Ghost Hope

by Ripley Patton

This tank full of PSS gas was attracting artifacts, and a bullet-shaped artifact certainly existed. Jason’s bullet. Which meant Jason had been down here or close enough that the pull of the tank had gotten the better of him.

  I turned and looked at the three bodies.

  No, the kid was a decent shot, but there was no way he could have pulled this off by himself.

  “But how could it do that?” Samantha asked, backing away from the tank.

  “I don’t know,” I said, because I didn’t. We needed more information and I was hoping Chase and T-dog had found something. If not, bringing Kaylee down to look at the tank might be our best bet, even if it was affecting her. But first, there was a little matter of getting rid of the corpses.

  “We need to clear this room,” I said. “Samantha, I want you to go to the staff suites on the second floor and grab some sheets and towels. Get as many as you can so we can mop up this blood and wrap the bodies. Oh, and see if you can find some rubber gloves and bleach too.”

  “What are we going to do with the bodies?” she asked.

  “Well, conveniently, the room next door is a morgue,” I pointed out. “Once they’re wrapped, Grant and I will carry them over and put them in the drawers.” Hopefully, we could get the bodies through the pipes. We probably could. Besides, it wasn’t like bending them a little was going to hurt anything.

  35

  OLIVIA

  “I found it,” T-dog said, turning his monitor toward the middle of the van where Kaylee, Marcus, Passion and I were squeezed in around him and Chase. There was a roughly-sketched blueprint on the screen, looking more like a labyrinth than any building plan I’d ever seen. “This circular room in the center is some kind of storage facility from the old Umatilla days, and there’s a system of underground tunnels all around it, leading to many of the bunkers. None of this was on the original blueprint. It was added during the decommissioning. I really had to dig to find this image, and there are a shit-ton of encrypted files associated with it, but I have a program working on them already. Whatever the government was doing down there, they really didn’t want anyone to find it.”

  “So, the compound landed practically on top of that room,” Chase said. “Tee, pull up a blueprint of the compound’s lowest level and superimpose it onto that one to give us a better visual.”

  “Got it,” T-dog tapped his keyboard and the image on the monitor changed, showing the CAMFer compound’s basement floor over the top of the labyrinth image. “That’s the morgue,” T-dog pointed to a small square room now butted right up against the curving wall of the circular one. “They definitely made contact. That’s probably why the morgue wall crumbled.”

  No. Kaylee shook her head emphatically. The artifacts pushed through the wall, or they were pulled. Something is down there acting on them.

  “Both could be true,” Chase pointed out.

  “Um, this is weird,” T-dog said. “I was running a basic image scan of the blueprint of those tunnels and I got a hit on one of the external camera feeds.”

  “Are you sure?” Chase asked. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “I know,” T-dog said. “Let me pull it up. It could be a glitch in my search program and maybe I can—” He stopped, staring at his screen. “What the fuck? Look at this. It’s some couple holding up signs like those sappy videos on the internet.”

  It wasn’t some couple. It was Jason Williams. And he was with a girl, an athletic-looking red-head wearing a black NASCAR outfit or something, and there was a small motorcycle in the background. T-dog had frozen the feed on a picture of Jason holding up a piece of cardboard with a crude drawing on it—a drawing of the blueprints of the Umatilla tunnel labyrinth and the round room T-dog had just shown us. In the corner of the picture, I could see more cardboard signs on the ground at Jason’s feet, all with writing on them.

  “Rewind it,” I said, standing up and leaning over T-dog. “That’s Jason Williams.”

  “That’s Jason?” Chase peered at the screen. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. Find the beginning,” I said, gripping T-dog’s shoulder.

  “She’s right,” Marcus said. “That’s definitely him.”

  “Okay, okay, give me a second,” T-dog said, clicking his mouse and scrolling the video back five minutes. “This is where it starts.” He clicked play.

  On the monitor, I could see the muddy camps in the near distance, looking beaten and bedraggled after last night’s storm. The motorcycle appeared, weaving between two tents and heading straight for the camera. The red-haired girl was driving and Jason was riding behind her, one arm slung around her waist while the other clutched a stack of cardboard signs. They parked the bike, climbed off, and Jason handed the signs to the girl. Then he looked up at the camera, waving exaggeratingly, like a castaway on a deserted island flagging down a passing plane.

  The girl handed him the first sign and he held it up.

  LAST NIGHT I SAW FINEMAN WITH SOLDIERS, it read in sloppy black-marker lettering.

  “He’s warning us,” Marcus said from behind me.

  IN A ROOM UNDER THE COMPOUND, the next sign read.

  “Fuck!” I exhaled. Of course, this was Fineman’s doing. I thought I’d gotten rid of the man, but no such luck.

  HE TURNED ON A MACHINE NEXT TO A TANK, the third sign said.

  AND THEN HE SHOT 3 OF THEM.

  “Shot who?” Passion blurted, her voice full of panic. “Mike, Grant, and Samantha are down there right now.”

  “This is from hours ago and he said he saw it last night,” T-dog reminded her. “I think he means Fineman shot three soldiers.”

  On the screen, the next sign came up. It was the hand-drawn map that had triggered T-dog’s search, and smack in the middle was a round room with a large red X marking its position.

  Then came the final sign. TELL MIKE YOU ARE IN DANGER. Jason held that sign up the longest, and we could see the girl talking. Then, they both picked up the tossed signs, got back on the bike, and rode away, disappearing from view between the tents.

  “So, whatever is happening downstairs, Fineman caused it,” I concluded.

  “I think Mike and his group should have been back by now,” Chase said, sounding worried.

  “I’ll go check on them,” T-dog volunteered, getting out of his seat, and we all shuffled aside so he could get to the door.

  “At least we know Jason is okay,” Marcus said. “I felt a little shitty leaving him out there.”

  “He didn’t look like he was doing too badly,” I said, trying to stay calm. “That red-head is pretty cute.”

  “Hey, what are you all doing in here?” Pete asked, sticking his head in the partially-open sliding door. We’d closed it all the way at first, but it had gotten stuffy way too quickly in the crowded little van. “When I didn’t find anyone in the dome, I got a little freaked out,” he admitted. “Did I miss something?”

  We caught him up to speed on our discovery about the morgue wall, the room behind it, Jason’s message, and the changes happening to the artifacts and my PSS. “We’ve put the artifacts in that faraday cage.” I pointed to the small screened box near my feet. “And this van is supposed to protect Kaylee and me. Maybe. We hope.”

  “If your PSS is being affected,” Pete said, “Reiny and I should run some tests. All the PSS research equipment from our study is still here. A workup on everyone wouldn’t take long. We might catch something Kaylee missed or can’t see.”

  “That’s a good idea,” I said. “What about Anthony?”

  “He’s patched up,” Pete said, “and I gave him some pain medicine that should sedate him for a while. Even so, I left Lonan outside the cell. Mike didn’t want him left alone.”

  “I wasn’t asking if I should send him a get-well card,” I clarified. “I meant can you run the tests on him too? He was down there in the morgue longer than most of us.” Wouldn’t it be ironic if Anthony, who hated everything and everyone having to do with PSS, actually had it and we could pr
ove it to him?

  “That shouldn’t be a problem,” Pete said. “The equipment is fairly portable so we can take it down there. I’m curious to know myself, given that his step-brother manifests PSS outwardly, and there’s almost always a genetic link, but the fact that—”

  “Wait a minute,” I said, grabbing Pete’s arm. “What the hell are you talking about? What step-brother?”

  “I thought you knew.” Pete looked from me to the rest of the group and back again, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “Anthony and Jason share the same father. Mr. James has familial records on all of you. But we know the link for PSS came from Jason’s mother, not his father, and since Anthony was staunchly on the CAMFer side, we never had the opportunity to test him or access his medical records.”

  “Anthony and Jason are brothers,” I said, turning to Marcus. “Did you know this?”

  “I don’t think so.” Marcus shrugged. “At least not that I remember.”

  Right. Marcus had no clue if he’d known or not. The old Marcus had kept many secrets from me, and this could have been one of them. But I guess it didn’t really matter now.

  “How long will the testing take for all of us?” I asked, turning back to Pete. “And how long for the results?”

  “A few hours at the most” he said.

  “Then do Anthony first, but don’t tell him what it’s for. Let’s save the fact that he probably has PSS for later.”

  “You do realize he won’t believe us, no matter what we show him?” Pete asked, his brow creasing. “Anthony would sooner cut off his other hand than believe he has PSS. Some people can’t change, or they won’t, even given overwhelming evidence that they already have. Even when they see it with their own eyes.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Did you know Kaylee can see internal PSS?”

  “No,” Pete said, glancing at her. “I wasn’t aware of that.”

  “Well, she can. And if we could give everyone Kaylee-vision, if they could see all the people with internal PSS—their mothers and fathers, their spouses and children, their siblings and best friends—not just those few of us with it on the outside, I think things would change.”

  “You might be right.” Pete nodded. “But we can’t make people see. We can only present them with the truth. How’s your mom doing?”

  “I don’t know.” I pulled the van door open wider. “I should go check on her.”

  “I can do that and come back and give you a full report,” Pete offered.

  “Mike wanted us to stay here,” Passion reminded me.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said, hopping out. “The infirmary isn’t much closer to the morgue than the van is.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Pete said, “and grab Reiny so we can set up those tests.”

  “Do you mind if I come?” Marcus asked, looking to me for permission. “I’m a little claustrophobic.”

  “Sure,” I said. I hadn’t known that about him. He’d never told me. I looked at Kaylee, thinking she might want to come too, but she appeared deep in thought with a strange expression on her face.

  “I’ll stay with her,” Passion said. “We can keep an eye on the artifacts.”

  “Thanks,” I told Passion. “Let’s go,” I said to Pete and Marcus, leading the way.

  36

  DAVID MARCUS

  Olivia’s mom was going to be okay. Reiny had stitched her cuts and also discovered that her leg wound had opened back up. So, it had required new bandages, some pain killer, and apparently a sedative, because Mrs. Black was out like a light, stretched out on one of the gurneys snoring lightly.

  “She’s fine, but she needed some rest,” Reiny explained to Olivia as soon as we walked into the infirmary. “All this has been hard on her.”

  “I know,” Olivia sighed, slumping into a chair, her expression awash with guilt. “She never should have come with me. She would have been safe back in Portland.”

  “No mother is safe when her children are in danger,” Reiny said. “She’s as much a part of this as you and Kaylee are.” She turned to Pete and asked, “How’s our other patient?”

  “He’ll live,” Pete said. “Lonan is guarding him. And Mike, Grant, and Samantha went to check the morgue. Apparently, there’s evidence that something down there is affecting the artifacts, and Olivia’s PSS and Fineman is somehow involved. So, I’d like to run some tests on everyone and see what we can find out. I’d really appreciate your help.”

  “Of course,” Reiny said. “You two okay to stay here for a bit?” She asked me and Olivia.

  We both nodded and the two of them left, hand-in-hand, Pete beginning to fill Reiny in on all she’d missed.

  I turned to see Olivia watching them go, a half-wistful, half-envious look on her face. Then she noticed me watching her, and she frowned. “Did you know they were in love?” she asked, “back on the farm when they revived you?”

  “I had no idea,” I said, “but honestly, I was a little self-absorbed.”

  Suddenly, her face broke into a smile, transforming her. And then she was laughing, not a dainty fake giggle, or with her hand shyly over her mouth like some girls, but a gut-busting, head-thrown-back, complete-body guffaw.

  I couldn’t resist. Before I knew it, I was laughing too, both of us eyeing her mother, wondering how our uproarious laughter wasn’t waking her, and that made us laugh even more as we tried, unsuccessfully, to suppress it.

  Finally, I was able to stop and catch my breath long enough to pant out, “What’s—so—funny?”

  To which she laughed even harder, but finally choked out. “You—said—was.”

  It took me a moment to get what she was referring to. I’d said, “I was a little self-absorbed,” in the past tense, and that’s what we’d been laughing at for ten minutes. Because she thought I was self-absorbed still. Or always.

  I stopped laughing and stared at her.

  She stopped and stared right back.

  “Listen,” I said, sitting down across from her and trying hard not to sound defensive. “I’m sorry I’m not the guy you remember from before. I lost my memory, and it sucks, but there’s not really anything I can do about it.”

  “Maybe not,” she said, unable to mask the disappointment in her voice. “Even if your memories are in the eight ball, they may be messed up now. Believe me, I understand there’s no going back to the way things were. For either of us.”

  I looked down at my hands, clenched in my lap. I really didn’t want to have this conversation. How could I tell a girl I barely knew that I was terrified of finding out I hadn’t loved her? And I was terrified of finding out I had. I couldn’t. So, I decided to change the subject.

  “I’m curious,” I said. “What comes after you show that movie? I may not remember you, but I can tell there’s way more going on up in that head of yours than you’re letting anyone in on.”

  She frowned at me again. “That’s an interesting accusation, especially when everything I know about scheming, I learned from you.”

  “I guess I was a good teacher then,” I said.

  “That remains to be seen.” She looked at her mom, her expression an unreadable mask. She reached out and took her mother’s hand in hers, stroking it gently. “My mother used to be terrified of my ghost hand,” she said, but I wasn’t sure she was talking to me. It was almost as if she were telling a story to the unconscious woman, or herself. I was merely an afterthought. “I didn’t understand back then why she hated me so much, or what I had done to deserve that fear and loathing, so I just threw it right back at her. I made a barrier with it to protect myself, and we both lived inside that barrier together, hurling each other against it in our efforts to escape.”

  “She obviously adores you now,” I said, pulled into her tale. “How could that just change overnight?”

  Olivia smiled, a soft, gentle curve of her lips. “It didn’t just change overnight,” she said. “Our lives had to be utterly destroyed. Everything we thought we knew about ourselves and the peo
ple we’d loved and the world we’d lived in and who we really were had to be completely unraveled. It’s still unraveling now, and I don’t know if it will ever stop. But that process—that horrible, unpredictable, devastating process—changed us. It finally got us working together to break down the fear, rather than trying to break down each other.” Olivia looked up now, her eyes capturing mine. “So, my plan is to pull as many people as I can into that unraveling—you, Anthony, Pete, Reiny, Lonan, Grant, Samantha, Passion, Chase, T-dog, Mike, Kaylee, and all the people camping outside this dome. All the people with PSS all over the world, internal and external, and all the people without it. All the people scrolling the internet, or sitting at home watching television, or lying in the hospital. And all the Holders and CAMFers too. I’m going to confront them with the very things my mother and I have been confronted with, and then I’m going to sit back and see what happens.”

  “And you don’t think that’s a little too ambitious?” I asked. “You’re talking about changing the world.”

  “No,” she said, staring me down. “The world changes. That is an unavoidable fact. I don’t have any illusions about being The Chosen One, I assure you. But maybe, as a group, we can influence the direction of that change. Or maybe we can’t. There’s really only one way to find out. And since you started me on this great unraveling in the first place, I expect you to help me.”

  I was surprised at her brashness, and somewhat turned on by it.

  “Well, I’m here,” I said, smiling. “And I don’t really have anything better to do.”

  “Good.” She bestowed another amazing smile on me.

  That was the moment I knew I was in trouble. Whatever I’d felt for Olivia Anne Black before, I was definitely intrigued by her now.

  37

  OLIVIA

  “So, Fineman was involved and somehow Jason saw him down there,” Mike summarized.

  We were back in The Hold’s computer lab, against the far wall beyond the van. At least some of us were. Grant had taken a shift guarding Anthony, my mom was still conked out in the infirmary, Chase and T-dog were in the van hacking, and Pete and Reiny were looking over the PSS tests they’d run on everyone an hour ago. But Kaylee, Marcus, Mike, Lonan, Passion, Samantha and I had met for another pow-wow.