vase," said the president. "It has some strange markings on the inside."
Sojourn nodded. "It would not be entirely unusual for the White House to give foreign dignitaries small gifts. Assuming the vase is relatively inexpensive, it could be disguised as something like that." He paused. "If, of course, you would like to maintain a level of secrecy?"
"As long as you're comfortable with that," said the president.
"We are talking about a mind control device," said Sojourn, spreading his hands. "Such things are never comfortable. Thank you for promptly bringing it to our attention."
And it was prompt. The 'evil vase' hadn't disappeared from the archives all that long ago. A good sign, in Sam's opinion. Definitely a gesture of goodwill.
On the other hand…
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"There's no way there was only one anchor if Freakshow gave it up that fast," said Sam, after they had left and were once again safely in the embassy.
"Unfortunately," said Sojourn, "I believe you are correct. Even given… enhanced methods of interrogation, the confession is too rapid. A man like that will not give up leverage unless it can benefit him."
"So…" said Wes. "What now? Keep looking?"
"I'm afraid that is all we can do," said Sojourn. "It is quite possible that we will never find them all."
"I don't like the sound of that," said Sam.
Sojourn let his shoulders rise and fall in something just a little too deliberate and stately to be called a shrug. "The worlds we live in are far from perfect," said Sojourn. "On occasion, even with our best efforts, we cannot achieve our desired results."
"We should make sure they're more aware of the kind of stunt Freakshow's pulled before," said Sam, jerking a thumb over her shoulder to indicate the White House, even though it wasn't visible and also wasn't in that direction.
"Does that involve the, hm, summer that never happened?" asked Pamela.
"Yep," said Sam. "It sure does."
"I suppose we would have to hear about it eventually. What, exactly, did it involve?"
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"Alright," said Frostbite, "I do not see any lingering physical effects. Do still feel as if your Obsession is in a heightened state?"
"Seeing as I've finally let Tucker go to the bathroom," said Danny, before trailing off. "Hm. Maybe a little?"
Frostbite nodded. "That is to be expected. However, I think you should be alright to leave. Provided that you go straight to your rooms." Frostbite paused for a long minute. "Perhaps I should bring you there, considering…"
"That's probably a good idea," admitted Danny.
