A Ghost for a Clue

by C L R Draeco

  “Project Hyperwill has been effectively manacled,” Mr. D said. “The rest of the Green Manor will be in danger of suspension if we challenge—”

  “Not necessarily,” I said as the fog of sleeplessness lifted from my brain. “The willdisc wasn’t made for the Green Manor.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Eldritch asked.

  “The only thing we signed here was the NDA. And all it did was bind us to secrecy as we studied the apparitions here. We were never hired to invent a storage device. So technically, it’s Roy’s and my intellectual property.”

  “You have a warped definition of ownership, Bram,” Mr. D said. “You used materials from the Green Manor, which makes my corporation the rightful owner.”

  “The parts, yes. But the technology is completely ours. If Henry Ford got parts from someone else to build a car, that someone can’t claim to own the car, can he?”

  Mr. D leaned forward and pointed a finger at me. “But you are under contract with me.”

  “Only to explain the anomaly,” Torula said, the glow of comprehension spreading across her face. “I was the one who asked Bram to make the willdisc. The Green Manor had no hand in its creation. You weren’t even supposed to know it exists.”

  Mr. D cocked his head. “I see.” He glanced at me, and his smile regained its saintly glow. “Now, indeed, I see. So even though the corporation has been restrained, you as individuals have not.”

  “But what about the parts?” Eldritch asked. “How do you skirt that technicality?”

  The chairman shrugged. “They were discards. Obsolete supplies. We turned those parts into garbage, making their finders their keepers, ja?”

  Torula rose to her feet. “Then tomorrow, we—as individuals—can go find Thomas and save him.”

  “Tomorrow?” I asked. “We haven’t even begun looking for it.”

  “That’s all right,” she said with a glimmer in her eye. “I think I know where he is.”

  “How?” I asked, baffled.

  “Thomas told you, didn’t he?” Eldritch asked, perking up like a man spotting a friend in a crowd. “Did he show you by using symbols?”

  She nodded, almost imperceptibly. “Remember when I asked Thomas where he was, and all I could hear was Starr’s jewelry? I just kept seeing her crucifix, and when I closed my eyes, I heard bells. I realized they weren’t small, tinkling bells, but more like distant church bells.” She gestured at Starr’s vacated seat. “And she also once heard me humming a church hymn I never knew. So I think Thomas is in one of the California missions.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Eldritch asked.

  “Strangely, yes. I am.” She looked at me, her eyes brimming with such conviction that I couldn’t help but nod to say I believed her.

  “Then you must go there,” Mr. D said, “and find him.”

  “To do what?” asked the psychic who couldn’t foretell the obvious.

  “What’s there to explain, Eldritch?” asked the chairman.

  “I gave Dr. Benedict my word. We are not to go entrapping souls with that device. And I agree with her.”

  “Then don’t come with us,” Torula said. “We never made that promise. Besides, as Roy once said: Thomas is not her ghost. And that if anyone can lay claim to it—”

  “No one can lay claim to anyone’s soul,” Eldritch said. “They need to be free to settle unfinished business so they can cross over. And now you plan to put him in a cage?”

  “Believe me, he won’t feel caged at all,” I said, picturing a bobbing canine orb. “Like Torula said, it’ll be more like giving a hermit crab a brand-new shell.”

  “A shell that confines him,” said Eldritch.

  I shook my head. “Not if you know the properties of crystal.”

  He turned earnest eyes towards the chairman. “Alexi—”

  “Eldritch,” Mr. D said and paused as the icy one simmered. “You will have your chance to communicate with Thomas. But tomorrow, let’s have them test their technology, ja? Let’s learn the most that we can—before you send him where you believe you have to send him.”

  48

  Could It Be Considered Alive?

  The sound of crickets greeted us as I ushered Torula down Roy’s driveway. She craned her neck as we walked past his front lawn, sparsely lit by moonlight.

  “Lovely garden,” she said, taking in a lungful of the fragrant breeze. “And he’s got a Brunfelsia Americana in full bloom.”

  “I suppose you’d notice that, even in the dark.”

  Roy greeted us at his garage’s pedestrian entrance and led us in, towards the back, where it seemed as lifeless as the rest of the deserted work area.

  “I see you’ve been busy.” I bobbed my head towards The Cellar that now had a see-through door.

  “Yeah,” Roy said. “Ditched the metal for fused silica.”

  “Great,” I said. “Now, you’ve still got the inside protected while staying transparent across the whole EM spectrum.”

  Torula smirked. “I suppose you’d notice that, even in the dark.”

  I grinned right back at her.

  The Motown had been set aside, and now at center stage was the huge TV monitor. Roy pulsed his brows teasingly at Torula. “Are you ready for this, Jackson?”

  She tilted her head. “Ready for what?”

  He flashed his superhero smile. “Come ’ere, buddy.” He bent down and started stroking thin air. “Good boy.”

  Torula looked at me with a scrunched brow. I pointed at the TV. Onscreen, where the camera should have shown only three people, there appeared a ball of light hovering in front of Roy’s knee.

  Torula glanced from the screen to Roy and back again. “What am I seeing there?”

  I swallowed, part of me still not wanting to tell her, but I had to. “Last night, we did something that I hope you’d understand. Boner’s condition took a turn for the worse, and Roy had to put him down.”

  “Oh dear, no.” She clasped Roy’s arm. “I’m so sorry. Is there anything—”

  “Don’t worry about me.” Roy flicked an uneasy gaze towards me. “Just go on and tell ’er.”

  I let out a nervous breath and carefully—truthfully—narrated what we had done and why Roy had chosen to do it that way. Torula gnawed on her lower lip, her brow in a knot as she listened to me admit that I’d stood by and helped Roy do it.

  “That wasn’t euthanasia,” she said in a low tone. “I don’t think there’s even a word for what you did.” No doubt, she had a few words in mind to describe our actions but was too kind to mention them.

  “How do you feel about it?” I asked.

  She was silent as she kept her eyes on the TV screen showing Roy moving around while the orb, invisible to the naked eye, continued to trail him. Finally, she shuddered and took a deep breath. “I can see how . . . not wanting to lose someone can lead you to make reckless decisions.”

  I realized the full meaning of her words, and I reached for her hand. “You’re not upset?”

  Her eyes shone like candlelight in the dead of night. “Why would I be? You did it, Bram. You actually did it. You proved that an afterlife exists.”

  “Hell yeah,” Roy said. “It was just a matter of us findin’ a way to detect it.”

  If there was such a thing as a stammered smile, I suppose that was what I gave them. That orb was information salvaged from a dying dog, and now Boner—his brain, body, and all—was dead and buried in Roy’s backyard. The dog’s hyperwill data was in a temperature-controlled storage cabinet and being translated by a computer, so how could it be considered alive?

  “What’s troubling is,” Torula said, “it implies that a peaceful demise means we simply fade away. That’s just so . . . so . . .” She seemed to dip deep into her well of words and came up with “. . . sad.” Her downcast eyes made me want to apologize for mathematics’ heartless conclusion.

  “There could be another possibility, though.” I cracked my knuckles, hoping to give my equations a sympathetic s
ide. “Maybe a peaceful death is a mathematical concept that doesn’t happen.”

  Torula and Roy looked at me with hopeful eyes.

  “Death is a crisis, no matter what,” I said. “Even if you overdose on sleeping pills, or if you were in a coma—your entire system is hardwired to find some way to fight it.”

  Torula nodded. “Even a dehydrated Spider Plant would say no to it. Repeatedly.”

  “There you go,” I said with a grin. “An equation—where the impetus to fight death is at or near zero—just doesn’t occur in real life. It’s only in my sketchpad.”

  “But what about that poodle who died in ’er sleep?” Roy asked. “We didn’t get a jot o’ her soul.”

  I rubbed my stubbled jaw. “How long did you wait?”

  He shrugged. “Long enough.”

  Torula squinted and tilted her head. “Maybe when the organism isn’t under duress, it just takes longer.”

  “Shit. You mean, she coulda been tricklin’ out?”

  “Who’s to say?” she said with a chuckle. “After all, we’re using software intended for botanical life, not some . . . other kind.”

  Roy’s brow shot up. “Ooh, almost forgot. Speakin’ o’ other kinds o’ life.” He grabbed a sealed envelope from a table. “I went to the clinic to get some info about your electrogenesis results, and they asked me to give you this.”

  She scanned the note. “They want to talk to me about my blood test results.”

  “I knew it!” Roy gyrated, rubbing his tummy like a badly trained belly-dancer. “All those dizzy spells and the nausea? Somethin’ tells me you two are gonna have some company when you head off to Svalbard.”

  I stopped breathing for a moment.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Torula said. “It could be so many other things.” She sounded glib even as she flicked the hair off her brow.

  “Let me go with you.” I was ready to insist if she said no.

  “Right. Okay,” she said after just the slightest pause. “After we catch the hyperwill.”

  49

  A Historic Tourist Attraction

  In the dead of night, Torula, Roy, and I stood gazing at the California mission. Built two and a half centuries ago, the church had been rebuilt and restored to become a historic tourist attraction. But we needed it deserted for what we had in mind.

  “Three a.m.,” Roy griped as he pulled on a beanie. “Twenty-four hours in a day, and you had to choose three a.m.”

  Torula buttoned up her coat against the chill. “When aiming to catch an elusive creature in the wild, would you do it when you think it’ll be sleeping?”

  “That depends,” Roy said. “People usually wait for Dracula to sleep before—”

  “All right, listen up.” My breath turned into visible puffs of warmth as I spoke. “We need to look for places that rarely get disturbed. Ideal places for standing waves. Like attics, cellars, small rectangular rooms.”

  “Only rectangular rooms?” Torula asked.

  “Ideally, but not necessarily having parallel walls. As long as a multiple of half the wavelength of the room resonance fits between the opposite walls.”

  “Right. As if that actually helps me. Let’s go.” She led us towards the churchyard, stepping onto a grassy area and walking close to the rough, stone wall. “I think we should look near there.” Torula pointed towards the belfry.

  “Why there?” Roy asked.

  “That was how Thomas told me he was in a church. With the sound of bells.”

  “All that clangin’ and bangin’ isn’t bound to keep a wave standin’ around. I’d put my chips on the basement.”

  “The basement?” Torula asked. “But . . .”

  “The floor plans we got say the entrance would be over there,” I said, pointing in another direction.

  “Right.” Torula sighed and looked as though she had to pull her feet out of quicksand before she moved. We came to a hatch on the ground partly concealed by low bushes. It had no lock. As I lifted it open, the rusty hinges rasped in the quiet night. I glanced nervously at all the darkened windows around and overhead.

  Turning his flashlight on, Roy descended the rickety steps then shone the beam on the stairs for Torula.

  She stayed glued to where she stood.

  “You claustrophoberizin’?”

  I flinched inwardly. Crap. How could I have forgotten? I pulled out my car key and offered it to her. “You should wait in the—”

  “No. I just need to . . . concentrate.”

  “Have you started your treatment for this?”

  “It’s only tough for me in dark and tight spaces,” she answered with a stilted smile. “I’m sure it’s roomy down there, and there’s bound to be some light.”

  “Turn the lights on, Roy,” I said and climbed down part of the way then held out my hand for her.

  She leaned over and held on. Her grip was tight—too tight. I offered my other hand too, but she froze, crouching there, unable to take a step.

  Roy cussed from the darkness below. “No lights down ’ere, dammit.”

  The dim glow of Roy’s flashlight caught the terror in Torula’s eyes as she made her slow and shaky way down. Her breathing grew quick and shallow.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  She retched then stumbled her way back up.

  “Jesus.” I bolted after her.

  She tugged at her coat collar, pulling it away from her throat. A loud cough escaped her, and we glanced up towards a window in time to see a light go on. Torula grabbed my shirt and yanked me backwards into the basement hatch. We clambered down the stairs, but I missed a step and twisted in despair to help Torula keep her balance. Roy lunged forward, caught us in time, and helped break our fall.

  With all three of us crumpled on the rough ground, Roy let out a crisp but quiet, “Fuck.”

  “You’ve always . . . been horrible . . . with stairs,” Torula said, her eyes shut tight.

  “Are you hurt?” I asked.

  She shook her head but was panting—struggling to control her breathing.

  “Man,” Roy said, “this gig is a bad idea for someone pregnant.”

  I glanced up at the open hatch, expecting someone to either look down at us or lock us in. I raised myself on one elbow and leaned over her. “How are you feeling?”

  She looked at me, her eyes betraying her anxiety. I laid a hand on her abdomen, aching to protect . . . whatever might be . . . as we lay there waiting for calmness to return.

  Torula took a long, deep breath, shuddered, and sighed. “I think I can get up now.”

  “I’ll take you back to the car,” I said, helping her up.

  “You need me here to lure Thomas. But . . .” She looked up at the hatch where some moonlight streamed through. “Maybe I can just sit here and . . . keep an eye out.”

  “Great idea.” I handed her a flashlight and flicked another towards her pendant but was surprised not to find it there. “Where’s your jammer?”

  “I left it in the car.”

  “What the hell. Why’d you do that?”

  “We’re looking for Thomas, and I’m the bait. Now, will you please get on with what we came here to do?”

  “Damn it, Spore. The last time you were this stubborn, you went blind.” I had to grit my teeth to keep from raising my voice.

  “I’ll be fine.” Torula strode towards a spot next to a pillar. She sat on the ground, cross-legged, and leaned against the wall. “I’ll sit right here—relaxed and rested—until you get back. Now go. Find Thomas.”

  Roy grabbed his knapsack and pulled some antique-looking contraption out of it—like an odd assemblage of spare parts without a shell, about the size of a big man’s shoe.

  Torula gave it a dubious frown. “What is that relic?”

  “A standin’ wave detector.”

  “Eldritch uses EMF detectors surely far more advanced than that. And he says even those don’t give him much help.”

  “It’s ’cause they aren’t standi
n’ wave detectors. This one is, and it’s calibrated for hyperwills.” Roy disappeared into the gloom.

  I contemplated manhandling Torula out of the place, but there’d be a steep price to pay if I did. “Give me a call as soon as you feel anything wrong, you understand?”

  “Aye, aye, Captain Morrison, sir.” She gave me a salute, and I could only crack my neck in frustration.

  I turned around and promptly hit my head on a beam. “Bugger.” I stooped my way in and soon caught up with Roy. The floor was uneven, and with every step, bricks wobbled or crumbled underfoot. Wooden planks stood exposed against the rough-hewn walls and the stale air smelled of forgotten time. Around a corner, the space narrowed sharply, and thick support beams grew dense. The pillars formed a broken, narrow alleyway towards a boxed-in area.

  At the mouth of the cramped alcove, Roy checked his meter reading and let out a low whistle. “I think we found the sweet spot. My naked C fibers are shiverin’ down ’ere.”

  He took out the iCube and edged towards the tight opening. Stuffing himself through the gap, he pushed the iCube in as far as he could. “Okay, it’s in place.” He heaved himself out and collapsed backwards on the floor. “Jesus H. This is like waitin’ for a heart attack to happen.”

  I was afraid he was right. I imagined Torula fighting off her fears with a flashlight for a sword.

  Roy reclined on the floor as though on a picnic blanket in the park. “Hey, would you have believed anyone if they told you a few weeks ago you’d be sittin’ in the dark somewhere aimin’ to catch a ghost?”

  I shook my head. “There are a lot of things I never would’ve believed possible just a few weeks ago.”

  “Damn straight. I’ve changed my mind about how haunted houses are just places with strong EM fields. Or that spooky corridors just have infrasound givin’ people the creeps. ’Cause I used to think, if you take away those things, then all the spooky stuff disappears, so that proves there were never any ghosts. But hell, now I see it’s the wrong cause-and-effect. I mean, if you kill all the bamboo trees and then all the koalas disappear, it isn’t right to say there never were any koalas.”