Ghosts

by Barry Solway

  Gorgeous nodded, ducking her head. Evan took the bag and thanked the man. Mel waved to the little boy as they turned to head away.

  “Hey, what’s your name? If I find your card, will you come back and sign it?”

  Mel paused and leaned in closer so the others wouldn’t hear. “My name is Melody. And yes, I’d love to sign your card.” She turned as the boy and his father admired the card that Gorgeous had signed.

  “Oh. My. God,” Mel said, as they walked away to find Simon. “I can’t believe that just happened. Are you seriously saying we’re famous?”

  “Well, apparently I’m not,” Riley grumbled.

  “Gorgeous looks better on camera,” Evan said, punching Riley in the arm. “Seriously, I had no idea. That last gauntlet must have just come out. We’ll have to see if we can download a copy when we get back.”

  “I’m famous?” Gorgeous asked. She sounded in total disbelief.

  “This is going to make it even harder to lie low,” Mel sighed.

  ***

  She went to bed feeling lightheaded, confused, and slightly sick. Dreams flitted through her sleep, finally settling on a vague and uncomfortable blackness. Floating in darkness, she felt paralyzed. Calls for help produced no sound except the hammering of her heart. Just beyond the blackness, she could hear something breathing.

  A chill crept through her body, as if someone had injected ice water directly into her veins. Her heart beat faster as her eyes flew open. The immediate thought that she must be dreaming flitted across her mind as she stared up into Kathor’s glowering face.

  “Melody,” Kathor said. “Welcome back.”

  Mel jolted awake with a gasp. Her mouth was bone dry and her head throbbed. The dream was already fading, but there was something about it…. She could still feel the icy coldness in her veins. The look of malice and disappointment in Kathor’s eyes. Shaking it off, she got out of bed and dressed. After grabbing a drink of water that didn’t help with her thirst, she ran through ten minutes of exercises for her robotic hand, then headed to the kitchen.

  Sheila was sitting alone at the table. Mel greeted her and then rummaged through the kitchen, looking for food to eat. There was the fresh food they had bought the night before, and prepackaged meals where you added water and put them in a machine that was a bit like a microwave. It rehydrated the food and heated it as part of an automatic cooking process. But Evan had warned them away from the prepackaged food, because they couldn’t control what was in it. She shied away from the yellow fruit. She was almost afraid to see what Riley would be like this morning.

  The coco-berries. were very good. Fruity sweet, like a raspberry or strawberry and a touch of flavor similar enough to chocolate to pass muster. She put a small pile on her plate along with a kind of dumpling similar to the one she had eaten on the space station.

  Mel took her plate and a large glass of water and sat next to Sheila. The Chaturee read from an electronic tablet. If Mel looked long enough, the words would translate in her head, but it was disorienting, and it took a long time to read anything. It also looked like a complicated medical document, which made many of the translations overly wordy. Given her headache, she actively tried to avoid looking at the screen.

  “Have you seen any of the others?” Mel asked.

  Sheila looked up, her large eyes staring through Mel, her voice a low murmur. “Hematological variables and systemic inflammatory response correlated with prognosis in multiple malignancies. Potential for cell volume to predict disease mortality risk…” As she trailed off, she blinked several times and then swallowed. “What?”

  “What?” Mel asked, bemused.

  “You interrupted me,” Sheila said, obviously irritated. “I didn’t hear your question.”

  “Oh. Sorry. I was wondering if you have seen anyone else.”

  “No,” Sheila replied curtly and returned to her tablet.

  Mel glanced at the tablet. The word disease floated off the page, translated in her mind. Much of the rest was gibberish, numbers and percentages with letters apparently representing cell counts, but she didn’t know what it meant. As she turned away, the word cancer jumped out at her. Mel had a sudden sinking feeling.

  “What are you reading?” she asked.

  “A medical report,” Sheila muttered, without looking up.

  “For who?”

  Sheila sighed. She stopped reading, with a look of irritation and pity. “Riley.”

  Mel carefully took a bite of food, trying not to show any emotion. “Is he okay?”

  “It is a routine medical evaluation. Nothing to worry about,” Sheila said. Apparently, the translator was better than her ability to lie.

  “He has cancer.”

  “So you know. Yes. Anna gave us a drug profile that he needs to start taking. Based on these blood samples, as soon as possible.”

  “Can you get the drugs he needs? Does he know?”

  “Yes, he knows. Anna talked with him earlier. We can get most of it, but some of the compounds I may need to synthesize. I was attempting to work on it, but I keep getting interrupted.”

  “Sorry,” Mel said. “I should find the others anyway.” Mel finished her breakfast and took the bowl back to the kitchen. She wasn’t sure how to wash it, so she just left it on the counter. Sheila had already returned to her tablet, and Mel left her to go to the meeting room where Anna was set up. She walked in to find Riley and Anna in conversation.

  Anna’s holographic head faced Riley. “They should have the first batch within two days. It may take a few iterations to get it right, but you should be fine. You may have some withdrawal symptoms over the next few days, hopefully not too severe.”

  “I didn’t realize this would be such a problem. We should have tried to steal some from the ship before we left,” Riley said. He looked worried. Anna started to reply, but then stopped as Mel walked in.

  “Hey,” Mel said. “How are you feeling, Riley?”

  The creases on Riley’s forehead smoothed out as he forced a quick smile. “Never better. A bit of a headache from those yellow fruity things. I definitely need to go easy on them.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Mel said, sitting next to Riley. “I just talked to Sheila.”

  Riley raised an eyebrow. “Whatever happened to doctor-patient confidentiality? Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”

  Mel was going to argue with him, but decided against it. It seemed like Anna and Sheila had everything under control, and there was nothing she could do about it anyway. Again.

  She put a hand on Riley’s shoulder. “I’m glad everything’s okay.” Recalling an inside joke between them, when they had a falling out back on Kathor’s ship, she smirked at him. “We can’t afford to lose you in the gauntlets.”

  Riley laughed. “Glad to see that shallow desperation is holding strong.”

  She smiled. “I never said I was desperate.”

  “You don’t have to lie to me. I know the effect I have on people,” Riley replied. Mel rolled her eyes and turned to Anna, who had a blank expression on her holographic face. She replaced it quickly with a smile, but Mel felt a twinge in her stomach.

  “Can you modify Riley’s drug cocktail to get his ego under control?” Riley grinned but Anna’s expression didn’t change. Mel felt the pang again and tried to ignore it. “How’s everything, Anna? We’ve actually had two whole days of the world not falling apart. I think it’s a record.”

  “My professional opinion is that Riley is hopeless,” Anna said. “But I’ve done the initial research on the gauntlets. We should get everyone together, so I don’t upset Jon or have to repeat myself. I have wonderful news, and I’m sure you’ll all love it.”

  Chapter 18

  An hour later, everyone met in the conference room. The meeting started with Simon chastising Mel for leaving the kitchen a mess, which she thought was a bit of an overreaction, since it was only two dishes and a spoon.

  Once everyone settled, with Beats giving up on the
too-small chairs for the floor, Anna began her presentation.

  “I have mostly good news, for once. Well, as good as news about entering the gauntlets can be. First, it won’t be a problem to rejoin the gauntlets.”

  “Seriously?” Jon said. “We attack the architects, kill a bunch of random aliens and steal their spaceship and they’re just all fine with that?”

  “More or less. I had to explain a bit about Kathor and assure them it wouldn’t happen again. They were a bit odd about it. I talked to three different architects and two of them definitely weren’t happy. But once I told them we wanted to do the gauntlets again, it was almost like they didn’t have a choice. Hard to say with an Asadharan though.”

  “That makes no sense. I really hate this place,” Jon muttered.

  “Can’t argue with that. With that issue resolved, there are three games coming up in the next month. Two of them are already taken, but the third one is still looking for a second team. If we move quickly, we can grab it. That game is in sixteen days, so it gives us time to train.”

  “Where is it?” Gorgeous asked. As soon as Gorgeous asked the question, Mel chided herself. It hadn’t even occurred to her that they had no way to get to another planet.

  “It’s on Nipun. The city is called Gahana. It’s abandoned, of course, the result of extensive global warming on Nipun about two hundred years ago that left many coastal cities flooded. The Nipun are the toad-like people, if you remember from the videos.” Mel did remember. One of the first videos she had seen of a gauntlet featured a Nipunee being gunned down in a tunnel.

  “How are we going to get there?” Mel asked. “I didn’t even think of that.”

  “I did,” Anna said. “I’ve been working on that problem all night. But let me address that issue last. There are a few other things you need to know and then we need to decide if we want to do this game or wait. If we’re going to do it, we should apply and reserve the slot as soon as possible.”

  “What’s the scenario?” Mel asked.

  The first three gauntlets they had competed in were variations of Capture the Flag, although Mel knew that there were other formats for gauntlets at levels two and three. Both teams were dropped off in an abandoned city. Their mission would be to find a small sphere hidden in the city and take it to an endpoint. Whichever team placed the sphere in the endpoint would win the gauntlet. The sphere could be anywhere in a several block sector that was marked in blue on the maps the architects gave them, and they had come to refer to it as the blue zone. Finding the goal was always tricky and dangerous and typically led to the most heated fighting. The endpoint was in a smaller sector of the map marked in red and had always been out in the open and easier to find.

  “The city is flooded. Per usual rules, we won’t know until the day before what the mission is, but we have an idea of the environment. Travel will be difficult. The city sits at a tributary that drains into an ocean. There may be issues with animals. There are alligator creatures and some very large snakey, eel-like creatures. The snakes top out at over a hundred feet long and two to three feet wide.”

  “That should be fun. Can everyone swim? How do you do in the water, Beats?” Riley asked.

  “I get wet,” Beats said. “It’s not a good look.”

  “Yeah, it’s all about appearance,” Riley said, laughing.

  Jon cut in. “Are there any tall buildings?”

  “It was a large city, so yes,” Anna said. “Setting up as a sniper should be a sound strategy. We’ll have to wait for the final game parameters to know more. The environment isn’t ideal for our team, but that’s hardly unusual. It’s winter there, so at least the weather should be pleasant. Mid to high 80’s.”

  “Too bad we don’t have Mirage,” Evan said. “I miss her.”

  Mel put a hand on Evan’s forearm. “So do I.”

  “Speaking of, our team will be Beats, Gorgeous, Riley, Evan, Jon, and Mel. Evan is solid on tech, but I’m not sure how much that will play a role here. Anything you could scavenge will have been destroyed by the water. In any case, the important thing is who the other team is.”

  Anna’s holographic head disappeared and was replaced by an image of two Nipunee. They were tall and lanky with bumpy tan skin and heads that gave them a very toad-like appearance. Mel already knew they had the ability to cling to walls and ceilings, based on the first video she had seen. Both were dressed in drab green jumpsuits. They each had an arm around the other. With their tongues sticking out, it looked like they were panting, but the translator told Mel they were smiling.

  “Are they a couple?” she asked. “I don’t need another Soryda incident.”

  “They’re both male, and it’s not common for the Nipunee to have same-sex couples. Although, I guess you never know,” Anna said. “They’ve been in several games together, and I take it they are good friends. They’re both dangerous at close-quarter combat and they fight well together as a team.”

  “Hmm…” Riley said as he stroked his chin. “The one on the left is Croaker. The one on the right is Polliwog.” Evan grinned and reached back to give Riley a high five.

  Mel could almost hear Anna rolling her eyes. “I could have come up with names that match their species. You realize they aren’t actually frogs, right? But fine, be silly if you must.”

  “I must,” Riley said. “It’s very important to my psychic health.”

  “Fine. Croaker and Polliwog. Then we have these two.” The image changed to two Asadharans. “Before Riley gets too excited, the translators already have names for them. Kapha is the angry-looking man on the left and Sahass is the stoic one. She’s a female, in case it’s not obvious.”

  The difference was very obvious. The male Asadharans were similar enough to humans that many aliens mistook her for one. The biggest difference was that their heads had bony plates and ridges instead of hair. Even though their faces looked surprisingly human, it was mostly a coincidence. While they did have two human-looking eyes, the ‘nose’ and ‘mouth’ were actually just indentations within a hard, bone-like mask that covered their entire head. The top of their heads typically had little spikes and protuberances with very definitive ridge-like structures where human ears would be. Mel had never seen an Asadharan child, but based on what others had said, the bone-like mask was soft and fluid as a child. As the child grew, the ‘face’ froze into a particular position. Kathor was an Asadharan, and he had told Mel that she reminded him of his little daughter because her face wasn’t frozen yet.

  Mel wondered if Kathor’s wife looked anything like this woman. While the male was very human looking, the woman was much less so. Her shoulders were narrow compared to his and her hips much wider, giving her a distinct pear-shaped look. Her head was long and narrow, clearly out of proportion to a human head. The fact that she didn’t have any hair likely caused much of the difference. If you squinted, male Asadharans looked much like bald humans. Mel guessed the female Asadharans did, too. It was just much less common to see bald human women.

  “I hate to ask this, but are they a couple?” Mel asked.

  “You really are fixated on this couple thing,” Riley said.

  “Shut up. It’s Evan’s fault, not mine,” Mel said.

  “My fault?” Evan said, obvious surprise in his voice.

  “You were the one who blew up the street and killed Soryda’s husband. But she blames it on me. I don’t want to start another love-revenge triangle.”

  “Oh. I guess that makes sense,” Evan said thoughtfully. Mel laughed. She had been teasing him, but Evan tended to take things seriously.

  “Children, can we please focus on the discussion? These two are excellent marksmen, especially Sahass. Kapha has a good rating in tech as well. They’ll be looking for the same tall buildings as Jon. To answer Mel, I’m not aware of them being a couple, although they have previously played on the same team. I doubt they have the teamwork level of Croaker and Polliwog, but it’s something to be aware of. Teamwork is a huge issue at the hig
her levels.”

  The image flicked to a fat man covered in deep red fur with blue patches for eyes. The longer fur around his neck had been collected in braids. Gorgeous gasped and leaned forward. Anna continued.

  “This is Samor. He’s not much of a fighter, at least not for this level of gauntlet. But he’s excellent at tech. I’m a bit surprised they have him on the team, as my preliminary analysis doesn’t show tech being an advantage for this game. But I’ll do more research on that. In any case, he’s very dangerous and crafty. Someone to keep an eye on.”

  “I haven’t seen many Ankhen in the games,” Gorgeous said.

  “You can’t keep all the fame to yourself,” Riley said.

  Gorgeous leaned back with an expression the translator said was a combination of being embarrassed and shy.

  “I’ve been keeping the best for last. You’re going to love this,” Anna said, as the image changed. A familiar face hovered before them.

  “Oh, God no,” Mel said. “Stoner.”

  They had faced Stoner in their last gauntlet. He was strong and nearly indestructible. That last part had been demonstrated when Mirage had dragged him into a building right before a bomb went off, collapsing the building on top of him. And then he walked out a few minutes later. His race, the Akshay, didn’t breathe air but rather derived oxygen from their food supply. On top of all his other advantages, he would be able to function well under water.

  “That is so not fair. How does he even qualify for this game?” Riley asked.

  “He’s still rated at ninety-nine,” Anna said. “I’m guessing the scoring just hasn’t caught up yet. It’s also only his second gauntlet and he didn’t exactly destroy you guys in the last one.”

  “He killed Mirage,” Mel said.

  “What?” Evan said, his voice rising in pitch. Of all of them, Evan had bonded the most with the strange alien shapeshifter.