Chapter 7

She could not hold his gaze, feeling chills. She looked back down at his hand and asked, "What, like it's your ghost obsession or something? Overprotective about a damn ring?"

In response, he glared at her and said, "It's not the ring. It's what it stands for—the last thing I have of her."

"Of who?"

...

Phantom petted the ring, falling silent.

Valerie gave him a look. "Oh, come on," she said. "You can't just leave me hanging here. Is that like, some family ring from before you died or what?"

Those dull, judging eyes of his raised up. "No, I'd gotten it to give to...a friend." His voice broke. "I loved her."

She didn't immediately register his words, but once they sunk in, her jaw dropped. Her lungs were instantly bombarded with the acrid scent of black smoke. Her shock was interrupted by a string of hacks and coughs, burning her insides and temporarily clouding her mind. 

"W-what?" she finally choked out, her voice cracking into a higher octave. "Y-you…You fell in love?"

"Is it really that hard to believe?"

The woman raised an eyebrow, her expression suspicious. "Wait, with a human?"

"What about it?"

Valerie's entire face twitched with a disgusted awe, and for a time, she almost forgot about the blazing fire. "Didn't think ghosts would fall in love with humans."

His fist clenched around the ring tightly. "You have no idea what we're capable of." He swallowed hard. "Or what life you took when you captured me."

Flames devoured the cabinets.

At that, Valerie fell silent, increasingly unsettled again. She had a strict moral code, one that she always enforced no matter the cost. But she was able to throw that moral code out the window when it came to ghosts, and it felt good. 

Because they were evil, they had no feelings, and they hurt her fellow humans. Mercy and compromise weren't needed in this line of work. It was her revenge for what ghosts had done to her.

Does Phantom not deserve this?

She didn't know exactly what his moral code was, but the concept that he could love, or could want love (that he would have some kind of secret relationship, buying rings for some woman?) created a deep pit in her stomach.

Maybe he really can feel emotions.

"You...you can't love," she said, voice shaky. "No, no. Ghosts can't love. You're wrong. You're tricking me."

His green eyes snapped open, and a deep anger reflected in them that nearly set her back.

"Don't tell me what I can't do," he snapped, "or what I can't feel."

"But you're just ectoplasm!" she said, voice rising. "Ghosts aren't really conscious. You're just some...afterimage copy of what should have never existed!"

His fingers clenched. "And you're a human being!" he snarled, the distant fire crackling in time with his words. "You're supposed to be humane."

"Well, I—"

"—You don't even treat dogs the way you treat me," he yelled, anger and grief sinking cutting deep. "You treat inanimate objects better!"

"That's because inanimate objects don't try to hurt me and take over my town!"

"I never wanted the town!" Phantom shouted, his deep voice rising into a boom. "I never wanted to hurt you! I never wanted to be the way I am!" His pale lips twitched into sob. "Even if I am a mistake, why do I deserve this? What did I do?"

"You ruined my life!" she shot back.

"It was an accident!" he wailed, voice reaching hysterics. "I never meant for you to get involved! But this? This was all intentional, Valerie!" He pressed his hands against the glass wall of his cell, and the movement clinked the wires that wrapped around his arms and torso. 

"You did this to me on purpose!" He looked paler, weaker suddenly. "And I..." He swallowed hard and swayed. "I..."

The distant rumbles of a collapsing roof coupled with the laughing crackles of the nearing fire.

Valerie watched in surprise as all of Phantom's anger and energy fled from him. He collapsed on himself in a mess of wires, breathing harshly, eyes sightless. Pain echoed in every line of his body as he gasped for air.

For a second, she could see through him.

Fear gripped Valerie. Without thinking, she pounded against the glass. "Phantom, hey! Hey, what's happening?" She did not dare to believe that she felt concern for her enemy. "We're in the middle of an argument here! Don't you dare fade out on me now!"

He inhaled, and it was a rough, gurgling sound. Shaking fingers slipped to the wired ports on his body, and Valerie saw the wires were glowing a hot, steady green.

He leaned against the cool glass of his cell for support. "The fire," he rasped, squeezing his eyes shut. "It's hit the...the storages."

Her wide eyes followed the thick, titanium wires that shot from Phantom, trailing the loops as they collected into a port on the floor, from which the wires exited the cell to run the span of the lab itself. 

There, against the back wall, the wires connected into four additional large, black generators with panel of rapidly blinking green lights. They hummed with energy, with large pipes slipping up alongside vents.

She remembered seeing those vents when she'd first arrived, but hadn't noticed them glowing before.

She blinked as she looked between Phantom and the generators. "I..I don't understand," she said, beginning to rasp against the oppressive smoke. "Your pod generator is on the other side. What the hell are these?"

Phantom moaned, tears squeezing from his eyes. He tried to speak, only for a whimper to escape him.

Valerie struggled to put two and two together for a time before a deep foreboding overcame her. "Oh, it's the—the whole thing," she breathed in shock. "Oh my god, you're powering other things too."

His tears slipped down his jaw as he shakily struggled to breathe on his knees. "Weapons. Ships," he said hoarsely.

Valerie inhaled shakily, unnerved. "But no one's here to be draining you," she breathed, turning around in shock. "I don't understand; is the fire doing it? And...what the hell, did you say weapons?"

He reached out to her, voice a rough gurgle. "H-help." A true, deep fear echoed in him.

She stood up in a bewilderment, finally realizing what Phantom's state truly meant. "All the new ghost weapons," she whispered. "The convoys. The upgrades. It's all coming from you?"

"Help," he demanded again, leaning against the cell as he rasped out another strange breath. He was crying. "Hurts. They're taking m-more."

His form wavered again, growing more transparent.

Valerie's heart pounded as smoke billowed in. She stepped forward to the pod, only to step back. "Oh my god," she said. Whatever had activated the additional array of wires, it was draining Phantom, and fast. "Oh my god."

Like this, she could finally see it, with all the pieces clicking in. The CGIA had never been interested in simply housing and containing ghosts. 

As Phantom said, they were after assets. It explained the cobwebs on the cryostasis switches, Phantom being awake, the crude power flows using ports in his sides, the gauntness of his form. He was the CGIA, in the form of their power for blasters, for tech, for shields...

And something was intentionally draining him to the last drop.

The sight of his tears and his pain, and the swinging ring around his neck, left Valerie overwhelmed. It felt like watching a human be tortured. "Jesus, can't you stop it somehow?"

A strangled cry escaped from the back of his throat—a mix between a sob and a laugh.

Phantom collapsed fully to the floor, his back slamming against one of the walls as his eyes dulled. The anti-ecto coating on the wire ports sparked against his fingers, which instinctively had moved to pull out the draining wires.

Valerie 's fear spiked as she saw ectoplasmic blood slip from his nose. "Just...just fight it for a second," she demanded. "You hear me? Maybe I can shut it down somehow."

His cracked lips pulled in pain and odd emotion. "Why n-not," he asked raggedy, "let it drain m-me?"

She stared back at him haunted. "Well, dammit, you're thrashing around. And I..." Nausea rose along with her tears. "Jesus, this isn't right. Treating you like a lab rat."

Phantom blinked, his eyes dull and uneven as he rasped through another breath.

"It's not right," she said again, voice hoarse. It felt like a rising sun to speak the words her soul had felt the instant she'd seen the ports in his side. "This whole thing is sick. The way you're hooked up to all this shit is sick. And it's wrong." Her heart cracked open. "Even if you're a ghost, it's gotta be wrong."

The tear tracks on his face shined with flickers from the fire beginning to surround them. He shakily placed his hand on the glass, and it trembled.

===================

Don't forget to throw some power Stones, to keep the story going.

...

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