4
This night patrol was quiet for Danny. The spectro-scanner he'd stolen from his parents lab was beeping along nicely- no alarms yet. Danny had been tempted to stay in after last night's chaos. But like always, he had ignored it. Thankfully his parents had turned turned in early, giving him an earlier start. The sky was turning purple with the sunset and Danny stopped, floating and admiring the view.
"Falcon Razor Christmas. Come in. Falcon Razor Christmas." Tucker's voice came in, shriller and louder than any human should sound.
"Arrlgh!" Danny shouted and he yanked out his earpiece before Tucker could say anything else. After a moment, he brought it up to his ear again, now at a safer distance. He could hear Sam in the background. "You got exactly none of those phonetics right."
Tucker spoke back to her. "Well, it doesn't matter as long as Danny understands." Louder he said, "Right, Danny? You got it, right?"
"Yeash, lower it down Tucker. You sound like you're at the SuperDome."
"I pride myself on my projection."
"Come on. Where's the volume control on this?"
"Sorry , no can do. Stuck as is."
Danny heard Sam scolding in the background. "I told you it was too loud." Then she was talking to him, crackling through the radio. "Since Tucker doesn't understand anything older than a Windows 98, you'll just have to go prematurely deaf."
"Why didn't we just use another cellphone then?"
Tucker was quick to respond. "Maybe because you trashed your past 6 cellphones ghost hunting. And my last two." There was a pause and Tucker's voice strained with emotion. "They were too good for this world."
"Uggh, keep your technophilia to yourself," Sam quipped.
Tucker ignored her. "Ah well, the new cell's doing pretty nicely. So I'm not letting Danny anywhere near it." Danny could hear Tucker glaring at him through the walkie talkie. "Anyways, ghost fighting is a two handed job. You can't have a cell phone weighing you down."
"So what, I get a battery pack?"
"Hey, I worked hard on that battery pack! And yes, a battery back that charges all your ghost equipment, not just the walkie talkie."
Sam interrupted. "Okay, okay, we get it. Danny doesn't have to worry about his minutes. And can still call for backup. So he doesn't get beat up like a little punk."
Danny cringed. Guess Sam was still angry about last night. "Sorry."
Tucker just laughed. "Well, next time you're pummeled by Box Ghost because you decided to go it alone, we'll never let you live it down."
"Yeah, it'll be in the senior yearbook and everything." Sam added, easing up a little. "With pictures."
Ouch. Danny already had enough embarrassing stuff going into the yearbook. Dash was buddy buddy with the yearbook club photographer, a cute brunette who enjoyed causing humiliation almost as much as Dash did.
"You won't need to go that far. Besides, tonight's so slow I might actually get some sl-" He was cut off by an alarm, the Fenton finder going off.
"I can hear that Danny, where is it?" Sam asked, apprehension in her voice. "Do you need backup?"
"I dunno…" It took a few seconds for Danny to orient himself, turning this way and that til he got a fixed location. "Location...south. Near the shipping district." Danny exhaled. "Scratch the backup. It's just Box Ghost."
"Again?"
"Yeah, again? Didn't you kick his butt last night?" Tucker sounded farther away, like he and Sam had switched places.
"Mostly. He didn't get any thermos time. But he doesn't usually act out after a fight." Danny was flying fast towards the warehouse where he and Box had duked it out last night. Actually it was where they usually duked it out. He could see a faint glow emanating from the top windows. "Yep, there's definitely ghostly activity. Lit up like a gas station."
"Maybe someone's messing around in the warehouse?" asked Sam.
Tucker answered before Danny could respond. "Who in Amity Park would be crazy enough to do that?"
