Ghostfinders 02 - Ghost of a Smile

haunting this place?”
    “Doesn’t work that way, I’m afraid,” said Kim. “There are all kinds of ghosts, and all kinds of hauntings.”
    “But you can act as a medium, help us make contact with what’s happening here?”
    “I don’t see why not,” said JC. “Kim has a foot in both worlds, the living and the dead. What better medium could there be?”
    “You have such wonderful ideas,” said Kim. “Let me see what I can do.”
    “Hold it, hold it!” said Melody, rushing over to her equipment. “I want to record everything that happens! If only so I can clear myself of all responsibility if it all goes pear-shaped in a hurry.”
    JC nodded for Happy to go keep Melody company, and the telepath moved quickly over to join her—and watch her back. Once Melody was immersed in recording something, she often became blind to more immediate dangers. And Happy also knew that JC wanted him to observe everything telepathically, from a safe distance. Just in case. Kim drifted quietly out across the open factory floor, not even bothering to walk, as she concentrated on the matter at hand. She faded away some more as she gave less thought to her manifestation and more to what JC wanted of her.
    Everyone looked round sharply. Nothing obvious had changed, but the sense of presence, or someone or something watching from the darkness, was suddenly that much stronger. Tiley called Susan back to him, and they huddled together, holding each other’s hands. Melody bent over her instruments, rapt at what her sensors were picking up. Happy bit down hard on his lower lip, concentrating on his mental shields. All around the factory, the shadows were longer and deeper and darker. The quality of what light remained seemed subtly debased, stained, even bruised. Tension coiled on the air, gradually growing tighter. And JC . . . watched it all with an easy grin, like a ringmaster at his own private circus.
    “Anything, Kim?” he said.
    “Something, JC,” said the ghost. “There’s so much information in this place. Layers and levels, some recent and some old . . . some very old. Wait, I think I’ve made contact . . .”
    And the machinery returned. The whole factory floor was suddenly blazing with light and packed with huge machines, all of them working, constantly moving, deafeningly loud. Parts rose and fell, other parts slammed together, and a work-force of hundreds moved around them, operating machines, darting back and forth, picking things up and conveying them away. It was terribly loud and unmistakably present, but still, somehow . . . distant. As though separated from this Time by some unimaginable direction. JC moved in close beside Tiley, so he could shout in his ear.
    “This is the top layer of the stone tape, a recording, playing back. Past events soaked into their surroundings, emerging again in the Present. What you’re seeing is a vision, a portrayal of what used to be here. A true vision, of real events, but not real now. We can see it but not affect it.”
    Graham Tiley shook his head numbly. “I remember this . . . I know these people! Men I worked with, men I knew . . . Faces I haven’t thought of in years, and old friends long dead . . . Am I in there, somewhere? They all look so young! I want to go to them, and talk to them, warn them of things that are going to happen . . .”
    “But you can’t,” said JC. “Because they’re not really here. If you walked among them, they couldn’t see you . . . You’d be a ghost to them. An image, out of Time.”
    “Some of them are going to die young,” said Tiley. “Some are going to be maimed, and killed, stupid accidents that could so easily be prevented. And I can’t help them. The Past can be cruel, sometimes.”
    And then the huge machines, and all the work-force tending them, began to slowly fade away. The sound went first, the thunder of the machines growing steadily quieter, as though receding into the distance. Then the image itself grew thin and insubstantial and was gone. The top layer of the stone tape disappeared, as something else moved forward to take its place. New images began to form, out of the Past.
    “It’s the next layer of the stone tape,” JC said to Graham. “The level below, from deeper in the Past. Pushing aside the more recent image to make itself known.”
    “It’s rising,” said Kim. Her gaze was far away, and her voice didn’t sound entirely human. “Forcing the more recent Past aside. JC, Something’s