Chapter 3
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My head hurts. I mean my head really hurts. It feels like someone's beating my head from the inside with a heavy sledgehammer.
I slowly blinked open my heavy eyes, the world still blurry. I didn't think I was in my room. The ceiling was too dark and metallic to be my bedroom. Groaning, I tried to turn over, only to find that I couldn't.
I tried again, even harder this time, and the thing I was laying on only jerked a little bit. I looked down at what I was laying on. Cold, shining metal reflected my very confused face. My eyes shot open.
I tugged at my wrists and ankles but they'd been tied down to the lab table. I started to panic.
I started shaking and my stomach churned. My breath came in gasps. The world around me spun like a kaleidoscope and I felt my heart pound in my chest.
"Danny!"
Mom entered my spinning eyesight and I felt her hands grab my cheeks.
"It's okay, sweetie, just take a deep breath. Alright? In through your nose, out through your mouth. Okay?"
I nodded and did as I was told. Slowly, the world stopped spinning. My heart slowed down with each breath and the shaking stopped. My stomach still churned, but I could ignore that for now.
"Are you alright, honey, what happened?"
"I-I don't know, I-I just woke up and- and I'm tied to a lab table and-"
"I understand, sweetie, I'm so sorry. We had to, to make sure you wouldn't try again…"
I stared up at her, my eyebrows furrowed and my mouth slightly parted. "W-what do you mean, what?"
"You don't remember?" I shook my head no. She nodded and sighed, glancing across the room for a split second before her eyes were back on me.
"Let's go up to the living room to talk, alright. Jack's got some fudge and hot chocolate ready for us." She quickly unstrapped my arms and legs and helped me up off the table.
I followed her upstairs, where Dad was waiting on the couch, a plate in his hands, empty of fudge, and three steaming mugs on the table in front of him. He looks up at us, his normally jovial face solemn and serious.
"Danny. How are you?" he asked.
"I'm fine.. I guess, but-"
"He doesn't remember anything." Mom cut in "Danny, just sit down and relax, we-we'll explain everything."
Mom pointed me over to the couch and left the room for a moment, coming back a few seconds later with a thick, yellowing file.
I sat down next to Dad, and Mom sat down on my other side, she put an arm over my shoulder and sighed. She looked up at Dad and nodded.
"Danny boy, you- you aren't my son."
I could almost hear my world shatter.
"Wh-what do you mean?"
"I am not your biological father."
"What, but you- you're…" I was cut off by my own sob. Hot, wet tears ran down my face.
"We're still your parents, Danny, of course we are. But there's- there's something- about you- that you should know."
-X-
"Vlad! Oh-oh god, Vlad!"
The young man rolled over on the floor, clutching his blistering face and groaning.
"Jack, c-call an ambulance!"
The ambulance arrived in a few minutes, and carried Vlad off to the hospital, Jack in the ambulance with him and Maddie driving behind.
"Ecto acne." The stoic doctor turned and left the hospital room, leaving Vlad, Maddie, and Jack to their thoughts.
Vlad looked at his scarred hands, tears streaming down his disfigured face.
"Hey, Vladdie, it's okay. It'll go away, you'll see."
Vlad smiled sadly at Jack. "Thank you."
Vlad started hacking and coughingh, turning into a terrible coughing fit, ectoplasm bubbling up from his lungs.
Two pitch black rings formed at his waist, running down his body and transforming him.
His pale skin turned a light, dead blue, his white hair morphed to its original black color, a highlight of dark gray streaked through the middle.
He screamed.
"Half ghost?"
"That's what the tests say, Vlad."
"Is that even possible?" he sidled closer to Maddie, staring at her lips and making her look away.
"Ghost powers, V-man! That's so cool!" Jack shouted, oblivious to Maddie's discomfort.
"Maddie Anderson?" A man in a crisp white suit stood in her doorway, black sunglasses covering his face.
"Yes?"
"I'm here to talk to you about your research. The half-ghost phenomena, specifically."
"Oh, yes. What do you want to know?"
"I am a part of a government organization dedicated to hunting ghosts, the GiW. You will be working with your colleagues to create a half ghost weapon that we can control."
Maddie was stunned into silence.
"You will be paid handsomely."
Maddie smiled at Jack, who was trying to maneuver the rat into the chamber so it could be gassed with the serum.
They decided it was too dangerous and not worth the risk to use humans. So, they used animals and a volatile mixture of ectoplasmic elements and genetic bonding agents.
The rat, freshly dosed with the serum, coughed and hacked, blood and ectoplasm pouring out of every orifice. Dead and ghostless after a few seconds.
Vlad hit the table in anger, his eyes flashing red. The new Rolex watch on his wrist clashing against the shining steel lab table.
After a minute he looked up at Maddie, a pensive look on his face.
"What if we made someone. Someone who could handle the ghost DNA. We could use my own DNA, because we know for a fact I can take it, and we could use Maddie's eggs so we don't have to pay for anything."
Vlad sighed in sadness as he incinerated the shriveled body of their 13th experiment. The thirteenth of his and Maddie's children that didn't even survive to be taken out of the artificial womb.
13 experiments and 10 years, down the drain.
Maddie and Jack were married, with a 2 year old daughter they called Jazz. Their family grew, happiness and love at its core.
Meanwhile, Vlad had to burn his family.
"We don't want something which just turns into a ghost, we want something which hunts them. A predator."
"That would take extensive genetic revision, there's no guarantee it would work because of that. Just give us a chance to work everything out with a normal half ghost, then we can see about making it predatory."
"We do not pay you for normal, Fenton. Project Phantom will be enhanced."
Of course. Why wouldn't it be?
The fourteenth experiment, the only one that had survived the full 9 months, the one they spent nearly a year on, enhancing it genetically, is completely human.
All of the tests, every single one, say that there is not even a trace of a ghost in this boy.
Vlad punched the wall, hard, cracking his hand and putting a dent in the dull white plaster.
They used to be able to induce a transformation.
Little white rings would pass over the baby's body in the artificial womb, making it's swath of black hair a pure white.
That was all gone now.
"Please, Maddie, just- I've loved you since I first met you."
"Vlad, no- just- no. Get away from me."
"Leave with me, Maddie. Come on. We'll be happy."
"Vlad, get away from me. Stay away from me and my family."
"Maddie, we have a son together."
"He's not our son, Vlad. He's just an experiment. You can't use that against me."
"Maddie, please-"
"No, Vlad."
The fire raged on.
Thousands of records, ten years of data, millions of dollars of equipment, all gone.
Vlad was blamed.
The only proof was Maddie Fenton's restraining order.
He paid his way out easily, what with his new found money supply.
The fourteenth experiment lived, only getting a small burn on his back.
"Mr. Masters, this child is human, and he is your son. Custody is rightfully yours." The dour looking judge glared down at Vlad, gavel clutched in his wrinkled hand.
"That freak of a human is not my child and never will be!" Vlad yelled back at the judge, his eyes glowing red. The men in the white suits standing at the edges of the courtroom turned on their weapons with a whine.
Vlad clenched his jaw and stepped away from the pulpit, his eyes fading back to their cold, dead blue. He turned his back to the court, and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
"We'll take him. I'm his biological mother anyway."
"Are you certain, Mrs. Fenton? You already have one child, do you want the responsibility of another?"
"We've been trying for another. This way we'll get one. Besides, if I don't, this little boy will be all alone in an orphanage with nobody." Maddie shook her head.
"If you're sure. The child will be yours so long as he is human. If that ever changes you are to turn him over to the GiW immediately." The judge stared down at Maddie, his forehead creased in concern.
"Of course." Maddie nodded and looked over at her husband, who had an excited look plastered on his face. She smiled at him and looked back to the judge.
"Very well. Do you have a name picked out?"
"Daniel James Fenton."
-X-