A Ghost for a Clue

by C L R Draeco

  I sauntered back to my seat and made one restrained fist pump, mouthing a silent “Yes!”

  By the time Torula joined me back on the workstation, I’d concealed my silly grin behind a mask of detachment.

  She looked at my bone-dry mug. “You downed that burning hot coffee really fast.”

  “Well, yeah, uhm . . .” I traced a zigzag across my eyes. “I’m falling asleep here.”

  She smiled, cupped my cheek, then leaned over to kiss me on the mouth.

  That’s just got to mean a yes! “Hmm . . .” I licked my lips, forcing myself to look all cool about it. “Keep that up, and I won’t need another cup of coffee.”

  She dazzled me with her eyes. “Mom was finally able to bring Truth home yesterday.”

  “That’s great.” It was an odd segue, but it was still great news. “What’s the diagnosis?”

  “ITP.” Torula pulled a chair over and took a seat. “An idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, compounded by hyperkalemia.”

  “English, Spore.”

  “A bleeding condition of unknown cause, plus an abnormally high concentration of potassium in the blood. Mom’s turned the hyperjammer off and is giving Truth lots of puzzles and mental exorcisms to keep him on beta waves.”

  I didn’t let on that I’d caught that slip of the tongue, but it told me enough of what she thought of Truth’s illness.

  She laid a hand on my thigh. “Thank you.”

  I raised my brow in a silent query.

  “If you hadn’t thought of that hyperjammer, I don’t know what condition Truth would be in by now.”

  I squelched my smile, downplaying the sense of achievement that puffed up my chest. “You’re welcome.”

  “I mean it.” She squeezed my thigh. “I’ve been spending all my time just thinking of the best way to thank you.”

  In a split second, I thought of a thousand possibilities—all of them on a starship headed towards another sector of the galaxy. “I’ve got a few ideas.”

  A man’s voice suddenly cut in. “Are we all set?” Eldritch asked like a sudden cold shower.

  “Almost. Sorry to cut in, lovey doves.” Roy bounded up the platform steps. “Come on, Jackson. You’ve been exiled to Schwarzwald.”

  “What do you mean?” Torula asked, frowning.

  Roy opened his hand and dangled a necklace with a hyperjammer for a pendant. “I’m not gonna hail any hyperwills until you and your kid brother have your jammers on. Hell, I called my ex about this ‘spirit attachment’ thing, and she says she’s always scared of it happenin’ to ’er dog ’cause they usually prey on weaker subjects—like pets or little kids.”

  “You called your ex?” I asked. Was Roy’s enthusiasm for this project fueled by something personal?

  “Don’t worry. I didn’t say anythin’ about what we’re up to here.”

  Torula moved her seat backwards and away from me, her eyes like daggers. “You knew about this?”

  I gave a reluctant nod. In truth, it was my idea to send her to another building. But I figured she’d have an easier time accepting it if it was for the benefit of the experiment than because I was worried about her. “You won’t miss a thing,” I said. “You’ll see everything clearly on the monitor we set up there.”

  “Let’s go, honey.” Starr waved her over from the base of the steps. “I’ll keep you company.”

  Torula glared at her. “I thought you didn’t even approve of using the hyperjammer?”

  “I don’t. Especially not where it can harm Thomas. But I don’t want you speaking in tongues again, so come on.” Starr bade Torula towards her with her brightly painted nails.

  Eldritch checked his wristwatch, then tugged gruffly on the cuff of his sleeve. “Shall we get started?”

  “This isn’t fair,” Torula said. “If it weren’t for me, none of you would be seeing any of this.” She snatched the hyperjammer from Roy and grumbled as she tromped away.

  I stared, barely breathing, at the dark glass chamber as we waited for Torula and Starr to make their way to Schwarzwald. This was to be my parting gift for the Green Manor after a short two-month stint. Torula’s closure. My final step. The completion of her spectral quest.

  I rubbed a sweaty palm over my pant leg, feeling like an artist just before his first sculpture was to be unveiled.

  A ghost for a work of art.

  “You know what I’m thinkin’?” Roy said. “With all the stuff we’ve added to the system with a faulty VeggieVolt still runnin’ in the background—and now it’s talkin’ for plants and ghosts—it should have a new name. Like Verdamalgam or somethin’.”

  I imagined Torula cringing and shook my head. “We’re sticking to Verdabulary.”

  “We’re all set, dearies.” Starr’s voice came over my headset, coming all the way from Schwarzwald’s conference room.

  “Okay, peeps,” Roy said. “Buckle up and enjoy the ride.”

  With the faint hum of a machine coming to life, the tilted mirror at the core of the central cylinder began to spin. It built up speed and soon became a blurry vortex. When the mirror hit the optimum spin rate, Roy gave me a thumbs up. “You’re on, Morrison.”

  I initiated the modified program, and several tense seconds went by with nothing but an unchanging vortex to look at. I laid my hand on the console table, mentally giving the Verdabulary the push it needed.

  Come on, you can do it.

  Slowly, almost imperceptibly, a breath of color spread over the hazy twister. Then a blotchy image appeared, difficult to discern. Eldritch stepped closer to the chamber, and I lay my fists on the console table, urging the system to correct itself and . . . extrapolate.

  At last, in the middle of the 3D chamber stood the vivid image of Thomas.

  Roy rose to his feet. “Holy Mother o’ Moses.”

  A sense of achievement, like a warm shot of whiskey, coursed through me. The hyperwill looked exactly as I’d expected it would. Complexion: Rich and ruddy. Garments: The finest of his era. His stance: Like a nobleman captured in a period painting.

  Even though I was the one who had sent Torula away, I wished she were right next to me, admiring my handiwork first-hand.

  And then, Thomas spoke.

  “. . . (static) . . . help me . . . (static) . . . floor . . . ins . . . (static) . . . tell her . . . (static) . . . never forget.”

  The hair on my arm stood on end. This was no longer a borrowed voice from the Verdabulary; it was, presumably, the hyperwill’s own record of what Thomas had sounded like—if that were truly its name. Though garbled and gritty, it still preserved enough of a pleasant quality.

  The specter’s lips made subtle movements, but never in synch with what we heard. The audio signal looped, each playback lasting for less than a minute, most of it meaningless hissing and garbage.

  Starr’s voice came through our headsets. “This is unbelievable.”

  Eldritch gazed at the apparition. “At last we have proof.”

  Roy and I exchanged fist bumps.

  “He’s so handsome,” Starr said.

  “O’ course he is. Morrison grabbed images from Hollywood movies and made a composite. Recognize the actor? He’s from that Mafia versus aliens movie.”

  “I just gave him longer hair,” I said.

  Eldritch turned towards us, his eyes boring right through me. “What did he say?”

  I jabbed a thumb towards the large monitor at the base of the platform showing exactly what they were seeing in the conference room. The image of Thomas in his blue silken shirt and britches stood unmoving, staring blindly at nothing. “What we’re looking at here is just Pepper’s Ghost—a technique to create an optical illusion—and that’s its 2D representation.”

  “A representation?” Eldritch asked.

  I nodded. “When I recorded the stream of information of the last apparition, I ended up with mostly damaged data. So I gave the computer what it was missing. Sort of like planting a memory in there so it could extrapolate.”


  “Yeah, it’s like how you catch a glimpse o’ someone’s eyes or mouth or somethin’ and your brain fills in everythin’ else so you recognize who it is.”

  “Exactly,” I said, gesturing towards the console. “I gave the computer the ability to fill in the gaps based on what I remember of what I’d seen—or at least, what I think I’d seen. So now, when the hyperwill appears, even when the data’s missing, damaged, or isn’t in the visible spectrum, the software does a fix and translates it for us.”

  The hyperwill turned its head slightly to one side and hardly anything else, though it probably blinked.

  “There really is an ‘apparition,’” Roy said, “but it doesn’t look like what we’re seein’. In fact, Thomas isn’t even in the chamber. It’s still just a projection.”

  Eldritch strode towards us, hands curled into fists at his side. “Are you saying all this is a parlor trick?”

  “No, it’s a reconstruction.” I raised a calming hand. “We really are receiving a hyperwill signal from somewhere out there. The computer harvests that data and selects just what we need to get a 2D image. Then, using a high-speed, high-brightness projector, we cast that 2D image onto the spinning mirror inside the chamber, turning the hyperwill into a virtual 3D image. So what we get is this optical illusion using reflection and light and transparent surfaces.”

  Thomas continued to stand motionless, like a man daydreaming while waiting for a subway train, oblivious to his surroundings. Using the computer tablet, I zoomed the camera in.

  Eldritch stared at the composite. “Exactly how much of this is . . . extrapolated?”

  I tapped on the tablet, and in the blink of an eye, Thomas’ image blurred. All the color receded into grayscale, then the very structure of the man dissipated until its opacity faded away. All that was left was a smoky, floating film of what looked like a five-foot-tall, whitish blob with a few barely discernible highlights and shadows that might have served to define Thomas’s image of himself.

  “That’s all there really is of him?” Starr asked through the earpiece.

  “It’s as good as it gets with today’s radio wave videography,” Roy said.

  “And since we can’t actually ‘see’ radio waves,” I said, “we can only interpret the data as a black and white image.”

  Torula stayed silent, probably still pissed for having been exiled.

  Eldritch walked closer to the chamber wall and gazed at the smoky specter. “All this equipment. All this so-called ‘science.’ And all you give me is a hoax?”

  I’d shattered the man’s hopes; I almost felt like apologizing. “I’ve reconstructed it as best as I could. Look, I even broke its nose.”

  “You did what?” Eldritch asked.

  “Well, he had to, honey,” Starr said. “It’s the most obvious thing that ruins Thomas’s face.”

  I brought back the full simulation and zoomed in on the facial detail as Eldritch moved closer to the huge monitor. Thomas’s amber eyes nearly filled up the screen.

  “That wound must be related to the circumstances of his death,” our psychic “supervisor” said. “Spirits usually portray their mortal wound when they manifest. Many powerful hauntings are from those who were brutally wrenched from their lives.”

  “Why’d you take away the flowers?” Torula finally spoke. “He’s usually holding flowers.”

  “Forget-me-nots, right?” I asked. “I had a hunch this guy didn’t walk around with a bunch of them all the time. It just wasn’t normal. But now I’ve got another hunch. Just listen.” I raised the volume of the playback.

  “. . . (static) . . . help me . . . (static) . . . floor . . . ins . . . (static) . . . tell her . . . (static) . . . never forget.”

  “Never forget,” I said. “It wasn’t a symbol. Your brain was extrapolating too. You heard meaningless words, and since the brain is programmed to make sense of things, your mind made an assumption and turned it into something relevant to you.”

  “And he never really said Florence, did he?” Torula asked. “It’s just a jumble of apophenia and pareidolia. I was seeing substance in meaningless syllables.”

  “And is this EVP a reconstruction too?” Eldritch asked.

  “EVP?” I asked.

  “Electronic Voice Phenomenon. Ghost recordings,” Roy explained. “No, it’s legit. The software’s just digitizin’ and cleanin’ up the data, then boostin’ it into the range we can hear.”

  “What about the name Thomas?” Eldritch asked. “You can’t ‘extrapolate’ it from anything in there.”

  I muted the hyperwill’s playback. “I have to admit, the human brain is a far more sophisticated instrument than anything we’ve got. So I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more data in there that’s decipherable to Torula but not to our equipment.”

  “That’s because you’ve digitized his message,” Torula said. “The body transmits data in analog. By cleaning up the data, you also took away most of it.”

  Roy clucked his tongue. “We did what we could, Jackson. This is the best we can get outta what’s left of ’is signal. He’s just dead as a dodo.”

  “No, he’s not, Roy,” Torula said. “He’s just a mistletoe that’s been tossed from its tree. He needs a host so he can eat.”

  A shuffling sound came through the speakers.

  “Honey, what are you doing?” Starr sounded alarmed. “Tor, are you crazy? Bram, she took her jammer off and left!”

  Damn it, Spore. I rushed out of the nursery.

  As soon as I spotted Torula charging down the path, I called out to her. “You know I can’t let you in here.”

  She didn’t even slow down. “We need to talk to him.”

  “Jesus, you’re reckless.” I moved to block her advance. “Reckless and insane.”

  She stepped backwards, away from my grasp. “I’m reckless and insane? I am?” She glanced behind her, then lowered her voice. “Who’s the one thinking of flying off to godforsaken outer space?”

  “That’s different.”

  “Of course, it is. Compared to leaving my home planet with absolutely no chance of rescue, what I’m about to do now is a walk in the park.”

  “But there is,” I said.

  “There’s what?”

  “A chance of rescue. There’ll be three batches of three ships, to be launched every nine years.”

  “Oh.” She seemed to relax, and I let out a breath. “So if we’re battered by asteroids, we get rescued in nine years?”

  “Or . . . sooner.” Bollocks. “The assumption is, technology will advance so the next triads will travel faster.”

  She folded her arms and stared at me. “If I grow weak in there, how long do I have to wait before you pull me out?”

  It was probably a rhetorical question, but I answered anyway. “Not one second.”

  “Thank you,” she said and marched towards the nursery.

  33

  Where Are You?

  One step past the nursery door, and Torula’s pace slowed; her breathing grew labored, her eyes pinched.

  Starr came hustling in behind us. “Tor, stop being ridiculous. You can’t be in here.”

  “Look,” Torula said, showing us her arm. “It’s my pilomotor reflex to Thomas’s energy transmission.”

  Goose bumps. She thought it would be enough to distract me? “Come on. You have to get out before it gets worse.”

  “I just need a little time to test—”

  “Thomas has sensed you,” Eldritch called out from where he stood by the glass chamber. “He’s moving.”

  Torula surged forward, and when we came in view of the hyperwill—I couldn’t believe it. It bloody smiled at her. Not in any dark or sinister way. But like some wimpy kid who got noticed by the prom queen.

  “Oh, mercy me,” Starr whispered.

  “I’ll be damned,” Roy said.

  Torula smiled back at the image, as though she, too, were glad to see an old familiar face. “I knew he’d come. Follow a trail of ants, the flight
of a bee, the growth of a plant’s roots and branches. All living things go where there’s food.”

  “So to catch a hyper, you need bait?” Roy glanced up, as though reading notes he’d scribbled on an invisible ream of papers in his head.

  Torula took a step forward, but with that single move, she wobbled.

  I reached out to steady her, and at the same time, the hyperwill held out its hand in her direction. Bloody hell. Was it responding to her in real time?

  The pleasant, male, Verdabulary voice Thomas had chosen for itself echoed through the nursery. “Dewdrops urea thyme.”

  Torula grimaced and laid her fingers against her brow. “Where are you?”

  The image moved its lips—but we heard nothing.

  “Say it again. Where can I find you?” Torula said.

  It mouthed another soundless phrase, looked to its side, then back at Torula.

  Torula squinted and tilted her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

  “He said, ‘Tell her,’” Starr whispered, then staggered back and gasped. “Do you see it?”

  I glanced at the hyperwill but saw no reason for her to be alarmed.

  Torula grabbed my hand. “I can’t see,” she said.

  “I can’t see what she’s seeing either.”

  “No.” Torula turned towards me, her eyes focused on nothing. “Bram, I can’t see.”

  Jesus. What’s happening?

  Starr rushed forward and advised Torula to bend at the waist. “Let the blood go to your head, honey.”

  I clenched my fists, grasping at thin air. Do I force her to walk out now or let her recover first? “Roy, turn off the—”

  “No,” Torula said, head bowed, palms on her knees. “Just give me a minute.”

  I stared at the hyperwill. Though it made no sound, it seemed to be talking—engaged in conversation with whatever it was that nobody could see.

  Torula straightened up, and I put my arm across her shoulders. “How do you feel?” I asked.

  She retched and swayed, and the next thing I knew, she was limp in my arms.

  Everything around me dimmed, and I grew deaf to what the others were saying; all I strained to hear was the sound of Torula’s breathing as I lifted her into my arms. My eyes focused on the fastest way out as I rushed her away from there. Someone ran past me and opened the nursery door.