Danny came crashing through the open door. "Go! Go! Go!" he cried, collapsing to the floor.
Sam hit the "Door Close" button, yanked back on the steering yoke and tromped on the floor mounted throttle. The Specter Speeder heaved off the floating island with a jerk and streaked deep into the Ghost Zone.
"Where are we going?" Sam asked.
"A--way. --Loose -- 'em," Danny panted. He had rolled on to his back and lay in the floor, gasping like an asthmatic whale.
Sam looked into the rear mounted video camera and saw a couple dozen ghosts dressed in identical military type uniforms close behind them. They were mounted on what looked liked flame belching motorcycles.
"Cheezits, the cops!" She exclaimed.
"What?" Tucker asked.
"I always wanted to say that. Walker's guards are after us. They're getting closer."
"Oh, Mamma. I'm too young to go to jail!" Tucker wailed. "Danny where's the guns on this thing?"
"Guns?" Sam echoed. "There's' no guns on this vehicle."
"Of course there's guns on it. It's a Fenton!. Danny, The guns!"
"Gl--ove B--ox" Danny panted. Sam noticed a wide patch on the side of his black jumpsuit that looked -- melted, bubbly.
"Danny, are you al right?" she cried.
"Dude, there's nothing in here but a Playstation controller."
"Th--at's -- it."
"Your old man hacked a Playstation controller to make a weapons console! Cool."
"No. The Playstation is the weapons controller." Danny was starting to breath a little easier. "It uses an old videogame for the sighting logistics. Ever play 'Berlin Blitzkrieg'?"
"That's the targeting program?"
"Press "A" "A", "Left" and 360 on the joystick. That'll switch on the weapons."
"Weapons are activated," a computer generated voice announced. There was a boom and the speeder shock.
"What was that?" Sam demanded as she wrestled the Speeder back into control."
"Main gun." Danny answered. Don't use that again. It'll drain the system after two or three more bursts. Use the Lancet setting." Slowly he pulled himself from the floor and staggered over to the cabin door. Through the porthole there he watched the pursuing ghost police. "Technus helped me escape," he announced. "Jammed Walker gun just as he was going to use it. I owe my life to him."
"Don't tell me we're going back to rescue him," Tucker whined.
"No. He wants us to find this Boucou Buxcs and stop him. There's only one Technus and he's it." Danny was jabbing at the "Door Open" button but nothing was happening. He put a hand on one edge of the panel and starting pushing. After a moment the door reluctantly slid open. Danny leaned out the open door, pointed a finger at one of the pursuing ghost and fired a blast of ectoplasm. The bike the ghost cop was riding exploded, throwing the ghost into the path of another, taking him down as well. He had to pause and catch his wind before using his ghost powers again. Tucker was getting the hand of the Playstation console and blowing up cop bikes with regular success.
The Speeder took a sudden lurch to the right. Danny had to grab hard to the door sill to keep from being thrown out. "Watcha doing, woman?" Tucker demanded. "You made me miss."
"Don't 'woman' me, Tucker Foley. I was just trying to save your scrawny hide. The speeder made another unexpected lurch. "It's called evasive action. If they can't figure out where we're going they can't hit us."
Sam twisted the yoke to the left hard, then back to the right almost as fast. Tucker looked out the windshield and saw a small mountain hurtle by, and then another. Sam barely missed crashing into the second one. "Hey, be careful," he exclaimed.
"I meant to do that," Sam said. "I think we lost them in that maneuver."
"I don't think so," Danny announced from the open door. He ducked his head out and threw ectoplasm after something."
Sam said a few choice words and twisted the yoke around like she was trying to tear it from the floor.
"I think I'm going to be sick," Tucker groaned. "There's got to be a better way. Sam how far back are those cops?"
"About a quarter-mile, I guess."
"That should just do it. Find another mountain and swing behind it. But let me know which one you're going to use and when you're going to change course. Danny, are you sure this bus has enough power for another burst from the main gun?"
"Yeah, I guess. But really only one shot."
"Good enough." Tucker smiled.
Sam pointed to a small floating island they were approaching. "Great" Tucker murmured, getting a tight grip on the game console.
"Here we go!" Sam announced.
"Go!" Tucker echoed.
The speeder whipped around the edge of the island. They passed it so close that Tucker could see individual blades of grass growing on its surface. He had split the video screen in two. One half tracked the cops following behind them, it was showing a projection of their location since the floating island was momentarily blocking them from view. The other half of the screen showed the island. Tucker's eyes shifted back and forth.... "Now!" he cried and hit the "Fire" button.
The Speeder shuddered as the main gun discharged. The island behind them exploded. Great gorts of rock and debris were thrown into the air, filling an area ten times the size of the island. After a moment flashes of light came from behind the sky full of rubble. None of the ghost police appear. Sam make a couple more course changes to be safe, then let the Speeder coast.
"I think we lost them," She said.
Danny hit the Door Close button then staggered back to one of the passenger seats. He collapsed into it.
"Keep an eye out in case one of those guys got around that explosion. That was a pretty good trick, Tuck," Danny panted. He was gingerly feeling the blistered part of his uniform.
"Saw it on 'Star Raiders'." Tucker confessed. "Episode 2. Death Scream of the Kill-mongers."
"Isn't that the one where Stella Astra runs down a corridor and she's not wearing a bra?" Danny asked.
"Hey! Guys, any idea where we are?" Sam interjected, before the boys got distracted by a discussion of movie sleeze.
Danny peered out the windshield and shook his head before slumping back in his chair. "Not a clue," he sighed.
"I thought you had charted the ghost zone," Tucker asked.
"Parts of it. It's a larger place then you think. This could be anywhere."
"You mean we're lost?"
"No, not necessarily. We ought to be able to home in on the Fenton portals' signal. It'll take time, especially if Walker is still out there looking for us.
"What do you want us to do right now?" Sam asked. She noticed Danny's pale face and how he winced when he turned. "Hey, are you all right? Is that blood?"
"I'll be alright," Danny insisted but Sam was suddenly standing over him, fumbling at his neck for the zipper of his jumpsuit. She ripped it down to his waist and started pulling it away from his shoulder.
"Ow! Ow! Stop!" Danny cried in great pain.
She stopped.
"Danny, what happened?"
"Walker may have hit me one time while I was getting away."
"We got to get you home."
"No" Danny exclaimed.! "No, how am I going to explain this to Mom? I'll be alright. Just put a band-aid on it."
"Dude, I don't think they make bandages that big," Tucker said as he slid into the pilot's seat that Sam had abandoned, "and Sam's not wearing a slip."
"What?" Sam shouted, outraged.
"Well, in all the movies the heroine makes bandages by ripping up her slip. It's a tradition. Except Sam's not wearing a slip."
Danny opened an eye and glanced at Sam, who was hovering over him. Her new purple camouflage jeans and tee were still strange to Danny, but he couldn't imagine her ever wearing a slip.
"That is so insane. Tucker don't you have something to do?" Sam said.
"Not really."
"Find something,"
Carefully Sam pulled the jumpsuit away from Danny's burned area. The touch of her fingers as she worked the fabric loose from his skin, the hot breath blowing on his neck sent a thrill down his spine.
After a minute Sam had his jumpsuit hanging down by his waist. On his left side was a raw, blistered area that started slightly below his armpit and run down to just above his hips, and wrapped around his side to cover nearly a third of his back.
"This is not good, Danny," she said. "We've got to get help."
"We can't tell Mom, she'll suspect something. She'll find out I'm a ghost. You know how she is about ghosts."
"She's your mother, Danny; she'll love you no matter what."
"Sam, your mother tries to change you every day. I've never seen her accept you for who you are."
"Yeah, but your mother's different. I know."
"And if you're wrong I'm dead. I can't take that chance."
"You got a First Air kit on this thing?" Sam asked, changing the subject again.
"First cabinet, top shelf."
Sam found a small metal box, white with a large red cross painted on it. She opened it up and found a number of small tubes and boxes. Pawing through them she came up with a tube of Bacitracin."Is this the only First Aid kit?" she asked. "I don't think there's enough ointment to cover everything."
"That's it, Sam, we'll just have to make do."
Sam was holding up boxes of small band-aids. "What kind of first aid did they think we'd need out here?" she wondered, "little boo-boos? We need to find something big to cover your burns."
"Slip," Tucker called from the pilot's seat. He was toying with some instruments, trying to get a bearing on the signal from the Fenton Portal.
"Tucker!" Sam called warningly. "Besides, I think they tear up their petticoats."
"I get it. I'm sorry. Wish I had never brought it up," Tucker muttered. He seemed happy about what he had found on the instruments. He turned the yoke before pressing down on the accelerator.
Sam was rummaging through the First Aid kit again looking for some kind of wrap when she pulled out an aerosol canister. "Dermalsol?" She read. "Hey Danny, what's this?"
"Dunno."
"Tucker, see if you can find an entry for something called Dermalsol - D-E-R-M-A-L-S-O-L" on the Speeder's computer."
While Tucker was working Sam found a packet with sterile latex gloves. She ripped it open and slipped one on, squirted a glob of Bacitracin on her gloved fingers and bent to Danny's blistered area. "Here goes nothing, Danny. Ready?"
"Mmmm"
She started spreading the antibiotic across the blisters. She tried to use as light a touch as possible. Danny hissed in pain but said nothing.
"You ok?" she asked as she added a second glop and started spreading it.
"Just get it over with," he whispered between gritted teeth.
After another minute Sam announced she was done. "We still need to cover that up."
"I'll just pull up my jumpsuit. That'll cover it."
"No way. We're trying to protect your burn from your jumpsuit.
"It's not dirty."
"When have you ever washed that thing?"
"It's always clean when I become Danny Phantom."
"We'll find something else." Sam stated and pulled open one cabinet after another. "Tucker, did you ever find anything about that Dermasol?" She called.
"I've been busy locating the signal from the Ghost Portal.: he called back.
"That can wait until we take care of Danny."
"I just thought getting out of here was the top priority. 'Dermasol... Dermasol.... There's nothing under general information about it. "
"Look up the First Aid Kit. maybe it's listed there."
"Bandages, gauze, ointment? Experimental. Here it is. 'Experimental skin replacement.' Use only under Protocol 5. Any idea what that is?"
Danny shook his head.
Sam started shaking the can, then pulled Danny's arm up. The spray formed an orangish-brown cover over the damaged skin.
"We still need to cover the burned area." She went back to prowling through the cabinets. Finally she cried in triumph; turned, shaking out a aluminized blanket. She folded into a long, thin sheet, with the felt side on the inside. "Here," she ordered Danny, placing one end of the blanket on his chest. "Lift your arms."
Sam wrapped the blanket around Danny twice and slipped the other end under his hand. Danny looked on befuddled. Sam pulled up Danny's jumpsuit and got one arm into the sleeve, Transferring the blanket to his other hand, Danny finished getting his suit back on. Sam ran the zipper back up and stepped back to look at her accomplishment. "How does that feel?" she asked.
"I feel like The Mummy." Danny raised his arms in front of him and went "O-o-O-O-o-o."
"Seriously, Dude, we're in big trouble," Tucker said from the pilot's seat. "Besides Danny looking like a toasted marshmellow, the Specter Speeder took some heavy fire back there as well. Maybe we could slip Danny past his folks but scorch marks on the Speeder are going to cause some comment."
"How long till we reach the Fenton Portal," Sam murmured.
"We're flying on the bearing, but whether we're flying to or from the portal we won't know for another hour or so. If the signal strength increases then we're getting closer. If it drops, then we've been going the wrong way."
"Maybe we ought to stop for a moment so Danny can fly out and see how bad the damage is."
"What's the point, we can't fix anything. We don't have any tools." Danny had walked up to the cockpit. He was holding on to the back of the chairs for support as he looked the windshield. "Hey I recognize this place. We're close to Clockwork's Castle." He pushed Tucker out of the pilot's seat and sat down. "We can go talk to him. I bet he knows who Boucou Buxcs is and what he's trying to do."
"Why would the Ghost of Time help us?" Tucker asked.
"He likes me."
"I don't think so," Sam said. "
"He kept me from becoming Dark Dan."
"I thought he said he was supposed to destroy you to prevent Dark Dan from ever existing," Tucker wondered. "Instead he let Dark Dan come into existence then manipulated time -- and you -- so that Dark Dan would be trapped in a thermos."
"If he can play with time that easily," Sam added, "I would think he could have found some way to prevent you from becoming Dark Dan altogether "
"Yeah. It's like he wants Dark Dan, but under his control, like." Tucker continued.
"Makes you wonder what he can see in the future that's so bad that he needs Dark Dan to fix it." Sam said.
"Pariah Dark. That's the only ghost I know of that could Dark Dan a run for his money."
"And what could he offer Dark Dan for his help?"
"Maybe he expected Dark Dan and Pariah, or whoever, to cancel each other out."
"Wow, you guys have really thought this out," Danny said when they were finished, rolling is eyes as he spoke. "But the other time, Clockwork let me go back in time to find out how to save you two from Ecto-Acne."
"But didn't you screw up the timeline by trying to stop Vlad from becoming a ghost, and Clockwork had to undo your mess?"
"Hey, I fixed that mess on my own."
"That's not how it sounded when you told us about it." Tucker said.
"I got my folks back together."
"After your mother had been married to Vlad for twenty years. You know what married people do, don't you Danny. The whole concept is one massive 'Ewwww'!"
"What do you means?"
"I am not explaining that to Danny," Tucker declared.
"S-E-X, Danny. Just because you got your parents back together didn't erase the fact that for twenty years your mother... And you and Jazz still didn't exist in that world. Clockwork had to reset the past. The past you messed up. So I don't think he'll want to see you again, or help you out. "
"There's no harm in asking, Sam."
Sam Manson glowered for a moment. "All right. I guess you can ask."
"Maybe, you know, he was trying to teach me a lesson," Danny mused.
"And what might that be?" Sam asked.
"Don't mess in the past?" Tucker offered. "Don't leave you clothes on the floor?"
"Don't cheat in tests!"
"Hey, that's not fair."
"Maybe he was trying to tell you that life's not fair and you can't depend on god-like ectoplasmic representations to fix things for you."
"Huh."
"Never mind, just find Clockwork."
***
Danny had been flying the Specter Speeder for over an hour when Tucker frowned and asked, "Didn't we pass that island already?"
"Hmm, maybe?"
"I thought you knew where you were going, Dude."
"I do."
"Then why do we keep passing the same rock?"
"I think Clockwork has taken in the "Welcome" mat," Sam said smugly. "He's steering us around his castle so we can't get to it."
"Like heck he's going to keep me out."
"Give it up, Danny. You can't fight someone who can travel through time."
"I -- will -- not -- give -- up," Danny growled, whipping the speeder through a number of tight turns, speeding up and braking suddenly. Sam and Tucker found themselves hanging on to their chairs . Sam was about to plead again for Danny to stop when the Speeder suddenly burst around a small floating island and zoomed down towards a castle on a ver large island. It had a square central structure with a pair of rambling wings coming out the sides. The tops of the walls were crenellated. There were five towers of uneven heights. From the topmost hung a flag that pictured an hourglass on the field.
"I told you I would get us here," Danny announced defiantly.
***
The castle gate opened upon their approach. Long halls loomed in the distance. Torches flared into life as they approached and extinguished themselves after they had passed. The castle at once sounded both empty, untenanted and filled with a thousand frantic ticking clocks, much like Clockwork who was young, old and middle-aged at the same time. Though the halls constantly branched off in different directions, which Sam suspected all lead back to the entrance, Danny followed an unerring path through them until he lead his friends into a vast, almost dimensionless expanse filled with ticking clocks of all kinds, view-screens and in one corner a gap-toothed baby floating in the air, a weathered staff floating next to him.
"You do realize," he said as he morphed into a gnarled old man, "that I could have stopped you from getting here any time I wanted."
"You're bluffing," Danny answered.
"Think what you will, Daniel Fenton," the old man straightened up and became a hearty being of forty or fifty years ago. "As is your right. You've come to ask about Boucou Buxcs."
"How did you know?" Tucker gasped.
"I would be a poor excuse for the master of time if I did not."
"Right, so who he is and what he he trying to do?"
"You're not interested in how he could create digital clones of Technus? I would have thought that would have been the most interesting thing about him. It's quite a trick you know."
"Excuse me for being shallow, then," Danny answered sarcastically. "I mostly care about people who are trying to hurt me friends."
"Youth!" the infant Clockwork cooed. "It is your one virtue, King Phantom. Ghosts are old people. Even Youngblood is old, old....old. We act out of our roles because that is what we are supposed to do, never questioning why." The infant clockwork abruptly became ancient, pulled out the pacifier that had remained in his mouth, shook it until it snapped into a pipe and returned it to his mouth. "You question everything, defy everyone. You alone are new in a universe of the old.
"So you will tell us about Boucou Buxcs?" Tucker asked.
"No. I admire your youthful determination, but this story must play out the way it must. I can not interfere.
"Why not, you have in the past?"
"I had my reasons then..."
"I knew it, whispered Sam
"... ut this time is different. Besides, I think anyone who can lock Dark Pariah back in his tomb doesn't need any help from me."And with the stroke a clock the hall was empty, dust-covered and dark. Danny raised some ectoplasmic energy from his fingertip to provide light.
"I guess the interview is over," Tucker said.
"Yeah..." Danny whispered in awe. "What the hell all did he mean?"
"King Phantom," Sam whispered. "I don't like the sound of that. Danny, promise me one thing?'
"Sure, what?"
"If you ever become king -- quit."
"Don't you want to become Queen, Sam?" Tucker teased. "Think of the power?"
"My parents have power. It sucks. I don't want to be like them, I don't want Danny to become like them."
"Sure, whatever. I am not going to become Dark Dan or King Phantom or any of that stuff. Clockwork was just pulling our leg. Anyway I expect Sam will kick my butt if I ever start weirding out."
He turned and strode down the corridor. They others hurried to catch up.
"What was that all about, Sam?" Tucker whispered.
She shook her head. "Does Clockwork ever do anything by accident or has he had it all planned out from the beginning of time?"
***
They soon reached the castle gate. As soon as they has stepped through to the outside the castle gate slid shut and the whole castle disappeared. The Specter Speeder stood a short distance away. There was something different about it.
Danny launched himself in to the air and streaked towards it, Sam and Tucker running behind. They caught up with Danny as he was finishing reading a note stuck on the speeder's door. Wordlessly, he handed it to them.
.
"Just to demonstrate that I am the ultimate deus ex machina, I have fixed your vehicle."
It was signed with the image of a clock with both hands at the top, with was labeled XIII instead of 12.
"He fixed the speeder, after all he said about not helping us?" Sam exclaimed.
"What's a deus ex machina?" Danny wondered.
"Ancient Greek plays," Sam explained, "ended with a mechanical crane lowering an actor playing one of the gods who would wrap up the story, hand out rewards and punishments and explain the morale of the play. The crane they rode was call the deus ex machina, machine of the gods. Today it's come to mean any cheap contrivance in a story, the fortunate coincidence, the lucky break, what have you, that a writer uses to solve some problem in his plot."
"If he fixed the Specter Speeder, did he..." Danny ripped open his jumpsuit hoping to find clean skin underneath but the foil blanket bandage was still in place, only a note had been crammed on top.
.
"The wages of deering-do is pain and suffering. This I am not allowed to fix."
.
"Is that a smiley face at the end of his message?" Sam asked.
"Clockwork has a sense of humor?" Tucker asked.
"Apparently," Sam answered," but not one I would rely on. He fixed the damage to the Speeder, which we could worked around have gotten us into big trouble but not Danny's burns which could be life threatening."
"We would have figured out some way to hide the damage until we had time to fix it," Danny said. "A little paint, some sanding and it would have been as good as new."
"And the burn is more serious so it's something we will have to deal with for a while."
"Let's go home. The Ghost Zone is starting to freak me out," Tucker announced. "It's like Alice in Wonderland, only without the cute bunnies."
"I'm with Tuck, Danny. I think we've had more than our share of adventures today."
"One more place." Danny insisted. "There's one last place that may have information about Boucou Bucxs and we ought to investigate it while we're here."
"Oh, no."
"It's the Library of the Ghost Zone. When has anything dangerous ever happened in a library?"
"There's always the danger of learning something." Sam quipped.
***
It was a short, straightforward trip to the Ghost Zone Library, since it wasn't trying to hide from anyone.
The Library was an eight-sided building build around a central garden that was in itself three or four acres in extent. A formal maze surrounded a large fountain and flowers of many colors and levels of animation decorated the walks outside the maze. Sam, who had seem more than a few formal gardens in her time was impressed. Danny and Tucker, who tended to think that dandelions were flowers, were less impressed.
The front of the Library was build of tall Greek columns with a deep portico in front and a steep flight of steps leading from the ground up to the entrance. Since ghosts were flying in and out of the Library without ever using the stairs Tucker wondered why they were there, but grateful that they were there since he couldn't fly.
Danny lead the way inside. The library was an open hall, three stories tall, with a gabled ceiling and cathedral windows lining the inner wall. The outer walls was lined with books from floor to ceiling. A balcony wrapped around the building about half way up. Ladders on wheels were mounted on both floors to provide access to the books on the tallest shelves.
Beside the entrance was a long desk with five or six ghosts, no two of them looking anything like, stamping books, sorting piles of returned books or looking things up in huge bound volumes. Except for the fact that librarians and visitors alike were all hideous monsters, it looked like any library, Sam, Tucker or Danny had ever been in.
A shadow fell over them.
"We don't alone your kind here" a Stentorian voice whispered.
What? Jews?" Sam asked.
"Blacks?" Tucker challenged.
"Mortals!" It answered
"Oh."
"Well, I'm not mortal, I'm a ghost, so you have to let me in," Danny said.
"You're the Haffa. That's nearly as bad as being a mortal."
"We just want to look something up. We're not trying to check out any books."
"There are dark terrible things here that are not meant for mortal eyes."
"But you'd let an idiot like the box ghost read them."
"Danny!" Sam whispered, "don't pick a fight."
"Listen to the puny female. You don't want to pick a fight with me." The librarian straightened up to its full twenty feet and opened its mouth to show the several rows of bristling fangs.
A monster at a near-by table turned to them and hissed "shhh" from several mouths. It pointed with half a dozen scaley tentacles to a sign hanging over the librarians desk. "Silence, Please."
"Come to think of it," Danny suggested, "it would be a lot easier to just let us have thirty minutes to look up a few things then have a ruckus trying to throw us out."
The hideous librarian glared at the three for a moment, opening up a dozen extra eyes on its body to get s better view. "Thirty minutes, then begone." it whispered and slithered aside to let them in.
Sam scampered over to the card catalog and quickly pulled open a draw. "Hey," She cried, then blushed for speaking loudly, "Look, Danny, everything is in Sanskrit."
"You can read Sanskrit?"
"Well, no, but I recognize the shape of the letters. The Theosophians were right, Sanskrit is the original first language."
"Uh, Sam, the English card catalog is over here," Tucker called softly.
"Oh."
"So much for the Theosophians, whoever they were,"
"Quacks, obviously."
"Hey, look!" Tucker was holding up a fragment of pasteboard.
"What is it?" Sam asked.
"Find Boucou Buxcs?"
"No, but right after 'Bouci' I found this lying in the bottom of the drawer."
"It's a piece from a catalog card. There's 'b-o-u...' and the rest is torn off.
"Sounds like someone has been here ahead of his clearing out any evidence of Boucou Buxcs." Danny groused. "Now what? Sam, you go to libraries, what would you do?"
"Sometimes, Danny, your fear of learning is appalling."
"Well?"
"Telephone books?" Tucker suggested.
"Go to the desk and ask," Sam suggested.
"You, those librarians scare me."
"Tucker, they're just librarians. They're not going to bite your head off."
"I think the one with huge teeth might."
"Then go to the one at the end of the desk. It almost looks normal."
Reluctantly Tucker went off on his mission. After a moment he came back. "They have never heard of telephones or telephone books.
"Did you ask about the Internet."
"Tucker slapped his forehead. "I'm not going back there. Any way the absence of computer terminals here in the library is a pretty good clue that they don't have the Internet here either."
"What about an Who's Who?" Sam suggested.
"Great idea. Where would that be?"
"Ask a librarian."
"Again!" Tucker cried, hoarsely to keep his voice down.
"Baby," Sam sneered. "I'll go."
They watched her go. "Tucker, I keep thinking that maybe Clockwork was giving me a clue when he said he wasn't."
"Like what?"
"I don't know. I'm trying to remember everything he said but nothing sounds like a clue."
"He did call you 'King.' That was kind of weird."
"Too weird. There was something else he said that relatedly directly to Boucou Buxcs."
"I remember he was disappointed that we weren't interested in how he cloned Technus..."
"That's it!" Danny cried out. A number of monsters turned withering looks at him and hissed for silence. "Let's look up everything on cloning or digitizing ghosts. Maybe we can find a clue there."
They hurried back to the card catalog, pulled out various drawers and thumbed through the pasteboards inside.
Sam was back after a few minutes. "Someone has ripped the page out of the Who's Who that would cover Boucou Buxcs. The Library Monsters are very upset. I think they wanted to blame me, fortunately I obviously have never been here before. What are you guys looking up?"
Danny explained and Sam pulled out another draw anf got to work.
"Here's 'quantum spectral dynamics' " She called after a minute, "by a Phineas Buckerwald."
"Is something like that even going to be in English?" Danny asked.
"I'll go look." She scribbled a reference number down and went to one of the librarian monsters for directions.
Tucker soon called out "Got something" and went off looking for the proper part of the library. The monster at the desk pointed to a high shelf on the balcony floor. Tucker gulped and raced for a staircase.
Danny had looked up "making clones" and "Creating clones" and "generating clones" with no luck. "He went over to another drawer as the monster that had stopped them as the front door oozed over.
"You have five minutes left mortal. There will no extensions. After this never come here again."
"Then don't distract me!" Danny snapped.
There were three cards on cloning. One for a monograph by Vlad Plasmeus. Another was on the ethics of cloning by Plato ("The Plato?" Danny wondered). The last card was "A Theory for preserving psychological stages by electronic mortal media." It was by Beauregard C. Buchwald.
"Where can I find this?" he demanded from the monster still hovering next to him.
"Use the index number." A tentacle pointed to a string of numbers printed on the top corner of the card.
"Where's this section of the library?"
"You have only two minutes."
"Where!" Danny shouted.
Amidst a sea of 's-h-h-h-h' the monster pointed to a distant section.
Danny sped through the air, finding the label for that section of the shelves as much by luck as anything, skimmed through the shelves before finding the book. He pulled it out and started flipping through it. From chapter heading and some diagram labels he could tell this was it. Someone had figured out how to record ectroplasm on electronic media. He was about to start reading when the book was yanked from his hands. He looked up into the baleful eyes if the gigantic librarian.
"Time is up, mortal. Leave now and never return."
"But that's the book I was looking for."
"You do not have withdrawal privileges here. You do no have entry permission here. Go, before we summon Walker to deal with criminals like you."
"Walker! No, no. No need to bother him. We're leaving now!" Danny flew back towards the entrance. He saw that Sam and Tucker had already been herded there. Swooping down he grabbed their hands, exerted intangibility over them and carried them off to the Specter Speeder.
He let them down out of the air as he continued on to the pilot's seat, powered up the engines and streaked off at maximum speed.
He was just rounded a small floating island when he saw the first of Walker's motorcycle mounted troopers reach the library.
"Walker's goons are all over the place," he explained as Sam and Tucker picked themselves up and found seats. "Everybody grab a viewer and keep an eye out for them. I'm making a beeline to the portal.
***
A couple of detour aside to avoid Walker's patrols, the trip back to the Portal was uneventful. The heavy steel doors irised open when Danny keyed in his genetic signature and they slid through the short interface tunnel into the normal universe. The hover jets kicked in as the Specter Speeder floated back to its launch cradle. Danny disengaged the engines and began the lengthy shutdown procedure. Sam and Tucker went around straightening up things inside the cabin.
Sam ducked out to dump a bag of trash. When she came back she was looking very puzzled.
"Danny, what time did we leave?" she asked.
"Around one, because my parents had just left for that conference with their tax accountants. Why?"
"They were supposed to be gone for four or five hours, right?"
"Yeah."
"And how long were we in the Ghost Zone?"
"I don't know. Longer than we expected but my parents obviously haven't come back yet."
"Uh, Danny," Tucker interrupted. "My watch says it's after Ten. We're been gone for over nine hours."
"Nine hours!" Danny exclaimed. "We are so dead."
"That's what I was thinking," Sam said, "but look at the clock outside...."
Danny and Tucked craned their heads to the side of the windshield to see the large clock mounted on the lab wall. With a gasp they saw it read 6:08.
"AM or PM?" Danny asked.
"Don't you see what happened?"
Danny and Tucker looked at her blankly.
With a roll of her eyes she explained. "Clockwork rolled time back for us so we wouldn't get caught by your parents."
"See, I told you he liked me." Danny crowed.
"R-i-g-h-t."
"Hey, wonder if he if he fixed my burn after all." Danny pulled down the zipper and was disappointed to find the aluminum foil blanket was still there.
"Hey, you'd better change to human, I don't think Clockwork gave us any more extra time then he had to.
Danny nodded and stepped back a pace. He concentrated. A band of light burst out of his waist and as suddenly disappeared. Danny collapsed to the floor with a gasp of pain.
"Danny!" Sam screamed.
She as on her knees cradling his head when Danny started to move.
"What happened?" she asked. For all the brief appearance of the band of light, Danny had changed back to Danny Fenton, black hair, white T-shirt, blue jeans and everything.
"I felt like I was being torn apart. Hey," Danny grabbed his T-shirt and pulled it up. "Hey, my burns are gone!"
"What?" Sam ran her hand over Danny chest. "It is. They are gone."
Tucker looked at Danny's undamaged chest. "Maybe it's gone because you were injured as Danny Phantom. When you become Danny Fenton no injury. Change back and see if the burns are still there."
"No way. It hurt too much changing this time. I don't think I want to change again until I have to."
"You may not heal if you stay Fenton," Tucker suggested.
"I'll take that chance.
"I think we've gotta get out of the Speeder -- now" She pushed them towards the Spectral Speeder's door.
They were barely out and had the door closed before Maddie Fenton's voiced echoed down the stairs, "Danny? Is that you down there?"
"Hi Mom, we're down here." Danny called back.
"I thought I heard you scream. Are you alright?"
"Just dropped a wrench on my foot. I'm alright."
Danny's parents came through the door as he was speaking. "Hey, kiddo, how's it going?" Jack Fenton asked. He was wearing a polyester suit with a narrow, out-of-date tie. Maddie Fenton was in a tastefully tailored pantsuit. Danny was struck how pretty her eyes were when they weren't covered by the inevitable goggles. She had shoulder-length wavy russet hair.
"Fine, fine. How did the meeting with the accounts go?" Danny said. It was always strange seeing his parents dressed up for business, out of their jumpsuits and in normal clothes.
"Fine, fine. How about we go upstairs for some hot fudge sundaes?" Jack Fenton said, dropping a ham like hand on his son's shoulder. "Business really takes it out of me."
Danny looked at his friends. They hadn't learned as much as they had wanted from their trip into the Ghost Zone but they had learned a lot. Tomorrow there would be plenty of time to figure out exactly what they had learned. Right now a hot fudge sundae sounded just right.