A/N:
Hello everyone and welcome to the Wednesday update. I've been having a slow one as the last days of the year wind down, so not a lot going on at the blog. Still, happy to finish the First Act before we ring in the new year! The plague from the title makes its first appearance.
Chapter Summary:
Something unusual begins to plague Amity Park, and it's up to Valerie and Danny to fix it...
Warnings:
Canon-Typical Violence, description of physical illness
Chapter Title:
Deluge: To overwhelm. ... An overwhelming amount of something; anything that overwhelms or causes great destruction. ... A great flood.
Collaborate(ion): To work together with others to achieve a common goal ... To voluntarily cooperate treasonably, as with an enemy occupation force in one's country.
7:17pm; October 25th, 2005; Amity Park
The wind brushed through his hair, sending the strands tickling his ears and whipping his bangs against his forehead. He floated above his city, taking in the soft gleam of the artificial lights, a mirror to the dusting of sparkling gems embedded in the inky empyrean above. The glittering golden expanse spooled out below his boots, painted in a breathtaking picture in black and yellow. The hush this far over the bustle of the city settled around his core, as comforting as the gelid grip of the snowflake laden air around him. He smiled down at his haunt, his home, his favorite piece of paradise. All the way up here, hovering above the fights and arguments of the metropolitan rust-belt town turned suburban sprawling nightmare, he could think of it as paradise. A lot easier than when he was stuck on the ground or pushed around inside Casper's halls.
"Earth to Danny, are you still there?"
"I'm still alive, Sam...relatively speaking."
"Where'd you go?"
"Just enjoying the view. It's nice up here."
"It's gotta be -10 degrees up that high. Maybe that's nice to you, but the rest of us are still warm-blooded Americans."
"Not my fault, I'm currently made of ectoplasm. In fact, I think we agreed it was Sam's fault."
"Ha, ha. That joke never gets old. On a serious note, it's been as quiet tonight as you've been."
"Might be worth turning in early. No news is good news in this town." Danny sighed around the sentence, brushing the lock of his bangs pushed by the last breeze out of his eyes. His dad promised to take him to the barber's this weekend. He glanced back down at Amity beneath him, marveling once again at the flow of lights and the golden glow. Quiet nights always made it easier to appreciate the wonder of flight and the loveliness of the view. It never got old, but it always seemed new whenever things were calm.
"Sorry to burst your bubble, but looks like there is something?"
"Boxy?" He could deal with the Box ghost tonight. It'd be refreshing after hovering around, flying in dreamy lethargy all evening.
"No? The report says, well, it's not a report. It's a blurry upload of someone's selfie. It shows the freezie nozzles at one of the 7/15's is on a rampage."
"How does a freezie nozzle go 'on a rampage'?" He flew off towards the gas station, thankfully not the favorite one near home, befuddlement bubbling around in his guts. Or maybe that was hunger, it was getting close to mid-evening snack time.
"The picture shows the machine spraying freezie mixture everywhere."
"Sam, that sounds like a normal malfunctioning freezie machine."
"Well, yeah, if the machine wasn't standing on one nozzle tube in the middle of the gas station parking lot in the image."
"That's weird." he commented, circling above the station's location, peering down at the scattering teens below him. "I'm here, but I don't see anything but a bunch of classmates running around in parkas and Ugg boots."
"You can see the label on those boots from up there, huh?"
"Ghost vision is best vision." He flew closer, taking in the screams and the waving arms trying to get his attention. They were upset, that much was certain, though about what he couldn't tell. He got close enough to see in color again, more light filtering into his previously night-vision-only sight, and caught the cascade of bright tie-dye colors all over their clothes. They looked like they'd lost a fight with a freezie nozzle machine, alright. "Hello Amity citizens," he said, adopting his superhero voice, "what seems to be the problem?"
"Dude! You gotta stop it! It's just running down the middle of Madderson Ave, trying to shove blue raspberry freezie mix into Kyle's mouth."
"You mean the dude who works at Nasty Burger?"
"Uh, yeah? He gets one day off, and then he gets attacked by a killer 7/15 machine. He's got the worst luck."
"His luck's about to turn around because I'm here to help. Just...point in the direction you saw the machine...waddle off?"
"It's walking on two of its nozzle arms."
"Oh that's weird."
"I know right? Even for Amity Park shit, that's weird," The other teen agreed, pointing him to his left. "If you start flying that way, you can't miss it. It's loud and there's scraping metal sounds, and it smells like freezie mix man." The boy looked down at his ruined parka, face frowning in disgust. "It's gonna take forever to wash the stickiness out of this…"
"Good luck! Go home. It's not safe to be wandering around with marauding freezie machines."
"I just wanted a glizzy man…" Danny heard him complain as he set off in the direction he'd been pointed. True to his word, he'd only been flying two minutes before he heard another boy screaming in panic. He picked up the pace.
"Come on, Mr. Freezie Machine, I thought we were friends? We've been friends since I was a little kid, right? So why are you trying to drown me with freezie mix?" Kyle dodged around another wriggling swipe of the machine's nozzle, face covered in shiny freezie mix and hair slicked back from the half frozen remnants of the last blast of the machine's contents. "Can't you just chill out and stop?" He hopped to the left, a spray of deep blue icy mixtures plopping on the ground near his feet. "Quit being such a dick!" He ducked under another arcing spray of mix.
Danny blasted the machine, watching it tip over onto its side and wiggle like a beetle trapped on its back. Creepy. "Hey man, sorry that took so long."
"Oh Phantom! It's cool dude." The other boy smiled up at him, running a hand through his blue dyed, mixture soaked locks. "It wasn't really dangerous, just annoying."
"It's too cold for you to be that wet." He commented, watching the machine still trying to right itself as it scraped across the pavement.
"Get the fuck out of the road, you brats!" A car swerved around the two of them, just barely missing the moving freezie machine. "Shit, what is that? I hate this town...I need to move…" The driver's annoyed commentary carried through the chilly late October air, as the two of them refocused back on the machine.
"So, are you gonna, suck it up or?"
"Well, that's the thing. It doesn't have any ghost energy?"
"No way...really? You can tell? No wait, you're a ghost, of course you can."
"Yeah. I don't know how it's moving around right now." They stared as it dragged itself towards the curb, flipping over the edge, trying to right itself. "It's not possessed, at least, it doesn't feel like it." He hovered closer, taking in the front of the machine, no ghostly aura to be seen. "I'm pretty sure my Thermos doesn't work on suddenly animate and sentient but normal frozen treat machines." He frowned down at it as it got its nozzle arms underneath itself again. He gave it another push with an ecto-blast.
"Seems kinda mean to keep knocking it over."
"It was hosing everyone down with freezie mixture in 30 degree weather."
"Yeah, but...I don't think it's got a brain or anything, man." Kyle watched it struggle a little while longer before heading away to the other side of the road. "Maybe put it out of its misery? Or make sure it can't go anywhere? I don't know. I'm not the town's superhero." He shoved his hands into his jean pockets, pulling out his cell.
"I'll figure it out. Go get somewhere warm." Phantom waved him off, turning his attention back to the struggling machine once more. He phased a hand through the inside, hoping it would dislodge a weak ghost possessing it. No dice. The thing kept wiggling and kept exuding no ghost energy.
"What are you doing?" Tucker asked through the Fenton phones.
"Right now? Trying to figure out how this thing is still moving." He floated to the other side and tried again, this time pressing his energy through the palm of his hand into the machine when he phased inside. Still nothing.
"It's just some dumb blob ghost, or group of blob ghosts, or weak little animal ghost. Just push it out of the machine—"
"Already tried that Tuck, it's not working," he leaned over towards the front of the glass, taking in his reflection and the lack of aura once more. "Besides, I can't sense any energy coming from it."
"Well, yeah, it's pretty weak."
He shook his head, before remembering his friends couldn't see him. "No, I mean, even when I stick a hand inside, I can't sense anything. And I can't blast anything out of it, either."
"That's...that doesn't make any sense?"
"I know right." He gave it a kick, watching it spiral across the sidewalk and continue waving its nozzle arm-legs around. "It's like it came to life on its own. No ghost stuff involved."
"In Amity?" Sam asked.
"In Amity of all places," he picked up the machine, taking it higher into the air. "I'm gonna go drop this on the top of a building. That should smash it good enough so it doesn't cause any more trouble. If it is a weak ghost, that'll fix the problem too." He flew above a nearby roof, hefting the machine above his head. It made a whirling noise and waved its tubes more frantically. "Why don't you take a concrete nap?" He tossed it down, watching as it smashed to bits on the surface of the roof below. The pieces wobbled around a few more seconds before growing still, the remaining mixture leaking out. "That should solve that mystery." Or maybe not, because Sam told him about something weird at the park. He flew off to investigate.
He sat back in the air, crossing his legs under him afterward. The lawnmower hadn't put up much of a fight, but it had wasted more time. He pulled out his phone, checking the time. He'd told his parents he was taking a late evening walk around the block to get some air. He'd been cooped up all weekend, so they'd been happy to see him going out. It wasn't 9pm yet, he had plenty of time until curfew, when he'd have to sneak back out if things kept being active.
"One down, a whole mess of them to go."
He groaned, taking in the curve of his evening's tone going from pleasant to aggravating. "What is it now, Tucker?"
"So, it's a bit of good news, bad news sort of thing. Bad news, the machines at the Shop-N-Save right by my place are going haywire."
"What's the good news?"
"Good news is, the machines going bonkers are the cash registers and they are spraying money everywhere. I'm on my way right now to grab up some green friends."
"Tucker, that's stealing!"
"It's not my problem if their machines want to be generous to their loyal customers."
"Come on, Tuck, you can't."
"I need a new graphics card for my gaming computer, Sam, and not everyone's parents are made of money! Don't judge meeeeee." He heard Tucker click off the line after a scuffling noise he assumed involved him grabbing his shoes.
"Graphic cards are expensive, Sam," he said into the growing silence, with only the two of them on the formerly group call. "I'll make sure he puts all the money back." He started off towards the grocery store, already starting to ache in ghost form from the continued speedy exertion. This weird night could not get any worse.
He'd thought that, before he'd arrived above the Shop-N-Save and realized there was a whole crowd of pushing, jostling, desperate people trying to scoop money off the ground and wrestling with one another over paper bills. He flew into the front of the store, watching the animated cash registers spewing out their remaining coins and dollars to the people closest to the check-out lines, Tucker included. "I know things are hard heading into the holiday season, but that doesn't mean you can pinch pennies from the coffers of the local grocer!" He picked up Tucker and flew him outside, phasing them both through a wall to avoid another mass of people pressing inside. "Come on dude, you can't keep any of that. They have cameras."
"I need it!" He hugged the fists full of loose cash to his chest, face pouting and eyes watering in the sub-zero temperatures. "How else am I gonna afford my new card?"
"Just open up your tech support line again." He dropped him well away from the sprawling, grasping crowd, a hand out to take back the cash.
"If I have to tell one more middle-aged office worker to turn on his fucking desktop monitor, I'll go postal and march on downtown." He held out his hand, slowly releasing his grip on the wrinkled dollars. "It's mind-numbing. How many different people can completely misunderstand how basic electronic cables function?"
"You'd think that'd be great for you. All payments, no thoughts." He snatched back the money, frowning, thinking about how to hand it back to the owners of the store with their registers still disgorging all their contents.
"If I wanted brainless tasks, I'd go answer questions off the tech forums from newbies who don't know how to program 'hello world' in Java." He stuck his hands into his pockets, fishing around for his PDA and his pair of Fenton phones. "Hey Sam."
"Oh, you're back after your flirtation with attempted robbery."
"Everybody's doing it." He panned the PDA across the crowd, still fist fighting each other over the change in the parking lot.
"Is that what you're going to tell the cops? Because they are on their way."
"And that's my cue to leave. Good luck with the registers, Phantom!" He took off around a corner, making a break for his bedroom less than a block away.
"So, now that you've given up your robbing ways, are you ready to help me problem-solve about this?"
"The cops will be there any minute," he heard Tucker huffing into the phones, scrambling his way back into his bedroom window with some grunts, "can't you let them handle it?"
"I would, but the registers are actually alive, just like the lawnmower and freezie machine."
"That's not the weirdest thing the police in this town have had to handle. I think they've totally got this." The squeak of his gaming chair, and the rustle and bang of his shoes being chucked off and thrown across the room was swiftly followed by, "sorry mom!"
"They have the rioting crowd to deal with, I could at least take the weird alive machines." He floated back inside, counting off the number of moving headaches he had to subdue. "There's only six of them. It shouldn't take too long."
"You're still sick dude. Didn't you say you felt weird in ghost form earlier?" Tucker was back to slurping on his drink, probably some questionable combination of energy drinks and sports refueler.
"It's fine." He grit his teeth as he summoned up another small ecto-blast. "I haven't used any energy all weekend. It's been really quiet around here before this."
"I guess it's paying you back with interest."
"I'd be paid back with interest if you'd just let me pocket a couple Benjamins."
"The cameras man," he blasted one of the registers, and it flew into pieces, all of which immediately stopped moving, "you like shopping here."
"I like having a gaming rig." Tucker was just talking to complain at this point. He didn't mean it. Danny could tell. "Now, I have to open up Tucker's Techline again, and listen to 'uh, I don't know the last time I restarted the computer. Why? What happens if it's been like a year or something?' all over again." He could hear him pouting on the other side of the line, and he had to fight down a smile as he popped a third register into scrap metal.
"The customers can't be that awful."
"Oh yeah? One of them asked me how come their mouse stopped working. I had them check for worms, took them through the steps for every common malware I could think of, refreshed their drivers. Do you know what the problem was?"
"It wasn't plugged in?" One more errant register to pummel.
"NO! It was wireless and they hadn't replaced the batteries. They thought it just charged through magical wireless vibes."
"Some of the new fancy ones do, don't they?"
"The batteries weren't even rechargeable!" He burst out laughing then, carefully finishing off the last wiggling register, core starting to ache.
"Ok, that is pretty amazing."
"Amazingly shit, you mean."
"You could start a blog. A tell-all about the horrors of Amity tech support services. It could be run anonymously, so techies around the city could send in their best stories."
"How is that going to make me money, Sam?"
"It'll make you feel better...and you can have a tip jar connected to Fundfriends." She crinkled something on her end of the call, a crunch following sooner after. Their snacking was making him hungrier.
"Ok, that's the last of the world's most mechanical Robin Hood's down for the count." He flew back out through the roof, taking in the scene in the front of the store as people scattered and cops leapt from their cruisers to rush towards the group still fighting it out in the parking lot. There were a half dozen police cars around now, more than enough to handle this, in his opinion.
"I hate to say this, Danny—"
"Come the fuck on!"
"Yeah, there's some weird activity at the mall."
"More misbehaving registers?" Even Tucker didn't sound that interested in the prospect. Maybe the evening's weirdness was finally wearing on him, too.
"It's...a mix? Food court machines, a couple bank ATMs, the merry-go-round in the center of the mall, just a hodgepodge of weird misfiring tech." He heard her typing on her keyboard, "there's a lot of it centered there, at least a dozen things."
He turned towards the direction of the mall, fighting down a groan of pain. How many more of them could there be in one night? He passed over the parking lot of the Shop-N-Save and turned north, towards the nicer part of town where the real mall, not the strip ones, lived. He'd just passed Mainstreet, ignoring the tugging in his core, when he caught a black streak out of the corner of his eye heading the other direction.
No ghost energy, still, and there was only one full human who could fly that fast. He stopped and turned towards the blur, taking in its graceful arc over the rooftops. It was definitely Valerie. The two of them weren't on the best of terms, but he didn't want to fight an entire mall full of bugged out tech alone. He sped to catch up with her, flinching at the way his core protested using more energy. He'd barely done anything today, let alone the days before this, and he felt like someone was scrapping glass over the surface of it. He'd punch whoever gave him this nasty ghost cold when he got over it. "Huntress!" He called out to her, waiting for her to stop. Instead, she turned smoothly from her flight's previous path, pivoting directions with an elegance that was impressive, even for her. She stopped, hovering a meter away from him, and he got a good look at her for the first time that evening.
Her suit had changed. His eyes traveled the length of her form, standing confidently on her hoverboard, focus going more fuzzy by the second. The entire suit was mostly black, but the red left did everything right. Thick stripes hugging down the sides of her body and curved to crest the tops of her shoulders and wrap around her throat, forming a glittering choker. Another thick red band around her middle, emphasizing her smaller waist, that split into two, a belly window encompassed by the bright red diamond across her navel. The points rose to just below her breastbone and just above the top of her hips, helping to elongate her form. Her helmet held swirls of red too, spiraling shapes he realized changed slowly as he looked at it, like a drop of bright red ink across a sea of black water. There were other cut-outs, one above her chest, and the forearms of her suit seemed to disappear into a gossamer shimmer of near see-through material. Ok. He liked the new suit. "Hey Huntress," he cleared his throat around the crack in his voice, and tried again, "I don't know if you noticed, but there's kind of a tech apocalypse happening?"
"Oh good. You're doing something about it. I don't have time to take care of everything tonight." Right, he forgot how grumpy Val was in Hunter Mode.
"I've already taken out three separate incidents in the last hour."
"Just three Phantom?" She shifted her weight in a weird way, and he realized she was leaning in the middle of the air like there was a wall behind her. How was she doing that? It made her look so cool.
"I'm taking them out as I get reports—"
"Reports? Wait...can't you sense ghosts?"
"That's the thing, Red, they aren't ghosts."
"You expect me to believe that?"
"You've got fancy scanners in that thing. More power in one arm than my whole body, right? Do your scanners pick up any spectral energy?" Her visor darkened, and he jumped as it changed from see-through to pitch black. That's a new feature he could do without.
"I can't get anything with my scanners either." Her face reappeared as the screen cleared, focused and looking a little pinched with annoyance. "If it's not ghosts causing this, then what is? I've had to fight off two vending machines, a Funstation 3, and a handful of cell phones tonight."
"It's been a 7/15 freezie machine, a riding lawnmower, and six cash registers in Shop-N-Save on my end."
"And none of them had ghosts possessing them?"
"Not as far as I can tell. I blasted them, and nothing came out. I even wiggled my hand inside the freezie machine with energy in my palm."
"Like that trick you did to Technus to force him to clump up at the school?"
"Yeah, same idea, smaller scale." He crossed his arms and looked back towards the mall. "There's a whole heap of them in the Beverley Mall causing trouble. You up for taking them out with me?"
"I would Phantom, but I'm heading to the hospital. Their x-ray machines, ultrasounds, electroshock paddles, even their ventilators are all running around in there attacking people. I don't have time to take care of the mall too!" She turned away for a moment, eyes distant, like something he couldn't see caught her attention. "I really have to go take care of that. You can handle a few food court soda stations, can't you?" She turned, shifting her weight on her board, preparing to fly.
"Maybe we can meet up and talk strategy after?"
"Not a chance, ghost boy! We don't need to team up to take care of this. Just do your job, and I'll do mine." She took off then, jetting off at the fastest speed he'd seen her fly, focused on the machines in the hospital.
"Well, that went...not great."
"Too bad she's such a loner. Maybe you could have taken things out at each spot together."
"Yeah," he agreed, starting off towards the mall once more, "it'd make my night a little easier."
It'd taken him another forty-five minutes to subdue every piece of moving electronics in the mall, and now his core panged like he was going to transform. Icy jabs of lightning shot through him with every second, and things were starting to get blurry around the edges as he sat on a roof. "Please tell that was the last of it?"
"Uh, there were five more incidents while you were at Beverley's." Sam replied. He swore down the Fenton phones, flopping against the roof of the building he'd been resting on.
"I can't take any more tonight. I'm already pushing the limits of my alibi, and I'm completely exhausted!"
"You haven't been fighting that much? I mean, you have time wise, but none of the machines looked like they required that much energy to blow up."
"I definitely have some kind of ghost sickness cold thing, because my core is pounding like the drummer for Humpty Dumpty during the solo for Tomorrow's Never Coming." He reached down to rub the spot in his chest over his core, fighting the urge to curl into a ball. He needed sleep.
"That sounds awful. Should you even be using your powers at all?"
"I don't know, Tuck, I thought it'd be another dull evening of flying around and doing nothing. Now, there's this weird techpocalypse happening, without ghosts involved, and I just want to sleep for a week."
"Maybe head home? You can't fight any more tonight, and it's not slowing down. No point in pushing yourself if it's just gonna hurt you." Sam, the voice of reason as always, pushed him to get his butt in gear and limp his way back into Fentonworks. "We'll figure out how to fight this in the morning. Hell, maybe it's some weird normal computer virus thing Tucker can whip up an antivirus for in a day or so."
"I've already started working on one using the data from the systems that have been infiltrated. "I'll have to examine things a little more to find the pattern, go over it with a couple scripts that work better than human eyes. You at your house yet, dude?"
"Opening the front door now." He turned his key into the lock and stepped into the living room, shutting the door behind him. "I'm gonna head upstairs and melt into my mattress." A few agonizing seconds later, and he was collapsed on the top of his bed, face pressed into his pillow. He turned his head to read his alarm clock. It was about twenty minutes past nine. He shucked off his shoes with his feet, trying to move as few muscles as possible. If he saved up some energy again quickly, he could be under the hot spray of his shower and in bed well before 9:45. He took a deep breath and pushed himself off the bed into standing position, groaning out loud at the ripple of icy burning going through his nerves. Shower. Bed. Comfortable Position. Unconsciousness. He determined, shuffling one foot after the other towards his bedroom door. He'd solve the machines of Amity Park trying to end the city in the morning.
6:27pm; October 27th, 2005; Amity Park
He had not solved the machine disaster in the morning, or the day after for that matter. He lay on a roof, staring up at the evening sky, watching his vertigo turn the few visible stars into streaks of pale white light. The pounding in his core left his arms tingling; his legs had dissolved into a tail an hour back to save energy. There was a pressure behind his eyes, building, building, building over the last hour until it felt like they'd pop right out of his skull. Now, he was fighting down shivers, involuntary shakes from the pain. He'd fought six machines tonight. "I think I'm done, guys."
"You sounded done three incidents ago…" Sam's voice whooshed in his ears, distant and tinny in a way that left him confused. "I think you're too sick to fight at all the rest of this week."
"Other than hurting like I've been run over by a cartoon sized street roller, I don't have any other symptoms. It's the weirdest cold of my life."
"Afterlife, really," Tucker typed a few more things, each tap of the keyboard sending a piercing ice pick sensation into his temple. He'd been quiet most of the evening, running his pattern recognition scripts, and writing a few more for good measure. "More data and still no pattern. Maybe this is some kind of cyberattack?"
"On just Amity? And why here when there are better targets?"
"Dry run? They have to test these things in a live environment somewhere, and the 'Most Haunted Place In America' is a good location for weird shenanigans to get covered up." Sam again, she had started to whisper last night on account of his headache. Both of them had. He had the best friends.
"Wouldn't you have tracked down the fingerprint of the malware by now, Tuck?"
"I'd like to imagine I would, but maybe a new type of malicious code invented by an entire computer engineering team employed by a nation's government is smarter than one fifteen-year-old." He sounded frustrated, even accounting for the quiet volume.
"It's not like I have any ideas either, guys…" He moaned as another wave of fire and ice raced out of his core, spiraling around inside like they were fighting each other. "I'm heading home soon," he waved off their hurried questions, "I just need to work up the energy to fly."
"The machines got you that tired out, Phantom?" Valerie's voice joined him on the roof. When had she gotten there?
"Yup. I've been fighting them non-stop for the last two days. Same as you…" He added that last bit as an afterthought. He didn't actually know if she had. This was the first time he'd seen her in two days.
"I'm burning the candle at both ends trying to keep up. What about you? Firing a couple blasts at a few machines got you that drained?"
"I told you; I have an afterlife, other things to use energy on." He rolled over onto his stomach, not wanting to continue the conversation pressed flat against the concrete. He braced himself and forced his way back to floating, gritting his teeth past the ominous protesting thumping in his core. "I can't be around all night. I have to go back to the Zone eventually, Huntress." That wasn't true, but it was a good excuse.
"All ghosts have to recharge sometimes, I guess, even ones as powerful as you." She stood on the roof, having ditched her board before coming over. He should have heard her walking up; the roof was covered in rocks and was all rough sandpaper texture. She was not that quiet.
He considered his hearing going off when he remembered how tinny his friends' voices were for a moment. Maybe the headache was scrambling his senses? "Why are you here?"
"You offered to team up a few days ago."
"I did, and you told me to shove myself in my Thermos." She laughed, a short bark that lifted her shoulders a few times. That did cheer him up a little.
"I should have said that; I'll save it for next time." Her smile was bright and a little contagious, and he found himself smiling back, just a little. "I came here to take back brushing you off."
"Oh?"
"Are you surprised? You're laying a roof in the dust and ice because you're so strung out. I'm not any better. I'm human after all."
"I thought you were the ghost hunting goddess?"
"Keep it up, smartass, and I might take my offer of a truce back." Her eyes sparkled in the evening light, a teal-green that reminded him of deep tropical seawater.
"A real truce this time?"
"As long as we have to fight off whatever is going on with the machines in town."
"No caveats?"
"I'm not gonna hold your hand and fly through the city with you, Phantom. I'm just making a don't-shoot-on-sight policy official. It's not like I've fired at you since you helped Ellie." She put a hand on her hip, and he had to force his eyes away from tracing the curve of it, following the red lines of her suit across her body.
Cool. He could feel like he was dying, and still have a working libido somehow. Being a teenager was amazing! "So, we work together until we figure out how to stop the machines, or they stop on their own. What about after?"
"Depends on if you behave, ghost boy." Her answering smirk really did something for her full lips... I need to sleep this off, my brain is going loopy. He resisted the urge to physically shake the thoughts out of his head. His headache did not need help.
"Ok, so did you want to split areas of the city to patrol or?"
"That'd be efficient. Unless there's something too big for one of us to handle, we should stick to specific territory to patrol. Just avoiding answering every call in every part of the city will help the load."
He agreed. Hopefully, she'd let him take the parts of patrol closest to Fentonworks without asking too many questions. "You have a map we could divide up?"
Ever prepared, she flipped over her forearm to produce a projection of the city as a hologram. "We can claim things here. I'm red, you're green. You gonna be able to remember your patrol areas?"
"You can email it to me."
"How does a ghost have an email address?"
"Uh," he hadn't thought of that before replying. The stupid headache was melting his brain. "I had a few citizens ask me for contact info, and I thought making one was a good idea?"
"No, not that. How do you get access to computers—"
"I can just possess them, Huntress." He floated closer, taking his pick of the prime patrol spots closest to home.
"Interesting choices, I'd have thought you'd want to be farther away from Fenton ghost hunting central." She peered back at him, helmet having disappeared some time in the last few seconds, her dark curls twirling around her face in the wind. I'm floating too close. He decided. He floated farther away.
"Their portal is easiest to sneak into." It wasn't even a lie. "When I need to go back to the Zone, it's easier to come and go from there."
"Maybe I should warn Danny to up his family's security…" She punched in a few more zones, this time closer to Nasty Burger. "They have a ghost shield, enough guns to supply a whole army, and two professional hunters, but you think this is the easiest place to sneak into in town?"
"Plasmius is a half-ghost remember? He can sense ghosts too. Technology I can work around, nothing beats organic senses." He finished off his half of the picks, leaving the rest near Elmerton for her.
"It's that good, huh?" She closed the display and brought up a new blank glowing screen. "What's your email, Phantom?" The quirk to her lips really sold her amusement.
"Uh, Phantomprotector1 ," He floated a few inches to the left, joining her at her side. "Yeah, that's how you spell it."
"How'd you miss out on the first one?"
"Some super fan grabbed it before I did, I guess. Anyway, if you send it there, I'll be able to access it later. That or anything else you have to send."
"I'm not gonna be your penpal. I thought you had an 'afterlife'. You can't be that lonely."
"I meant if you wanted to change up something about patrols or if you needed to tell me you'll be out of town or something. I have friends."
"Ghost friends?"
"Yes?"
"That's news. I only see you fighting them. I figured the whole Zone hated you by now." She sent off the email, and the screen vanished, suit shifting subtly to return to its original form with the projector gone.
"It's not like every ghost in the Zone comes here to start trouble. Only the most determined and obsessive ghosts keep trying to sneak in at this point."
"Your 'rogue's gallery' I presume."
"Every superhero needs one." He floated away, taking in the sight of the street below him for a moment.
"It's nice of them to oblige your obsession like that."
"That's not what that is." He didn't have to turn to know she'd shrugged. She'd been trying to 'figure out' his obsession for months now. Stupid ecto-studies nonsense, insisting all ghosts have one.
"If you say so. So, are you free to patrol every night, or are you busy?"
"What else would I be doing?"
"I don't know, maybe you have a date."
He turned around, eyeing her in confusion. Was she fishing for more connections? Did she want to know if he was available? No. He was in ghost form. She wasn't interested. He wasn't interested. It had to be a weird joke. "There's nothing more important than stopping this machine menace."
"No pressing engagements in your afterlife, and you claimed to be social. Alright, so, why don't we meet up once a week in person to trade info. I could email you," she looked thoughtful for a moment, "but strategizing in person is more effective." She joined him near the edge of the roof, peering over it with a frown on her face. She quirked an eyebrow when she didn't find anything.
"I just like the view sometimes. Anyway, I've got no objections to that. How about Fridays?" He watched her nod, and made a mental note through his fuzziness about the standing date. "Any time preferences?"
"8:00pm sharp. It's the middle of my patrol, and we should both be free." She shifted away, heading back towards the middle of the roof.
"Wait!"
"What?" She turned around, previously open face glowering back at him from being delayed.
"If we're working together, why don't we open a forum? People usually report stuff to the government page, but it's being overwhelmed by all the tech stuff. What if we have somewhere they could report to us directly?"
"That'd make our team up official in the eyes of the public."
"You said it's a real truce, Huntress; you getting cold feet?" He needled, floating a bit closer to take in her reaction.
"Fine. But I have no idea how to set one up. Are you just gonna molest some computer's insides until you make a web page?"
"I've got resources." He thought he sounded pretty cool when he'd said it, but her face did not look impressed.
"So get Technus or whoever it is to set it up and send the link to the email attached to the one I sent you. That cover everything?" She tapped her foot a few times against the rooftop, looking more impatient by the second.
"You got somewhere to be?"
"I still have the energy to hunt, and there's been four more reports in the sectors I just claimed for patrol. I want to take care of them before it gets any later."
"Oh...right." He brought his hands up to rub the back of his neck, working out a knot he felt in his muscles. "I'll let you go."
"Don't need your permission, Phantom, but thanks for granting your pardon regardless." She hopped up, the board appearing under her in an instant, molded out of the armor of her suit as if they were all one piece. "I'll be in touch. First meeting is this Friday. Do not be late." She stopped a few extra seconds to emphasize her point, before turning and flying off at a rapid pace towards her new targets.
"Well, that conversation went as well as it could have."
"She didn't even insult you!" Tucker's static-muffled voice echoed through the phones, and he started off towards home, and hopefully his bed.
"You think you could whip up that website? I know you're busy figuring out what's causing the tech to—"
"I'm already finished." He sounded smug. Well, he thought it was smug, but with the way everything hurt, parsing tone was getting difficult.
"Awesome. You're really the best." Home was in sight, and he was tempted to phase directly through the roof into his bed. His parents were waiting downstairs. There was no way he could get away with that. They'd been more attentive this school year, helicopter parenting in his general direction, since he'd scraped by Freshmen year by the thickness of his fingernails. He tried to be grateful. He failed most days. All that extra attention meant more lying, and more secrets, and the weight of it pressed down on his shoulders like a boulder or the mess of his unfinished chemistry project.
He landed a few feet from Fentonworks, opting to transform in the shadow of a building instead of a block over. No more walking than necessary if he could help it. The trudge to his front steps sent stabs of pain up his shins, as gravity reasserted its dominance and fought with his tired body to bring him to the ground. "I'll call you guys back after dinner and a shower. We'll have to finish setting up the forum and connecting it to my cell or something." He opened his front door and waved to his parents, faces relieved he'd kept his word and gotten back on time.
"I'm gonna reheat some dinner and then start on the last of my homework." He walked towards the kitchen and grabbed a plate, determined to do just that.
A few minutes later, he was sitting on his bed, talking to his friends on his cell. He'd looked so pathetic, his parents agreed to let him take dinner into his room, insisted even. "Ok, so how's it looking?"
"Well, I've got a report function up, for when the inevitable trolls show their faces, and for false reports, and the rest of the real stuff should route directly to your phone as a text message. The forums are there to give more detail and so people can brainstorm."
"We'd listen to their opinions, why?"
"Oh we won't Sam, but thinking they are contributing makes people more likely to stick around and send in real reports. They like feeling powerful and included."
"Good idea," he chewed on some casserole, taking a moment to think, "I think that covers everything?"
"Everything we can do now." Tucker agreed.
"How do we get the word out?"
"Oh, I just posted it on the official government page as a banner."
"How did you—"
"Tech wizard remember? Their security sucks. Anyway, we're already getting traffic. I took a look at that email, and I've even got the system set up so it'll only buzz you for incidents in your territory."
"Wait, how do you have access to my email?"
"I have access to many things...you should run your antivirus more often on your desktop. It wouldn't stop me, but I dodged a couple Plasmius bugs, zapped those, and something you got from downloading music on Nappycat last week."
"You, uh, got that one too, right?"
"Of course," Tucker finished off his late night snack, "but run your antivirus anyway. I didn't program it for you to just ignore basic internet safety!" A few more clicks came over his cell, and then, "I've done my part. I'm heading to bed. Got that test tomorrow."
"I'm heading off too, good luck with wrangling Valerie." Sam clicked off the line.
He said a goodbye to them both, and flopped back on his bed, having finished off his dinner. It was weird. Valerie had been the one to offer the truce. That was good, it should be good, but he felt suspicious. Anxious. She'd gotten that new upgrade, Vlad's doing, and now she wanted to work together? And, those questions earlier, what was that about? Was she just trying to be snarky, or was she fishing for information...for Vlad.
He sighed, turning, carefully, over onto his stomach. No. She hated Vlad. Unless the new upgrade let him puppet her around, she wouldn't do his dirty work so easily. He scrubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands, trying to force thoughts of the older halfa out of his mind. She's just overwhelmed and wants help. I can accept that. I'm going to accept that. He didn't have much of a choice; he needed the help anyway. The machine plague showed no signs of slowing down. If there was something nefarious about her intentions, he'd figure it out soon enough.
A/N:
Welcome to the bottom, dear reader! It seems Val and Danny are on the same team, pushed to together by Supernatural Forces threatening the sanctity of their town. The question is, as always, for how long?
We are on track for a Saturday opening for the Second Act, so I will see you then for Chapter Seven!
Can't wait that long? Feel free to see Lore posts, snippets, ask questions, and more at my tumblr blog!
Blog: balshumetsbaragouin . tumblr . com