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The day started out normal, well, as normal as any day could be for Danny. He was working on the Specter Speeder 4.0 (rest in pieces 3.0, you were a real one) while his parents were at some ghost convention in Milwaukee (even after chasing the Amity Park ghosts for two decades, old age was never going to slow them down, at least they stopped hunting him) he felt a presence.
It… wasn’t a ghost. He’d know because his ghost sense would always warn him. It was worse than a ghost.
Danny gently pushed himself out from under the Specter Speeder and stared up at one of the last people he wanted to see.
The government.
Not just the U. S. Government, nope, The Government. All the governments plural.
“Hi,” Danny greeted the currently the most powerful woman in the world, Eva Stratt. He threw on an easy smile he didn’t feel as he wiped ectoplasm off his hands (and compression glove) and onto a rag. She was carrying a clipboard of papers and staring down at him with tired, cold, and calculating eyes. “Got a ghost problem?” He quipped, attempting to go into salesman mode, “You just missed my parents, but—“
A stack of papers hit him in the chest. He tried to act like it took the non-existent wind out of his lungs.
“We’re not here for your parents.” She said, keeping her voice even, detached.
Danny raised a brow as he sat up, letting the stack of papers fall onto his lap. One glance at the title told him everything he’d need to know. It was his never intended to be published, and a still very much unpublished “what if” paper and schematics for an astrophage powered engine he cooked up in a sleep deprived haze after pouring into hours of research earlier this week.
There was a lot of guess work involved since there was little to no info about their not so little sun-eating problem. Well, at least the information that was given to the public. He may have taken a… page or two out of Tucker’s book. Even used some software Tuck and Technus 3.0 had cooked up a couple years back. Apparently, he didn’t cover his digital tracks like he thought he had…
“Okay?” He said, feigning confusion as he glanced at the guys in suits across the street. There were easily a dozen of them. Some even blocked by the couple of window tinted, possibly bullet-proof, black SUVs currently parked in the street.
At least these guys weren’t dressed in white.
“The math checks out.” Stratt said while she sipped from her to-go cup, “The proto-types however—“
Danny raised his hand like he hadn’t been out of school for the past decade. “You already started with proto-types?” The paper barely existed for three days, it was a wonder it was even remotely coherent. It just sat on his computer, not even saved to the cloud or a document sharing site.
Stratt (because no way in the Infinite Realms was he going to refer to her as Eva) gave a non-commital shrug. “We’re working on borrowed time we don’t have. The more we argue, the more time we waste and the less time we have to save Earth from freezing over.”
He’s fairly certain the polar bears and yeti’s from the Far Frozen would be the only ones thrilled with new ice. Oh, and penguins too he guessed.
Danny sighed. He knew all about living on borrowed time. Heck, thanks to Clockwork, he still was. “Alright, so, why me?”
“You wrote the paper.” She said, glancing at the hovering vehicle behind him. “And clearly you can use…” The wary, confused look that left almost instantly told Danny everything. Stratt was still an outsider on his turf and a total skeptic. “Unconventional power.”
Ectoplasm. She was referring to ectoplasm. It honestly shocked him a bit that she, nor the other government security detail officials were wearing any hazmat suits or safety gear. Because of how saturated Amity Park was with background ecto, the whole town spiked just a little higher than normal background radiation on Geiger counters. Between being home to two permanent portals and the whole being dragged into the Infinite Realms a couple times over the years, it was a wonder its residents weren’t kicked for “safety precautions”.
Though considering The Guys in White weren’t actually government officials, but some group Vlad had used one of his many shell companies to assist in making Danny’s afterlife miserable… it wouldn’t put it past Vlad to write around some laws to hide how ghostly the town had become under his brief stint as mayor.
Danny took a slow deliberate breath he did not need. “So, what? You need me to build a working engine?” He asked, waving his own paper around.
“You’ll be compensated.” She said, checking her watch. “And, you’ll be working closely with NASA.”
Oh.
She fought dirty.
Don’t jump up. Don’t jump up. It’s not like it was his dream or anything.
“Let me… make sure the speeder doesn’t blow up my house again.”
Stratt stared at him in the way anyone not used to him would stare whenever he said something out of pocket. It was probably the again aspect, but hey, ectoplasm was touchy stuff. Full of volatile emotions or whatever made the meat in his fridge come back from the undead and start food war MMXXI.
It didn’t take him longer than a couple minutes to return everything back to the way it was, ecto-filter replaced, bolts tightened, the usual. When he pushed his way out from under the speeder again, Stratt glanced down at his shirt, eyebrow raised. It was an old Dumpty Humpty t-shirt he’d gotten from some concert nearly twenty years ago. She didn’t judge him before, but her glance told him he absolutely did get some ectoplasm on his left shoulder. He grabbed the already glowing rag and wiped the ecto away.
“Sooooooo,” he clapped his hands and pointed to the SUVs, “I’m assuming you want me to get in and whisk me away to ancients knows where?
“Basically, yes.”
Danny nodded. “Can I snag one of my go bags and lock up?” He could stash a couple thermoses and maybe leave behind a note for Jazz when she comes to visit this weekend. A “hey the government kidnapped me but I went willingly and don’t need to be rescued” sticky note for the fridge. Maybe even with a smiley face.
Stratt sighed as she checked her watch. “You get two minutes.”
That's a minute more than he needed. He hit the ground running. Soon as the garage door closed behind him, he flew through the floor to his old bedroom. Grabbed the go-bag he had stashed in the closet wall, flew through back through the floor all the way to the basement, shut down the power to the portal, yoinked whatever new portable weapon his parents were working on, a couple other basics (like the more sleek anti-ghost bracelet), and wrote a quick sticky note for Jazz before slapping it on the fridge. He was at his front door without breaking a sweat within 45 seconds.
He took a slow deliberate breath. So, this was it. He’d leave Amity Park for an unknown length of time, unable to put a stop to whatever threat of the week ready to throw down and haunt him. Was he making a mistake?
The town survived without him when he went to community college across the state. It also survived when he and Tucker got an apartment far from their families… The threats weren’t as scary as they were when he was a fresh halfa at 14.
Huh… he was leaving again. Why did it feel like it’d be the last time for a long, long time?
He stared up at the hidden panels of the anti-ghost security system, flipped it on for the first time since he came back home and quickly hauled ass before it properly booted up to shoot at him.
Danny was at the SUV before the suits could blink. Granted, most of them had their eyes hidden behind sunglasses, which was funny because it’d been cloudy all day with potential threats of ‘ghost attacks’.
Stratt hummed, glancing at her watch as she walked down the driveway. “You’re fast.” She noted, and waited til she was closer before finishing with, “Your medical records say otherwise.” She quirked a brow.
Uh oh.
Maybe he was a bit too eager to get into a stranger’s van…
Danny gave his signature lazy smile, one he perfected after the accident. He chuckled. “You’re not from Amity. Skeptic or not we have what’s called Ghost Watch. The damage they caused used to be worse. If it wasn’t for having a billionaire in town, I doubt all the damages would’ve been covered. That and the news station has a whole alert system in place for whenever my dad is on the road. You, uh, gotta learn how to run around here.”
Stratt gave a noncommitted hum as she nodded to one of the suits who opened the back passenger’s side door. “Get in. We have much to discuss.”