Green Eyes

0

Ghosts in the Feed

Technus had been quiet for two full hours.

That alone put Valerie on edge.

He wasn't asleep, ghosts didn't sleep like humans, but he'd holed himself up in Danny's downstairs office and hadn't made a single overdramatic declaration since. No humming. No "Behold!"s. Not even a whispered "upload complete."

Which was unsettling. Because if there was one thing Technus never ran out of, it was commentary.

She stood in the kitchen, sipping her second cup of coffee, eyes trained on the drizzle veiling Amity Park like a city-wide exhale. Danny was upstairs, finally getting some rest after another mattress-ruining night. Valerie, on the other hand, hadn't really slept. Just shut her eyes and thought about malware with opinions.

Her visor buzzed.

She tapped the side, pulling up the linked feed to Danny's office.

Technus sat there, still as code. His projection flickered faintly, energy barely visible. Head bowed. Hands unmoving.

Not good.

She grabbed her blaster and headed down.

"Technus," she called.

No response. He didn't even flinch.

His eyes were open but dim. Not blank, just… low power. The kind of energy ghosts gave off when they were conserving effort. Or processing something big.

"Technus." Sharper now.

He blinked. "Ah. Apologies, Val-Val," he said, voice oddly distant. "I was… buffering."

She stared. "You're not a YouTube video."

"A shame," he muttered. "I'd be highly bingeable."

She didn't lower the blaster, but her tone eased. "You've been quiet. I don't trust that."

Technus rubbed his neck. "I've been trying to isolate the virus signal. It's clever. Every time I get close, it jumps channels. Adapts. It's like it knows when I'm near."

Valerie frowned. "You said it mimicked your frequency. Could it do the same to Danny's?"

Technus hesitated.

"Yes," he said finally. "And... I think it already is. It's testing limits. Seeing how far it can go before we notice."

Valerie muttered, "Too late."

By late morning, she and Danny stood in the Fenton Lab as Jazz prepped the overhead scanner.

Danny sat on the scan platform, visibly tense. Valerie stood nearby, arms crossed, scanning the perimeter for ghosts

Or glitches.

"This'll be quick," Jazz promised, her voice calm but focused.

Danny forced a half-smile. "Still feel normal. You know, except for the part where I might be a haunted USB drive."

Jazz adjusted the dials, then paused.

The monitor glitched.

Valerie stepped forward. "What was that?"

Jazz frowned. "That's not normal. His core reads stable… but there's a second pulse. Identical. Just slightly out of sync."

Danny sat up straighter. "Like… there's another me?"

"No. Like something's impersonating you. From the inside."

Valerie didn't say a word.

She didn't have to.

Hours later, at Tucker's office, a thick folder hit the desk with a thud.

"Every one of these is a breach," he said, flipping his monitor toward them. "Surges. Glitches. Security resets. All clean, fast, and tracked to ghost signatures."

Valerie scanned the data. Every hit was under a minute. No alarms. No lasting damage.

But each one left corrupted data.

"This isn't sabotage," she said. "It's recon. Something's studying the city's system like a blueprint."

"And the signature?" Tucker raised an eyebrow. "Always pings as Technus."

Danny entered holding a fresh readout from Jazz. "Confirmed. There's a duplicate of my core signal. It's not just riding the network; it's hiding in it."

Tucker leaned back. "If it can mimic you and Technus, it can get into anything."

Valerie set the papers down, eyes cold. "Then we trace it. Now. Before it stops mimicking and starts replacing."

That night, the apartment was silent.

Danny was upstairs. Technus hovered quietly near the window. Valerie sat curled up on the couch, laptop open, scanner beside her, trying to distract herself with noise.

Instead, she felt it.

The shift in the air. The crawl of energy against her skin.

"Something's coming," she whispered.

Technus didn't turn, but his voice echoed low. "You feel it too."

She nodded. "Feels like static. Like the second before your hard drive fries."

The streetlights outside flickered. Once. Twice.

Then the power didn't just go out.

It shut off.

Laptop, dead. Scanner, gone. Phones, consoles, lights, all offline.

Technus snapped upright. "This isn't a blackout. The grid's fine. The signal's been cut."

Valerie stood. "From where?"

Technus' eyes pulsed with eerie green light. "Everywhere."

Deep beneath Amity Park, across routers and firewalls, in cloud caches and forgotten code, a ghost stirred.

It didn't need a body.

It had bandwidth.