Chapter 39

Danny kept saying he was fine, but after what happened yesterday, Tucker couldn't shake the guilty feeling that everything wasn't okay. While Sam was around, they didn't have much of a chance to speak to each other about what happened in Danny's parents' laboratory. They had a brief few seconds while Sam stepped away, and all Danny told him was that he did a bio scan of his body and everything turned up normal. He decided from that that the Data Deleter, which was apparently the proper name, was simply another dud of an invention. It fired well enough, the trigger way more sensitive than Tucker expected because he barely touched the trigger when it went off, but it failed in the effect his parents claimed it had. If it had worked properly, then it probably would have destroyed the digital side of Danny, or so he thought.

The guilt wouldn't leave him alone though, despite Danny repeatedly telling him it was okay. He shot his friend! He shot Danny with something that could have potentially done something horrible to him. He felt terrible, and that feeling was eating him up at that moment. What if that Data Deleter really did do something to Danny? They knew that his parents' inventions didn't always work correctly, but that didn't mean they didn't work in some way. When Danny and Sam both weren't looking, Tucker pulled out his PDA. He didn't know if it would work since Danny was in human form at the time, but he decided it was worth a try. Tapping at the screen, he aimed it at Danny, scanning him for a digital signature. The attempt got him barely any sort of reading, merely a faint flicker of data leaking through his friend's bio readings.

Tucker chewed on his lower lip as he stared at the data he picked up yesterday. Anyone that dared to scan Danny would find it curious to pick up any digital trace upon him. It was a good thing that they weren't required to go through daily scans, or Danny never would have survived this long as Phantom. So far, nothing about the data, what little he had, looked all that different from what he recalled of the data he collected at the football game. He hoped that meant everything really was all right, but he couldn't shake the nagging feeling still lurking inside him.

With a sigh, Tucker shoved his PDA back into the pocket of his pants. Maybe he was thinking too much over what happened in the laboratory. Maybe the Data Deleter didn't actually do anything to Danny, beyond leaving him with an aching chest. Maybe some small, teeny tiny, part of him was hoping something was wrong so that he could feel useful by helping his friend. But then he remembered it would be his fault if something did happen to Danny, and the guilt set in again.

Tucker tugged his winter coat around him then folded his arms. Danny was fighting viruses. Technology was Tucker's strong point, so there had to be something that he could do to help his friend. He was still fiddling around with something that could protect Danny against another EMP. Maybe if he swiped some of the tech from Danny's parents, then he could try to turn them into something more useful for Danny to fight with, or himself. If he had weapons, like Valerie, then he could at least help Danny while he was fighting against viruses. But unlike Valerie, Tucker really didn't know anything about fighting. If the incident in the laboratory taught him anything, it was that he might be more of a liability to Danny than a helpful ally.

"Will you stop walking away from me?"

Hearing the shout, Tucker halted. His gaze snapped around the area as he twisted around to search for the speaker, but there was no one in sight that was talking to him.

"No."

Tucker blinked in surprise when he recognized that as the voice of Kwan. He caught a hint of the jock just around the corner of the building near him before Kwan was turned around.

"Can't you just leave me alone already?" Kwan shouted, and Tucker was shocked by the anger in his voice.

"I'm trying to look out for you."

"I don't need you to! You might be my big brother, but you've never once acted like it, Jing."

"Well, I'm trying to now."

"No, you're trying to protect your own ass."

"Kwan, will you just-"

"Don't touch me!" Kwan jerked away, stepping more into Tucker's view.

"If you know something about that virus-"

"What would I know?" Kwan folded his arms. "You carted it off. By the way, Lancer's still pissed that you busted up his laptop."

"That was my partner."

"Charming guy," Kwan muttered dryly. "He gives me the creeps. And why do you keep trying to get info out of me about it? I'm sure you found out tons of information on it when demolished the laptop."

"The virus wasn't in the laptop."

Kwan blinked then laughed with a touch of cruelty to it that actually sounded strange coming from the jock. "So you let it escape, and now you have to come running to me to figure out more information on the virus. Oh, but what would I know about a virus? After all, I only have a passing interest in computers. I can't possibly be expected to know anything." The bitterness could be heard clearly in his voice, and Tucker started to feel like he really shouldn't be listening to this conversation.

"Kwan, this is serious." The jock's brother spoke firmly. "Twice now, you were at the scene of a virus attack."

"Oh, am I ruining your precious image with the Guys in White? Well, forgive me! Maybe you should just tell Mom and Dad to lock me up. I'm sure they'd be happy to keep their poor excuse for a son locked up so the public can't see him."

"What's that supposed to mean?" The confusion in the jock's brother's question sounded like it mirrored the confusion Tucker felt in overhearing that comment.

"Forget it. I've got things to do. So just butt out of my life." Kwan turned away from his brother, rounding the corner.

Tucker panicked, his body freezing as he failed to think of how to hide from the jock. Kwan might be the nicest jock on the football team and never followed through when it came to chasing down a loser, but Tucker wouldn't be surprised if he decided to punch out the techno geek that was eavesdropping on a private conversation. Kwan hesitated half a moment when their eyes met, and Tucker tried to swallow that nervous lump forming in his throat.

"Kwan," his brother called, coming around the corner. Tucker recognized his fuzzy haired head as the man that he saw walking with Lancer after the EMP at school.

Kwan closed the distance between them, grabbing hold of Tucker's arm and dragging him as he continued walking. "Just ignore him," he muttered as his brother kept trying to get his attention.

Tucker glanced over his shoulder, watching as the other man finally gave up with a sigh and a shake of his head. "Uh," he said uncertainly, not really sure what to say in this situation.

"I'm guessing you heard most of that." The anger and bitterness remained in his voice as Kwan picked up his pace, putting as much distance between him and his brother as possible.

"Not that I was trying to or anything," Tucker said weakly. Lie. He could have lied, but something told him the jock wouldn't buy anything else he might have said.

Kwan sighed tired, and Tucker could practically see the negative emotions leaving him in that one breath. The tension melted out of his broad shoulders, and his grip on Tucker's arm loosened. They were several blocks away by now, and his brother stopped chasing after them a while ago, giving up on the impossible. "It's nothing so just forget about it." Kwan dropped his hand away from the other man's arm.

"Hey, um," Tucker said awkwardly as he looked away and rubbed at the back of his neck. "I know I'm not a friend or anything, but I have ears." He tugged at one of them, feeling weird about even offering this to the jock. "So I can listen if you need to unload anything."

Kwan stared at him, brow pinching in a scrutinizing expression. "My brother's a jerk," he said after a moment and shrugged. "I think he was born with a bug up his ass."

Tucker laughed awkwardly at the imagery. "But that thing," he winced back, afraid that the jock would punch him, "about being, um," he looked away, "a poor excuse for a son."

"It's kind of rude to eavesdrop, you know." Kwan frowned, his aqua green eyes narrowing a fraction with a hint of anger.

"I wasn't trying to! You guys were being really loud," Tucker argued defensively. His mouth snapped shut when he remembered to whom he was speaking. The expression on Kwan's face did not look happy to be spoken to like that. "Look. I know I don't know a whole lot about you or your family or anything, but you always seemed like a pretty good guy. When you weren't chasing after me with the intention of pounding on me." He frowned, remembering all those time that he ran for his life, and not simply from Kwan.

"It's really nothing for you to worry about." Kwan glanced around like he was looking for something. "Shouldn't you be hanging out with your friends or something?"

"We just did. At the Nasty Burger. But then Danny had homework to do and Sam apparently had some family thing to do or something." Tucker sighed at being left alone. Lifting his gaze, he pondered over another part of the conversation he overheard. "Why does your brother think you know anything about the viruses that attacked the school?"

Sighing, Kwan ran a hand through his hair then scratched at the back of his head. "Lancer came to me when a virus got into his laptop at school and wanted me to track it down. It seemed like a pretty sophisticated virus, but I couldn't track it back to the source. Not in that short amount of time. Then my brother had to show up and confiscate the computer. " He rolled his eyes. "And he probably blames me for the virus escaping."

A chill ran through him as Tucker remembered Kwan mentioning his brother worked for the Guys in White. "Wait." He blinked in surprise. "You actually know how to do something like that?"

"I'm not a complete idiot," Kwan muttered, folding his arms and turning his head away. Despite the protest, doubt flickered in his eyes.

"I didn't mean it like that," Tucker said quickly, hoping to smooth things over with the jock. "It's just that you never struck me as the techno geek type."

"I don't exactly go around broadcasting it to the whole school. Imagine how well that would go with the rest of the jocks."

Tucker gulped as he thought about how that would go. A lot of the jocks, and the A list for that matter, didn't exactly care for things like intelligence. Being revealed as a techno geek probably would have gotten Kwan kicked out the In crowd. Tucker wouldn't put it past the rest of the jocks to drive him off the football team too.

Something passed through Kwan's eyes as he stared at Tucker. "What did you figure out from that data you got at the football game?"

The question sent a jolt through him. Tucker recalled the jock commenting that he couldn't understand the coding he saw. At the time, he thought it was simply because Kwan was just another dumb jock, but now he realized that Kwan actually did know something about tech and coding.

"Uh, well," Tucker mumbled as his eyes darted around nervously. This was a dangerous topic to be discussing, though thankfully not many people were walking past them. "The data kind of got deleted somehow, so I didn't really get much done on decoding it."

"How do you even let that happen?" Kwan shook his head as he dug his hand into his pocket. Pulling out a PDA in a silvery blue color, he tapped at the screen a few times before he turned it around to show Tucker.

"How did you get that?" Tucker demanded, grabbing the PDA from Kwan's hand as he stared at the familiar Phantom coding.

"Duh." Kwan rolled his eyes. "I copied it from you. But here's the interesting thing." He made a few adjustments to what was on the screen, and Tucker's mouth nearly dropped to the ground.

"A double helix?" Tucker glanced up questioningly at the jock. It was so obvious that he couldn't believe he didn't realize that sooner. Now that he knew the truth, it only made sense for the coding to resemble DNA.

"Yeah, it took me all night to figure that out." Kwan scratched at his head as he frowned. "But that's where things got even weirder. I mean, who even thinks to write coding like DNA? That doesn't seem very logical. But I decided to try decoding the DNA, and-" he pulled up something else on the screen. The two spirals of double helixes overlaid before separating and flashing MATCH on the screen.

Tucker swallowed, his throat constricting and his hands feeling sweaty as he read the name over the human DNA sequence. "How did you get that?" His words felt like they came out in a wheeze. Breathing seemed to be a forgotten ability to him as his heart hammered in his chest.

"I may have hacked some records to get a database of DNA to compare it to." Kwan glanced away nervously after admitting to such an illegal activity.

"Kwan, you can't tell anyone about this," Tucker said seriously as he grabbed hold of the jock. He was in full on panic mode, feeling a sense of déjà vu like when Danny told him that Lancer knew his secret. "I really mean it. Like - Shit!" He backed up a step, his green eyes growing wide. "You seriously can't let any of this slip to your brother." He grabbed hold of the confused jock, yanking his head closer as he lowered his face. "You can't tell anyone that Danny is Phantom. If it got out - I mean, god! Imagine if the Guys in White or his parents got a hold of him. And-"

"Foley!" Kwan shook him with a hard jerk that silenced him. "What are you talking about? How can Fenton possibly be Phantom?" He blinked, his eyes gazing upward for a moment as his mouth moved silently. "Well, I mean, there is some similarity in their names. But Fenton's human, and Phantom's a program."

"Wait. You," Tucker eyed him hesitantly, "didn't know?" He paled at the blank expression on the jock's face. "Oh shit. Um, just, uh - Just pretend I didn't say anything." He laughed awkwardly, patting Kwan on the shoulder as he backed away. "Nope. This conversation never happened." Danny was going to kill him if he found out his best friend so stupidly let his secret slip out like that.

The gears were slowly turning in Kwan's mind, and his eyes gradually grew wider as his mouth dropped open. "No way," he gasped out in surprise. "How is that even possible that Fenton is Phantom? I mean, it's not possible for someone to be," he fumbled for the appropriate word, "digital."

"Well, you know Danny's parents. They always have some crazy new invention. And there was this accident." Tucker shook his head. "Look, Kwan. I know you have no reasons to do me any favors. But this is about Danny's life! You gotta promise that you won't breathe a word about the fact that he's Phantom."

Kwan gave him a flat stare, annoyance creeping into his eyes. "Danny's a great guy. He's nice and funny and smart. I'm not going to go around shouting out his secrets to everyone. I'm kind of insulted that you think I would do that. I like Danny. I'm not going to do something that could hurt him, and certainly not something that might seriously endanger his life."

"I-" Tucker frowned, lowering his eyes as his shoulders sag. He kind of felt bad for thinking so poorly of the jock. "I didn't mean it like that. Danny's my best friend. I just didn't want you accidentally letting something slip around someone that could potentially really hurt him."

Kwan nodded as an understanding look passed through his eyes. "I can understand that. If it were Dash, I would panic over anyone finding out my best friend's secret. I promise no one will hear anything about it from me."

"Thanks." Tucker breathed out in relief. Some thought wiggled through to front of his mind, but he felt hesitant to mention it. "Um, I'm a little worried about Danny. Being all digital, who knows what kind of effects that has on his physical body?" He shifted uncomfortably and wiped sweaty hands on his clothes. "Since you know tech and stuff, um, do you think you can help me monitor him? You know, just to check and make sure this whole digital thing isn't doing anything bad to him?" He decided to leave out the whole part where he shot Danny with the Data Deleter, still feeling rather guilty about the incident.

Kwan eyed him curiously at that request. "I suppose I could do that."

Tucker snapped his fingers as another thought occurred to him. "You can help me figure out a way to protect Danny from another EMP!"

"What happened to him during the EMP?" Kwan gawked horrified as Tucker reminded him of that event.

"Oh, Kwan." Tucker patted the jock on the shoulder. "The things I have to tell you."

DB-KT: But that would mean being nice to Danny. XD;;;;

midnight: Well, his chest sure hurts a lot. XD;;; Good think Tucker was pretty across the room. That would have hurt even more at point blank range. D:

Sammi: Yes~ Hero Danny~ 8D Maybe sometime, I should do a story with Danny being badass without the use of powers. XD;;

Just Will: I don't predict things that way. =( I just sort of go with the flow and wait to see how long it ends up. Pretty sure it was Danny that did it in that episode, and it was definitely not just some energy beam. *shrugs* We all know Tucker isn't the greatest when it comes to handling Danny's parents' inventions. XD;; Hm, I usually tend to write things as senior year or later. XD;;; But yeah, Lancer would have been a great adult confidant for Danny, especially since Lancer is a pretty wise guy and much mature than, you know, Sam and Tucker. He could have given Danny lots of great advice.

maltese: XD I guess we'll have to wait and find out.