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balshumetsbaragouin · 9 months

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Bittersweet Future: Chapter Fifteen

Summary:

Jack faces a reckoning at the White House, and we get a closer look at the Amity Park GSU HQ as two ghosts try to escape.

If You're Hoping For A Break...

He watched impassively as the last of the tanks disembarked from the Air Platforms. It had taken an hour after landing to get the final equipment and personnel out of the floating war centers, but finally he had no more excuses to put off meeting the F.B. He had been summoned before the President himself in an emergency meeting. He was looking forward to it as much as a root canal.

The determination and fire he’d been feeling as the sun set had solidified into a core of steel around his spine. This would be the battle of his career. “I can hear you cursing them out in your mind from over here Fenton.” Lt. Castle leaned in to whisper next to him.

“In every language I know, even that infernal Spectral bullshit.” Jack groused back. He suppressed a wince when leaning back to parade rest earned him a burst of protesting pain all through his ribs. He really should not have used that grenade, the fuck had he been thinking? “It’s not like I can hide in here forever; I’m sure they’ll bring a military escort to the facility if I take much longer.”

“Oh they wouldn’t dare. A bunch of jeeps with fatigued soldiers driving through the middle of D.C.? The last thing the President wants is to make things look more dire. D.C. loves to pretend it’s untouchable by war or danger, they wouldn’t give up the illusion just to drag you out of your kingdom.” Jill frowned. She sighed then and started to move away from the observation deck. “Come on Head Commander, we should go over some last details before we head to the White House.” She paused by the door when she noticed Jack still lingering.

“You’re not coming with me Jill.” He nearly whispered it, having just come to the conclusion firmly enough to say it out loud at all.

“Excuse me? In what universe would I let you face those vultures alone?”

“In the universe where I need you to be out of sight to avoid taking the blame.” He saw her beginning to work herself up for an argument, and cut her off at the pass, “Jillian, there’s a good chance they’re going to try and dismantle the agency.”

“Which is why I should be there! You know we’re unstoppable together.”

“I know we feel unstoppable together, that’s not the same thing as actually being invincible.” He groaned as his stiff protesting spine popped when he moved away from the observation window. “The President didn’t change the meeting with the Joint Chiefs to tonight because he wants a nice chat, or even a normal dressing down. If they only have one person in front of them to blame, then they’ll be happy to focus on them.”

“Jac—”

“The last time a mission went this badly on America soil, the President torpedo’d his career to protect mine. There needs to be a fall guy for this mess Lt. Castle, and they’re pissed enough to be glad to have two instead. I need you untouched after this bomb goes off. Someone I trust has to run this organization after I’m gone. I’m not convinced I can save my own career, but I will save the GSU.” He watched as she crossed her arms, still determined to argue this out with him.

“If we handle this meeting properly, no one’s career is going have to go up in smoke. Muller himself already said not a single person could have handled this operation better than us.”

“He thinks that at least…” He mumbled.

“It’s not just his opinion, any reasonable assessment of the situation will say the same. There’s no one else qualified to run this operation, and even if they want to cry about it, it’s not like they could do any better. Our job is to drive home into their useless skulls that truth.”

“Be that as it may, we both know politics isn’t about logic, it’s about feelings. They feel like someone has to be to blame for this clusterfuck, so they’ll string someone up regardless if it couldn’t have gone better. I need there to be fewer targets for their rage. Further,” he continued, barreling over her as soon as she opened her mouth, “there’s still all the post-battle data to go through, the forms to be signed to release bodies to families and inform them of the deaths, and I think you promised that pilot a proper chewing out earlier today.” His tone was lighter here, but he was no less firm. She wasn’t coming with him this time. He felt his shoulders tighten at the expression on her face. She still wanted to argue and he didn’t have the time for it. “Don’t make this an order Jill, please…”

The sigh she let out was resigned then, finally, “alright Fenton. But if I hear from some of those White House aides, that you just rolled over and made a fool of yourself in there, your career will be the least of your worries.” She half-limped over then to punch him on the arm. “Go get ‘em soldier.” With that, she walked out of the observation room, her uneven footfalls growing ever softer in the growing gloomy misery left with her retreat.

One fight down, the main event to go...He thought. He pulled up the last of the forms needing his signature on the digital screen before him, trying not to think of them as the last acts he’d have as the Head Commander of the GSU. A few minutes later, he was dressed in civvies, his comfortable ecto-suit traded for the much more mundane kind. He didn’t have time to do much more than wipe the worse of the grime off his face and hands. He still smelled of spent munitions’ smoke and the sharp ozone of anti-ectoplasm fire when he slid into the chauffeured car headed towards the heart of D.C. He hoped rolling down the window on the way to the meeting would blow off the worst of the stench. He might think of the smell as the glorious remnants of battle, but to the pencil pushing bureaucrats that ran the F.B, it was the smell of failure.

The car ride went by fast. He’d spent it with his head down reviewing the printouts of the battle’s summaries and the hastily cobbled together analysis of the worn-thin remaining officers. Several of them were completely useless, written by drained human beings who’d never had to write up a field report before, the consequences of all the field promotions. Luckily, several of his oldest officers had survived the battle, and given proper assessments...those weren’t any better than the inexperienced cruft he’d sifted through. They were more competently written, but all the competence in the world didn’t turn a disaster into a resounding victory. Still, their information was invaluable. General Birch especially liked to get into the nitty-gritty of individual team tactics and weapon’s usage.

He was a personnel person at heart, much like Jack Fenton himself, and so zeroed in on proper training and group tactics before technology or even larger command tactics. He thought if they’d met under different circumstances, they could’ve been proper colleagues, friends perhaps. But tonight, he was the enemy. The thought was grim and sour in his mind as he car pulled to a stop outside of the White House.

The omnipresent security around the President’s residence waved his car through, directing him around the back. At this time of night, the lights illuminating the front-facing façade of the building was more ominous than impressive, making hollowed out skulls of the faces of the men guarding the place. The stone faced watchers observing my solemn walk to the gallows. There were more Secret Service standing around than usual, the President likely aware of the way the light threw their faces into unforgiving relief. Now, he was amused; they were trying to intimidate him.

They still felt he had the upper hand on some level. Why else go through all the trouble to try and dampen his spirits? When he slid back out of the car and started up the walk to the back of the White House in the sticky warm D.C. summer air, his confidence only grew with every mean-mugging Secret Service agent milling around to greet him. He kept it in check, trying to conquer the feeling of misplaced confidence. They’d likely also reckoned Lt. Castle would be here. He reasoned. His assumption was rewarded when the aide standing at the door did a double take when only he appeared to be guided inside.

“Is the Deputy Commander not here? I didn’t think her injuries were so serious…” the aide trailed off, trying to further poison the well against the agency.

“Not at all, she’s in no danger health wise. But, someone must remain at HQ to continue the rest of the post-battle operations. There are officers to interview, masses of data to review, and since this meeting was called as an emergency, there hasn’t been time for any of the necessary procedures to be done between Colorado and D.C. She asks the President’s forgiveness for being unable to attend, but the wheels of military stops for no one.” He stepped inside to join the aide by their shoulder, neatly ignoring the lack of invitation. They’d already called him to this charnel house, he didn’t need to be invited directly.

“Er, yes—I mean of course we understood that before we called the meeting, but that is—that’s why the meeting was set for an hour after—”

“Yes?” Commander Fenton said cutting off the flustered aide, “and you all believe only an hour is needed to secure and disembark a thousand soldiers, and hundreds of individual pieces of highly sensitive equipment?” He clicked his tongue then and started walking down the hallway, deeper into the metaphorical lion’s den. “Perhaps that is one of the misconceptions I can clear up for the administration tonight.”

The aide didn’t respond again, trying to hide the tinge of pink coming to their cheeks by taking the lead in guiding the commander deeper into the building. For all its size, the White House was still intended to be a Residence on some level. This meant much of its interior was taken up with kitchens and bedrooms and ordinary sitting rooms. There were a few places suitable for large meetings though, and that’s where he was being led. He’d been through these halls several times.

The newest administration had...tacky tastes if he thought about it. It’s not like his spartanly decorated D.C. apartment had a lot going for it, but at least it didn’t come off both pretentious and kitschy at the same time. The President’s poor taste in all things trickled down into his politics in Jack’s opinion. He disliked the GSU, despite the huge scientific, military, political, and financial benefits it gave to the United States. Instead, he favored ostentatious displays like driving tanks down the street in military parades as shows of power and stability. That was what had gotten them on the President’s bad side originally. Secretary Birch had caved and given into the President’s childish desires for might displays, and he had told the man where to shove it...politely! Some grunt working as his secretary had worded the refusal, it had even been looked over by the Deputy Commander.

Unfortunately, refusing to use the country’s best military hardware for dick swinging displays of power to other nations had earned him the President’s ire. And with the easily led man possessing a cabinet full of more forceful personalities and sharper minds, the members of Capital Hill that always had it out for him happily used the President as a means to forward their agendas. He frowned then, thinking of General Welsh, and his petty dislike of the GSU based on it taking the best pilots. If the leader of the Air Force wanted better recruits, all he had to do was offer better benefits and prestige than the GSU. It’s not his fault flying in Earth’s atmosphere was less appealing than the cutting edge technology that allowed them to fly through the Zone.

Outside of Welsh and Birch, even the Secretary of State had it out for them, though his disagreements were more principled. The GSU had all the power of a branch of the military without being one. That sort of power without any real oversight or mandate by Congress spelled the potential for disaster. The agency had the most advanced technology in the country, and even he could admit his members were more akin to fanatic adherents than soldiers on some level.

Wanting to bring the GSU under closer control of an authorized branch of the military was completely understandable, if utterly ridiculous. There was already legislation going through both houses of Congress to officially establish the GSU as a separate branch of the military. Though it had stalled out recently as the aftermath of Austin loomed large in the public consciousness. Another reason Colorado needed to succeed, they needed more public goodwill, the passion of declaring the end to the War beginning to cool.

Jack smoothed out his face as a frown threatened to inch its way across it. Now was not the time to look unsure or weak. The aide stopped just outside of the door, waiting to be allowed to enter by the underpaid goons in suits the President employed instead of proper security. He’d decided to chose his own security, contravening tradition entirely, and the men—and they were all men— he picked were hulking mountains of flesh. They looked more like wrestler or body building champions than inconspicuous security, but such was the whims of the empty headed populist the country had elected. Besides, the President had told him, their guns were the real stopping power. It’s best they look intimidating instead of invisible. They left them hovering outside the door for some minutes. Before long, he realized it wasn’t a legitimate delay, but another attempt to demoralize him, make him feel trivial. Pathetic.

One of them spoke into a wrist communicator for a brief second, before touching something in his ear, and nodding. “The President and Joint Chiefs will see you now Mr. Fenton.” Mr. Fenton. Oh yes, they were definitely trying to demean him now.

He nodded at the bulky body guard who’d addressed him, and waited for the aide to either step aside or open the door. Neither happened. Instead, the door moved inwards, opened from the other side by another intern or lackey they made stay late for this meeting. He waited the time needed to allow the smaller aide to move, before striding inside with a calm even gait. Into the first circle...He thought with some amusement. It was a good analogy. After all, Dante returned intact eventually…

Inside the spacious interior of the meeting room was a truly unreasonable number of people. He’d been expecting the Joint Chiefs of Staff and their secretaries, maybe some aides for the President himself, and some consultants. This? It was like the audience to the Salem Witch Trials; every Tom, Dick, and Harry in the White House seemed crammed inside to witness the downfall of the Great Jack Fenton.

He took in the mass of staring eyes impassively. It would take more than an audience to rattle him.

“Mr. Fenton, glad you could finally join us.” So General Birch was leading the charge? Not too surprising considering the man’s current political pull, still, an annoyance. He’d been hoping Secretary Muller would have had more influence.

“As I’m sure the Chiefs are aware, disembarking procedures for a convoy of that size takes some time. I saw to my duties and joined the meeting here as soon as feasible.” A good opening, if he said so himself. Or he thought, before he saw Birch’s negative sneer.

“Surely, after the destruction wrought by the hybrids in Colorado on your equipment and soldiers there wasn’t much to oversee for disembarking.”

A cold way to start this meeting. “Though we lost several Air Platforms, most of our personnel and all of our tanks survived the encounter. They all had be shepherded safely back to HQ and properly organized for repair and any needed medical aid.”

“But, Commander,” Welsh’s turn then, “weren’t most of damaged equipment left in Suffolk in the repair depot?”

“A fair question General Welsh. Though the most damaged of our Air Platforms were left in Suffolk to begin repairs, two were still fully operational and landed in D.C with the remainder of the crew, tanks, jets, ect.”

“If you lost that much equipmen—”

“I hate to interrupt you General Welsh,” he didn’t really, “but our Air Platforms are built with a significant amount of volume redundancy. They are capable of handling a 60% increase in typical operational mass when fully operational. Even having to collapse the remainder of the crew into two platforms, it was tight quarters, though equivalent to approximately five Platforms operating at typical capacity.” So having defused that particular landmine, he turned to address the rest of the amassed senior staff in the room. “Naturally, this fight was not without casualties, however, they were not so severe as to deplete all of the Air Platforms we left with. We are still counting to be absolutely sure, but preliminary counts puts the loss of life at 257. A blow, but a less than 20% casualty rate.”

“18% Mr. Fenton. You can appreciate the seriousness of that death rate.”

“Perhaps more than you General Birch, I saw to the training of many of those GSU members personally.”

“Then maybe you can explain the tactical failings that lead to their deaths, being so intimately familiar with their training?”

Birch was being a hard-ass, but he wasn’t so easily quelled. “Well, it’s hard to avoid the wing of a fighter jet being suddenly flung on top of you from above, or the crush of steel when two Air Platforms are forced into each other by unnatural powers.” He enjoyed the slight paling of the man’s face when he realized the state the bodies must be in from those incidents. Good. He hated the implication his brave men and women were simply incompetent instead of unlucky enough to be caught in an impossible to avoid crash.

“B-Be that as it may, I’m sure you are reviewing the specifics of the battle to shore up any failings. I saw a preliminary report that there was some evidence of ghost possession?”

Jack’s mouth did quirk into a brief frown then. Someone in his organization had loose lips that needed zipping. “That incident is still under intense investigation. It does not seem to be a typical possession.”

“You can’t even train your men to avoid possession Fenton?” Secretary Fitzgerald spoke up then, spitefully poking in from the peanut gallery.

“I think a few members of Staff are laboring under some misapprehensions as to the nature of possession.” Muller. Finally. “Ghost possession isn’t a matter of free will. They use their ecto-powers to override your self-control with their consciousness. There’s no way to avoid it through simple training. Though some mental training has been shown to increase awareness during and after possession, it doesn’t give the person being possessed any more control.” The Secretary stared down the rest of the most senior members of the room then, willing them to marinate in their own ignorance for a spell.

“Well—you—how does your personnel avoid possession all the time when fighting ghosts?!” Fitzgerald sounded incensed then, half from the embarrassment of being so thoroughly reprimanded, half from his line of questioning being waylaid.

“Our ecto-suits usually prevent the intrusion of any ecto-being’s consciousness from interacting with or overlaying with our own. They’ve been specifically designed just for that purpose, which is why I said the incident is under review. To be frank with you gentlemen, it wasn’t a single person who was behaving erratically, but an entire squadron.” He paused to let the gravity of the number of people involved sink in before continuing, “that is far above the maximum number of people under possession we’ve ever recorded in any encounter, let alone controlled by a single entity.”

“But they were behaving erratically?”

“Yes. Our current leading theory is that this is an extension of Second Priority’s… powers over water. It’s demonstrated recently an increase to its abilities. The ecto-hydromancy, if the culprit, would explain the widespread effects and why the suits were less effective.”

“In what way Commander?”

It was nice to be referred to by his proper title. It seemed to have come out of Birch accidentally, an amusing sign of his deferring to his expertise. “Our polymer suits are designed to detect and repel ectoplasmic… “consciousness” let’s say. Their consciousness gives off a very specific and consistent ecto-electric signature. The suits produce a counter signal that prevents possession from happening. It also repels higher densities of ecto-energy, which prevents damage from their ecto-blasts and other attacks. However, it would be impossible to filter out all concentrations of ecto-energy and produce tactically viable suits.” He stopped then to take in their confused expressions. “The suits would be stiff immovable bricks instead of pliable polymer, even medieval suits of armor had movable joints. Concentrations under a certain amount aren’t even harmful to human cells, and so there’s no point in filtering it out...or so we thought. If Second Priority’s powers have mutated the way implied by this last encounter, we’ll have to re-think our suit designs.”

“A constant of this organization, a failure to properly account for the dangers of the hybrids.” A feminine voice spoke from near the President’s side.

Triple damn. Why is Claudia Hying here? You’d think the seriousness of the security clearance needed for this meeting would preclude the harpy from darkening my evening. Jack groused, while turning to face his most serious adversary of the night. The other members of the Joint Chiefs might have personal animosity towards him, but they were military men. They understood or could be made to understand the calculus of battle. Hying though, she was pure F.B., all congressional appointed civvie. “I think we’d require the ability to see into the future to predict this level of hydromancy Ms. Hying.”

“Be that as it may, this is a footnote in the larger tale of inadequacy of the organization on the hybrid topic. But, was it not Second Priority’s ‘hydromancy’ that allowed it to escape your facility in Austin.”

“Theoretically, but it should not have been able to use those powers with the suppressant cuffs we had on it.”

“Then you have another much more serious piece of equipment failure to consider. Are those not the same cuffs you typically use to control ghosts in general?”

Gods above if he did not hate this woman. He could never catch the smallest break when she was involved. “We use a different specialized series meant to prevent them from transforming at all. If we used similar on ordinary ghosts, it would kill them with how strongly it suppresses spectral energy. Of course, we realized there was a flaw in the design after it escaped Austin. The cuffs only prevent them from manifesting their ecto-energy externally, which stops their transformations of course. But the first design didn’t stop them from activating their spectral cores. In as non-ectobiology an explanation as possible, it’s like a device that stops you from moving while allowing the internal contraction of your muscles running your heart or bowels to continue. We thought without being able to manifest their powers, they would be harmless.” “Clearly not—”

“—Indeed, we didn’t realize it could energize and control its own blood enough to pull it out of its eyes and use as a weapon.” Several of the generals squirmed at the imagery, but Hying looked unphased. “The generation two devices are much more thorough, though they’ll require internal implantation, they’ll prevent their cores from activating without our control.”

“Why would you need them to turn on?”

“Fascinating question Chairmen Jefferson, the simplest explanation is for scientific research. Hybrid cores are very much unlike normal ghost’s, allowing them to continue to grow in power seemingly indefinitely, among other horrifying abilities. Additionally, we think several of these hybrids are...natural. Plasmius produces them not through exposure to high levels o—”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure you’d love to get us distracted into the minutiae of spectral science to distract us from the failings of your organization to capture these beasts, but I’m sure the biology lessons can wait for another time Mr. Fenton.” Claudia neatly interrupted his diversion with a predatory smile. “Now, let’s discuss the equipment loss from this excursion.” She stops to shuffle a few papers around, purely for show, before humming and continuing, “if I’ve done my math correctly, the total sum of lost equipment and munitions totals over 500 million dollars?” She phrased it like a question, but there was no inquisitiveness or doubt in her tone.

“That is close to correct. A preliminary accounting puts the losses at around 490 million, subject to further investigation of course. It can be hard to pin a number of these things so soon after an engagement.”

“Of course,” she simpered, looking back at him from across the table with an artfully crafted sympathetic downturn of her lips. “There’s a lot to take account of in the aftermath of such a poorly executed mission, so let’s say 500 million is a close estimate for the final tally.” He knew this tactic, making it sound like she was doing him a favor by choosing a number closer to his estimate. The witch. “Even saying so, that’s a lot of money, or well, equipment to replace. Even assuming you have the slack in your budget to finance such a sudden loss, there’s the fact your equipment is specialty. It has to be ordered months or even years in advance for some parts.”

“We have a stockpile of all regulation equipment lost in the encounter.”

“Regulation? I’m sorry Mr. Fenton, you just have Air Platforms laying around in wait?”

“The Platforms, no, but jets, munitions, guns, the vast majority of equipment lost. We are an operation that deals in battle, and every military man knows your need surplus ammunition and guns.” He finished then with a quick glance around the room to gauge the general’s moods. So far so good…

“I see. So you’d be down only some specialty equipment...and personnel of course! Then I imagine you’d be spending most of your time and money to replace and train people and to replace…?”

“Eight Air Platforms, and five dozen Levitators, plus one dozen tanks, and several hundred rounds of more specialized munition,” he answered, struggling to keep the crossness out of his voice. He hated details like this, but he also knew she knew that. Trying to get him riled up was definitely part of her strategy to undermine him.

“Some of those pieces of equipment seem regulation to me? Like the tanks for instance—”

“They are not US military issue tanks, their plating and design are specialized to withstand bombardment from all but the most powerful ecto-attacks. They are a re-design of the ones used by the Army, and no Ms. Hying, not the ones used during the War. The only thing close to regulation on the list is the Levitators, but even those are a specialized re-design of the hovercraft the Air Force got from us after the War.” He reached down then to open his brief case, and placed a few papers onto the table in front of him. “If you’d be so kind to pass this along,” he said while handing them to an aide hovering about, “you can see for yourself which items are regulation or specialized and how many we’ve lost by current estimate. Keep it, of course, I have plenty of copies.”

“I’m sure.” Claudia frowned down at the white sheaf of paper, before smiling blandly back at him. “I’m glad your accounting hasn’t suffered any since, from my understanding, most of the causalities were in officers?”

“That...is true. This enemy tends to target leaders of squadrons preferentially—”

She snickered, interrupting him, “you’ve noticed then? Because after Austin and, ah, Amity there was a similar culling of the ranks. One must wonder what your lower ranked soldiers think after a promotion.” Her smile was sharp then, relishing in his tightened shoulders and slight scowl. “How do you plan on replacing this many officers? You have plenty of grunts, assuredly, but from my understanding of your organization’s structure, you expect squadron leaders to head expeditions in the Zone and they need a certain amount of hours to even qualify for a proper promotion.”

“Our bench is deep—”

“Oh please, do not give me sports analogies Mr. Fenton, I like data. Neat. Concrete. Factual. And, do be concise, you can get bogged down in pointless details in your enthusiasm.”

She could smell blood, he could tell, and now she was biting at him. Another glance around the room gave him a variety of patient, expectant faces. They were happy to let her lead the discussion it seemed. Easier for a bureaucrat to get away with it. “Naturally, we’ve had to make emergency field promotions, however after the initial assessments are finished post battle, we’ll be using normal promotion regulations.” He noticed Hying frown and look to interrupt him, so he started up again, “I understand that narrows down our potential options for replacing officers, so we will be scaling back Zone expeditions and making transfers from other facilities across the US as needed. Many of the lowest ranked officers have suitable replacements from willing and capable privates who needed only a position to be opened for them. For the higher ranked officers, approximately 25 positions, you’ll forgive the inexactness, we are still counting the bodies, we’ll use transfers and reduced Zone surveys to fill them until next year. Genuinely, my organization is blessed with many capable men and women who could be officers, but not enough positions. I am more concerned with refilling our lowest ranks since so many ‘grunts’,” and he did stop for bitter sarcastic air quotes around the word, “are going to be officers now. It’s not our typical recruiting season. So our officers will be pulling double duty until we can finish recruiting into the lower ranks.”

“You really think so many of your men are qualif—”

“If you disagree Ms. Hying, you’re free to attend, look through every prospective officer’s qualifications, and sit in on their interviews yourself. It will be a long process, with slightly over 100 roles to be filled, but you’re a focused and determined woman, I’m sure you’d manage.” He enjoyed the frustration blooming across her features as she realized this wasn’t the weakness she’d assumed.

“I’m glad you have procedures in places since this is such a regular issue for your organization.” She was retreating now, trying to find the smell of blood she’d lost.

“All military operations have regulations in place for both field promotions and recovery after such a loss; we do no less.” He noticed the calm nods from the generals around the room, understanding the necessity of such preparations well. It had been a long while since humanity warred with itself, with everyone so focused on the War with the Zone. But since it had ended, previously simmering tensions were coming back to a boil. There was talk of another gulf war...He found it as amusing it was as pointless. His own facilities ran on the near inexhaustible fuel from the Zone, oil was primitive and outdated. An argument for another time. “Members, I understand this was a disappointing engagement, but even loss is not without benefits. Our recovery team also gained access to the technology Plasmius was forced to abandon, including some of its shielding technology. Our technicians are already reverse engineering it.”

“You’d previously said that was impossible.” General Muller, pitching him a slow ball. Hying was shuffling paper about, bidding her time for another attack.

“It would be without access to some of its components, humanity simply has nothing similar in production globally. It was an unexplored avenue, how to hide ecto-energy, but not suppress it. We didn’t get access to the shields it uses to hide itself and its spawn’s nest, but we did find something much more interesting.” He paused to let the intrigue build, only to have Hying kill his building mood.

“I’m sure the Chiefs would prefer facts over your attempts at theater Mr. Fenton.” He hated that damnable woman.

“Of course, merely a break for breath,” he dismissed her charge easily. “We gained components and some blueprints for items that are portable miniaturized shields. Think small enough to wear, and light enough to be mistaken for an accessory,” he explained when he got only blank stares back. “The reason this is so enlightening is previous to this, we haven’t been able to track them. The Chiefs are aware we have their DNA imprinted into all of our global ghost monitoring satellites. I’m sure you’ve wondered how they’ve hidden despite this considering how sensitive they are, so have we. We have part of an answer. The devices are capable of filtering or shielding their energy before it exists their bodies. This will make them not only appear human to our satellites, but also the scanners that exist in stores and checkpoints around the country. As long as they change their appearance and falsify documents, they could pass as ordinary humans while wearing them. It is our belief now that there is a two tiered system of shielding, one they wear and another to hide their nesting areas from our satellites.”

“Is this why they only show up briefly on tracking systems?”

“Yes, we believe so. If the wearable device fails, or is temporarily offline, then they’d be visible to the satellites when outside of their nest. Plasmius is devious and likely carries back-ups to prevent this, but even it can’t think of everything.”

“This is all fascinating ecto-biology minutiae, but how does it help us capture these dangerous creatures?” Hying was back, chomping at the bit for another attack.

He did smile then, happy she walked right into his trap for once. “I’m glad you asked Ms. Hying. Now that we can reverse engineer the devices, we can update our systems, the ones running the satellites and the local scanners. Even if we can’t find their ecto-energy, there is no way these devices do not give off energy, a unique signature only the hybrids would have, as good as scanning their ecto-signature directly. It will take a few months, but very soon, we’ll have destroyed one of their biggest defenses.” He did pause for a sip of water, and dramatics, but the harpy wouldn’t be satisfied without a ready excuse. “That will leave them only their nest to hide in, and even then on borrowed time. The reason they move so often is to avoid our satellites triangulating their position from anomalies in ambient spectral energy readings. Once they are unable run and hide, it will only be a matter of time until—.”

“Until you have another disastrous, death filled engagement with them. Yes, I’m sure America can’t wait for another spectacular failure to be broadcast over their evening news.” Her tone cut through his bravado.

“With all due respect Ms. Hying, I’m sure with the time to prepare this affords the GSU—”

“Yes, but Plasmius was unprepared this time, and didn’t have time to feel backed into a corner. I have it on good authority animals are at their most dangerous with nothing to lose.” She smiles blandly at Secretary Muller, and turns her sharp red grin back towards him. “How would this theoretical engagement be any better than this last one, or any of the others for that matter?”

He did sigh then, put off by her relentless characterization of his organization as incompetent. “The reason the encounters are so deadly is because they are so few and far between. I can see you working up an objection, save it for a moment.” He knew it sounded hostile, but he was done caring. “These creatures must produce their energy themselves. The more time they have between assaults, the more they recover, and the more dangerous they are. If we are able to stay on them and they can’t recover, they will soon be no more dangerous than the average human against lasers and heavy armaments.”

“So your argument is that you haven’t had enough lopsided loses against them, and if you were just given more chances, it would somehow turn in your favor?”

“That’s the most uncharitable interpretation of my statement you could have made.”

“Is it untrue?”

“Yes!” He hissed incensed. “They only recover .075nFentons of energy a minute when completely drained. It takes two whole nFentons of energy to fire even the weakest of ecto-blasts. That means it takes them nearly half an hour to power a single ecto-blast. But this energy gain is compounding. All spectral energy builds on itself in cubic amounts. The weaker they are the slower they regain energy, and the easier it is to drain them further. In a war of attrition we win easily. We just have to stay on them, and it will be like fighting a kitten. Plasmius knows this. That is why its main tactic is to run and hide. Time is on their side, not ours. The longer it takes to capture them, the more their unholy powers grow and mutate. The more time they have to recover, the faster they do and the more powerful they are in the next confrontation. Do you understand now Ms. Hying, or do I have to explain it further for you?” Ok. So that last comment was definitely hostile; he’d have to calm himself before his rage made him misspeak.

“Oh, thank you. That explanation was enlightening. I understand now why your organization has a habit of continuing pursuit even when stretched thin on troops, even some of your decisions during the War make more sense now. Perhaps, I should give ecto-biology a more thorough study.” She was being placating now. Great. Now he looked even more unreasonable, out of control. I really should have brought Jill. She’s much better at handling this woman than I am.

“My field has many nooks and crannies, and the particulars of hybrid ecto-biology is niche, even as they plague humanity. It’s not something that would come up in a cursory study, or even graduate level studies to be clear. I’m not surprised you hadn’t considered the implications, I’ve had to explain them to the Joint Chiefs before. It is the nature of being a subject matter expert.” There. Placating...mostly.

“Understandable why you might feel a little irked by someone with the equivalent of a quick Bing Bong search asking uninformed questions about your subject.” She was retreating again, and the meeting was turning around. Now, all he needed was a slam dunk, and he could likely steer this completely under his control. Three quick chirps rang out into the room from his briefcase. His work cell. No one would dare interrupt this meeting without the world basically being on fire. He stiffened under the silent stares of the meeting’s attendees. They knew it too.

“Are you going to get that? There must be some emergency at HQ.” Ms. Hying’s shark smile was back with a vengeance, thirsty for a turn in her favor.

“If no one minds?” He’s already reaching for the phone, the question merely a courtesy. “Head Commander here.” He nodded as a communications expert on the other ended explained a contact made between one of the hybrids and a civilian. They were breathless. The details were beyond intriguing. The new hybrid had been in contact with an Amity resident. She was sure she could replicate the contact. The more details the technician gave, the more his smile grew. This was perfect, an answer to all of their prayers. He nodded a final time, and hung up the phone. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve just received some excellent news. A civilian has had contact with one of the hybrids and says they can replicate it. Calm down a moment! We mean over a phone or computer, not in person!” Jack waved his hands at the shouting group around him, corralling them into something resembling calm again. “Of course, we’d never put a civilian into harms way, even to capture America’s greatest enemies. The contact would be remote only, but they are sure the hybrid will respond.”

“What makes them so sure?”

“I cannot give details at this time, we are triple checking their claims, but I can say they say the hybrid feels indebted to them and trusts them.”

“These creatures don’t have feelings.” General Birch then, his voice filled with venom.

He chuckled, before addressing the man, “I agree in principle, but all ghosts have their habits, their obsessions. They are devoted to them onto ‘death’. In the case of the hybrids, they are very convinced of their humanity, to the point of imitating emotion and desire for human connection. They will form ‘friendships’ or ‘repay debts’ the way a human will, because it is their obsession to behave humanly, and ghosts always satisfy their obsessions.” His smile was predatory then, already thinking of the trap he would set. Willing contact made setting one so much easier…

“If you’re so sure, can use this obsession to your advantage?” The Secretary of State then, implicitly asking after the details for capture.

“We are sure they are still well out of populated cities. As long as we can confront them somewhere remote, I’d feel comfortable with another confrontation.”

“So soon?”

“General Welsh, I believe Commander Fenton has already explained that quirk of hybrid biology?” Ms. Hying, to his complete surprise. “Having said that, I’m sure with them so weakened, capturing them is within the organization’s abilities?” Of course, even her gifts were poisoned. With the hybrids so impaired, if they failed to capture even one, the GSU would be going under, even accounting from recovering from this recent battle.

“I’m sure all of them is too steep an ask so soon after a major engagement.” Muller, his only ally, but he was making it worse this time.

“Oh! I’m not a military woman myself. Perhaps all of them is too much. One or two then?” She offered, hands spread wide in a supplicating gesture.

“Ms. Hying is right, you should be able to manage a few, at least one, if they are as battered as your reports suggested.” The Joint Chiefs were all nodding in agreement with the Secretary of State. He’d dug his own grave on this one. Backing out would make him and even the organization itself look weak.

“Of course! I look forward to sharing the details of capture with you all afterwards.”

“See that you do.” The only words the President had said the entire meeting. The only ones that mattered. God help me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Amity Park, Michigan; 12.43am; May 6th, 2005

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The bustling city of Amity Park was more subdued than usual. The damage from the last ghost attack left debris all over, but it was especially concentrated downtown. Chunks of stone still sat pushed away from the middle of the road, and where they’d landed on top of buildings. Most of the worst had been cleared so that daily life could continue, but even though the ghost danger level had been lowered when the GSU had concluded the hybrid had moved on, the human residents were still hunkering down. Few left their homes for anything less than work or shopping for essentials, and parents flinched when they had to drop off their children for school, the tragedy of the last big incident in Amity looming large in the citizen’s collective consciousness. Still, the GSU never slept, and with increased patrols and a larger presence on the streets, the people of Amity were beginning to relax.

One such GSU grunt drove in for his shift at the main facility. He usually worked the beat, but with the recent attack, he’d been assigned back to the facility. The people wandering around still were imported from other cities. There originally had been a concern this was a break out attempt, the hybrid had walked right up to the facility door after all, but after it escaped, his superiors were left stumped. Unwilling to risk a breach so soon after an attack, or even the whiff of it being possible, they’d re-assigned their beat officers to the inside of the facility and transferred people over to stand around looking important on street corners. He huffed as he passed another foreign GSU member waving to him from his vehicle. He didn’t hate them, he loved his fellow soldiers, but watching them soak up the local’s attention and still not know how to best give them comfort a way a true Amity Parker would frustrated him. Posturing on some street corner was worse than seeing them marching in formation and doing drills in the park or even rescuing cats from trees. But, local grunts like him had lost this argument with the officers, and so now he was coming in in the middle of the night to check on the ghosts they already had collared.

He’d heard there was action, real action, out in Colorado. People had gone to confront the monsters filling the good people of Amity’s nightmares, and he was jockeying some desk. Not literally of course, only officers had any real paperwork to fill out, but it was the principle of the thing! He sighed again as he parked his car, slamming the door when it bounced back out of place. The piece of garbage he drove was a hold over from college, from before he’d gotten this great job with the GSU. It’d been worth delaying. It was faster and easier advancing with a college degree than without. Some of his friends signed up straight out of high school five or so years ago, right before the shit in Amity went down. He’d lost some of them. Truth be told, he’d been trying to avoid the vortex that GSU recruiting could be in his hometown, heading to college somewhere else had been his idea of an escape. After though, he realized there was no escaping ghosts. He’d felt safe after the War. Now he was determined to make the world truly safe.

The door to the GSU HQ greeted him, the hum of their electronic security a warm familiar tune to his ears. He held up his government issued tabtop, and it flashed twice, connecting to the local network. Everything in the GSU facility was isolated as a rule, though they had little to worry about in terms of hacking attempts. Other countries mostly respected their technological prowess and didn’t engage in espionage against them, especially when the GSU shared everything safe almost as soon as it was developed. The Head Commander said he defended humanity and not just the United States. Their advances were to be shared freely.

Still, an abundance of caution never hurt. He leaned into the hand scanner so it could read his prints and smiled when the door slid open. He didn’t know what that nasty creature had been thinking; this place was more secure than the bunker that protected the president in case of a nuclear strike. There was no way it could get inside.

He waved to the guard on duty who grunted in response. Agent Johnson wasn’t a man of many words, but nothing got past him. He heard rumors the man once sniffed out a pen capable of taking pictures from inside the pocket of some bureaucrat without even touching or scanning the guy. When asked, Johnson had said the man had looked guilty or something. No one tried him.

He nodded to the second set of guards as he rounded another corner deeper in the facility, leaning closer this time to scan his eye as well as his palm. The retina scanners were now standard after some crazy shape-shifting ghost was discovered two years back. It fed on human misery the disgusting fucker. It had been in a reporter, an investigative journalist. It also had somehow been licensed as a therapist. He had no idea how that shit worked. They’d found it in a region being decimated by famine, the whole of the country was suffering a drought so severe it culled food crop production.

When it messed up and possessed someone else; it had been close enough to the US embassy to wherever the fuck country to ping the GSU standing guard. It’d panicked, possessed one of the grunts, jumping inside them once unconscious, and tried to enter the embassy. One of the other security measures deeper in finally caught it, but reviewing the incident, they were sure retina scanners would have stopped it from getting that far.

He nodded to the third set of guards, a pair of women nicknamed ‘Thelma’ and ‘Louise’, in that they were definitely best friends, probably dating, and super deadly. It was a shame; his sister had been begging him to hook her up with a cute girl from the GSU and well, he was a tech really. Talking to people was hard and girls harder and doing so long enough to find out if they also liked girls? Ugh! He had to talk to Thelma and Louise though, so he’d thought it was prime opportunity.

He thought he should stop being such a coward about this as the final door that leads into the innards of the GSU facility opened. He was in his twenties now, and a year of GSU training had put some muscle on him. Girls! Not hard. He could do it! He owed his sister for pitching in for college tuition after his Amity specific micro-grants had dried up right after the incident, and he’d been short for that year. The least I can do, he thought while making his first sweep of this layer of the facility, is hook her up with a cutie’s phone number. He frowned as a couple ghosts scrunched up away from the forward part of their cages, flinching away from the ectoranium infused plexiglass lining the front of them.

It made his job harder, assessing their condition. They had to do visual as well as scanner inspections. Apparently, some issues showed up visually before it did on the scanner. Whatever. The couple extra seconds per cage was an annoyance, having to flash on the bright overhead lights to get a good look. The things hated it, but it was for their own good. The ones on this level were weak, level four or so, and recently captured, so they just needed a little training. He finished his first round of inspections, and continued down a set of stairs and to another retina scanner and print checking door. He walked through an energy scanner on the other side, spending a couple seconds being beeped at to be sure none of the ghosts on the previous level had possessed him, despite his spandex, and continued when he heard the “all-clear” beep.

The ghosts down here weren’t especially dangerous either, just more well trained. They stepped closer to the glass like good dogs. It made this level much faster than the previous, and in just another few minutes, he was being scanned again. The ghosts down here though...He thought grumpily. While they weren’t the most powerful in the facility, they were troublesome. The scientists claimed they possessed imprints of human consciousness, partial ones anyway. So they talked, screamed, made demands, begged. It was so fucking obnoxious. One of them whimpered and asked if they could be friends, another made box based threats. He was used to the two of them, they were basically ignorable at this point. They’d just recently gotten a transfer from the facility in Florida, near the Everglades, in trade for one of their ghosts. This one claimed to be a warden of some type, made vague threats about how we’d pay for treating ‘him’ this way. It wasn’t very powerful, but the threats it made...sometimes he’d wondered if it hurt humans the way it described cutting them into pieces. It seemed too visceral, too real. He passed a few more wailing and unwilling assets, before going through the rigmarole of the scanners again along with another check of his tabtop. The ghosts in level four were stronger and had much more dangerous abilities, unique shit like summoning fire and ice or something.

He passed the shape-shifting ghost that had made the GSU install the eye scanners to begin with. It was in its shadow form, having given up on convincing them it was a trapped human and this was all a mistake. It still tried sometimes, but less and less often. He then passed a creature with a muzzle. This one could breath fire. Another few cages, one with a creature shouting temptation at whoever would pass. That one was in a sound proof cage. It could, theoretically, make ‘wishes’ come true like a genie. And like a traditional genie, those wishes always turned out badly. It was responsible for an incident in California and another in Japan before it was captured. The destruction had been horrifying, he’d seen the pictures. It had brought Japan into the ghost hunting game, their summer festival of wishes was now a memorial holiday.

One last floor. He thought, satisfaction at the captured specters, with their fearful eyes pitifully staring at him, thrumming through his veins. It wasn’t as good as a hunt, but looking at their trophies was an adequate substitute. He hadn’t gotten his uncle’s desire to mount deer heads before joining the GSU. The final floor of the facility, past levels five and six that were non-containment, held some of the most powerful and dangerous enemies of humanity. Nearly all of the most dangerous were no longer in Amity after the incident years ago, transferred to Austin and DC. Some of the creatures were too feral, fragile, or horrible to be safely transferred though. The remaining dragon ghosts were among them. He’d only seen them transformed once, watching the footage released during the War by the GSU when he was a teen. Their humanoid ghost guises were much less deadly, but by God had their ‘leader’ been a terror. It was the Head Commander slaying that thing when backed into a corner that made a couple of his friends sign up out of high school…

He stood in front of the last set of cages, poking idly at his tabtop. It was fritzing again, the damn thing. This deep in the facility, the wifi didn’t work great too much concrete and metal in the way. He poked a little longer, switching it to the local network for just this level, and sighed in relief when it stopped freezing up. It was a pain to switch for just this level, but everyone did it, annoying as it was. He stood in front of the third to last door, the little green ghost inside floating, looking innocuous, inside its cage. It didn’t have a collar, unlike every other ghost in the facility. It was only a level 3, the thing would evaporate if left in the Human World on its own. That’s not why it was down here. Despite the pitiful amount of ecto-energy, it had human level intelligence, maybe slightly above human if the tests were to believed.

It was capable of controlling technology, and was capable of human speech. Worse of all, it had been caught using tools...building things. Ignored pieces of electronic scrap or wires turned into weapons under its focused efforts. Because losing track of a ghost this weak would be easy, and because of how creative it was when it came to making tools, it was here, at the bottom of the facility in level seven. He frowned when it ignored his tapping, trying to get it to turn around so he could finish the visual inspection. He sighed and tapped his tabtop instead, determined to finish the scan and then go back to coaxing the little asshole into behaving. This time the worthless thing turned off. He was about to curse his luck and check its battery, he...never really charged it, when it turned back on. It flashed a bunch of rainbow hues, screen glitching and fragmenting.

“Oh god damn it no!” He’d been putting off a needed system update for...ok maybe three months was too long. The abused piece of electronics was now making sad noises like some old dial up modem and flashing like it was trying to give him a seizure. “Please, please, you’re like the third one. I’m gonna get my pay docked if I break another one of you!” The first two were just bad luck, a drop into the family pool with the dog carrying it in her mouth, and kicking it off his nightstand in his apartment during a night terror, but this time...It finally stopped flashing and the screen cleared to the home screen. He poked it tentatively, everything seemed fine now.

Maybe he’d do that update right now. I’m on the least used network and everything, so it shouldn’t take so long. He reasoned before lifting up the taptop to get a little more signal. This time it flashed bright blue once, and something flew out of it into the cage’s electronic keypad. He jumped back, carefully cradling the poor neglected tabtop to his chest. “Oh God, don’t start sparking! Come the fuck on!” He looked down distressed at its now blackened screen, ignoring the flashing now going on the cage’s keypad.

When he looked back up, the keypad was back to normal. He turned away from the cage, trying desperately to reboot his taptop. When he turned back once more, he had just a second to panic at the bright glowing green heading for his eyes, before everything went black.

Skulker huffed, looking down into the face of the dumb GSU grunt he’d just knocked unconscious. “It took you long enough to show yourself Technus.” He turned away from the human on the ground to glare at the keypad in front of his cell.

The technology obsessed ghost materialized from within, hovering just in front of the keypad to sneer down at Skulker. “If I’d have appeared any sooner, the security systems would have caught me! Did you wanna get out of that cage or not?” He zipped back inside of the keypad, interest refocused on the wires and circuits inside. “It takes a lot of ecto-energy to manipulate this stuff now you know! Only an absolute genius, such as myself, could have the know-how and power to have freed you.”

“Yes, yes, the genius master of all technology, worship me, blah blah blah. If you’re done singing your own praises, you could help me locate my Suit, so we can be on our way.”

“Sheesh, so impatient! These things take time.” The electronic beeping coming from the keypad sped up in frequency. “I’ve almost hacked my way into the local network, after that, figuring out where your precious ‘suit’ is will be a piece of—” An alarm, loud and shrill, blared through their level of the prison. “I, uh, I’ve got that…”

“I don’t have time for your bumbling, and we don’t have room for mistakes.” Skulker ran towards the abandoned tabtop and levered it upright with some effort. “Get in.” He ordered.

“But, it’s so cramped in there. Do you know it’s been six months since he ran a defrag on that thing?” The alarm increased up in pitch and a flashing red light came out of the ceiling.

“Get in the damn tabtop and turn off this alarm Technus.”

“Alright, alright, but you’re finding me a better hiding spot after this.” With another grumble about the lack of organization, Technus jumped from the keypad and into the tabtop. It took a second to silence and then reset the alarm, and two seconds more to convince the system that it had been a false alarm.

“Why didn’t you just do that from inside the tabtop?”

“Skulker, what part of no defrag is confusing you? It looks like a tornado went off in here. I’m gonna have disconnected bytes stuck to my coat for weeks because of hovering around inside. You should be more grateful that I, Technus, have come to rescue you at all, let alone thinking you should be able to demand I stay in this disorganized prison of…”

Skulker began tuning out the other ghost’s ramblings, deciding to peer around at the cages on this level. There wasn’t anyone he could free down here, just yet, but he’d promised his and Technus’ backer that’d he’d catalog the max security level’s ghosts. “Hey, are you listening to me?”

“No.”

“Well! Maybe I should just leave you here you—”

“Technus, you know you’re not allowed to do that. Now, look into their network and see where they’re keeping my Suit so we can get out of here.” Skulker huffed when the tabtop flashed a series of rude emojis at him. Obnoxious arrogant ass. “Please, oh great and powerful Technus, help me locate my technology so I can be of service to you.” He could not find his Suit fast enough. If I have to lick boots any longer, my tongue will forever taste of rubber and dirt.

“Ya’ see? Was it so hard to ask nicely?” He felt his face scrunch up, irritation bubbling around in his core at the asskissing. “Bad news buddy, your battlesuit has been dismantled.” This time he couldn’t keep the frustration to just facial expressions, a litany of curses flying off his tongue. He sighed, and glared up at the ceiling towards a random Technus possessed camera.

“So, where are the pieces then?”

“Oh, totally scrapped. Some of it they melted down, others they used as components to build new guns. Huh,” he stopped to look at a particular file about the storage section of facility, “well there are still a few pieces here and there. Most of the good stuff has been trashed or broken down for study though.”

“Great. Fantastic. Is there good news?”

“There’s great news actually. We can rebuild you a better one from the tech they have laying around.” At the narrowed looked crossing the other ghost’s face, he elaborated. “Oh yeah the humans scrapped your stuff, but they did like studying it a lot. Looks like they have upgraded versions of all the pieces of your tech in storage or labs all around the facility. We can stick those pieces together, and then—”

“Technus,” Skulker started, aggrieved, “I don’t just possess technology like you do. The equipment has to be in a state where I can control it from a central hub. If I have to construct it all, that will take hours at best, days more likely. You think we can linger around here long enough to—”

“Don’t cut me off! I was going to tell you, that they made the pieces modular. They snap into each other. I think they are trying to imitate your battlesuit for humans, but doing it stupid-like.”

“Why didn’t you just lead with that?”

“You never let me finish anything, I was literally about to—”

A pained groan from the human laying between them got their attention. He stirred, briefly, before falling back into silence. The two warred with each other in gesture and glares, before coming to an agreement.

“Just help me get him into this cage, and remove his ability to communicate, we’ll figure the rest out later.”

“Fine. But only if you apologize for being so rude to me earlier.” He watched Skulker grit his teeth and cross his arms for a moment, before turning to glare at him more fiercely.

“I’m...sorry, for interrupting you. Now. Can we please put him in a cell?”

“Good enough.” Technus floated him into the cell using the cellphone in one of his pockets. He then fried everything that could communicate to the outside world, and slammed the locking mechanism closed. “Ok, so he’s not getting out of there until someone comes to look for him.”

“Do you know how long that might be?”

“I don’t know. I don’t pay attention to human routines.”

Skulker took another deep breath to rein in his temper. The technopath ghost was trying when they’d first met before the War, now a days, he was a menace to his fraying nerves. “You can check the handbook for the rules in the GSU server.” “Oh yeah!” Technus hummed for a few seconds before coming back brightly, “it should be about five hours. He’s known for slacking off, and no one really checks this far down in the facility for breaches. Between that and my genius keeping the system off our scent, we’ll have more than enough time to assemble that upgraded suit.” Technus bounced the tabtop in excitement and jumped in electric form to another piece of machinery. “I’m inside the mainframe now, so you don’t have to worry about carrying me around. Don’t worry, I’ll find something easily portable for you to sneak me out in later.”

“I wasn’t worried.” He gave the caged, still unconscious, human one final look before marching over to the only door to the lab. It’s keypad display flashed green, before it swung open into the hallway beyond. It had been a long time since he’d left the labs; he was looking forward to freedom.

He crept down the hallway, keeping an eye and ear out for trouble. Technus was connected to their security system and every piece of technology connected to the mainframe, but he was easily distracted. Right now, the ghost was rambling about how efficient the backups were for the archives of the GSU and idly noting that he was happy they were much better maintained than that taptop. He could already tell convincing him to trash the mainframe’s files would be impossible. Never mind that hindering the greatest threat to ghost kind was more important than the organization of some computer systems...He clenched his fists as he hid around a corner from the bootfalls of some GSU grunt at Technus’ urging. Ok. Maybe the ghost was paying more attention than he’d thought. Still, he knew asking Technus to trash something as “magnificently luminous” as the mainframe of the Amity Park GSU facility was like asking him to give up on a quarry. Less than useless, even if frustrating as hell for other beings. Sometimes, he wished they weren’t ghosts.

But then the humans’ obsession with eradicating all ghost kind came back to him, and he realized all beings were obsessed with something. Ghosts just got a bad wrap for being more enthusiastic than humans about it. He rounded another corner and finally made it into the first lab with a piece of potential equipment. Something approximating a gantlet was draped over the side of a lab table.

It didn’t look like a piece of his suit. It was a gauntlet, sure, but it lacked the intimidating bulk he preferred in his designs. The material was matte, instead of shiny, and black and cool gray, like the suits the GSU wore. It struck him as ugly on initial viewing, and he consider just leaving it in place and demanding Technus look for the pieces that remained of his real battlesuit. “Don’t be so shy, get over there and inspect it.” Technus hissed from a speaker near the top of the room. He knew he was being petulant about this on some level, but if the aesthetics were this poor, he didn’t have great expectations for the function. The GSU, humans in general if he were honest, had a sense of taste that merged the two together. If something was ugly, it was likely to function poorly too if made by human hands. With a great heaving sigh, he overcame his reluctance and worked his way up to the table.

“I thought you said they improved my technology? This gauntlet looks more flimsy than the very first version I made!”

“It’s made out of a new grade of ecto-steel.” Technus stopped to peruse the files detailing the specs of the armor piece. “They’ve got it blended with this polymer after they spun it into thread. This is really wild stuff Skulker, you’d love the research into—”

“So is it stronger than the original design or not?”

“Well, yes, if these test results are any indication. Maybe they did the tests wrong—”

“No, no, they are through about that.” Still, he frowned as he looked at the floppy glove and wrist bracer combo before him. His misgivings about the shape were making it hard to really assess the abilities of the tech. He closed his eyes for a moment to shove his personal aesthetic desires aside and assess the piece objectively. The bracer was seamlessly welded or molded into the rest of the gauntlet; the material that made up the hand was flexible and with a quick check he realized it repelled ecto-energy. He poked around the bracer section itself, watching compartments open up on its side, but no weapons appear.

“They’re for storage. They can miniaturize things, using something similar to those...ghost traps they shove us into.”

He grunted in acknowledgment, frustrated there were no weapons already attached; he’d feel safer with a gun. The stitching, what existed of it, was tight, the texture suggested the weave of the polymer metal blend was even and strong, even the weight of it was balanced, at least for a human to wear it. Outside of looking terrible, it was a well-made and suitable piece of armor, if the blend making up most of the material was as strong as Technus suggested.

“Alright, where’s the next piece of tech.” He picked up the glove, which was thankfully both lighter than his own original design and lighter than it appeared, and jumped off the table, marching towards the door. Technus whispered the next location and went back to monitoring for humans as he trudged through the bowels of the Amity Park GSU HQ. They popped into two more labs on this level, grabbing another gauntlet, this one blessedly with weapons installed, and a headpiece Technus assured him would allow them access to other parts of the facility. All of that was without incident, it was quiet this deep inside GSU territory. Now though, he stood at the door leading up to the next level. They had to go up two whole floors to travel to the main storage facility where the rest of the suit components were found. He was skeptical this headpiece would let them through. “How is this supposed to hide the fact I’m a ghost again?”

“Well, you’re a pretty weak one. Don’t get mad! I’m just stating facts. That’s the reason you haven’t been setting off very many alarms. You don’t have a lot of ecto-energy, and Amity has a lot of ambient stuff floating around. They had to re-calibrate their scanners to exclude the white noise. Your levels are so low, it comes just over their scanners’ sensitivity.”

“Great, but the door?”

“Right! So, that thing has a ID attached for some lab worker down here. Or at least, it will when I’m done installing the ID onto it. It’s made so people in these battlesuits they’re making can be ID’d without having to scan their hands and retinas, because that would be cumbersome, getting in and out of the suits right? So as long as I can fake the ID, the system will think you’re human and let you through.”

“That seems like a security breach waiting to happen with these things.”

“Hey, it’s the humans’ tech, not ours, no one said it was smart.”

“You said it was smart…”

“I said their mainframe’s organization was smart! Never mind. Just hold the helmet up to the hand scanner and it should let you through.”

“If these things were made to let people through without removing their helmet, why does it need to be read through the hand scanner?” He hopped on the box sitting haphazard near the door, definitely some rule violation, and held it up near the keypad.”

“They don’t have the eye level ones installed yet.”

The keypad beeped and the door slid open into the frame, no further activity or blaring lights happening. “Do they intend to install eye level scanners that can read these things?” Technus was quiet for a moment, likely looking through the archives, before popping back in with a barking laugh. “Technus, quiet…”

“Would you believe they haven’t thought of it yet? Right now when they are doing tests everyone just bends over and holds their head to the hand scanner. There’s videos! All of them bent over waving their heads in front of the keypad trying to find the part that reads the ID.”

“...Ok that does sound pretty entertaining, but try to focus.” He stood on the railing of the stairs, and was able to get the keypad to scan the helmet again. “It is this floor right?”

“Of course, I haven’t given you bad directions yet have I?”

“Just making sure, it will be hard to get these things open with more humans around.” He hopped through the door, balancing everything awkwardly. He was getting more grateful for the reduction in weight in the new designs as the minutes passed. He was huffing hard when Technus directed him to round a corner towards the next piece of tech.

“Don’t worry, this one will make everything easier to carry. It’s some type of storage device you’ll attach to the chest piece when we get to the storage facility with the last of the stuff.”

“It’d better. This junk is not getting any lighter.” He tiptoed into the new empty lab, hiding as the reverberating thud of human boots clanged through the ecto-steel floor on this level. Clutching his stolen pieces of tech closer, his breathing sped up, even after they passed. Damn. This wasn’t just the effect of carrying all of this metal around, he could feel it in the way his core ached ominously. There was a reason the GSU didn’t bother hunting ghosts in the Human World below a certain strength. Not just because they weren’t intelligent enough to cause problems, but because ghosts his strength, who got separated from the Zone, evaporated if they stayed in the Human World too long. They just didn’t have enough ecto-energy stored to survive without a constant influx from the environment. He groaned with relief when the tech was stored inside the much smaller and lighter storage device. Technus babbled something about it being the same one as what was on the wrist of the left gauntlet, but he was having issues focusing.

“Hey buddy, you’re getting real quiet. You ok?”

“Fine. Let’s just get this over with quickly.”

“Are you sure? Because you look sorta funny in the readout of the scanners.”

“I’ll be better once I get my Suit reconstructed and I get out of here.” He dodged down a new hallway to avoid another group of boots and headed towards the next internal door. Luckily, this one didn’t require any fancy scanning ID and he just tapped in a code, after pushing a chair close to the keypad. That’ll draw some attention. He thought tired, but they didn’t have time to worry about that now.

“Ok, so head down the hall to the right, make three lefts, and then go down a staircase. At the bottom there’s a door, no keypad or anything, that leads to the main storage facility.”

“How am I supposed to open the door Technus? Just tug futile-like on the handle until I disappear in a wisp of smoke?”

“Funny. No, I can open this one myself. You’d think they’d guard all of the stuff inside their main storage room more! There’s a bunch of guns and grenades and all sorts of dangerous toys in there.”

Skulker hopped down the last of the steps with a pained grunt and waited in front of the door. “They’ve got a scanner to get into this part of the HQ, is there anything over here that isn’t storage.” Technus hummed before confirming there wasn’t and opening the door. “There’s your answer, the last security door covers everything.”

“Sure, but it has a logger in it that I can’t bypass.”

“Is that a problem?”

“Only because it might look weird in a few hours if this scientist doesn’t come out of the area...or they show up at the entrance. That would be wild.”

“Technus,” he said while heading towards the first crate with the tech he needed, “you’re sure this scientist won’t show up at the door right?” He didn’t put it past the scatterbrained ghost to forget a detail like that.

“Of course not! You doubt my genius problem solving skills?”

“Uh huh.”

“Well, he won’t show up at the front door, because he’s in the cafeteria right now.” Skulker paused while grabbing something similar to the design of his original Suit’s boots a warm tingle of panic shooting through his core. “Technus, he’s in the facility right now?”

“Duh, it would look weird if he just showed up without having gone through—”

“So what happens when he tries to leave his lunch break and the system realizes he’s in two places at once?” His harsh whisper was closer to a scream by the time he finished the question, rushing towards the next spot designated by the technopath ghost for needed tech.

“Uh...you know? I didn’t consider that.”

The Zone’s greatest hunter snatched the last piece needed to complete a leg from another crate before a facility wide blaring alarm went off overhead.

Attention GSU personnel, the facility is now entering Lock Down Mode. Personnel ID discrepancy has been detected. For your own safety, please follow all ID registration procedures and proceed to your assigned positions to have your ID’s scanned. All attempts to access the mainframe at this time will be treated as hostile. Thank you for your cooperation.

“So, bad news, I am locked out of the system, or well to be more accurate, I’m locked out of making any changes to security or anything else.”

“Is there good news?” He grunted, hefting a final arm piece out of a box and sucking it up into the storage device.

“Oh no, there’s just worse news. I think I’ve been found out?”

Another alarm went through the facility, a siren screaming out Ghost Detected. “Oh, what would give you that idea?”

“Hey! Don’t get snippy with me; it’s not like I planned this.”

“Can you still get out of the mainframe?” Skulker jumped into the box containing the chest plate, knowing it was too heavy for him to lift out on his own. He slammed the button to absorb the material and then flopped back out over the top of the crate’s edge, bouncing off the floor in his haste.

“Yes? But then I couldn’t give you any directions. I can’t touch anything, their anti-virus is pathetic in its attempts to oust me, but I can still tell you where your tech is.”

“What good is that going to do me when I already know where everything is? What? Are you going to give me a play by play of the GSU pouring in to kill me?” Technus didn’t respond, and he opted to run over to a flat clear area in between some shelves to disgorge the contents of the storage device. Another click and out came a clattering of sensitive tech onto the concrete floor. He gave it a quick once over. Everything was there, he just had to assemble it. It looked like there was space in the chest piece for him to control the entire completed suit. Not ideal, but he could change it later if he survived. “Technus?”

“Just searching for something, and dodging the anti-virus. Oh, they are almost at the security door to the storage area. Looks like they figured out the scientist was in the cafeteria and not possessed fast...There’s a lot of agents.”

“We’re in one of the most secure GSU facility in the country, of course there’s a lot of agents.”

“Are you gonna be able to get out of here by yourself?”

“Of course I will. I’m not just the Ghost Zone’s greatest hunter, I’m also an excellent fighter.” Skulker grunted a few times trying to get the ends of the Suit that connected up to each other to seal together. The lightheadedness was getting worse. He looked over the pieces he had left with detached alarm, he didn’t have time for this. “What?” He’d been ignoring the other ghost again as he slotted another piece together.

“I said I’ll cover your escape! You should be honored to have one as amazing as me sacrifice himself in this way. But fear not! Because so great is my infinite brilliance that there are many copies of—”

“—You’re the last.”

“I’m the last what?”

“The last Technus copy, you’re the only one that still exists. Check their archives, if you still have access.” He wiggled the boots into the connection bits for the legs, breathing hard as he struggled to move even that anymore. “If you get captured and deleted or whatever, then you’ll be dead...dead-er.” He amended when he remembered Technus had actually been human once, unlike many others of their kind. At Technus’ frank silence, he continued, “if you want to sacrifice yourself for the ‘greater good’ or some such noble bull, then feel free. But if you thought it’d be fine because you’d live on through another perfect copy—”

“There really isn’t another…” He interrupted, genuine wonder and horror warring with each other in his voice. Instantly, Technus’ full form was in front of the pile of still partially assembled parts. “You aren’t gonna get that together in time.” A loud banging came from the front of the facility. “I’ve got the door locked, but they have a battering ram.” His tone sounded cheerful, like the idea of crumpling in the door was just amazing. “They’ll have to use real explosive to get through. You should’ve seen them bouncing off the door with the ram though, it was hilarious.” Skulker struggled through connecting another two pieces together, hands burning and buzzing. “Maybe you should let me do it, this stuff’s got an ecto-ranium coating on top of it.”

“Oh, now you tell me…” He lies flat on the concrete, staring up at the bright halcyon lights in the ceiling. The concrete really does feel cold. He noticed with dispassion, the energy to get worked up drifting away with the rest of his fading consciousness.

“If you were this fragile, how’d you survive this long?”

“They starve us you asshole.” He still had enough energy to be cross with Technus though. He ignored whatever the other ghost said in response, concentrating on figuring out how to escape. He did perk up when he said it was done, interest turning to ash when he saw the still inactive tech sprawled across the ground. “It’s not online.”

“It’s not charged.”

“Yes, I can see that. If it needed battery packs, why didn’t you—”

“It’s...not supposed to? Too bad I can’t check since I’m out of the mainframe now.”

The room was spinning, and he didn’t even have it in him to frustrated with Technus not checking this beforehand. “Do you remember enough of the specs to know how to charge this thing?” He panted as the ceiling came into and out of focus, the surface pitching like rippling water. He couldn’t pass out. He heard Technus say something, or he heard the noise, but it didn’t resolve into words, disappearing into the rising staticy sound screaming in his head.

He came to with a start, leaning against hard cool metal, sickly green ectoplasm leaking over the surface of the control panel underneath him. Novas my core aches. His hearing came back to the frantic commentary of his escape partner. “What happened?”

“Well you tried to evaporate, so I re-wired the life support system in this thing to send you ecto-energy, and thanks to my supreme intelligence, it worked. You’re, uh, kinda still melting though.”

He grunted pushing himself upright with the half-melted stump of his left arm. “It’ll stabilize and reverse once I get enough energy.” He squinted as the display came up, neon bright and overwhelming. It suddenly dimmed to a more reasonable level. He swiped sloppily against the inside controls, his re-charging ectoplasm slowly rejoining his form. “Ok, looks like you overrode the operating system of the suit.”

“I am far superior to the pathetic OS they installed.”

“I’m sure.” He groaned as his left hand reformed; he flexed all of his still numb fingers on both hands. “How long was I out?”

“Only thirty seconds, but the GSU just blew up the front door.”

“Fucking fantastic.”

“Don’t worry, I can operate the limbs until you finish reforming. Then, you can control the suit.”

“You’re a terrible fighter Technus, that’s why all your copies got captured.” He ignored the other ghost’s offended protests. “My hands are back; I’ve got this.” More bluster than he would have liked at the moment, but they were out of time. He watched as agents surrounded them, weapons pointed, but body language hesitant. He smiled. “Technus, does this thing have a sword?” He watched as a long sharp machete popped up in the display. They didn’t know who they were dealing with...

He stepped over the dismembered arm of a GSU grunt, metallic boot clang muted by the splash of dark red cooling blood. Amateurs. He thought, squeezing the throat of the last agent until it made a satisfying crack. He dropped the limp body and surveyed the carnage. It hadn’t even been an enjoyable battle. “How long until the next group shows up?”

“Radio chatter suggests they’re bringing—maybe two minutes?” Technus corrected himself when he properly registered the question. He felt his core’s beat pick up at the thought of more GSU grunts to disembowel. They beg so sweetly when they realize— “Not to ruin your fun, but we’re supposed to be escaping.”

“We have to go through them don’t we?”

“This is why you got captured.”

“Shut up Technus.” The other ghost was right though. With a deep breath, he ignored his desire to hunt down some more GSU agents and make them squeal for the years of captivity and the War. Later. After. He promised himself, before looking at the ceiling. “What’s the fastest way out?”

“Not up.” He brought up a map of the facility and overlaid it with the proposed escape route. “That gets us out without fighting through too many more GSU grunts.” Skulker huffed, pausing a moment to consider straying off course to fight a few extra agents before reining himself in. He did shudder though, suppressing another wave of battle lust, when they zoomed past an unsuspecting group of agents.

A few minutes later, they’d floated through the last of the HQ’s walls, bee-lining it away from the facility. The blare of the Amity HQ’s alarm was sweet, like the honeyed taste of victory, as the outskirts of the city grew near. They hovered near the edge of the city, cores thrumming with excitement and satisfaction. “How did they find you anyway? Why not just convince the system the ID duplication was a bug?”

“I tried, but my attention was divided.”

“Doing what?” He asked. He brought up a gantlet and pointed it ahead of them, temporary portal crackling into existence. The welcoming green of the Zone called to him, it’s siren tones the lullaby he’d carved the last long years of capacity.

“I had to get information about the permanent openings for Plasmius. Weaknesses, facility maps, the works. That’s a lot of data you know?”

“Sure.” Skulker agreed, scanning the portal to check its stability and connection. The portal let out a day’s flight from his territory. It’d worked. They were nearly home. “That the trade for breaking you out of the facility in Boston?”

“Yup, and delivering it with you to the drop off.”

“I need to see him anyway, lots of catching up to do.” He was stalling. The Zone was right in front of him, just a hair’s breadth away from the cool tingle of real spectral energy from a Nova, and the humming thrum that echoed in every part of the air from it. He could feel his core tugging painfully, wistfully, for home. He just had to step forward. It was right there...and he was stalling.

“Stop being such a baby, it’s been eight years since I’ve been in the Zone and you don’t see me dawdling and wringing my hands.”

“Do you even have any friends you’re scared won’t be there?” Skulker forced himself through the portal. He heard the crackling zap of the temporary portal collapsing right after their passage. Interesting feature. Could be very useful. He noted.

“My ecto-cat definitely misses me.”

“Of course you have a cat...How long until this suit is permanently charged? I don’t want to be stuck listening to your chattering.”

“Oh, the suit is already charged, but it won’t run without an OS, which is me.”

“Technus, you deleted the OS!”

“Well! It wouldn’t accept you as a user and turn on because it sensed your energy. You’re lucky I was able to override it and still charge the suit! Would you rather have evaporated?”

No he wouldn’t… But the other ghost was already going on about the encrypted files he’d downloaded and how ‘glorious’ the algorithm that made it must have been, and they have petabytes of storage in this hard-drive, and—maybe death wouldn’t have been so bad?

…then you better pray for a miracle.

#Danny Phantom #danny phantom fanfiction #Phandom #Bittersweet Future #Balshumet's Fanfiction #Balshumet's Baragouin #Chapter Fifteen #BSF #my writing

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