Synergeist: The Haunted Cubicle

by Daniel M. Strickland

  The other people in the waiting room were too busy trying to avoid the melee to notice the faint, ghostly image. It fed from each one in turn, taking what it could, and turning the ER into a madhouse in its wake. Some were sobbing in fear for the injured loved ones that had come in on the gurneys. One of them, in an aroused emotional state Millie didn’t care to identify, stumbled out the doors to enjoy the spectacle of the guard beating the inebriate. After brief verbal sparring, one man launched himself over a row of chairs and attempted to throttle another man. The admitting nurse tried to use the phone but had trouble overcoming the abject fear gripping her.

  Millie wanted to help them, to stop the monstrous thing. But she didn’t know how, and the strength of it frightened her. The beast came through the wall into the room with the newly separated soul floating quiescently above its former body.

  The ravenous revenant approached the serene singularity, puking vast amounts of energy into who knows where to overcome the newly formed field that protected it. The field was not strong enough to stop it. The demon enveloped the serene soul, and the soul was no more. Somehow informed that it was no longer needed, the field collapsed.

  The twin howls of the Black Hole of blessed peace and the Blazing Star’s creative fury would have knocked Millie off her feet if she had any. Their harmonic wails, mourning the subversion of free will, and deriding the act of destruction, reverberated through her being. She detected something in the demon other than hunger, and that was disdain. Disdain for the Song of Creation. She found that even more disgusting than what she had just witnessed.

  The demon collapsed back to a point. The dust and moisture settled to the floor. It now contained an unfathomable well of energy. The force it expended was nothing compared to its stores. She could do anything with that much energy. It wouldn’t have any trouble pushing a box off a chair.

  The appetite and scorn of the thing suddenly modulated with what she recognized as curiosity. It moved toward her point of perspective. She reoriented to get a better view of where it was going. Its path adjusted and once again the ravenous monster headed directly toward her gaze. It could tell she was watching!

  10

  Whenever I take up a newspaper, I seem to see Ghosts gliding between the lines. There must be Ghosts all the country over, as thick as the sand of the sea.... We are, one and all, so pitifully afraid of the light.

  —From Ghosts by HENRIK IBSEN

  Saturday morning Martin lounged on his thrift-store couch in his plaid flannel lounge pants and large “Programmers do IT better” t-shirt reading more about what Einstein called “spooky action at a distance,” quantum entanglement, and the theory of hidden nonlocal variables. He found the notion that there could exist a simultaneous superluminal connection between all points in space interesting and mind boggling, but not useful.

  He wanted practical information on how to talk to, and otherwise care for, ghosts: the sort of article that appeared monthly in men’s and women’s magazines in reference to the other gender. The more scientific articles never approached the subject, and the others just seemed ridiculous. Why would a ghost care if you were wearing loose clothing or had consumed caffeine? He wasn’t giving up his morning Red Bull for anything. He decided he was on his own. If there were any real information out there, he would never be able to tell the signal from the noise.

  Not sure what to do with himself, he rattled around in his apartment, wondering if he should get out and do something. He did housework and laundry, but the cave seemed exceptionally empty and lonely. So he did what he usually did when he felt empty and alone, he fired up his game console and immersed himself in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

  Sometime late in the evening, amid the bleak, de-saturated ruins of an irradiated office building, Martin pillaged a floor full of grimy cubicles, opening desks and filing cabinets, searching for loot, when what he thought was a body came to life and attacked him. His subconscious seized this inspiration and spit out a solution. No one would try to move into Millie’s cubicle if they thought someone was already occupying it. He had a mission for the next day: Occupy Millie’s Cube.

  11

  If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts.

  —From “Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby” by Adam Duritz

  The soul-sucking monster knew she was watching! Shocked and frightened, she withdrew her view to a point that would be about eye level, directly above the chair in her cubicle. She focused just inside the partitions of her office and rotated her gaze around the point like the beacon of a lighthouse, scanning for the demon. Panic and fear held her tight, obscuring her thoughts. Like a cornered mouse anticipating the cat’s pounce, she waited. It occurred to her that it could come from above or below as well, so she rotated her view around all three axes in what would have been vertigo-inducing gyrations if she still possessed inner ears.

  Could it find her? Would her field be strong enough if it did? What would she do if it weren’t? Make a choice? Run? Run where? Hide? Hide where? Fight? How?

  These thoughts rotated through her mind at a dizzying rate, each one its own car on a lunatic tilt-a-whirl. Eventually, the crazy carousel slowed. Enough time had passed that it should have been upon her if it was coming, unless it took the bus. She wanted to extend the focus of her vigil, but she was more afraid of finding it than of not knowing where it was.

  How did that work, sensing her gaze? Perhaps it was the Observer Effect in action. It had a simple logic to it. If the act of observation on a system had an effect on it, then perhaps that effect could be detected. She reran the flawless memory of the encounter through her mind.

  At the time she thought it was only the coming toward her that caused her to realize the beast detected her gaze. Now she knew that she also sensed it, much like that “hair standing up on the back of your neck” feeling people got when someone was watching them. Perhaps the two were the same.

  No one watched her now. She would have felt the gaze. But that didn’t mean it didn’t have a means to track her. She stopped her wild visual sweeps and felt for eyes on her. Could the thing find her without looking at her? Who knew what tricks this otherworldly predator might have?

  Being Saturday, there was no one in the office nearby. She watched, contemplated her fate, and listened to the twin siren songs of creation as they called to her. Feeling for eyes became a subconscious burglar alarm. Extended survival as a ghost seemed more unlikely than ever. Only the prospect of communicating with Martin kept her from giving up and choosing.

  She no longer slept, sleep being a biological function, but sometime in the night her mind slipped into a meditative state. The world in her mind and the world she watched switched places. The vivid memories that flowed unbidden like random home movie clips became reality. She did not choose them. They chose themselves. Millicent Able, this is your life.

  A birthday party in which she had received a giant 120 pack of crayons and Jimmy who had lived over the back fence threw up birthday cake all over her friend Katie.

  “Don’t worry dear.”

  Dozing in the back of the car as they drove to Grandmother’s house, the drone of the engine and the murmur of her parent’s voices.

  “Sleep tight.”

  She was in her first drawing class in which they drew a nude male, the embarrassment, and the smell of charcoal. She had been too flummoxed to do much of anything. Katie drew a perfectly rendered phallus.

  “No one can stop us!”

  Bulldozers growled as they pushed over trees in the Amazon with voices shouting in unison over the ugly noise.

  “Stop crucifying the Rainforest!”

  The night full of tears and hugs when Katie told her she was moving to Chicago.

  “We’ll keep in touch.”

  William Catner and her curled up on the sofa, keeping each other warm and watching Doctor Who.

  “I’m here; can’t you see me?”

  She was eating strawberries on a deck overlooking the ocea
n with calypso music in the background, the sun warming the back of her neck, and the sea breeze cooling it.

  “Don’t worry; be happy.”

  Then she was serving cake at an office celebration. Martin was next in line.

  “Millie?”

  12

  I knew her for a little ghost

  That in my garden walked;

  The wall is high—higher than most—

  And the green gate is locked.

  —From “The Little Ghost” by Edna St. Vincent Millay

  Sunday was best for this type of covert mission. Especially before noon, there was nobody in the office. Martin began planning and gathering the ingredients in the morning. He searched the corporate registry for an employee in his group he knew to be strictly work-from-home: Yolanda Westridge. He found her Facebook page and snagged pictures of her, her significant other, and her kids. He sized and printed these to fit in standard frame sizes. Then he put them in his old briefcase and headed for the office. On the way he stopped by the pharmacy just outside his apartment complex and bought picture frames. He also stopped at the “Jesus is Lord Thrift Store,” which oddly enough was open on Sunday, and picked up a couple of ladies’ sweaters and a couple of coffee cups.

  Once at the office, he put the pictures in the frames, stuffed the briefcase with papers from the trash can beside the Dais of Digital Duplication, and raided the supply closet for the usual desk supplies: stapler, pens, pencils, and tape dispenser. He loaded all the stuff in an empty copy paper box along with a couple of old programming books from his shelf.

  He started the word processing program on his computer. He typed “Yolanda Westridge” in large letters across the page and sent it to the Petulant Print Purveyor across from his cube. It moaned to life like a teenager early on a Saturday morning. When it was awake enough to start working, it spit out the print. He retrieved it and added it to the box.

  The next item he felt a little guilty about, but he did it anyway. After debating it with himself a while, he went to Don’s cubicle, checked to see no one was around, and fired up his computer. Everyone with half a brain knew Don’s password, he yelled Roll Tide whenever he logged in. It was just a matter of trying a few variations before he was logged in. Once logged in to Don’s computer, he performed a remote login to one of the Unix machines. Don had written the root password to the server on his dry erase board in a last act of defiance. Don’s manager was in Texas and the HR flunky that handled his “transition” had no idea what a root password was. He shouldn’t have done that. There was no telling what someone might do with it. Martin noted the password and erased it.

  Once logged in, he spoofed an email to Millie’s group from Yolanda Westridge. In it he assured them that she would not disturb their group and that she would only be working at night on server maintenance that could not be done from home outside the firewall. The Subject read: “Fwd: Employee Cubicle.” Below the message he added forwarded emails that appeared to be from Yolanda’s boss and the building property manager, arranging the workspace assignment. Martin covered his trail well. If anyone ever did try to track it down they would only find what server it came from and that someone logged into it from Don’s computer as root. Since Martin didn’t have his own account and was not supposed to have the root password on the server, they would never be able to trace it to him. Martin wasn’t one of those people who were comfortable doing anything they could get away with. Prisons, governments, and corporate executive suites were full of such, but he wasn’t one of them. He felt like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar even though no one would ever know. But all this harmed nobody, even if it was against the rules, and he was beginning to feel strongly that he was truly in contact with Millie’s ghost, even if there were still skeptical thoughts bouncing around in his head as well.

  He securely erased his files and all the logs from Don’s computer then turned it off. He went back to his desk for the box and then headed to Millie’s office. Approaching cautiously, he circled the area to be sure no one was around. Confident no one was there; he set the box on the end of the desk and proceeded to make the space look lived in.

  First he tacked the temporary name he made to the outside of the cubicle with pushpins. He would order a real one from home. He arranged the pictures so that anyone walking by would see them. The thrift-store “World’s Greatest Mom” cup became a pencil holder. He arranged the stapler and tape dispenser as if they were ready for use. The “Wake up and be awesome” cup he put on the desk, ready for a fresh cup of joe. He laid the briefcase on the desk and arranged a few pages of printed code on the desk with red marks on them. Then he crumpled a couple of sheets up and put it in the trash can along with his power bar wrapper he had shoved in his pocket after eating the contents on the drive over. He hung one of the sweaters on the back of the chair, put the other one in a drawer, and added his old books on programming to the shelf. The visual scene was set, now for the computer. Without thinking about it, he sat in the chair.

  He froze and caught his breath. Suddenly he had the subliminal feeling that someone was in the room. He smelled some indefinable but agreeable scent. He closed his eyes. Faint images like the particle collisions in his dream danced behind his eyelids. He tasted strawberries and a warm breeze kissed the back of his neck.

  Either he felt all that, or he suffered a massive hallucination, both scary possibilities. Weren’t ghosts usually associated with cold? He held his breath and wished he could somehow communicate. The particles coalesced into a faint image of a young woman smiling and handing him a slice of cake, and then it was over.

  “Millie?” he whispered. He sat without moving, his heart racing, and waited to see if the feeling returned, to see if Millie came back, but nothing happened. He opened his eyes, looked around, took a deep breath, and again whispered, “Millie?” There was no answer. If she could speak, he doubted she would be leaving messages in chads from the hole punch.

  After a minute he returned to his task. It would be good to change the name on the login screen in case someone looked, but he would need to get in to do that. He powered up the computer with a touch of a button, but he would also need her password.

  Martin knew most people had a list of passwords handy even though they were not supposed to. There were too many systems to be able to remember a different password for each, and different requirements on various systems prevented making them all the same. People were forced to break the rules or to face having to constantly navigate the Help Desk’s dreaded Call Routing System of Eternal Torment to get their passwords reset.

  While the machine churned through its startup, Martin retrieved the box of Millie’s effects from under the desk to see if he could find a list of passwords amongst her stuff. Maybe tucked in her Yoga book. The two sculptures were on top. He picked them up and admired them briefly before setting them on the desk beside the box.

  The machine finished booting up and presented the standard login screen. It was pre-populated with what appeared to be her user id, so all he needed was her password. Before he could return to the box to resume his search, seven asterisks marched across the password box, and the machine began loading Millie’s desktop.

  13

  He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

  —From Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

  For the briefest moment, there was panic as reality and memory flipped back to the normal order of things. The holographic light show of her current existence seemed so much less real than the memories.

  Her alarm had not gone off. No one was observing her. But something was happening. It only took a nanosecond to realize she was in contact with the familiar aura of Martin. He was on her chair. Embarrassed by the inadvertent, intimate touch, she slid off to the side, out of contact.

  Apparently, since Martin could not see her, his presence did not trip the alarm. But Martin became aware of her with the contact. He sat still a moment, look
ed around. She saw his mouth move. She couldn’t interpret the energy of the sound waves.

  But she could read his lips. He said, “Millie?” He reached out and turned on the computer. Now she knew the energy pulse required to turn it on. She knew most of the keystrokes, enough to leave a message certainly.

  It seemed like it took forever for the machine to boot up. It had always felt like it took forever. He reached for her box of stuff; she assumed he hoped to find a list of passwords in there. He wouldn’t find a list. She had kept it on her phone, which was locked and probably as dead as she was. Martin put the box on the desk while the machine continued to chug. He lifted the two sculptures from the box, one in each hand, and studied them a moment before placing them on the desk in front of him. Finally, the login screen appeared. He went back to searching through the box.

  With a thrill she created the energy pulses that would tell the computer her password had been entered. The machine began to load her desktop. Martin sat back, stunned. After a moment he reached to the back of the computer, unplugged the network cable, and then checked for Bluetooth connections. He was still skeptical.

  Millie moved the mouse cursor to the icon for Notepad and created a click pulse in the USB cable. A number of emotions ran through Martin’s aura, from curiosity to apprehension.