Julia

My fingers ticked on the wall I was leaning against.  Behind the curtain where we were, I could hear the dull mumble of people chatting among themselves, waiting for Stuart to be introduced.  I looked at my watch, growing more antsy by the minute.  Those two should be back by now, I said to myself.  Stu's getting ready to begin!

"Are K and the kid still touring the building?" Stuart asked over his shoulder while he carefully monitored one of his assistants as he set up the projector and made sure the timing of the slides and such were still coherent with his speech.  Stuart was a planner to an almost fanatical degree- a very disciplined, meticulous man, who timed and rehearsed everything, all the way down to the verbal pauses in his speech to ensure there weren't too many, and that they didn't last too long.

"As far as I know.  Nobody's responding to my texts.  Think I'll call Danny, hopefully he didn't put his phone on silent again."  So I dialed my son's number, crossed my fingers.  You better not be playing the Phantom, Danny.  It's not funny right now.

The "Danny Phantom" nickname actually happened well before he ever saw the cartoon. Ever since he was little, Danny had had a nasty habit of just sneaking away and running off all of a sudden to go do whatever it was that had possessed him to do.

Once I lost him in a three-level department store when he was two and a half years old. I turned my back on him for four seconds, and when I looked again, he was gone. I had the half the store staff scouring each floor while I bit my nails with worry and blew through everything I thought might conceal a toddler, until finally, forty-five minutes later, I saw his big black eyes peeping at me from behind one of those mirrored pillars. He ducked away again, and giggled- but he'd been spotted. My heart beating again, I reached around and yanked him into view, unsure whether I was so mad I could kill him, or so relieved that I could die.

But before I could do either one, he cried, "Boo!"

I practically took him by the scruff. "WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!" I shouted, not expecting an answer.

But I got one. "I'm a ghost.  Boo!"

"A ghost...?" I repeated the word incredulously.

"Yah," he nodded, his grin clearly telling me how unfazed he was by my anger. "Scare you?"

"Scare me? SCARE ME? God, I was worried sick! I thought I lost you- What if something happened to you, Danny? Someone could have just- Don't you ever run away and hide from me again, do you understand me? Don't you ever ever ever ever..."

I tried to keep sounding angry, but the sight of his precious smile faltering under my words cut me to the quick.

Softening, I bent toward him and said a little more gently, "Sweetie, if you run away from me, something really bad can happen- and that would make me cry. Do you want Mommy to cry?"

He shook his head. "Nuh-uh."

"Then don't run away from me."

Then he wrapped his little arms around my neck and cooed, "'Kay."

That kid knew what he was doing, and he wasn't even three yet. I cratered.

Scooping him up in my arms, I held the boy close to me and whispered, "I love you, you little monster.... you horrible, wonderful little Danny Phantom."

And here he was now, nine years old, and still living the name.

The cell kept ringing, and I was growing more and more anxious, Mom instincts kicking in at full throttle.  Come on, Daniel-san, pick up.

But his cell went straight to voicemail, and I heard his sweet, high voice inform me, "Konnichiwa, this is Danny Phantom.  I'm busy right now, but, um... leave a message, aaaand... your number, aaaand... whether or not you're cool, [giggle] and I'll call back later.  Um, okay.  Bye."

So I left a message, hoping I didn't sound too nervous.  "Hi, Danny, it's Mom.  Where are you, sweetie?  I've been trying to reach you but I'm not getting anything back from you.  Please send me a text or call me back as soon as you get this.  Love you.  Bye."

As soon as I ended the call, Stuart sighed with satisfaction.  "Okay, I think we're all set.  Thanks, Gabe."  He clapped the young techie on the back and smiled at me.  "You ready?"

"Uh, sure, just- Stu, I may have to miss the first few minutes, I'm getting really worried about Danny.  I should go find him." 

"I'm sure he's fine. The signal in these buildings is the worst."

"That's as may be, they should be back by now."

I must have sounded anxious, because Stuart turned and put his hands firmly on my shoulders, looking at me reassuringly.  "Jules, if Steve took him where I think he did, they're probably on the bottom floor, looking at the labs.  It's underground and self-contained.  There's nowhere to go unless you take the elevator back up to the surface."

"They're just taking so long-"

"They've only been gone half an hour, honey.  Don't worry so much."  He added, teasing ever so slightly, "You're a counselor, for God's sake.  Don't you bring your work home with you?"

"Not as much as I should," I admitted.  "But he's my son, I reserve the right to be paranoid about him."

"Naturally worried, yes.  Paranoid, no.  He's fine, I kn-"

At that moment, the lights overhead flickered.  Both of us looked up, startled.  But as suddenly as the electricity had faltered, did it balance out again.  The fluorescents above glowed steadily.  Stuart threw a quick reflexive look toward the computer and projector, but all remained operational.  He squinted at the lights again, said "Huh," and shrugged before continuing.

"But like I was saying, Danny's fine.  He's with K, he's in good hands- and besides, there's cameras all over the place down there, and security monitoring them 24/7.  If there was trouble, we would already know about it."

I nodded with a sigh, but deep down my mom-sense was still tingling.  Something didn't feel right.  I looked back up at the lights and frowned, but I said no more about it.  Instead I kissed Stuart good luck, helped him get his microphone situated properly, and tiptoed out to take my place in the back row of the audience.

As the minutes ticked by, and Stuart's presentation continued, I still saw no sign of either Danny or K.  My worries mounted exponentially.  I scarcely was paying attention to anything Stuart was saying, but it didn't really matter.  I had heard him rehearse this speech many times in the past month; I knew every word of the so-called "Practical Applications of Cross-Continuum Interference" by memory.

I'm going to keep this as short as I can, because I still don't understand half the technicalities of time travel, let alone take a real interest in them, but this is still important to know.  Over the last ten years of research, Stuart, K, and the team (which, much to the chagrin of nearly everyone, included C, since the mysterious "George" was responsible for half of the necessary funds and he needed a pair of eyes constantly overseeing how his money was being spent) had come to three particular hypotheses which made up his overarching "cross-continuum interference" theory:

1.  The space-time continuum is a wave that moves at a constant pace, and on which the events of History occur in a fixed and unalterable pattern.

2.  No sentient organism or lifeless object can take up space at two separate given points at one given time.

3.  Although Time's events themselves cannot be manipulated, it is possible to harness this wave and establish a temporary bridge between past and present, which freezes the continuum for a certain amount of time while the bridge exists, and allows for a common passing of time between the two dimensions.

These had been the mainstays of time travel science at least since the conception of T-Rod, the very first cross-conti- oh, for heaven's sake.  Screw the scientific gobbledygook.  It was a time machine, pure and simple- a primitive model, but one that worked a little too well- and at the same time, didn't work nearly as well as it should have.  I should know; I was its very first victim.  But that's a whole other story that's already been told.

Whether Stuart had improved upon T-Rod's technology since then was anybody's guess; no one except the trusty team knew what went on in the storied lab of labs.

But at the time, I wasn't thinking about any of this, or anything else Stuart happened to be saying.  All I wanted was to go find Danny.  When I decided to bite the bullet and risk Stuart seeing me on my phone while he was talking, I whipped it out and began to type a very simple and very worried message when someone leaned over my shoulder.

"Julia," said a slow voice.

I breathed a sigh of relief.  "K!  Thank God," I whispered, turning.  "I was afraid you two wouldn't-"

But when I looked, I saw he was utterly alone- and even in this shadowy corner of the room, he looked even more pale than normal.  "K, Where's Danny?"

K quietly cleared his throat.  "Julia, I need you to be calm."

"I'll be calm when you tell me where Da-"

"Where Danny is, is the reason I need you to be calm."

I swallowed.  That sounded so ominous.  "I'm calm," I lied; my hands were shaking in my lap, my heart pounded like hooves on a race track.

After a beat, K put out his hand.  "I'll tell you outside.  Come on."

Obediently, I rose, glancing apologetically at Stuart, who thankfully was facing away from me at the moment.  K led me out the lecture hall doors, which closed with a dull thud.

"Where is my son, K?" I demanded.  "Tell me."

"I'll show you," he said solemnly, and led me toward the elevator.

"Lose your kid, there, Julia?" C greeted us upon the doors opening at the basement level.  "My God, you're a regular Bermuda Triangle, aren't you?"

I snorted.  "Why aren't you in the hall listening to Stuart's presentation?  Doesn't George need you to file a report on it or some such bull?"

But he shook his head.  "This is first priority."

"Huh?"

K sighed.  "I had to tell him, Julia.  Any time there's been unauthorized tampering with the machine, I have to make a record of it, tell someone of a higher rank- and C is George's rep, so-"

"Wait, wait, wait," I waved my hands, cutting K off.  "What does this have to do with Danny?"

"Danny tampered," C said laconically.  "It runs in the family, apparently."

"Tampered with what?"  I felt myself becoming angry- a dangerous thing to mix with nerves.  "Guys, I don't care if he tampered right now, where is he?"

"When is he, more like," K muttered, gesturing toward a big heavy door with an intimidating keypad fastened to the knob.

"Okay fine, wh-"  I corrected myself in exasperation, when I did a double take.  My eyes widened.  "When?  Did- you say, when is he?"

K nodded slowly, which sucked all the wind out of my lungs.  I closed my eyes.  Dear God, please, let me be wrong.  Please let me be just assuming the worst. 

But C's next words destroyed my every hope: "If I'm understanding Steve right, Danny's not only here in this building, he's not even in this world as we know it."

I didn't have room for fear for Danny yet, there was too much space taken up by my anxious frustration.  I felt my fists clench.  Slowly I turned to the old man, eyes wide and jaw square. 

"K," I said quietly, advancing rather menacingly upon him, "what did you do?"

"I did nothing!  I don't even know how he got into the lab!  I was in the bathroom five minutes, and he was gone, and only because the lights went out down there did I know he snuck in.  That's why it took me so long to get back.  The power didn't come back on down there till ten minutes ago.  There's no stairs, just the elevator-"

"The lab?  Stuart's lab?  How the hell-"

"That's what I'm saying!  By all rights, he shouldn't have been able to crack the code, it changes every twenty-four hours!"

"Do you know what it is right now?"

"I think so-"

"Then take me in there," I ordered, gritting my teeth.  "Now, please."

K looked at C, C looked at K. 

"Steve, sometimes you can be so stupid," C informed him, then opened the panel and entered the code.  The door popped open obligingly, revealing a crack of bright white light.

"Just out of curiosity, is this place where you've been keeping T-Rod this whole time?" I asked, pushing the door further ajar.

C scoffed, "T-Rod?  That old piece of junk?  Forget it.  That's been conserved for posterity down in D.C."

I took a step inside to see the great mechanical UFO-shaped disc sitting quietly in the floor.  "Well, then, what's this?"

"That," K said, "is Stuart's newest brainchild, the SPEK-2998.  Or, as I like to call it, the Speck."

My throat went dry.  "...Not another time machine?"

"Of a sort, except much more complex than that.  Preus designed Speck for multi-person transport, and not just for present travelers to the past."  He tapped around on the screen and looked up, adding proudly, "Dr. Preus had the idea of, potentially, seeing if original transport from the opposite direction was possible.

"That is," K clarified, "bringing people from the past- to the present, and back again."

"What for?" I asked, confused.

"To see if we can," C replied.

"What's the practical application?"

"We're scientists," C answered testily.  "We don't need practical reasons."

And as emotional as I was feeling, I had the good sense to refrain from asking whether or not that was a joke.

"Are we able to whip him out of wherever he is?" I asked.

K scanned the data on his screen.  What I could see over his shoulder made no sense to me whatsoever.  Even K seemed to be having a little trouble reading it, until he realized what had happened.

"It doesn't look like he's giving off a signal," K mumbled, pulling up some kind of map and scanning for a telltale dot.  "C, check the tracker inventory." 

C tapped around on a screen of his own.  "Looks like it's full.  Well, that's just great."

I went pale.  "Danny isn't wearing a tracker?"

"It's been a decade since T-Rod; you don't wear the trackers, you swallow them in capsule form.  And from the looks of it, Danny sent himself there without doing that," K explained.

C thought out loud, "Where did the kid end up anyw-" but then he stopped.  I watched his jaw drop, and eyes bug.

"Aw, damn," C swore. 

"What?"  I frowned.  "What happened?"

K looked as well.  And with a defeated sigh, he rubbed his eyes.  "Yeah... Oh, yeah, this is a problem.  Shit."

"What?  Where and when is he?"  I paused.  "And with whom?  Is it Prince?"

K and C traded glances again, and then K coughed nervously.  "You're, uh," he murmured gravely, "You're not going to like this, Julia."

I gulped.  "He didn't wind up with Hitler or Stalin or- or Marilyn Manson, did he?"

K shook his head.  "Nope.  This is where he wound up."  So saying, he dragged the data from his pad onto the main screen, and zoomed in on the person, place, and time. 

And my knees buckled.  I had to quickly sit down to keep from falling over.  I kept staring at the screen, already warring with myself to maintain control.  Impossible.  This can't be happening.  Once was too much. God, please, no. Not again. PLEASE.

But the words were true and inexorable as they held me captive in their cold sans serif power:

Freddie Mercury
09/05/1985
Munich

I turned to K.  "If this is some kind of joke, I swear-"

"Why would I lie?" K protested.  "Am I that mean a man?"

My shoulders sagged.  "No," I whispered- then realized the importance of the day itself.  Whatever crippling depression or panic attacks were threatening to come my way were annihilated with a sudden purpose.  I leapt to my feet, eyes flaring.

"Good God," I gasped.  "We have to get him out of there."

"Yes, yes, just wait till tomorrow, and we'll have a whole team assembled to go in and-"

"No.  Now.  Can you send someone to the same coordinates where he landed?"

"I- I think so-" K replied.

"Good.  Then if you could get this puppy started-"

"Hold it, hold it," C cried.  "Who do you think you are?  We can't do anything without Stuart's or George's permi-"

"F--- that," I snarled.  "Don't you guys know where he is?"

"Yeah, in Munich-"

"Munich, September 5th, 1985, no less!  Do you know what that means?"  I didn't wait for an answer.  Of course, they didn't know.  "He turned thirty-nine that day, and he had this great big scandalous party where basically anything went- God, he had a lot of those, didn't he?- and Danny's probably smack dab in the middle of it!  That's no place for a child!"

"And, uh," C smirked, "none of this occurred to you when you were letting him ravish you ten years ago?  Guess it didn't matter as much then."

"That is not my point, Dr. C," I struggled to remain civil.  "My point is, I need you to send me in there with an extra tracker for Danny then pull us out as soon as we're set."

C shook his head. "You do not have the credentials to-"

"Tim, shut up," K cut him off. "I am her credentials- and she was the first to know about us anyhow. She might as well be part of the team itself."

"That's very generous, K," I said impatiently, "but if you don't mind I'd really like to get Danny out of a 1980s German nightclub, so-"

"Sorry, Julia," C said in a voice that didn't sound anything like "sorry." "I'm afraid I can't let you do that."

I snapped.

"Listen, you nasty motherf---er," I hissed, jabbing my finger into his chest. "My child is in there on account of you horrible people letting him run around down here against my wishes and better judgment. There's no waivers to hide behind this time, you took responsibility for him the minute you brought him down here and made all this accessible to a nine year old minor. He's my son, and he's in trouble, and if you do not let me go in and so much as see how deep this shit pile goes, not only will I personally kill you with my bare hands, I will sue your dead ass so far deep into legal hell that your very eternity will be ridden with 'habeas corpus' and 'subpoena' and red tape enough to drive you insane forever! LET. ME. IN!"

K put his hand on C's shoulder.  "I suggest you listen to her, Tim."

C looked at us both, muttered lamely, "Take your hands off me, you two."   But once we complied, he added, "George will have my head for this," and tapped a few things on his screen.  In a flash, Speck opened up revealing a long but still snug compartment with enough room for three.

"Wait," I cried suddenly.  "I need to get to my car."

C gaped at me.  "What?"

"There's something I have in my car- a disguise," I explained quickly.  "I can't go in there looking like this.  Everybody will be in a costume, so I need one too."

"You drive around with costumes in your car?" K asked.

"Just the one, from last Halloween.  When I took Danny trick-or-treating, he was Starlord and I was Catwoman from the 1960's Batman.  I rented it from the costume shop, but I never returned it.  Meant to, though."

"Catwoman."  C rubbed his eyes.  "This ought to be good."

"It's stupid, but it's something.  I just can't have him recognizing me if I run into him.  K, open the door when I bang on it, okay?  Be right back."

As the door swung shut behind me, I heard C swear one more time, "G--d--- it, here we go again..."

To myself, I answered him, Not if I can help it.