Ghost of a Smile g-2

by Simon R. Green

  “I want you,” said JC. “You’re all I ever wanted, even when I didn’t know you existed. I love you, Kim.”

  “And I love you,” said Kim. “Oh JC, it’s a cruel world, sometimes.”

  “Hey,” said JC. “If it was a cruel world, we never would have found each other.”

  “Yes,” said Kim. “There is that.”

  “Isn’t there any upside to being a ghost?” said JC. “I mean, there are things you can do that I can’t.”

  “Well,” said Kim, “sometimes, when you’re sleeping, and it’s a long time till morning… I go flying over London. I let go of gravity and fall upwards, into the night sky, and I go soaring over the rooftops. See the bright lights turn below me like a slow Catherine wheel, see the traffic roaring back and forth like so many toys. And sometimes I fly up among the stars and look down at the Earth, like the most precious and most fragile toy of all.”

  “You see?” said JC. “I can’t do that.”

  Back in Room Three, Melody had finally found something useful. Happy moved forward so he could peer over her shoulder and watched very secret files appear and disappear on the screen in response to Melody’s fingers flitting over the keyboard. It was all very scientific.

  “All right,” said Happy, after a while. “You’ve got that smug and triumphant look on your face, so what am I missing? What have you found?”

  “LD50,” said Melody, sitting back in her chair so suddenly she almost head-butted Happy in the face. She folded her arms and scowled at the screen. “And I don’t feel smug, or triumphant. This is not a good thing to have found. LD50 is the dosage at which the new drug is expected to kill half of the test group. Lethal Dose, Fifty per cent. Not something you should be finding in a drug being tested on volunteers. But this LD50 file is quite definitely attached to the Zarathustra project. It seems to be posing the question of what happens if the affected subjects can’t or won’t die? If they insisted on surviving, what should be a Lethal Dose?”

  “Are you saying… the scientists deliberately gave these people a drug so strong they expected it to kill half the volunteers?” said Happy. “How the hell did they think they would get away with that?”

  “You’re not listening,” said Melody. “Yes, under normal circumstances, half the recipients should have died. But what the scientists really expected was that this new drug would keep them alive. By changing them so much they could survive something that would quite definitely kill normal people. LD50 was the final test, the proof that they’d achieved what they thought they’d achieved. I think… whoever was in charge of this project wasn’t too tightly wrapped. They were playing with people’s lives!”

  “Okay, I’m thinking illegal, and unethical and Mad Doctors on the loose,” said Happy. “Did the company, did MSI, know they were doing this?”

  “Looks like it,” said Melody. “The orders and authority for this last test came straight from the top. But I would have to say, given the results these people were getting, and the scientists’ reactions to what they were seeing… I would have to say they were all most definitely scared shitless. The changes went a lot further, and at a much faster pace, than anyone anticipated.”

  “Did it kill them all, in the end?” said Happy. “Is that what happened to the test volunteers? The scientists panicked, and had to dispose of the bodies?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” said Melody. “The test subjects survived. And changed. There’s nothing here on what they became, but it couldn’t have been anything good.”

  “Is there anything there on which patients had the placebos?” said Happy. “I mean, they wouldn’t have gone through any changes. Could they still be here, somewhere?”

  “There were no placebos,” said Melody. “They didn’t care about rigorous scientific procedures, they wanted as many affected test subjects as possible.”

  “But that’s…”

  “Unethical? Illegal? No-one here gave a damn about any of that, Happy. They thought the company was big enough, and powerful enough, that they didn’t have to care about things like that. Which meant this was never a legal test of a legal drug, for legal purposes. MSI was after bigger fish.”

  “Superhumans,” said Happy. “For the Military, or Intelligence, or maybe for themselves.”

  “Might help to explain why there was such a fight over jurisdiction once it all went wrong,” said Melody. “But it doesn’t explain why MSI asked for us, specifically, to come in and clean up their mess. They must have known we’d find out the truth…”

  “Maybe they thought only people with our unique experience would be able to cope with whatever these test subjects have become,” said Happy. He looked quickly about him. “And I wish I had their confidence.”

  They all met up again, half-way down the corridor, to share what they’d discovered. There followed a certain amount of raised voices as they tried to figure out what to do next.

  “We are not equipped to deal with genetically modified madmen!” said Happy.

  “Who is?” said JC. “But we are uniquely suited to dealing with things and situations that fall outside normal parameters.”

  “MSI lied,” said Melody. “They must have had some reason for dropping us right into this mess, and I’m pretty sure it’s not a reason any of us would like or approve of. More and more I’m feeling like chum thrown into the water to attract the sharks. We don’t owe MSI anything.”

  “We’re not here for them,” said JC. “Patterson sent us in here on behalf of the Carnacki Institute. That means it’s our ball.”

  “Patterson didn’t know what was going on in here,” said Happy. “I think we should go back out and talk to him, and the Boss, and see what they have to say.”

  “What makes you think we’d be allowed to leave the building?” said JC. A sudden quiet fell over the group as they all thought about that. JC looked around, making sure they’d got the implications. “We’re not alone in here. The shells in the lobby were being directed by someone else. I think it’s in our best interests to find out who-or what-and do something about them, before they figure out a way to do something about us.”

  “We can’t cope with something this big on our own!” said Melody. “We need reinforcements! And my equipment!”

  “And weapons,” said Happy. “Really big, illegally modified weapons.”

  “We can’t wait,” said JC. “We’re moving through unknown territory, and the clock is ticking.”

  “Clock?” said Happy. “What clock? No-one said anything about a clock!”

  “There’s always a deadline, in cases like this,” JC said easily. “We need to understand what we’re dealing with, before it comes looking for us. Those ghost shells worry me. They don’t seem to have anything to do with the drug trials at all.”

  “Ghosts are usually some kind of reminder,” said Kim. “Something from the Past, imprinting itself on the Present. Pushing reality aside to make themselves seen and heard. Either as a recording, or as a manifestation. Those shells… were all that remained of people. But with the personality removed, what reason did they have to remain? Why are they still here? Sorry, I’m thinking aloud…”

  “You carry on,” said JC. “You’re making more sense than the rest of us.”

  “Somebody is keeping the shells here,” said Kim, nodding thoughtfully to herself. “The men were killed to be made into ghost shells, so they could be… supernatural attack dogs?” She scowled prettily. Her form had become dimmer, almost transparent, as her concentration moved from manifestation to hard thinking. Her feet dipped in and out of the floor as she drifted slowly up and down. “Ghosts continue to exist, to serve some purpose. To pass on a message, to deal with unfinished business like revenge or unrequited love. All rational and emotional needs… but those shells were empty of anything like that. They’d been hollowed out, so someone else could use them. Which means someone-or thing-still in this building has power over life and death.”

  “Okay, you’re scaring me now,” said Ha
ppy. “Weaponised ghosts? And a hidden evil mastermind behind it all? I hate those.”

  “But where could it be hiding?” said Melody. “This building is supposed to be empty.”

  “I think… I don’t believe anything we’ve been told about Chimera House,” said JC. “I think someone is still here, someone-and I do believe it’s a person, not the sort of Thing we sometimes deal with-with their own agenda, and their own purpose for these unethical and highly illegal drug trials. So we are going to find them, dispense vicious beatings on general principles, and then drag them out of here and find some proper legal authority to hand them over to.”

  “But, but, that isn’t the mission!” insisted Happy. “We were sent in here to gather information, not bring evil masterminds to justice.”

  “Come on, Happy,” JC said cheerfully. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  “I had it surgically removed,” Happy said coldly. “It was endangering my life.”

  “It’s true,” said Melody. “He did. I’ve got it in ajar at home, on the mantelpiece.”

  “Our mission,” said JC, in that calm and entirely reasonable tone he knew drove his companions absolutely batshit, “is to put a stop to what’s happening here. That hasn’t changed. Who’s running this team, Happy?”

  “You are,” muttered Happy.

  “And why is that?” said JC.

  “Because no-one else wants to!” said Melody. “All right, we get it!”

  “Good,” said JC. “So stop arguing, suck it in, and soldier on, and I’ll give you a nice sweetie to take away the nasty taste.”

  “I don’t take sweeties from strangers,” said Happy. “And God knows, no-one’s stranger than you these days, JC.”

  “I am going to change the subject,” said Melody. “Because it’s either that or start hollering and hitting people, and I can always do that later. Probably while shouting I told you so! Have any of you noticed there aren’t any security cameras? Not here in the corridor, or in any of the rooms, not even down in the entrance lobby. Rather unusual, wouldn’t you say, for a company with so many important and highly illegal secrets to protect? Given that they were ready to lock in their test subjects for the night, you’d think they’d at least want to keep an eye on everyone…”

  “Not if you don’t want any official record of what you’re doing,” said JC. “Melody, my dear, I’ve been thinking…”

  “Oh, that’s always dangerous,” said Happy.

  “I was wondering if there was anything you could try that doesn’t require any of your amazing but unfortunately not-at-all-here equipment?”

  “Well,” said Melody, reluctantly. “There is something I’ve been considering… Electronic Voice Phenomena. I might be able to put something together using my mobile phone and the room computer. Give me a minute.”

  She darted back into Room Three, and the others filled the doorway, looking in, because Melody didn’t like to be crowded when she was working, and was quite capable of making that clear with a sudden back elbow or some other violent hint. She pulled the computer apart with brutal thoroughness, rooted through its guts and then linked some of them to her mobile phone. JC leaned in beside Happy, and spoke quietly in his ear.

  “Do you have any idea of what she’s doing?”

  “Not a clue,” said Happy.

  “I can hear you!” said Melody, not looking up from what she was doing. “It’s really quite simple…”

  “Oh God, don’t let her explain!” said Happy. “Any time she tries to explain something scientific to me I end up with hysterical deafness for a week! In self-defence!”

  “I am surrounded by Luddites,” said Melody, working happily away. “Noisy ones, too.”

  “What are Luddites?” said Kim. “They sound sort of cuddly.”

  “Am I the only one who paid attention at school?” said Melody.

  “Probably,” said JC. “You swot, you. You could geek for the Olympics.”

  “And pardon me for being dead!” said Kim. “A girl can’t study everything. I did extra drama classes. And flower arranging.”

  “Colour me surprised,” said Happy.

  Melody put her phone to her ear, and listened intently.

  “Can you hear the sea?” Happy said helpfully.

  “You slap him, JC,” said Melody. “I’m busy. Wait… I’m getting

  … something. I can hear voices…”

  “What’s odd about that?” said Kim. “It’s a phone.”

  “But I haven’t dialled any number,” said Melody. “I am very definitely hearing voices, but… too far away to make out. Voices, in the system. Are they always there, perhaps, hidden behind our everyday calls? Drowned out by millions of common calls and conversations?”

  She fiddled with the exposed parts of the computer, and what she was hearing burst suddenly from the speakers. A sound like a never-ending wind, strange background noises like the singing of insane whales, the frantic pattering of a million angry insects. And then, slowly, human voices began to come forward, rising above the background gabble. Human voices, but far and far away, as though they’d had to cross some unimaginable distance to reach the world. It wasn’t even clear what languages they were using.

  “I just had an unnerving thought,” said Happy. “Could we be hearing the collective unconscious? I’ve always wanted to listen in to that.”

  “You are entirely right, Happy, that is an unnerving thought,” said JC. “If you have any more, feel perfectly free to keep them to yourself. And anyway, I don’t believe in the human unconscious.”

  “Tough,” said Happy. “It believes in you.”

  “Keep the noise down,” Melody said sharply. “I’m listening… EVP is a new and barely understood branch of physics. Or psychics. Either way, there’s a lot of theories but hardly any hard evidence you can trust… and then there are moments like this when it rears up and bites you on the nose, and spooks the hell out of you. You are all hearing this, right? A sea of voices, coming and going, on a dead channel. Maybe it’s the voices of everyone who ever spoke on the phone network, somehow recorded and preserved, only slowly fading away.. .”

  “Or it could be the dead,” said Kim. Everyone looked at her, and she smiled sweetly. “Dead voices, on a dead channel. Still trying to reach out to the living, to make contact. I used to know this guy who was really into Electronic Voice Phenomena. He said it was the last great frontier of the unknown. He let me listen to some of the recordings he’d made, but I couldn’t hear what he did. It was only noise… the audible equivalent of a Rorschach ink blot. The only shape and meaning is what we provide ourselves.” She looked down her ghostly nose at Melody. “I may not have a dozen science degrees, but I do know a thing or two.”

  “There’s far more to EVP than simple pattern recognition,” said Melody, a bit defensively. “Too many people have heard the same sort of thing… Voices where there couldn’t be voices… The dead trying desperately to make contact with the living, to warn them about something, something terrible and terribly important…”

  “How come the dead never want to tell us anything nice?” JC said wistfully.

  “All right,” said Happy. “You’re scaring me now.”

  And then he broke off, as all the clashing voices and deafening background noise cut off abruptly, replaced by a single voice. Slow, dragging, every word an effort. Melody threw her mobile phone away from her, and they all listened to the speakers.

  Help me… Please, somebody, help me… Room Seven. Room Seven. Room Seven.

  The voice stopped, and the computer speakers fell silent. There was not even a hint of hiss. Melody looked around, but the others were already off and running, heading for Room Seven.

  They hadn’t got far down the corridor when they all stumbled to a halt, because the door to Room Seven was quite clearly shut. The only closed door. JC looked quickly up and down the corridor, but there was no-one about. Melody caught up with them and glared at the closed door to Room Seven as though it
was a personal insult. Happy stayed at the back, looking past everyone’s shoulder. Kim seemed puzzled.

  “All the doors were open the last time we came this way,” she said firmly. “It’s not something you could miss, one shut door among so many open…”

  “I walked right past that door to get to Room Fourteen,” said JC. “And I didn’t see anything. Did anyone notice anything?”

  They looked at each other, but no-one was sure, one way or the other.

  “Somebody has been messing with our heads,” Happy said grimly. “To make us overlook Room Seven. And so subtly, so carefully, even I didn’t realize it. He won’t get away with that again, I’m ready for him now. And now I really want to see what’s in that room. No-one craps in my head and gets away with it.”

  Kim stepped forward and thrust her head right through the closed door.

  “Oh bloody hell!” said Happy. “I hate it when ghost girl does that! That is so not natural. That is freaking me out big-time!”

  “Then don’t look,” said JC. “Anything, Kim?”

  She pulled her head out of the door and smiled at JC. “No-one seems to be home. But it really is quite messy.”

  JC moved in closer and looked the door over carefully. “The lock’s been smashed. And the steel bolt’s been ripped right out of its socket. I’d say this door was burst open, from the inside, and whoever did it had to be really strong.”

  “Inhumanly strong?” said Melody.

  “Seems likely,” said JC.

  “Suddenly, I’m not at all keen to see what’s in there,” said Happy. “You go ahead, I’ll stand here and keep watch- Take your hands off me! ”

  “Well volunteered, that man,” said JC. “God loves a volunteer!”

  He pulled the door open and pushed Happy forward into the room. Happy made a whole series of loud protestations, but by then he was already inside, so he shut up and tried for quiet dignity. He sniffed at the air and shook his head.

  “Smells like a zoo in here… Like an animal house. Wild, musky, feral… And I can smell blood, too. Oh yes, there it is.”