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Tucker pressed his back to the wall and his hand to his chest. Stupid. That wasn’t going to help his heartrate. It wasn’t going to help anything. It didn’t even make him feel better.
There was a noise beyond the door to his left, and he bit down on his lower lip. Footsteps, and something else. A cart? A gurney? God, Tucker didn't know. He wished Danny were here, or even Sam, she knew how to keep him calm in places like this.
The footsteps got louder, closer.
Don't come closer, don't look, don't come in, don't come in, don't come in.
Courtesy of ghost hunting with Danny, Tucker wasn’t a random wimpy nerd, but he thought it was a bit much to expect him to do anything when the only thing he had on him was a flimsy hospital gown. He might have been a teenage superhero sidekick, but he wasn’t one of the fighty ones. He was the tech guy.
The sounds got closer. Closer. Footsteps, definitely, and something with wheels. One of them was squeaky.
The front part of a gurney was pushed past the doorway. Strapped to it was a– it– they– whatever was on it– Tucker didn't have his glasses, so he held out hope that whatever was in the gurney, it didn't look nearly as bad as he thought it did.
For a split second, it stared at Tucker with one white eye, leaking milky fluid. Then, the orderly pushing the gurney passed through, and Tucker had other things to worry about.
I'm not here, I'm not here, don't turn around, don't notice me, don't look, don't look at me. Don't look, don't look.
Thankfully, the orderly seemed to be occupied with his task. He trundled the gurney down the hall and, just at the bend of the hallway, he stopped partially turning, to open a door. That's when he saw Tucker.
Tucker ran.
He heard the orderly raise an alarm, and the alarm spread. Fast. Fast enough that Tucker had to wonder if these people were human or not.
Or if they'd done some of these experiments on themselves.
He was tackled from behind, his head cracking on the ground, leaving him dazed. He still tried to kick, bite, claw, scratch, but to no effect. Danny would have figured something out, but he had superpowers. His arm was wrenched behind him and he heard something snap before his vision momentarily whited out in pain.
“How did this patient get out?” demanded a gravelly voice.
“Not sure,” said another. “This is one of the heavily contaminated ones from Amity Park. I think they were saving him-”
“It is no matter. Do something with him now. I do not want a repeat of this.”
There was a moment of silence, and then an intense, whispered conversation that Tucker could make neither heads nor tails of. The next thing he knew, he was slammed onto a gurney of his own.
His wrists were strapped down before he knew what was happening, even the one that belonged to his broken arm. His ankles were next. Within less than a minute, the orderly had him cinched down so that his back pressed firmly against the gurney.
It didn’t make him feel better.
A woman with frazzled red hair entered Tucker's vision. “Hi,” she said. “I'm sure you already know why you're here. So, I'm happy to inform you that we will be prepping you for surgery immediately."
“What, no. No,” said Tucker, struggling ineffectually. His arm burned and his head throbbed, but maybe if he could dislocate something…
“You won't feel a thing,” said the woman, walking beside the gurney as an orderly began to push it, “and then you'll be all better. Won't that be nice?”
“Let me go! There's nothing wrong with me!”
“Of course there is! There's something wrong with everyone.”
Tucker took a deep breath and started to scream for help. There was always the possibility that Danny was around, or at least someone sane.
No one came. Neither the woman - a doctor? - nor the orderly tried to stop him. That was not a good sign. That meant they didn't care if someone heard him. That meant they didn't think anyone here would help him.
They were probably right. Whatever else this place was, it wasn’t a public hospital.
The fact that the screaming didn't even bother them, however, was worse.
They stopped at a door to open it, and then they were in what looked a lot like an operating theater.
“The arm has to go, obviously,” said the red-haired woman to a tall but hunched figure in a white coat. “And there's something wrong with the eyes, too. He came in with glasses, can you believe it?”
“Philistines,” grunted the tall ‘doctor.’ “Savages.”
“My thoughts exactly. We could do something about that irritating vocal tic, too.”
Oh, maybe the screaming did bother them. He took a deep breath and started anew.
The tall one grunted again and shuffled over to something on the wall. Tucker couldn’t see well enough to tell what it was. The red haired one came back to loom over Tucker.
“Anesthesia time!” she said, holding up a plastic mask connected to a tube.
When she lowered it to cover Tucker's mouth and nose, he tried to bite her, he really did, but the room went gray, and then black, and then nothing.
.
Tucker woke in the same room he'd escaped from that morning. He knew it was the same room, because even without his glasses, he could see the same old, brown blood splatter across the ceiling.
Without his glasses… He blinked, squinted. Hadn’t those people said something about removing his eyes? And why did everything look… off? Almost… He wanted to say translucent, but that wasn’t right, couldn’t be right. And why was he here? He hadn’t been saved, because then he wouldn’t be back here, but he didn’t think the people who had him were the kind who would change their minds about cutting him to pieces.
He turned his head to look at the door to the room. This wasn't as trivial as it sounded. His head was heavy, every twitch of his muscle slow, somnolent.
The door was where he remembered it, but unlike before, he could clearly see all the way into the hallway. He wasn’t wearing his glasses.
His breath stopped in his chest, burning each second he held it. His arm didn’t hurt anymore, neither did his head or– or any of him, actually, which shouldn’t be the case after how beaten up he’d gotten. He could see without his glasses. What did they do to him?
Under the hospital sheet, he could feel his arm tingle, as if it knew he was thinking about it. If it had a mind of its own--He couldn’t think that way. He didn’t know what had happened, but he couldn’t think that way.
He could find out what had happened. He could pull back the sheet and look with his weirdly well-functioning eyes. It would be so easy, but he felt paralyzed. He was paralyzed. Panting. Breathing heavily. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t get enough air. What had they done to him?
No, he’d moved his head earlier. He couldn’t be paralyzed. That didn’t make sense. He was just, he was afraid. He was afraid of what he’d see. Or not see.
He squeezed his eyes shut. God, he was such a coward. Danny would have already gotten up. The first thing Danny had done after he got up after the accident was rush to the nearest mirror, and Tucker couldn’t even look at his arm. He couldn’t even move to save himself.
He sucked in another breath and held it. Then, he counted, until his lungs started to burn. He had to look.
The hospital sheet felt thin, flimsy, and damp with Tucker’s sweat. Disgusting, like anything and everything in a hospital. He grabbed the underside with the tips of his fingers, bunching it into his fist.
The moment hung there, the only sound Tucker’s rough breathing. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t look, couldn’t stand it. He wasn’t like Danny. He was going to die. He was going to die doing nothing to save himself.
He tore the blanket off, throwing it on the floor next to the bed. Then, with a motion that made his neck crack, he turned to look at his arm.
At first, his brain didn’t register what he was looking at. He’d thought he was– Well. Not ready. Not even close. But he’d had certain expectations about what he’d see. And this…
There was an arm there. But it wasn’t a human arm.
It was longer than it was supposed to be, the claw tips level with Tucker’s knees. And it was clawed, each finger tipped with a scythe-like green point. The palm of the hand and the pads of the fingers were charcoal black, far darker than Tucker’s natural skin tone, and were textured oddly. Tucker couldn’t see the rest of the skin, because it was covered all over with dark fur, all the way up to his shoulder, where it disappeared into a bloodied hospital gown.
Tucker reached up to the collar of the gown with his hand, the one that was actually his, and pulled it down. Where his… Where the arm connected to his shoulder, the skin was marbled with pale scar tissue, sick-looking dark streaks, and green veins that stood out, distended, from his skin.
Bile rose in his throat, and Tucker leaned over the side of the bed, vomiting. The arm moved with him, awkwardly catching itself on the edge of the bed, claws digging into the thin mattress.
Tucker, still heaving, stared at it. God. God. It was attached to him. It was part of him. And if it was like this, what were his eyes? He didn’t want to know. His thoughts buzzed, circling, eating themselves like an ouroboros. What would he do? How could he escape? Even if he could escape, what would he do then? This was– This was attached to his real human body, he couldn’t transform it away like Danny could, and–
And, somehow, the arm looked familiar. It couldn’t, though, right? That didn’t make any sense.
But it did. And the longer Tucker stared at it, the more familiar it looked.
But… But it couldn’t be, right? It couldn’t be what it looked like.
He scooted to the other side of the bed, away from the vomit, and stood up.
It couldn’t be. He had to try it anyway.
He raised his clawed hand, and the claws glowed sickly. He brought it down, slashing through the air, and the air rent along the path of the claws, tears widening into each other until Tucker could see the swirling green of a ghost portal.
“I wouldn’t if I were you.”
Tucker twisted. Standing in the doorway was a woman with red hair. Red hair that wasn’t frizzy, but swept back into bizarre horn-like points. He could see through her too-human skin to the roiling dark fire underneath.
“Spectra.” His voice was rough, hoarse, and guttural. Deeper than it should have been. He raised his good hand, his normal hand, to his throat.
Spectra, already smiling, showed more teeth. “You aren’t what you were, dear. Do you think anyone will even recognize you, much less accept you? Do you think you can survive out there? Goodness, even people with normal transplants need anti-rejection drugs. Where will you get–”
She had to be kidding. Or goddamn insane. Tucker wasn’t staying here when he had a perfectly acceptable escape route. He stepped backwards through the portal and found himself falling through the Ghost Zone.
He should have expected that. It wasn’t like he’d opened the portal with a destination in mind… Although it wasn’t as if he knew how this worked.
Something garbled pulled itself from his throat. Not a scream, not a howl, not cursing, but not anything else, either.
After the initial shock, he regained enough of his senses to rip open another portal, this one with actual thought, and he dropped through it, right into a shouted argument.
“-the only thing I–”
“Aah!”
“Tucker?”
“That’s– Tucker?”
Tucker had been caught by a pair of gloved, ghostly hands. Danny’s hands. His friend looked down at him, swirling green eyes full of worry. Sam crowded next to him, gripping the shoulder of Danny’s suit so tight her knuckles were white and Danny’s ‘D’ symbol stretched. They were standing under the buzzing fluorescent lights of the FentonWorks lab.
“Tucker?” repeated Danny. “What– What happened to you? How did you get here?”
“Spectra,” said Tucker, hoarsely.
Danny’s eyes narrowed into the most murderous expression Tucker had ever seen from him. “How?”
“She’s–” Tucker had to pause to breathe. He had to breathe. “She’s set up in this creeptastic hospital somewhere.”
Sam nodded. “We knew it had to be something like that. There’ve been these ghost ambulances snatching people off the street. Do you know where?”
Tucker shook his head. “Dunno. Woke up in a room already there.” And hadn’t that been a terror.
“What did they do to you?” asked Danny, and although it was said with the utmost concern, Tucker shoved both hands against his friend’s chest and tumbled out of his arms. He scrabbled his way to his feet and put one of the Fentons’ steel worktables between himself and Sam and Danny. Something yellow flashed in the semireflective tabletop, something near where his eyes should have been, but Tucker refused to think about what that meant.
“They- they did something to me,” he said, grabbing his furred upper arm. “Some kind of surgery. They… I don’t know what they did. And this– Some kind of ghost arm– My eyes– What if this is permanent?”
“Hey, hey. It'll be okay,” said Danny, soothingly, hands out. Tucker felt a tinge of guilt, seeing the claw marks across Danny’s chest, but it was quickly swamped by frustration. “Even if it's permanent, it'll be fine. We worked things out when it happened to me, and–”
Tucker slammed his hands down on the table. The clawed one threw up sparks. “You can hide it, Danny! Look at me! Anyone who sees me–” Another thought popped into his head, and it was something he shouldn't say, but it was true, so– "And you're white, Danny, people will forgive a lot from a white boy that they won't from a scary black man.”
“You're not scary,” started Sam.
Tucker snarled at her. “Aren’t I? People- people will take one look at me before they break out the rope and string me up from the nearest tree!”
“No,” said Danny, with that vocal overlay ghosts got when someone tread too close to their Obsessions. He'd been shrinking in the air, shoulders hunched, as Tucker ranted, but now his fists were clenched and his eyes glowed bright. “No they won't. I won’t let them.”
Suddenly, Tucker just felt tired, and maybe a little ashamed. These were his friends. They were just trying to help him.
“You can't be with me all the time,” said Tucker.
“Yes, I can,” said Danny. “I can duplicate.”
“Twenty-four seven?”
“I'll make it work.”
And the thing was, he probably could. Tucker just wasn't sure it mattered.
“It still might not be permanent,” said Sam. “We can wait, and maybe it’ll wear off.”
“Like Danny’s did?” snapped Tucker.
“Well, this is different.” Sam shrugged, her hands clasped together in front of her. “There’s other stuff we can try, too, if you want to. Like the ghost catcher, or, uh, Danny’s parents, I guess. Or real doctors.” Her tone got more and more dubious as she went down the list.
“Danny doesn’t even trust his parents with this stuff,” said Tucker. And he was never setting foot in another hospital ever again.
“Frostbite. Frostbite knows human and ghost medicine. Vlad probably knows stuff, too,” said Danny, darkly. “I can make him help.”
Tucker stared at him, wavering on his feet. “What if–” He swallowed, and his hand spasmed, fingers knotting in his fur before he shook them out. “What if they– What if they decide to cut it off? What if they–” He gestured at his eyes. He knew it might have to happen, people with transplants did need special drugs, and who knew what ghost transplants needed?
“I–” Danny’s voice cracked. “I don’t know. But I’ll protect you, no matter what. I’ll– I’ll make them do what you want.”
He meant it, too. Tucker could tell.
“There were other people at that hospital,” he said, finally. “Other people they were doing things to. If they– They took Jessica. She’s lo-jacked. If– If one of you have one of my other PDAs, I can find it.”
“Tucker,” said Sam. She looked… worried. Or something like that. He didn’t know.
“Are you sure?” asked Danny.
Tucker laughed. Tried to laugh. It didn’t work well. God, his throat was all messed up on top of everything else. “Superhero sidekick, right? Gotta roll with the punches. And I’m the tech guy.”
“I’ll stay with him,” said Sam, firmly. “We’ll take some of your clothes, and I can smuggle him into my attic.”
Tucker snorted. “Just like Wulf, right?”
Danny licked his lips, obviously unsure, and pulled Veronica from one of his pockets. Tucker was never going to get over how Danny’s pockets worked. Tucker took it and punched a few keys. It was awkward with only one hand, but Tucker didn’t trust those claws anywhere near his baby.
“Here,” he said, handing it back to Danny. He’d pulled up a map with Jessica’s location. “Find them for me.”
Danny nodded. His face had gone all dangerous again. “Spectra is going to pay for this,” he said. He paused, for a moment, as if waiting for Tucker to say something, then flew up through the ceiling.
As soon as he was gone, Tucker almost collapsed. This time, Sam caught him.
“Let’s get you some real clothes,” she said. “I’m sure you want to stop flashing all of us and all. Can you walk? Think you can do the stairs?”
“Yeah. Can I steal Danny’s toothbrush, too?” asked Tucker. “My mouth feels like something died in it.”
“It smells like something died in it, too, but, yeah, I think he’ll be fine with that.”