by C L R Draeco
“I see.” So that’s why I was told to come here.
“I mean, I didn’t doubt she really saw some things sometimes—it’s not like she has it 24/7. Her abilities come and go, and there’s no predictin’ when. But because people know she has the gift, they ask her what she’s seein’ anytime—and she obliges, even when I know she can see absolutely nothin’. I didn’t like ’er dupin’ people like that. Makin’ ’em cry and givin’ ’em hope in things she was just makin’ up.”
Okay, so he knows she faked it but . . . “How can you be so sure there were times she wasn’t faking it?”
“’Cause the dogs see the same things she does. She’d whisper to me there’s a ghost standin’ somewhere, and the next thing you know, our dogs would be growlin’ at nothin’ at the same spot. Creeps me out even more when the dogs see ’em when she’s not around.”
I considered possible explanations but concluded nothing. “What do you suppose they’re seeing? I mean, rationally speaking.”
“Real information. Data that keeps replayin’ like some poor old transmission.”
I perked up at the sound of the magic word. “A transmission . . . from where?” Gawd, I hope he doesn’t say Purgatory.
Roy tapped his hands against both sides of his head. “From here. A lifetime’s memory bank exported on Wi-Fi. Brain data that somehow spilled outta bounds, burned on waves of energy that all livin’ things are capable o’ makin’. Hell, practically any form of energy can turn into a data storage device.”
It made some sense, but at the same time, didn’t. “For what purpose?”
“Shit, I dunno. What purpose do leftovers have? Ghosts are like guests who stay on long after the party’s over. They got nothin’ else to do, nowhere else to go. And for some reason, some people—and some dogs—have some way o’ seein’ stuff that we can’t.” Roy leaned forward in his seat. “Say . . . these scientist friends o’ yours with the ghost. You think they’ll lemme have a peek at it?”
“Nobody knows what it is, and it’s not really ‘there.’ My friend just triggered it by accident, so she doesn’t know how it—”
“She!” Roy’s eyes popped wide open. “Well, that says a lot about why you’re pourin’ time into this shit.”
I gave a fidget of a smile.
“Maybe I can help you get ’er some answers.”
“By calling in your ex wife? I don’t think so.”
“Hell no! I’m tired o’ takin’ ’er word for it that these creatures are hangin’ around everywhere. It’s about time I saw one for myself. So why don’t I go eyeball the ghost while you keep your eye on somethin’ way prettier. You know what I’m sayin’?”
I pictured Roy dealing with this “hyperwill” puzzle while I concentrated on wowing Torula with the wonders of outer space. Not a bad idea. “I suppose I can ask—”
“O’ course you gotta ask, and she’ll say yes! Scientists gotta test their theories, and they need engineers to make ’em work.”
14
A Ghost Engineer
Torula had said yes to letting another pair of eyes look at her data so fast, the next question I should have asked was if she’d be willing to fly off to some distant star with me. Instead, all I said was “When?” And she answered, “Tonight.”
Which was how I ended up at the Green Manor’s basement parking lot, waiting. She came walking towards the car under the warm glow of lights, and I stepped out with a smile that held all my desires and hopes and crazy dreams to take her far, far away.
“Hey, Spore.”
“Hi.” She tiptoed and surprised me with a kiss on the cheek, bringing with it the sweet scent of Lavender Lace. It seemed I underestimated the brownie points I’d earned for having found her a ghost engineer.
From the passenger side of the car emerged exactly that: Roy—looking far more like the former engineering professor that he was, wearing a crisp executive shirt neatly tucked into dark slacks over leather shoes, smelling of soap and cologne and not a whiff of motor oil on him.
“Dr. Torula Jackson,” I said. “This is Roy Radio.”
“Torula. Is that Asian or somethin’?”
“No,” Torula said. “It’s yeast.”
“East?”
“Yeast. My father’s a microbiologist. So, in his honor, my mother named me after a fungal spore.”
“No kiddin’.”
“What about you?” Torula asked. “Were you a DJ, and Radio was your handle or something?”
“Heck no. I was baptized with it. My granddad got real famous with ’is neighbors for pickin’ up an AM station with his tooth fillin’ at a particular spot at the 7-Eleven store. Instead o’ havin’ the loose fillin’ fixed, he got a name change. To celebrate ’is celebrity, you know what I’m sayin’?”
She nodded and smiled, but its sparkle quickly faded; she seemed tense, or maybe excited. “I’m afraid we’ll have to hurry. I told Security you’re only here to pick me up for dinner.” She spun around and led us at a brisk pace to Greenhouse 3C.
Vintage lanterns hung from tree branches, casting a golden glow across the stone paths. The cool night smelled like all the colors of springtime, and in the distance, gazebos sparkled with garlands of pin lights.
“I gotta tell you,” Roy said, “the last thing this place looks like is haunted.”
Soon after we stepped into Starr’s electrified nursery, Roy changed his tone. “Damn. This place reeks o’ all the stuff you need for the heebie-jeebies.”
Torula led us straight to the workstation and opened charts and tables so Roy could have a look. “We’re calling the subject a ‘hyperwill,’ and data indicates that it might be crepuscular in nature. Or, to be precise, vespertine.”
Roy sucked in his breath through his teeth. “Vespertine.” He echoed the word with cinematic drama. “What a great name for a vampire villain with god-awesome fangs.”
I chuckled.
Torula frowned. “What I’m saying is, it seems to be behaving like a living creature that comes out only at dusk for survival reasons.”
“Say what? You’re thinkin’ sunlight will turn it to ashes? Phew! Never expected that from a scientist.”
Irritation flashed in Torula’s eyes. “I’m thinking science. You’re the one obsessed with vampires.” She might have kicked aside the nursery’s welcome mat right then if she could. “There are two hypotheses on the table. One: It comes out at dusk because its energy source is more abundant at sunset or in the dark. Or two: Without a protective protein coating, the living data is better preserved under cooler temperatures—thus hyperwills avoid the punishing heat of the sun.”
Living data. What the devil was that? I held my tongue and kept my objections at bay.
Roy scanned the charts and tabulated data. “You say you’ve only got two hauntings?”
“Incidents,” Torula said. “Let’s refrain from using such folkloric terms.”
“Yeah, sure. Whatever spins your cobweb. How come you got three clusters o’ data here if you only had two sightings?”
Torula shot him an acid look before answering. “The second time, it appeared twice. First as a man dressed in blue holding Myosotis sylvatica, then as a blurry, blue blob.”
Roy’s face scrunched up. “Holdin’ what?”
“Forget-me-nots.”
“Which are what?”
“Blue flowers.”
“Why didn’t you just say so?” Roy swiveled his seat and went back to surveying the charts.
Bugger. These two were off to a bumpy start, and the plus points I’d earned for bringing Roy over had probably dwindled away—possibly pushing me into the negative. I swabbed a hand over my mouth.
“Looks to me like you got a spike in electromagnetic activity each time,” Roy said, “but you can’t overlay the spectra generated and say they’re identical. You got some visible light ’ere, none over there. More gamma over ’ere, IR over there. The only thing consistent I see is time o’ day.”
“Precisely,”
she said. “And since hyperwill incidents are commonly witnessed from sunset onwards, I’d like to test if it points to a survival pattern.”
There she goes again—relating this to survival. But I didn’t want this to become me and Roy against her thesis. So I folded my arms and continued to bite my tongue, though it was starting to grow numb.
Roy shook his head. “Not all ghosts are night creatures, Jackson. Lotsa people see ’em even in the middle o’ the day.”
“I realize that. But it could be similar to how certain bats are occasionally observed flying in the daytime. They need to make up for energy deficits—in case they weren’t able to forage enough at twilight or in the night. Even though they’re spotted during the day, it’s still considered unusual behavior linked to survival.”
I straightened up, and my objections burst out of me. “The pipes in my ceiling tend to creak at night. That doesn’t make them living creatures trying to survive.”
“Sarcasm,” she said. “That’s your rebuttal?”
“It’s just data, Spore.”
“Isn’t DNA also just data?” she asked.
I winced inwardly, sensing that answer was about to yank the conversation into a direction I didn’t want to go.
“Every known living cell contains DNA. Needs DNA,” she said. “It replicates to preserve its own existence, and yet, based on biology’s list of criteria, it’s not alive. But what if it’s . . .” She flicked the hair off her brow. “. . . like the AllSpark?”
“Say what?” Roy asked.
I squinted at her. “Are you trying to speak to me in robot language again?”
“No,” she said. “It’s a metaphor for a bringer of life-giving energy that’s not from a battery or a socket in the wall.”
I glanced at Roy to see if he could guess what the bloody hell she meant.
He shrugged. “It’s either Red Bull or Viagra.”
“It’s DNA.” She took a long, deep breath, like an ocean pulling away from the shore just before launching a tsunami. “After a cell membrane breaks down, some extracellular DNA can survive the hostile environment they find themselves in. That means it is naked data that holds itself intact even after cell death. Then it gets harnessed for biofilm formation, horizontal gene transfer, and several other things. I’m sure you grasp its importance.”
“Not really,” I said.
“It means this ‘leftover’ DNA actually manages to find a new purpose in life.”
“I think you mean a new purpose in death.”
“But hey!” Roy snapped his fingers and pointed his fingers like guns aimed at Torula. “It’s still a purpose for leftovers.”
I couldn’t tell if Roy was mocking or supporting her, but she went on with her argument.
“If nature can grab hold of something so elemental and have it adapt, isn’t it more likely with a complex and possibly conscious hyperwill? What if this incorporeal data doesn’t need to be ‘plugged into carbon’ to survive? What if life just . . . happens to flow through it?” For a second, she seemed like a female Dr. Frankenstein with blue-violet voltage sparking from her eyes.
“That’s why you’re sayin’ it’s like the AllSpark?” Roy scratched his stubbled head. “Hell, I dunno. The only transformers we talked about in engineerin’ classes were lifeless things that increased or decreased electrical voltage.”
“I’m proposing that the energy that sparks biological life is life itself, and it could come in a variety of expressions. Like kinetic or static or potential. What if every piece of matter has the potential for vivacity, ebullience, or brio?”
“Brio? Hell, I dunno where you dig up your words, Jackson, or why you even go there, ’cause it sure as hell doesn’t help you communicate.”
Torula looked away, gnawing her lip, quite likely mulling a counterargument. This battle of opinions wasn’t bound to go—
She gasped all of a sudden, her eyes locked onto something at the table. I turned, expecting to see some apparition sitting on the console but saw nothing.
“You have to go,” Torula said urgently.
Something sparkled at the far end of the table. It was Starr’s gem-encrusted cell phone.
“Whatduh? You kickin’ us out just ’cause we don’t believe you?”
Starr’s voice cut in like a thunderclap sent by God. “No, she’s kicking you out because you’re not authorized to be here.”
Torula looked at her, wide-eyed. “Starr, I thought you were . . .”
“I had a feeling this would happen.” Starr’s face was set as she climbed up the platform steps, dressed in citrusy colors of lemon and lime. “I was wondering how long you could resist . . . I just never thought it would be less than an hour.” Her heels clicked sharply across the wooden floor. “I came back for this.” She picked up her phone. “Perhaps God has a reason for making me forget it.”
“Obviously, it’s so the two of us could meet.” Roy strode towards her, and Starr seemed too stunned to object when he took her hand and kissed it. “Roy Radio. Immensely pleased to meetcha.”
Starr pulled her hand away and trained her eyes on Torula. “Do you realize what you’ve done?”
“Nothing yet,” Torula said.
“You’ve deepened the case against us. You’ve let an absolute stranger in.”
“Well, if you give me your name, we won’t be strangers anymore, missy,” Roy said.
Starr turned to him with green eyes that threatened like Kryptonite. “Do I look like I’m interested in making friends right now?”
None of this made sense. Starr was pissed. Torula looked guilty. And Roy acted as if he were on a blind date. “Can someone tell me what’s going on?”
Starr thrust both fists into her hips and trained death-ray eyes on Torula, who conceded, “Starr had asked me earlier to—”
“I didn’t ask, honey. I demanded it.”
Torula sighed through gritted teeth. “She demanded that we stop all studies on the hyperwill.”
I gaped at Starr. “Stop the study? Just the other day you held our hands in prayer wanting to save what you believed was a lost soul.” And I’d brought Roy over hoping to prove it wasn’t.
“Well . . .” Starr softened her tone, though she still had the trace of a frown. “I admit, I was initially drawn into this for personal reasons, but since then I’ve found guidance in the Bible, and I’ve decided to let the dead bury the dead.”
“I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean.” Couldn’t she just have found guidance in a research paper?
“It means she’d rather pay attention to things that matter to the living,” Torula said. “Specifically, the future of her children. Starr’s afraid of the consequences if management finds out.”
“You’ve done nothing wrong.” I cocked my head, suddenly unsure. “Have you?”
“Of course, we have,” Starr said, throwing her hands up. “We’ve turned millions of dollars’ worth of lab facilities into a Ouija board. And if word gets out, we could ruin the Manor’s reputation by implying it’s interested in pseudoscience. We could become the cause for it to lose its credibility.”
Torula shook her head. “You’re blowing things out of pro—”
“Think about this, Tor! It’s our careers at stake,” Starr said. “What sort of great discovery could possibly result from this peek into the afterworld?” She raised a red-polished forefinger. “Name me one scientific breakthrough that ever came out of the pursuit of the supernatural.”
“EEG,” Torula said, her conviction so undaunted I had to fold my arms to keep from cheering her on.
“What?” Starr asked, her frown deepening.
“The electroencephalograph. Hans Berger was intrigued by mental telepathy. As a psychiatrist, he wanted to find something in the natural sciences that would explain how someone’s emotional distress could be transmitted miles away. Asking that question led him to the discovery of the electrical nature of the brain and his invention that eventually changed the world of ne
uroscience.”
Starr pursed her lips. “Aren’t you the no-nonsense nerd who always wants to be taken seriously? Do you really think you can share findings about the afterlife and not have the entire scientific world in stitches?”
Torula gave a one-sided shrug. “I’ve thought about that, and I’ve done some reading.”
“And?” Starr asked.
“Only the famous get more famous for debunking the mystical, not for proving it.”
Starr blinked as though a haze was clouding her vision. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Unknown scientists—like us—who investigate the paranormal don’t get any recognition at all, no matter how legitimate their findings. Only renowned scientists who take that dubious detour end up with infamy.”
“So, Berger fell into infamy.” Starr nodded, seemingly with satisfaction. “Did he at least come anywhere near proving the existence of ESP?”
Torula gave no answer. Not even a shake of her head.
Starr sighed. “I’m sorry, Tor, but it’s for the best that we stop this. I’ve been praying for a sign that says it’s all right for us to go on, but so far, all I’ve felt is anxiety—that we’re doing the wrong thing. And that means you’re all leaving my nursery. Now.”
“Wait,” Torula said. “Just let Roy finish studying the—”
“Dr. Jackson?”
With one synchronized jerk of our heads, we turned towards the unidentified speaker. A manor guard stood there with no trace of cordiality on his face. “Your guests don’t have clearance to be in here. I’ll need to escort them out.”
Torula put on an innocent smile and gestured towards me. “Oh, but he’s the same guy you let Starr bring in a few days ago.”
“That was a few days ago. Before the unauthorized use of this nursery was reported.”
“Reported?” Starr clutched her necklace. “By whom?”
15
What Would ISEA Think?
Less than twenty-four hours later, Roy and I stood face to face in his garage, with me leaning against a grand old muscle car and him against a souped-up pickup. This was something I could have asked through a phone call. But Roy, though no longer a stranger, was still caught in that gray category between acquaintance and friend. There was a favor I needed to ask, and I needed to look him in the eye to make it harder for him to say no. Would he be willing to go back to the Green Manor to meet Torula’s and Starr’s boss?