Ghostfinders 02 - Ghost of a Smile

murmured JC. “I’m amazed you were able to hold yourself back this long. So, what is the computer telling you, in what I’ve decided to call Room Three? Because there are no numbers or other designations on any of the doors. Did any of the rest of you notice that? I always notice things like that. Happy, Melody doesn’t seem to be talking to me. What about you? Do you have anything to tell me? Are you picking up anything?”
    “Not really,” said Happy, looking vaguely up and down the empty corridor. “No-one lived here long enough to make much of an impression. I can say there’s definitely no-one alive hiding anywhere on this floor. All the rooms are empty. Still, it’s odd . . . normally when I lower my shields and look around, you three all start shouting at me with your minds, and I have to fade you down before I can hear anything else. But here . . . I’m only sensing you dimly, as though from a great distance. Somewhere in this building, something is interfering with my reception.”
    “Are you saying someone is jamming you?” said JC.
    “Wouldn’t surprise me,” said Happy. “Can’t say I’m that bothered. It’s actually quite relaxing, not having to keep all your voices out of my head for a change.”
    “Can you pick up any traces of the person who used to live in this room?” said JC.
    Happy glared at him. “I keep telling you, I’m not that kind of psychic! I read people, and places, and that’s it! I do not read objects, channel past events, or read tea leaves! I am a telepath, and that’s more than enough to deal with. I am not a miracle-worker!”
    “Pity,” said JC. “I could use a miracle-worker. I’m going to take a stroll further down the corridor, see what there is to see. Yell if you need anything, Melody.”
    And he was off and gone, with Kim drifting after him. Happy slouched sullenly in the doorway.
    “We shouldn’t be working this case,” he said flatly. “We’re supposed to deal with ghosties and ghoulies and things that go Boo! in the night. Whatever happened here has heavy science written all over it. We’re already out of our depth, even if JC won’t admit it, and way out of our comfort zone.”
    “You speak for yourself,” said Melody, scowling thoughtfully at the monitor before her.
    “I am!” said Happy. “Loudly and meaningfully, but no-one is listening! We shouldn’t be here! This isn’t what we do . . .”
    Melody sighed loudly and turned round in her chair to look at him. “Those were ghosts, down in the lobby, weren’t they?”
    “Well, yes, of a sort, but . . .”
    “But nothing. You heard what the annoying man from the stretch limo said—find out what’s going on, and stop it. That’s the job. Everything else is just details.” She stopped and smiled at him almost fondly. “I know you don’t like to admit it, Happy, but it’s all science, all of the time. Ghosts, demons, the afterworlds—all of existence and everything beyond—it’s all science. We don’t always understand it yet, that’s all. Now hush like a good bunny and let me get on with my work, or I’ll start throwing words like quantum around, and you know how you hate that.”
    Happy shuddered briefly in the doorway and shut up, and Melody went back to work.

    Further down the corridor, JC was looking around what he had loudly declared he was naming Room Fourteen, picking things up, examining them, and putting them down again, trying to get a feel for the last person who’d lived there. Given the number of well-thumbed magazines, like Heat and OK , he was pretty sure the occupant had been female, but he didn’t say that out loud because he knew Kim would accuse him of being judgemental. There were no personal touches, no photos, no jewellery, not even any clothes. Were the test subjects supposed to go around all the time in those awful hospital gowns that only do up at the back? JC stood in the middle of the room, looking thoughtfully about him, but the room defeated him. It was deliberately bare and characterless, more like a waiting room than living quarters.
    Kim threw herself onto the bed by the far wall to watch JC work, misjudged the distance, and fell half-way through the bed before she could stop herself. She quickly floated back up out of it, before JC could notice, and with precisely the right amount of concentration managed to float directly above the bed-sheets, so it looked like she was lying there. Kim wasn’t alive, but she liked to pretend