Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or any characters associated, nor am I making any money off of this.
Chapter Fifteen
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Several long, excruciatingly boring hours later . . .
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"You're not serious!" I exclaimed.
I think, if I'd had a journal, the entry for that day would have been something like 'March 6, 2005. My decidedly psycho therapist decided that, despite the fact that they want to kill me, I still need mental help. Apparently I'm just that unstable.' Meh. She just wanted me to give in. Although she did seem to just want to help me. Who knows?
Jane smiled sincerely, and more than a little sadly. How did she lock me up, claiming it was for security purposes, and then go in there and have the nerve to care? "Of course, Danny. Mental stability in a time like this is crucial to maintaining your happiness."
"Yes, because, you know, self-worth, freedom, social companionship, and all that have absolutely nothing to do with being happy," I replied sarcastically.
"You can maintain self-worth, at the very least," Ms. Redd said. "But some things aren't an option. You're too dangerous to exist on the outside world, you proved that two days ago. And you gave up social companionship when you decided to snoop in things that were none of your business."
I sighed. "Did I ever tell you about my future?" I asked solemnly. Jane raised an eyebrow.
"Your future?"
"Well, what would've been my future, at any rate," I said. "The reason my greatest fear is becoming evil? Heh, in the future I prevented, I destroyed the world. But I stopped it."
"You . . . destroyed the world?" she asked, hesitant. "And you stopped it?"
"I have friends in high places," I said. "An - ally, I guess is the word - is the lord and master of time. Apparently the existence of evil me messed with the time stream, so he stopped my family from dying. But that's a long and complicated story."
She seemed a bit overwhelmed for a moment, and then she scribbled something on that stupid clipboard she seemed to carry around everywhere. "What's the point in telling me this?" she asked after a bit.
"The point? I know I'm dangerous. I know I could kill everyone . . . But . . ." Looking back, I think my stay at Mt. Ivory allowed me much too much time to think. "I've seen what could happen if I let myself become like that. I'm not the most intelligent person on the planet, I'll admit, but I'm not stupid enough to repeat my mistakes."
Jane smiled again, and met my eyes. "You are the first person I've worked with that hasn't either given up or become malevolent -"
"You said I did," I interrupted.
"Yes, well, that's the standard claim. But anyway, you're the first person who hasn't just let go. I'm impressed. But you do know that you're not getting out of this, right?"
"You're going to kill me," I said simply.
"How did you -" she began, but then stopped, and sighed. "Honesty, I don't care anymore. I think they're stupid for keeping this stuff up now that the Cold War has ended but . . . I just work here."
"The Cold War, huh? I thought it was only the Soviets," I said. "But I guess they knew when to quit . . ."
She smiled again. "The purpose of Mt. Ivory has changed over the years . . . Slightly. It is mostly just containment . . . But you were too good an opportunity to pass up. The ghost invasion in your hometown is completely uncontrollable . . ."
"So, even the Guys in White can't handle it?" I said, laughing, only slightly. "I took care of it for nine months. I've only been gone three, and everything's in chaos. So you decide to put thousands of innocent people at risk. Wow."
Jane leaned on the wall next to my cot. "You're observant, aren't you?" she asked.
I shrugged. "You already knew that," I replied. "But really, I've just had a lot of time to think."
"Ah," she said, and wrote something else down.
Looking at her, I asked, "Now. Could you please explain why the heck you tattooed my prisoner number on my arm?" I lifted up the sleeve of my shirt to give example.
"Again, standard procedure," she said, wincing slightly. "But enough of this. We still have forty-five minutes left, and I'd like to use these sessions for something other than this."
"I don't have anything to say other than 'this,'" I countered, using air quotes when I got to the last word. "I've told you my entire life's story already. How I feel about my situation right now is pretty dang obvious . . . And, oh, right. I'm not a little bundle of teen angst."
She looked up to the ceiling. "Why don't you tell me something happy." I gave her a disbelieving look. "C'mon! It'll be good for you," she coaxed. "It might even make you feel better."
"Ri-ight. Happy is in short supply right now."
Jane rubbed her temples. "From your past. Surely you have a good memory from your past if you're so keen on getting back."
I inhaled. "My past is a good memory. Bad stuff's happened, sure, but all in all . . . Lady, I'm no good at opening up about this sort of thing. My whole existence for the past year has been about not doing exactly that."
She stared at me. "You always seemed open in our sessions before . . ." she started, then clapped a hand over her mouth. "Danny, did you feel, I don't know, pushed to tell me things when I first interviewed you?" she asked.
Scrunching up my brow in concentration, I tried to remember. "Yeah, kind of. I sort of thought things might be better for me if I just went ahead and told you . . ."
"And when we talked later?" I looked at her questioningly, and then shrugged.
"I never really saw any point in not telling you stuff. For awhile I guess I just thought there was no hope of getting out, so -"
"And, now?" she said, interrupting. "You told me about your future, but you're having trouble with just telling me a happy memory from your past. And you only told me about your future to make a point. And you said you got your memory back, and you've obviously managed to get back your ability to resist . . . I think . . ."
I banged my head against the wall. "No. More. Revelations," I said, punctuating every word. "I found out yesterday I'm the perfect tool for building the ultimate weapon, before that I realized I'd forgotten all of my emotions about my past, before that I found out I wasn't human. I don't need to be any more special and/or miserable than I already am."
She appeared as if she wanted to slap me. "No! You don't get it! No one here is completely human, Danny - no one. That's how we can keep you here legally, even if you haven't done a thing. We determine who is less human than the others based on the number of excessive DNA strands. The reason the complacency compound only works on the patients - it's pumped into the air, the food, everything - and not the staff is because it keys into the existence of those strands. The people you worked with in advertising just had slight immunity."
"So what are you saying?" I asked, impatient.
"Danny . . . In that one day you were away from Mt. Ivory, you became completely impervious to the effects. One day. I don't know why I didn't figure it out before, because it's so blaringly obvious; especially when you haven't had a blood test since you came back in . . ."
"Get on with it!" I said loudly. This was working itself up to be the only good news I'd had since going there in the first place.
"You're human. Completely," she finished. I opened my mouth, and she held up a hand. "You'd need a DNA examination to prove it . . . But . . ." She grinned, from ear to ear. "You'd have to be let out, albeit under heavy watch. Article XI of The Metahumans Act, ratified at the end of the Cold War, when people weren't being taken here merely for the purpose of weapons creation anymore."
"How do you know all of this?" I asked, joy starting to creep up on me.
"I used to want to be a lawyer," she said smugly. "I couldn't pay for law school, though, so here I am."
"So . . . If I'm actually human, they can't keep me here, anymore?" I said, the semblance of a genuine smile beginning to show on my face.
"No. Because you're still classified as dangerous - level nine threat level - you'd be under extremely strict government surveillance . . . But yes, you'd be nearly completely free to live your life."
I placed a hand on my head, starting to feel dizzy. "That's not possible . . ." I said, although happily. I might be human after all. I might not be a piece of property. I might get to go home . . . legally.
"I memorized the entire law," she said. "Of course it's possible. But we still have to get you checked out, to be sure . . . It's really just a theory. Don't get your hopes up."
I looked down at myself. My wrinkled clothes from two days ago hung loosely on my frame. Dr. Jared might've been wrong, I thought. I held up my hand and looked at it. A soft glow still radiated from it, though it wasn't nearly as obvious as before. My voice hadn't cracked and gone echo-y during my entire conversation with Ms. Redd. All of this had happened in two days. How it was possible to change species overnight was a bit of a baffler, but when it came to my life, anything was worth consideration.
Right as I was starting to just the opposite of what Ms. Redd told me to do - get my hopes up - there was a knock at the door, and two burly GIW agents entered.
"Dr. Redd? I'm afraid we're going to have to cut your session with 99325718 short," started one. The other turned to me, his expression cold and emotionless.
"Kid, we'll need you to come with us."