#i doubt i'll continue this but sam is helping danny with his dodging practice since he always forgets to use his stupid morphing power

[wastefulreverie]

"I'm not sure what I'm looking at," Maddie admitted.

Lancer sighed. "Me neither. That's what I was hoping you could explain." What she'd seen on the screen was impossible.

"The cameras must have glitched. With all the ectoplasm in the air, it must have fried the wiring or something. It wouldn't be the first time."

Even that explanation was grasping at straws, but it was all she could fathom.

"Dr. Fenton, they're your cameras. The ghost-proof ones you designed and installed."

Drat.

He was right. These were the cameras she and Jack had created after the old Casper High cameras died.

She was all out of answers.

"Have you talked to him yet?"

Lancer paled. "I thought it was best I consult you first, given the known risk of overshadowing. But even that doesn't seem right."

It didn't. When a ghost overshadowed its host, it had limited use of the ghost's powers. Nothing that could change the nature or form of the person it was inhabiting.

Hand shaking, Maddie reached for the mouse again and reset the video. She needed to see this again to understand more.

The camera looked down on one of the main hallways of Casper High. It was vacant save for her son Danny and his friend Tucker. Both were standing against a row of lockers, talking. Tucker was waving around one of his devices and Danny looked a little more than disinterested. Even though there was no sounds, Maddie didn't have to guess that this was another one of his new tech toys.

And then a girl with black hair and a checkered skirt entered the frame—Sam Manson. She wore a purple backpack with four arms on either side like a spider and boots that stopped just below her knee. She pulled something from her backpack as she approached and threw it in the direction of the boys.

Danny reacted faster than Maddie would have thought possible. Rather than stepping out of the line of fire, his body stretched and morphed before her eyes. His torso rippled, clothes moving with it, and there was a gaping hole where his chest and left shoulder should be. Whatever Sam had thrown—a small book—hit the locker behind him and fell to the floor.

Beside him Tucker jumped in terror. Not because of Danny's body turning in on itself, but from the sound of the book hitting the wall. Tucker then said something that as Maddie tried to read his lips, she couldn't sound out.

Then, Danny seemed to let go of his transformation. His body rippled once more and his torso was as it should be. He said something to Sam, who clapped him on the shoulder with a smile.

The video clip ended there.

None of it made sense.

She turned back to Lancer. "What happened after this?"

"The three of them talked for a few minutes at your son's locker. Then they walked off. I followed them through the other cameras we have, but there was nothing out of the ordinary until they left the building."

"Sam and Tucker didn't even react. I wouldn't call that 'out of the ordinary.' Whatever happened there they know what it is."

Lancer's brow furrowed. "So you think it's best to speak with Ms. Manson and Mr. Foley first?"

"Could we do that?"

"I can call them from their classes now, if that's what you think the best course of action is."

"No." She shook her head. "I want to talk to them eventually, but first I think I should concur with my husband about this. Could you email this to me?"

"Dr. Fenton, I really don't think it would do either of us any good to create copies of this footage. If this got into the hands of a third-party like the GIW, we might not be able to protect your son."

"I suppose that's true." She bit her lip. That posed a problem because Jack was home with a ghost bug and couldn't leave quarantine. "Alright. Call in Sam and Tucker. I want to hear them out."

Lancer left her in his office alone. Minutes later, her son's friends names were called over the intercom.

Now all she had to do was wait.