Phantom was not a good inmate.
They put his cage in a corner of the admitting office, thinking to use him as an example to other ghosts. But Phantom quickly tallied up the number of people in the vicinity, decided he could annoy all of them, and began dragging his shell around and around the wire cage walls. This ruined his shell, but the metal on metal clatter was loud and obnoxious. He did it for hours.
He lasted two days in the admitting office. Then they moved him to the ghost mechanic's shop, outside. Phantom examined this new location, including all the passersby, and resumed scraping his shell on the wire walls. This time, whenever a concerned person or Guardian approached to see him, he shouted, "Ghost abuse! Look what they've done to me! I didn't do anything to deserve this! The Ghost Oversight Committee are cruel!"
News of this spread rapidly through the Tower, and the committee began receiving hate mail. They hastily relocated him indoors, to a small, empty room with a door they could shut.
Without anyone to annoy, Phantom fell to hacking the anti-phase device attached to the back of his shell. It had alarms built into it at various security levels, so whenever he breached one, a guard came in with a ghost who swiftly repaired the device and changed the protocols around.
But as the days passed, Phantom's temper began to die down. The room had one window, but they had set him on the floor in the darkest corner, and this began to grind him down. He took to lying in the back corner of his cage for hours, often days. Charon was gone, and he missed her with his entire being. For a few glorious days, he'd thought he'd found his Guardian. So much for that. He'd ruined it so bad, he was stuck in a cage in a back room somewhere.
A month into his confinement, footsteps rang outside his door. Multiple people. Phantom flicked his eye on, but didn't move from the cage floor.
One of the Committee warlocks opened the door. "He's a regular demon, miss. We had to put him in here-"
Charon shoved her way inside, wearing full Titan armor and looking fierce. She looked around the room, spotted the cage on the floor in the corner, and rushed to it. She dropped to her knees and peered inside.
Phantom looked up at her from his spot on the floor, trying to seem as pathetic as possible.
Charon spun around on hands and knees. "What did you do to him?" she shrieked at the warlock. "He's completely trashed!"
The warlock ventured closer and peered through the bars. "He did that himself, Guardian. He made noise to protest. It's why he's in here."
"Phantom," Charon whispered, sticking her fingers through the bars. "Are you all right?"
He slowly floated off the floor and leaned against her fingers. "I'm all right, Charon. But ... are you?"
"Fifteen minutes," the warlock said, and left the room.
Charon sat on the floor and lifted the cage onto her knees, so she could see Phantom at eye level. "I've been so depressed, Phantom. I just got off patrol, and my team said to come up here and kick down doors until they let me see you. So I did."
Phantom brightened. "You literally kicked down doors?"
"No," Charon admitted. "But I slammed them open pretty hard."
"You could, you know," he said, admiring her armor. "Light, it's good to see you again."
"Why did they call you a demon?"
"Because I did this." Phantom dragged his shell along the wire, letting her hear the full obnoxious symphony. "For days."
Charon laughed. "It's tearing up your shell, so stop it."
He did, flying as close to her face as possible. "Charon ... do you think I deserve this? Did I hurt you so badly?"
"No," she said firmly. "I thought about it all month, and I think I was more at fault than you were. I ... manipulated you, because I've been so lonely for a ghost. But I didn't know I was doing it. I didn't realize the significance of naming you, for one thing."
"I tried to tell you it was a bad idea," Phantom said. "I'm a lonely ghost, and we get attached easily."
Charon bit her lower lip. "I'm sorry. For everything."
"Me, too." Phantom looked at her spark, glowing so brightly in the middle of her chest. "Oh ... your spark has a new crack in it. The others were almost healed, too."
"It does?" Charon didn't want to fight about it again, not when they had so little time. "Maybe it's because I've lost two ghosts, now."
"I'm not lost," Phantom whispered. "I'm right here."
"In jail," she whispered back. "Is there anything I can possibly do to make this better?"
"Let you take my cage to your apartment?" Phantom said hopefully. "Call it house arrest?"
She laughed sadly and shook her head. "They won't go for that, Phantom. How about if I made them put you on a table instead of the floor?"
"Near a window," Phantom said at once. "So I can see the light and the sky. Maybe even the Traveler."
Charon set his cage down, went to the door, and spoke to the people outside. Her voice grew sharp and threatening, but eventually, Charon returned with a small table of the right height. She set it under the window and put Phantom's cage on it.
"I can see the Traveler!" he exclaimed, looking out. "And the Tower walk and a piece of the City. Thank you, Charon. This is much better than the floor."
She kissed her fingertips and stuck them through the wire. Phantom pressed himself against them, and watched wistfully as she left.
Charon came to see him once a week after that. Phantom lived for her visits. The rest of the time, he lay on the floor of his cage, staring out the window. He memorized the faces of everyone who walked by, at every time of day. He watched the Traveler's debris field orbit it in the sky, and at night, he watched the Light leak out of its wounds. He wasn't quite so depressed, but he was desperately lonely. The anti-phase device dampened his communications, so he couldn't even talk to the Ghost Gossip Network.
Not that he wanted to, the bunch of tell-tale narcs. He never wanted to speak to any of them again.
Eight weeks into his incarceration, Charon visited with the news that she was being visited by more ghosts.
"Word gets around, I guess," she said, leaning her elbows on the table beside his cage. "Seems the ghosts who reported you bragged that they'd gotten you locked up."
Phantom made an incoherent noise of fury.
"I know," Charon agreed. "I've made note of their Guardians' names so I'll never, ever work with them."
Phantom studied her face, trying to absorb as much detail as possible during their brief time together. "What about these ghost visits?"
"A steady stream of unattached ones," Charon said. "I think they're testing me for compatibility."
"What!" Phantom hit the roof of the cage. "How dare they!"
"None have been a match, yet," Charon said. "Calm down. The point I was making is, they all scan my spark. And they all talk about it the way you do - that it's still damaged, but mending. Some couldn't believe that I lost my ghost such a short time ago."
"Am I still wrong?" Phantom said smugly.
Charon shrugged. "I know you haven't talked to any of them. And they all say it different ways, but they all act like they're seeing the same thing. I'm having to admit that maybe ghosts see things differently than the Vanguard photometers."
"Imagine looking at a candle," Phantom said. "You can see the wick and all the colors in the flame. Now take a photo of it. All you see is a bright spot. That's the difference between what ghosts see and what photometers capture."
Charon thought about this. "I wish you'd explained it that way before."
"I have a lot of time to think," Phantom said. "About all the things I said or shouldn't have said. I had no idea I'd be accused of ... of malicious intent. At first it was just a fun game, following you around. But then ... I got to know you, and ... it wasn't a game anymore. I really did think we could ... court. Or date. Or whatever you call this. But ... apparently that's too weird for the Vanguard."
Charon gave him a sad smile. "I don't think you had malicious intent. I think I was just massively ignorant about unattached ghosts and how to treat them. I sent you signals that ... maybe I shouldn't have."
Phantom nodded. "Same here. I sit here and kick myself over and over."
The door opened and a committee warlock said, "Time's up, Guardian."
As Charon rose to her feet, she said, "Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable? Anything I can bring you?"
"Could you bring me my picture?" Phantom asked. "I'd like to look at it."
Charon's smile was a little watery. "Of course I will."
On her next visit, Charon brought her watercolor of Phantom and tacked it to the wall near his cage. He gazed at it for hours, taking in every brush stroke and color.
Outside, the summer waned toward fall. Then it began to snow, and the view changed to black and white. The people passing by on the wall went about in greatcoats, scarves and hats. Phantom's little room grew very cold. He told himself that he was a robot and didn't mind it. But he did mind it. So did other ghosts. He saw many riding along in their Guardians' scarves or collars. At night, the piercing cold leeched through the glass and nearly froze him solid. By morning, the glass was feathered with frost.
Phantom thought he was holding up to his imprisonment quite well - until the cold set in. Then he found that he wasn't a good prisoner at all. He cried to himself at night when the cold hurt him. Some nights the bars seemed to press in on him, their steel as cold as ice. He attacked them, careening around the inside of the cage, until they seemed to recede a little.
When Charon came for a visit one morning, the room was so cold that Phantom had hoarfrost crystals on his shell. More frost clung to the cage bars.
"Do you think they could move me someplace warmer?" he begged her. "They say ghosts shouldn't feel the cold. But we do."
Charon stamped out of the room in a rage. A few minutes later, a committee warlock arrived and carried the cage into the inner office, where a lot of people worked at desks and it was much warmer.
"Now listen up, you," the warlock said to Phantom. "You go back to making noise, we'll put you right back by the window again."
"I won't," Phantom said meekly.
They stuck him on a table in a corner, out of the way, but at least he was surrounded by people again. Charon hung up his picture for him and sat in a chair. "Is this better?"
"Much," he said. "I'll miss the view, but not the cold nights." He couldn't express how awful the cold nights had been.
She stuck her fingers through the bars and wiped off as much of the melting frost as she could. Phantom enjoyed this.
"Are ghosts still visiting you?" he asked.
Charon nodded. "Not as many, now, but they do turn up occasionally. No matches so far."
Phantom nodded, reassured.
When Charon left, he lay on the floor of his cage and watched the office staff go about their business. This was post-mission intelligence, so sometimes the conversations about Mars, or Venus, or Mercury got very interesting. Nobody paid attention to him, except for a curious look now and then. But it was worlds better than the lonely room and the piercing cold.
Once, a warlock in full combat robes came in to give additional information on a report. As he filled out paperwork at a desk, his ghost, in a fiery red and yellow shell, ventured to the cage and blinked at Phantom, lying dejectedly in the bottom.
"What did you do?" the other ghost whispered.
"Ask the GGN," Phantom said bitterly. "They did this."
"I haven't used the GGN in years," said the other ghost. "At one point they were saying terrible things about my Guardian, so I left."
Phantom approved. "I'm an unattached ghost who thought I could bond with a severed Guardian. The Vanguard thought I was manipulating her. Here I am."
"That's terrible!" whispered the other ghost. "Are you compatible with her spark?"
"I will be, once her spark heals," Phantom said. "I've got six months left in here. Who knows. Maybe once they let me out, they won't ship me to Jupiter."
The other ghost swept Phantom with a healing beam. It felt surprisingly good, like a warm hug, and cheered Phantom up a little.
"Hang in there," the other ghost said. "I'll talk to my Guardian. He might be able to do something."
Phantom gave the warlock a doubtful look. "I doubt it, unless he can overturn the Ghost Oversight Committee's ruling."
"What's your not-yet-Guardian's name?" asked the ghost.
"Charon," Phantom said. "Titan."
The other ghost nodded. "I'll let you know if anything happens. Maybe nothing. Maybe something."
The other ghost returned to his Guardian. Phantom watched them leave, trying not to hope.
On Charon's next visit, Phantom meant to tell her about the warlock and the sympathetic ghost. But when Charon walked in, a ghost came with her.
Phantom shot off the floor of his cage, staring in panic. Had she found another compatible ghost? So soon? He scrutinized their sparks. Charon's was still cracked, and the other ghost's - yes, still unbonded. He relaxed a little.
"Hi, Phantom," Charon said, sitting at his table and pulling off her scarf. "This is Mitzi."
"How do you do," said the other ghost in a soft, feminine voice.
"Hello," said Phantom uncertainly. "What's the occasion?"
Mitzi flew to the bars and said with excitement, "I'm a sixty-percent match for Charon's spark!"
If this was supposed to make Phantom happy, it didn't. He hung there, motionless, staring at the other ghost. His own match percentage with Charon was considerably higher than ninety-nine percent, but he hadn't told anyone.
The trouble was, a ghost could bond with a spark if the match was higher than seventy percent. And this interloper could steal away his future Guardian.
Slowly he turned to Charon. "What's the point of this?"
Charon leaned close to the cage. "Look, it's cruel that you're locked up like this. If I can find another ghost, then you won't be a so-called threat to me anymore, and they'll let you go."
Phantom glanced from Mitzi, to Charon, and back. His entire world was slowly cracking, threatening to fall to pieces. "Did you name her?" he whispered.
"No," Charon assured him, "she'd already named herself."
"Don't worry, Phantom," Mitzi gushed cheerfully. "All proper etiquette is being observed this time. I don't want to end up in a cage." She giggled.
Phantom turned to Charon. "You don't want me anymore?"
"Of course I do," Charon whispered. "But it might be better if ... if you found a proper Guardian. You'd be free. Not locked up."
Phantom backed away from Charon and Mitzi until he hit the rear cage wall. "I ... I guess ... If you want her more than me, Charon, then ... that's your choice."
"Phantom," Charon pleaded, "look, I can't stand you being in there. This was the only way I could think of to free you."
"Or wait six months," Phantom said. "But ... but ... whatever you want." He didn't know what else to say. Given time, Mitzi might be a better ghost for Charon. At least she wasn't stalking her and ... manipulating and ... whatever else he was supposed to have done. Cold crept through his core, deeper and more penetrating than the bitterest night by the frozen window.
He dropped to the floor and hid his eye in the cage's corner. "I guess you'd better get to know each other, then. And you'd probably shouldn't call me Phantom anymore."
Charon sat there in stricken silence. Mitzi was quiet, too. Once the fifteen minutes were up, they left without a word.
The ghost who had been Phantom didn't move for days.