A/N: Hey there, I just wanted to clue you in on the timeline here. This piece is set after Livin' Large (cringe, I know), but before Claw of the Wild. Also, you should know that Urban Jungle has definitely happened, because I make references to Danny's ice powers.

A continuation of my reposting from AO3.

Rated T for minor cursing in a later chapter.

Maddie huffed as the machine to her left buzzed and cackled, coming to life after being shut off for so long. She knew that the Fenton Ecto-Reader would take quite some time to power-up, and thus turned her attention back to the screen in front of her. After the Guys in White fled their home, accusing it of being cursed, the Fentons found themselves in possession of many items that the careless agents simply left as they ran out the door, screaming. Among these items were a few Ecto-Guns, a laptop computer, a small filing cabinet, and a handful of other gadgets. Since the agents had left the items, and "declared" FentonWorks the property of her and her husband again, as far as Maddie was concerned, they were her possessions now. Of course, if the government came knocking, she would had the over with no contest. But, for now, they hadn't and Maddie had taken it upon herself to try and crack the password into the laptop that they had left behind.

The filing cabinet had very little items of note in it, and seemed to mostly consist of dry cleaning tickets and grocery receipts. It seemed that the Guys in White left only the most unimportant things unprotected. At first, Maddie had wondered why the cabinet didn't even have a lock. After rummaging through it, she realized why. The laptop, however, was a bit harder to crack. She had been trying to figure out the password for a week now and so far, nothing had worked. After two days of trying and failing to manually crack the password, Maddie had programmed a bot to do so. According to the timer she had set on it, the password should be revealed within the next day or so. The laptop was an old, dingy thing and had no real governmental security to it. Because of this, Maddie suspected very little useful information was on it, but felt that she had to try anyway.

Maddie glanced at the clock on the wall. 3:32. The kids were just getting out of school now, no doubt excited for their weekend. Jack had gone to pick them up, telling Maddie all about some new ice cream shop across town that had just opened and how he wanted to take Danny and Jazz there after school today. Those two had really been working hard lately- they deserve it. Maddie almost jumped as the Fenton Ecto-Reader beeped that it was ready to go. She stood and made her way over to a counter on the other side of the laboratory, where the Fenton Ghost Fisher lay. She picked up the apparatus and pushed a small, yellow button on its handle. Out popped a USB drive. It had been her idea to begin implementing USB drives into the Fenton gadgets so that she and Jack could begin getting a reading on ghosts in the area. Most of the time, they were unable to gather an actual sample of ectoplasm, so an ecto-reading would have to do. At least for the weaker ghosts around Amity Park. She wasn't quite sure that an accurate reading could be gathered from the more powerful ghosts in the area.

Maddie removed the USB drive and made her way back to the Fenton Ecto-Reader. She sat down and inserted the stick. Pushing aside the laptop, she wiggled the mouse of their own desktop, lighting the screen. A window popped up as the Fenton Ecto-Reader read the USB. After just a few moments, a list of time-stamps and a thumbnail for each scrolled past. Each thumbnail showed a graph of detected ecto-energy for a one-minute interval. She scrolled up, scanning the graphs until she found two large spikes, about three minutes apart and varying widely in intensity. She clicked on the first, the smaller of the two, and a small confirmation window appeared. She clicked yes, and the Fenton Ecto-Reader got to work on analyzing all the data recorded on the USB. She and Jack could do this manually, of course, but the reader was faster, and more accurate. Maddie had designed it to read the specific ectoplasmic signature of a ghost to determine their power on a scale grade which ran from one to ten. It was the same exact scale that the Guys in White used, one of the only things that they shared with the Fentons.

However, the Guys in White had been using the scale for a significant time now, and this was only one of first few times that the Fenton Ecto-Reader had been up and running… accurately, anyway. They were bound to have a much larger archive of ghostly power than the Fentons. So far, the Fentons had about three dozen ghost power levels recorded, and all from low-tier specters. None of their readings were more than a 1.8. Maddie began analyzing the second spike in ecto-energy when she noticed a flash from the laptop next to her. She glanced over and read "PASSWORD AUTHORIZED. INITIALIZING… BYPASSING FIREWALL… ACCESS GRANTED. WELCOME AGENT O." Maddie sighed in relief. The bot had worked, and now she had access to the government's files on ghosts. The Fenton Ecto-Reader forgotten, she got to work on the laptop. Many tabs and windows were still open. The first on the screen was a window which showed a map of Amity Park. On the map were many dots, do doubt placed there by Agent O. FentonWorks and the "secret" Guys in White facility just outside of town were labeled in blue. Many other places were labeled with a red dot. She hovered over one near Casper High, it read "CASPER HIGH SCHOOL. 04-JUN-2007. GHOST 106D-456H DETAINED. GHOST 100A-200B ELUDED CAPTURE".

Maddie wondered to herself which ghosts these were, exactly. Obviously, the second one must be fairly important, due the simplicity of its number. She minimized the map, storing it away for possible later use. The next window was an internet tab open to an advert for industrial-grade bleach. Close. An unfinished game of Solitaire. Close. A list of Guys in White agents in Amity Park. Minimize. A travel website with dates for a vacation in Mexico. Close. A blank note page. Close. The last window open was a bright, white file with three selections, 'Ghosts', 'Humans', and 'Unknown/Other'. Maddie clicked on the link which said 'Ghosts'. After waiting a few minutes for the files to load. And grid-like list appeared in front of her. Each box has either a picture or a grayed-out question mark that was clearly being used as a substitute for a picture if the Guys in White had none on file. Underneath each picture or question mark was either two or three lines. The first was always a number like the two she had seen previously, 106D-456H and 100A-200B. The second line was a number carried to the tenths place, Maddie could only assume that this was their ecto-grade. Most of the ghosts on file had less than 3.0, and a few had N/A, indicating that no readings had been taken. The third line was only present on a few ghosts, and showed their names.

Maddie began to scroll through the files, finding a few that she recognized: "145L-876K/5.3/EMBER MCLAIN", "231P-764M/6.2/SKULKER", "324Y-024Z/8.7/UNDERGROWTH", and "176C-549G/2.2/BOX GHOST". Maddie clicked on the thumbnail for the Box Ghost, bringing her to a details page. There wasn't a significant amount of information, but enough to go by, "GHOST FILE 176C-549G. 'BOX GHOST'. SCALE SCORE: 2.2. LAST UPDATED: 12-AUG-2007 – SCALE SCORE UP-TO-DATE. SUBJECT DETAINED AND RELEASED NUMEROUS TIMES, NEVER ONCE GAINING IN ECTO-POWER. HAD TO BE RELEASED 13-AUG-2007 DUE TO REPEATEDLY TELLING AGENTS TO 'BEWARE'. CAUSED GENERAL RUCKUS, BUT IS NOT CONSIDERED TO BE A VERY LARGE THREAT. RELEASED INTO THE GHOST ZONE ON ANNOYANCE AND GENERAL DISTURBANCE MORE THAN ANY OTHER FACTORS."

Maddie huffed, clicking back to the main page on ghost files, and began to scroll slowly through them. She managed to find ghost 106D-456H, who had no name, but a picture of a white, ghosty snake. It was ranked as a 1.6 on their ecto-scale. After combing through the files repeatedly, she did not manage to find ghost 100A-200B, or Danny Phantom, both of which had files that she wanted to read. She was slightly frustrated, how could ghost-catching government agents not have a file on Amity Park's most famous ghost? Phantom was well-known all over town- possibly the country at this point, and the Guys in White didn't have a single file on him. It seemed absurd. After all, the Guys in White pursued Phantom numerous times a month. Maddie clicked back to the main page of the file program and clicked on the tab which read 'Humans'. Maddie raised an eyebrow at what appeared before her. The Guys in White had been keeping records on ghost hunters and scientists from all over the world. There were only a handful of records shown, but Jack and Maddie were both on the list. Upon further inspection, Maddie found nothing of real note, as her and Jack's files really only told of their locations and basic projects. There was nothing in the files which hadn't been released to the public at some point.

Just as Maddie returned to the program's homepage, the Fenton Ecto-Reader beeped and spat out a page from the laboratory printer. Maddie reached over, snagged the page, and inspected the results. Nothing extraordinary, a 1.1. She wiggled the mouse of the Fenton's desktop, to reveal a window of the very page already on the computer. She saved the file as 'Ectopus #1' and placed it in the file with all of the other ecto-readings that she and Jack had managed to obtain. Back on the timestamp page, Maddie instructed the reader to analyze the ecto-signature of the second ghost they fought the day before. Maddie was particularly excited about this one. That had been the day that she and Jack managed to wrangle both an Ectopus and Phantom. Both had managed to get away, the latter easier than the former, but the time that Phantom had been restrained should have given the Fenton Ghost Fisher just enough time to read his ecto-signature. After all, she now had plenty of data on an Ectopus. While she was looking forward to the data-retrieval of Phantom much more than the Ectopus, she saved it for last, since it would take the reader much longer to analyze an ecto-signature as complicated as Phantom's. The Fenton Ecto-Reader beeped, beginning its analysis.

Maddie turned back to the laptop's bright, white screen. The last section was labeled as 'Unknown/Other'. Maddie tilted her head as she clicked, what could possibly be classed as such? You either were human or ghost, and nothing in-between of that binary. One thumbnail appeared inside the folder, with a picture and three lines, "100A-200B/7.3/DANNY PHANTOM". Maddie squinted. So, Phantom and ghost 100A-200B were the same ghost? That sounded about right, since the map told her that he had evaded capture near Casper High. Phantom always evades capture, you may catch him in a net or the like, but he always escapes in the end. Maddie chuckled, Jack will be glad to hear that not even the Guys in White could capture Phantom. He has been wanting to do so ever since Phantom snagged Jack's original Fenton Thermos during the incident with the meat monster ghost, nearly three years ago now. Phantom was just too fast and elusive to be captured. It was very strange how he was, young but so powerful, able to appear and disappear in a moment's notice. He never actually spoke to the media directly. The rare times that the media had caught him saying something, it had almost always been to ask if somebody was alright or the like; a strange behavior for a ghost, being concerned for others. She clicked on his thumbnail, bringing up his file:

"GHOST FILE 100A-200B. 'DANNY PHANTOM' ORI. 'INVIS-O-BILL'. SCALE SCORE: 7.3. LAST UPDATED: 05-MAY-2006 – SCALE SCORE NEEDS REVISION. SUBJECT IS PRIME SUBJECT FOR TESTING. HAS SO FAR EVADED CAPTURE. MOST RECENT ECTOPLASMIC SAMPLE DETERMINED THAT SUBJECT'S ECTOPLASM CONTAINS TRACE AMOUNTS OF WATER, KERATIN, IRON, AND CARBON. SUBJECT MUST BE RE-EVALUATED TO DETERMINE THE CAUSE OF THESE IMPURITIES." The file went on for a quite a while, evaluating Phantom's growth in power and how odd he is compared to the other ghosts of Amity Park. Maddie continued to read for only a few moments before the Fenton Ecto-Reader beeped. She glanced over at it, puzzled that Phantom's ecto-signature took less time than an Ectopus'. She tilted her head the machine, which had a small error light blinking red. The printer spat out a page with only a few lines written on it. The test had been inconclusive- not enough data. Maddie spared a quick glance to the clock. 3:58. Jack and the kids would be home soon. She brought her desktop to life with the flick of the mouse and observed the same results in the window which had appeared. She closed out of the window, and turned the computer off. She did the same with the reader. It was Friday after all, a day that she always set-aside for the kids. She could acquire a better sample of Phantom's ecto-signature tomorrow.

Maddie went to close the laptop and ended up reading a small line of Phantom's file again, "WATER, KERATIN, IRON, AND CARBON". Such an odd composition for a ghost's ectoplasm. Some samples were found to have water; but never keratin, iron, or carbon, much less all three. Strange, she thought, those compounds are frequently found in human skin. She shrugged, assuming some kind of fluke. Tomorrow, she'll find out for sure. She closed the laptop and headed upstairs, right as her husband and kids opened the front door.