Seeds of the Future

Chapter LXXI

The answer is forty two!

No it isn't, you imbecile! It is twenty five over the square root of two!

LIAR! You said forty two was the perfect number!

You misinterpreted my meaning! Also, simply because it is the perfect number does not mean it is perfect for every situation!

FORTY TWO! WRITE FORTY TWO!

But it was too late. Danny had already put down the smarter of the two voices' answer and, in doing so, had completed his homework for that evening.

You guys need to shut up every once in a while. It was hard enough getting used to you arguing about ghost fighting, but now you're doing the same thing while I'm trying to do homework. This has to stop.

"Danny, my boy!" The unmistakable voice of Jack Fenton resounded from the basement laboratory. "Come on down here, we have to show you something!"

"You better go, Danny," Jazz said as she grabbed an apple from the fruit basket. Danny had been so busy trying to contain the voices in his head that he hadn't even noticed his sister enter the kitchen. "Dad's real excited about this one. He's been working on it all morning," she paused before taking a bite from the apple. "Or he's been watching while mom did most of the important stuff. Either way, he's been hyped up about it for the last week."

"Yeah, I know," Danny said as he closed his book and shoved it uncaringly into his book bag. "I just hope it doesn't attack me."

Jazz nodded. "Their gear seems to have an affinity for you."

Danny inwardly shuddered. The last thing he needed was to be ambushed by some kind of machine as he walked down the stairs.

Danny made his way down to the lab; carefully making sure each step wasn't concealing a hidden attack device. Once he had safely made it into the lab without any altercations, Danny looked around. There were no laser sights targeting him, no crudely constructed robots rushing at him with flailing vacuum hoses and ecto-seeking torpedo launchers and no sharp objects buzzed past him in an effort to remove his head from his torso. So far so good . . .

"Look!"

Danny jumped back as a new device was thrust into his face, emphasized by his father's booming voice.

"That's great, dad," Danny said, getting his heart rate under control. "What is it?"

"I call it the Ghost Getter!" Jack exclaimed, beaming as if he had just won a prestigious award.

Danny looked at the device in his father's hand. It looked like a PDA, only with a small satellite attached to it and an on-off switch.

"What does it do?" Danny asked. Danny had learned to pay special attention to his parents' inventions, especially the ones that could potentially cause him pain. This one seemed harmless enough, but Danny always erred on the side of caution.

Jack raised a finger and opened his mouth to speak, but his finger sagged and his intelligently closed eyes squinted open, glancing at his wife.

Maddie smiled. "It locks on to ghosts using their invisibility powers. We found that ghosts use a series of chemicals to create the effect. The result is slightly more complicated. We think that every individual molecule can 'see' the world around it, and then project that image over itself. We're not sure how that works, but the chemical compound to trigger that mechanism is easy to detect, and that is what this device does."

Jack offered the device to his son. Danny inspected it, looking to see if it had any sort of weapon. Fenton inventions were notorious for having some sort of concealed, ghost-based attack mechanism. This one did not appear to house anything of the sort.

"We're also working on a weapon that can neutralize the chemical," Maddie continued. "The scanner would be able to detect the ghost's location, and then disable its invisibility power."

Danny's eyes widened. That could be a problem. Recently his parents had withdrawn their apparent 'cease-fire' that he wasn't aware existed in the first place. While they held off on using the heavier artillery, his mother had been quite adept at making sure he didn't leave the battle unscathed. Now hiding in plain sight was going to be a lot more difficult.

"But that is for another day," Maddie said, pulling her goggles and upper head wear back. "It's a wonderful Saturday afternoon, and nobody has any-"

Danny's phone chose that moment to ring. Tucker had made a song on one of his many illegally downloaded software programs just for Phantom called "Phantom". It was a catchy tune, and it had already been downloaded over ten million times on various music sites. Tucker had been offered a deal for the song, but declined, knowing that his method of producing the catchy tune would eventually come into question. Instead, he kept all rights of production and allowed the people of the world unlimited access to it, free of charge. Not the most economically sound plan, but it probably saved him from a world of legal trouble. Danny was quick to withdraw the phone from his pocket.

"Tucker," he said in greeting. "What's up?"

"The plaque on the arcade's men's room door is up for grabs, if that's what you're asking."

Danny's jaw dropped slightly. "What?"

"It's true," Tucker said in an amused tone. "Some punk eighth grader came waltzing in here like he owned the place and is currently going to town on Crash Nebula: Asteroids Ahoy. He's either spoiled rotten or gets a nice allowance, 'cause his pockets are practically vomiting quarters."

Danny rolled his eyes and sighed with relief. "I got five hundred million points on two quarters."

"This kid has four hundred and seven million, eight hundred and fifty six thousand, two hundred and ten points, and there's no end in sight; for him or his quarters. Oops, make that four hundred and eight mil-"

Danny had already jammed his phone into his pocket and was flying out the door before Tucker realized that he had lost the call. Danny ran into an alley across the street, safely away from the recently discovered cameras his parents had installed around the house God-knows how long ago. Once he was safe from prying eyes and lenses, Danny concentrated on the ghostly energy within him and let it out. The familiar bright green ring appeared at his waist and split, encompassing his entire body. Once they had completed their vertical journey, they dissipated, leaving the white haired, green eyed Phantom in Danny's place. Phantom took to the skies in all his jumpsuit-y glory and sped off towards the arcade.

Tucker smiled evilly at the little boy as his head hung in defeat. Crash Nebula's death at the hands of some horrible monster was playing over and over again on the screen with the words GAME OVER superimposed over him. His final score was only several hundred thousand points away from the all-time champion, D-stroyer Fenton; a god among geeks.

The eighth graders posse had disbanded, feeling embarrassed to associate with a loser of such magnitude. Sam exited the ladies' room to see the last of the brats clear out.

"I missed it?" she asked sadly.

"Yup. Kid used all his rockets on the mini-bosses and had nothing to go up against the big guy with. And when he got killed the first time, he ran out of quarters."

Sam joined Tucker in shaking her head. "Pity. I'd love to see the look on Danny's face if he had his precious plaque taken down."

Tucker chuckled as he sipped from his extreme-sized cherry cola slushie, causing him to choke and sputter as some of the delicious partially frozen nectar went down his wind pipe. After regaining his composure, he resumed his chuckling.

"I know the real reason you wanted that kid to lose." Tucker smiled as he drank, but this new effort failed, as some of the slushie dripped from the corners of his mouth and stained his white shirt. Tucker cursed and tried to wipe it off, which only succeeded in making it worse.

"And why is that?" Sam asked, placing her hand on her hip and striking a very stern girlish pose. "Mister 'I can't hold my slushie down'."

Tucker scowled. "When the standing champion loses, they either keep the plaque in their hall of fame or copy it and give the original one to the person's significant other. You knew Danny wouldn't be here in time to see them take it down, and we're probably two of the only people who know that rule. As soon as that brat took Danny's crown, you wanted swipe his plaque and frame it on your mantle or something."

Sam opened her mouth to reply, but could not think of anything to say.

"That's what I thought. Sam, he's had two girlfriends already and both of those were definitely under stranger circumstances-"

"Tucker, don't start-"

"If you just told him how you felt. Or, better yet, just start hanging out with him alone more. He'll have to get the hint eventually."

Sam glared at her friend.

"Ok, fine. Have it your way. But if you keep procrastinating, he's going to find another Spectra or another Valerie; one who isn't a ghost or hell-bent on killing him, and you're going to miss your chance."

Sam sighed. "Tucker, just stop, please? I'm really not in the mood," she said as she ran her hand through her newly died black hair. Most of anyone who had seen her with her platinum blonde look had either forgotten or decided not to care. Sam was content keeping it that way.

Danny decided to burst into the arcade at that moment, an almost animalistic rage burned in his green eyes. "Where's the twerp?" he growled.

Tucker laughed. "Just missed him. They took him away to get his plaque made."

Danny's fierce stance drooped into one of despair. His glowing green eyes dulled to an almost grey blue. Tucker thought he saw a tear start to form . . .

"Tucker, stop it," Sam scolded. She wrapped her arms around Danny's neck and looked him in the eyes. "Danny, he lost."

Danny's eyes widened and he looked at Sam like a child on Christmas morning. "Really?!" Sam nodded with a smile. Danny pulled Sam into an almost crushing embrace.

"HA!" He spun around in circles, lifting the dainty Sam off her feet and shouting 'yes' over and over again. When he put Sam down he placed his hands on either side of her face and pulled her into a kiss.

Tucker almost dropped his PDA as he whipped it out and started recording.

Danny broke away almost a full second later, his eyes wide with shock and disbelief. "Wha-" He spun around and ran into the men's' room, his plaque meaning nothing to him at the moment.

Tucker slid his PDA back into his pocket with a defeated sigh and observed the bright green light escape from under the door accompanied by the ethereal sound of Danny's transformation into Phantom. Tucker knew that going into the restroom to talk to his friend was pointless, as Phantom would be long gone by now. The techno geek looked over at Sam, who was rooted to the spot where Danny had kissed her.

"Sam?" Tucker asked quietly, careful not to agitate her. "You alright?"

"No, I'm not," she said in a surprisingly neutral tone. "Now do you see why I can't tell him? If that's how he'd react-"

"Look," Tucker interrupted. "I know you'll disagree with me on this, but Danny meant that. That was real."

"So he just runs off after? That's real?" Sam asked with a shaky voice, betraying her hurt feelings.

"I can tell you one thing for sure. If he didn't want to kiss you, he wouldn't have."

"Come off it, Tuck," Sam said, finding her way over to a bench. "He got caught up in his moment of glory. That's all he cares about."

"Ok, hold on," Tucker said, raising his hands. "Danny may be a lot of things, but he is not a glory hog. And no video game is more important to him than either of us."

"Tucker," Sam let out a long sigh. "Just be glad you're not a girl."

Tucker grinned. "Every day, Sam. Every day."

Hans let out a warbling screech before his body went limp. The massive condor collapsed to the floor of his cage, showing no signs of getting back up. Plasmius took her time cutting off the stream of electricity that flowed into the cage, pumping the dangerous energy into Hans' body even after his death.

"Was that absolutely necessary?" Skulker asked as he made himself known. "I know you do not tolerate betrayal, but Hans was not another one of your mindless drones. He was useful."

"Was is the key word in that statement, Skulker," Plasmius hissed. "I have been dreading the day something from Daniel's future came back to deal with him ever since I discovered Pariah's Prophecy." The ghost woman practically spat out the last two words. "And now, long before I have had time to prepare, I must deal with it."

"Honestly, what did you expect?" Skulker asked as he examined the felled Hans. "You didn't expect to just wait for the future to happen, did you? I read the prophecy as well. It clearly stated-"

"I know what it said, you idiot!" Plasmius shrieked. "And now, if the situation wasn't dire enough to begin with, that traitor has revealed critical information this Walker person can use to dispatch me without incident."

"You seem to hold Walker in high esteem if you fear him so much," Skulker said with a hint of amusement.

"Then you should be even more afraid. Considering his relationship to Phantom, I wouldn't be surprised if Walker obliterates every entity that has ever come into contact with the boy."

Skulker rubbed his flaming beard. "It is possible, but highly unlikely. You are at risk, there is no doubt. However, I don't think Walker would waste much time looking for acquaintances of Phantom."

Plasmius sneered. "If he is as powerful and . . . influential as I think he is, he wouldn't have to spend any time at all. There could be others."

Skulker mulled the idea around in his mind; assassins from the future coming to wipe out a majority of the power-players in the present? Implausible. Such drastic actions would alter the time stream, possibly erasing the assassins themselves from existence. Skulker often allowed his mind to wander in his free time, thinking of such things as time paradoxes. Today, however, he had no free time. Hefting the dead Hans like he was a pillow, Skulker made his way to Plasmius' pet cages with a twisted smile. The Saber-toothed Platypus-Apes looked especially hungry on his way in.

To Be Continued

A/N: Well, I'm back! No guarantees as to how long, though. I can't say that I'll leave forever again now that I started this segment, and I really want to finish this one. It's been floating around in my head for a long time and I finally worked through all the crap that it was initially made of.

As for excuses; sorry, I have none. No tragedies like last time I came back from the dead, although I have had multiple failed attempts to get a girlfriend. Not happy times for Grumbles. No sir . . .

So WOW, huh? Danny kisses Sam and TOTALLY FREAKS OUT! This is going to build up into one borderline orgasmic climax near the end which will probably rival the first shocker (Vanessa Masters).

And I'll continue thanking reviewers once everything gets back to "normal". On a side note, I messed up the Roman Numerals. Big time. So I'm just going from the number at the top from now on. Hope I didn't mess anyone up with that.

Wow, 800 reviews? 76,000 hits? I leave for way too long . . . I need a travel agent.

DIN DA DA