Chapter 02

It impressed him, really, the change that he saw in young Daniel Fenton over the years since he first entered Casper High four years ago. Lancer shook his head as he gathered up his things, piling papers and books and his laptop into his briefcase after the last student left his classroom. Daniel's older sister Jasmine was a joy to have in class, always bright eyed and eager to learn, taking an active role in what was happening in the school. Lancer was quite aware of the Fenton's obsession with viruses roaming rampant in the NetZone. They were Net Protectors, after all, but their overzealous attitude toward their work often led to their daughter's great embarrassment.

When Daniel showed up on his first day of freshmen year, Lancer expected the same kind of enthusiasm that the rest of his family displayed. Instead he found that Daniel was much more reserved. While he certainly enjoyed his time with his friends, Daniel came off as withdrawn and angry from Lancer's perspective. Being the target of the In crowd's most popular member was of no help there. Lancer could see a glimmer of brilliance in the boy, but Daniel's grades that first year were abysmal. It frustrated him, trying so hard to draw out that brilliance but having Daniel seem to have no care at all about his education.

The two years following freshmen year showed hardly any improvement until this year, his senior year, marked a major change in Daniel. His grades steadily improved since the start of the year. He managed to turn assignments in on time. He wasn't missing as many classes. He scored very well on his tests and exams. He did especially well in English, which made Lancer quite proud, feeling like his influence was helping Daniel to reach his potential. It was times like this that made Lancer happy to be a teacher, getting to shape young minds and watch them grow, to see a student seemingly rise from the ashes of almost certain failure.

Lancer couldn't really put his finger on it, but it felt like Daniel was hiding something. Perhaps he was simply thinking too hard on it, reading too much into the young man's actions, but he couldn't shake the feeling. Daniel's friends, Samantha Manson and Tucker Foley, didn't seem to take much notice of it, sharing laughs with their friend, doing the usual teenage stuff. Lancer stood on the outside, though, and from his objective point of view, he would swear Daniel kept a wall up around his friends, like he had a secret he couldn't share even with his closest friends.

Lancer sighed as he left his classroom, exiting out into the noisy hall where students lingered, meandering in the afterhours of school. Teenagers were always a secretive bunch, he guessed. They thought everything they went through was their problem alone, like no one could ever understand them. They kept things close to the chest, like it meant life or death if their "secrets" were ever revealed. Ah, the good old days, Lancer thought as he waded his way through the students chattering in the halls. Back when everything was so dramatic. Sometimes he found himself looking back on those days with fond memories while other times he was relieved to be passed such silliness.

That did not mean, however, that he was completely passed his silliness. He was well aware that he sometimes made himself look like quite the fool in front of his students, especially in his attempts to act hip and cool and relate to them. But he didn't allow the fear of appearing silly stop him doing things. He knew students often had that fear of becoming outcasts if they did anything to draw ridicule in their direction. Teenagers could be quite cruel to their peers, shunning them for being different, taunting them for participating in what the In crowd considers uncool as Lancer knew quite well from his younger days with his dressing up in costumes to attend renaissance faires. Lancer hoped that seeing an adult that was fearless about being silly, making himself a target of his students' ridicule at times, might give his students the courage to be themselves.

But of course, he was still a teacher which meant he sometimes had to be the harsh disciplinarian. Lancer paused in front of one young woman with frizzy orange hair. She ignored his presence as she shoved books into his bag then checked her reflection on the small round mirror hung up on the door of her locker, wiping a smudge of lipstick away with her thumb. Lancer coughed to gain her attention. She twisted around, panic washing through her brown eyes.

"Miss Farborne, cigarettes are not allowed on campus," Lancer said in his stern voice as he held out a hand toward her. His expression spoke volumes of his disappointment at the young woman picking up such a vile habit. With a defeated sigh, Clara Farborne pulled out the pack of cigarettes that Lancer spotted her cramming into her bag then shoved it into his waiting hand. "If I catch you with cigarettes again, I'll have to speak with your parents."

Lancer crushed the pack of a cigarettes in his hand as he continued on his way down the hall. He hoped that Clara would heed his warning, but students often times refused to obey the rules. He would never understand why people took up the filthy habit of smoking cigarettes that caused so many health problems. When he arrived in the teachers' lounge, he tossed the crumpled pack into the trash can, glad to be rid of it. The lounge was rather empty, the rest of the teachers probably lingering in their classrooms to finish up grading papers and preparing for the next day.

Lancer, however, needed coffee. After setting down his briefcase on one of the tables, he walked over to the counter and retrieved his favorite mug to pour himself a cup of coffee. It wasn't the best coffee, often having a slight metallic taste to it and sometimes a little grainy, strangely. But he got used to it after his years of being a teacher. Sipping from the mug, he returned to the table where he left his briefcase. They would be starting their Shakespeare section next, and he needed to type out the syllabus to have ready for tomorrow. He popped open his briefcase and retrieved his laptop, placing it in front of him as he opened it.

The icon for his favorite online game Doomed glared at him from the lower right hand corner of the screen, tempting him to log on and lose himself in the game for several hours. Ignoring that temptation, he opened up a new document before grabbing his notes from his briefcase to look over the order of plays they would be reading and discussing for class. When he turned back to the laptop to start typing, the lights flickered. Lancer glanced up warily at that strange occurrence, frowning at the fluorescent lights overhead. An eerie laugh yanked his attention back to his computer, and he jumped out of his chair when he saw the weird glitchy pattern over his screen that flickered to a stream of coding.

Virus! Lancer panicked as the virus ate at the data on his laptop. He might be the high scorer, the best player, in Doomed, but his knowledge about fighting off a virus in his computer was sadly lacking. The high school's security and firewall were supposed to protect them from viruses unless someone brought it into the school's system. Lancer stormed out of the teachers' lounge, knowing there was nothing he could do against the virus on his own. He needed someone that knew all about computers and viruses and might know how to stop the virus from completely destroying everything on his laptop.

Everyone in school knew how much of a techno geek Tucker Foley was, and Lancer considered heading straight for him, but that trio of friends tended to leave the school almost immediately after classes ended. Not unusual really, as none of the three friends had any afterschool activities to attend. That was fine though. Lancer knew of someone else that would be of great help to him at that moment. Finding the four teenagers, he stopped before the In crowd who all fell silent at the presence of a teacher.

"I didn't do it this time, Sir," Dash spoke up immediately with that hard look in his blue eyes that said he wouldn't be taking the fall for something his fellow jocks did.

Lancer landed the blond man with a bland look. Though he trusted Dash to have wised up a bit in the past four years and stay out of trouble, he knew the jock still participated in bullying, though his attention toward a certain young, raven haired man lessened recently. "I do hope that's true," he said before turning his attention onto the other jock present. "Mr. Long, if you will, follow me." He turned on his heel and headed back toward the teachers' lounge. He didn't need to throw a glance over his shoulder to know the dark haired man would be following after him.

"Ugh, I can't believe you would invite that loser to your house," Valerie complained, her voice carrying through the hall.

"It's not like I want Fenturd there," Dash grumbled unhappily. "It's to work on a stupid class project."

Lancer sighed as they walked out of range of the conversation. Those stereotypes never went away. Every year, new students entered the school and immediately got slapped with labels that stuck with them until they graduated. It was one of the things that he hated most about high school. He saw it often enough where those that are called losers try so hard to break free of that label, to seek approval from the A list, to be accepted. Daniel was one of those many cases. He had friends and loved them, but being stuck on the bottom rung of the social ladder left him wanting to climb higher, reach for the social circle that remained forever out of his grasp. There were students that would grovel at the feet of the In crowd for the mere hope of moving up the social ladder, but this was usually a cruel joke of the In crowd, using those students' hopes to do things for them.

"Um, Sir," Kwan spoke up in that meek manner he had when he thought he might be in trouble. "Have I done something wrong?"

Lancer imagined the gears grinding in the young man's head, scrambling to uncover some idea of what he could have done to land himself in trouble with his teacher. "No, I simply require your assistance." They returned to the teachers' lounge with little more conversation. Kwan wore a nervous expression as he followed Lancer over to the laptop still sitting where he left it on the table. "I seem to have a virus infecting my laptop."

"And," Kwan licked his lips, some of the color draining from his face, "you expect me to do what?"

"Well, I certainly don't expect you to toss it around like a football," Lancer responded dryly with slight annoyance in his green eyes. "You may have the idiot act down enough to fool your classmates, but I'm not as blind as they are. I do wish you would be a bit more true to yourself, Mr. Long."

"Yeah," Kwan mumbled as he took a seat in front of the laptop, "right." Aqua green eyes glanced hesitantly up at his teacher before Kwan turned his attention back to the laptop. "Because a jock that's also a techno geek would go over so well with the rest of the school. I'd be laughed out of the A List."

Lancer shook his head. The labels even made the In crowd scared of being who they really were. He watched over the young man's shoulder as Kwan's fingers flew over the keyboard, typing with quick, deft strokes that would amaze anyone who believed his hands were good for nothing more than catch a football. Windows popped up over the screen with coding that Lancer couldn't even begin to understand, though Kwan seemed to know exactly what it all meant. It really shouldn't have surprised him after seeing the man's grades, though most of his peers probably thought he was passing merely due to having some nerd doing all his homework for him. He should have pushed Kwan into acting, because clearly the jock had learned the art of performing for an audience.

"What the hell kind of virus is this?" Kwan asked after a moment more of trying to fight off the virus within the laptop.

"Language," Lancer said firmly, his eyes narrowing half a fraction.

"Sorry." Sitting back in the chair, Kwan turned his gaze up toward Lancer. "I," his brow creased in obvious confusion, "think this might be a problem."

"How so?" Lancer frowned, not like that uncertainty in his student's voice. The jock was far more clever about the workings of technology than Lancer, and his bafflement over one virus couldn't be a good thing.

"Well, it seems like the virus originated from within the school," Kwan explained, and Lancer nodded, having believed that would be the likely case, "on the surface."

"On the surface?" Lancer raised an inquisitive eyebrow at that.

"Uh, well, this virus is pretty sophisticated." Kwan dropped his gaze back to the laptop as he started typing again. "It's not something that any of the students here could develop, or any of the teachers. But whoever created it, wanted us to believe that it came from within the school. Which seems kind of weird since all it's doing right now is eating at the personal information on the students. I mean, what's the point of that? It's not like the school has any information that would be all that damaging to us." He glanced at his teacher, like he was expecting to be told otherwise.

"So if it didn't come from within the school, where did it come from?" Lancer ignored the jock's look. Most of the information the school had on students was the boring dull stuff, like their grades, their families, their home addresses and telephone numbers. School records listed wrongdoings and inappropriate behavior, which might not be all that damaging for some students. What had Lancer worried about a virus collecting information on his students, beyond what the creator wished to do with that information, was the records for the school's counselors. They kept psych notes from sessions with students detailing whatever was spoken about in private. Though he wasn't an official counselor, Lancer did speak to his students from time to time, wanting them to trust that they could come to him with any problems. He didn't like the idea that someone out there might be collecting that kind of information on his students.

"That's part of the problem." Kwan frowned in deep concentration as he continued working on the laptop. "I can't track it past the school. And I can't figure out whose signature is in the coding."

"Signature?"

"Everyone tends to put their own little thing in when they code something. Makes it kind of easy for others to identify who created a program or virus and stuff. But," Kwan shrugged with a defeated look, "I don't recognize this one."

Lancer opened his mouth to question his student when the door to the teachers' lounge opened with a loud bang as it hit against the wall, making teacher and student jump in surprise. In the doorway stood two men dressed in white suits. One was a fair skinned man with his head shaved of all hair except for his bushy black eyebrows. The second man had short fuzz of black hair on his head with bronze skin and an obvious Asian ancestry despite the dark shades that hid his eyes.

"Hands up and back away from the laptop," goon in white one ordered in a sharp bark.

"What do you want with my laptop?" Lancer demanded, hands on hips as he glared at the two men.

"We tracked a virus to this location," goon in white two stated, and though he couldn't see the man's eyes, Lancer suspected they were locked on his student. "That makes your laptop government property."

"We'll," goon in white one laughed with half a smirk, "try to return it to you. Once we've wiped it clean of the virus." He stepped up to the table and closed the laptop. With his head bent down, Lancer could make out his green eyes. "Have a good day now." He collected the laptop, tucking it under one arm as he returned to where his partner stood, still in the doorway.

Lancer's eyes narrowed darkly at the two agents from the GiW as they left the teachers' lounge. His hands clenched in frustration at the fact that they would come into his school and take his property. He would have preferred the Fentons over the GiW coming into the high school. Phantom would have been an even better choice.

"I have to get going anyway," Kwan mumbled as he stood up, adjusting his bag over his shoulder. "Got football practice and that project to work on and all."

Lancer frowned even more as he watched his student leave. Sometimes, it was the students he wanted to talk to him the most that always remained quiet.

jeanette9a: We shall see~ 8D

XD: You're back! =D Yup~ It's a techy AU idea. XD Some ghosts will appear as viruses and others will appear as programs. =) Sam and Tuck are there, but they don't know about Phantom being Danny. XD Well! The idea hit me when I was watching an anime with mecha type things in it and that made me think of Gundam which somehow made me think about RockmanEXE and Tron and then this idea popped into my head! XD;; I wrote the first chapter while I was still writing A World Unseen and promptly forgot that line about Dash not bullying Danny recently. LoL! XD Hm~ To have Dash like him or not? *ponders that one* Okay. I've stolen NetZone! D8 I kept thinking I need a name for the network instead of just calling it the network. Why didn't I think of NetZone? I'm so bad at names! Ah~ I could have done the dark green with neon-y green circuitry designs! orz I do have several chapters already written! 8D I'm working on this story this month for Camp NaNoWriMo! 8D My updates might be quite late in the day over the next week though. Family visiting so my day is being eaten up quite a bit.

Guest: Thank you! =) I hope I don't disappoint you~