Ghostfinders 02 - Ghost of a Smile

the floor had been ripped and rucked up, as though trampled by wild animals. The computer had been beaten into small pieces and the pieces scattered everywhere.
    “That’s not easy to do,” said Melody. “Somebody really had a grudge against this machine.”
    Everyone else was looking at the long claw marks gouged deep into the far wall. Blood was splashed thickly across walls and the ceiling. It hadn’t been dried long. Great, heavy, dark red swatches of blood, and one oversized bloody handprint on the inside of the door. JC put his hand beside it, and the print was almost twice as large.
    “This is where it all started,” he said finally. “The first unexpected reaction to the drug, perhaps? Did the test subject panic when the bad symptoms began? Did he cry out for help that never came and so had to smash his way out?”
    “Was that his voice we heard?” said Melody. “Or was it someone who wanted us to see what someone else was hiding?”
    “But look at the claw marks!” said Happy. “The size of them, and the depth of the grooves . . . think of the strength needed to do that much damage. And smell the animal stench in here! What did the Zarathustra drug do to the poor bastard?”
    “Not the kind of superhuman change his minders were expecting, certainly,” said JC. He turned abruptly to Kim. “What do you see here? I need to know what you see because the dead often see things that are hidden from the living.”
    “Of course,” said Kim, calmly. “Because the living couldn’t cope.” She looked around, slowly. “I can’t see whoever it was used to live here. It’s as though all traces have been wiped clean, scoured out by the sheer intensity of what happened. No stone tape, no psychic imprinting . . . the occurrence was too powerful for that . . . But I am feeling things. Emotions. Strong, supercharged, impossibly extreme emotions, saturating the aether.”
    Melody sniffed. “She’s making it up. No such thing as aether.”
    “Lot you know, girl geek,” said Kim. “Emotions . . . but not human emotions.”
    “Animal?” said JC.
    “No. More than human,” said Kim. “I can feel them, but I can’t understand them, or describe how they make me feel. It’s like listening to a thunderstorm that’s also a name that’s also a howl of rage and horror and enlightenment. Emotions so big, so complicated . . . they frighten me, JC.”
    Happy was concentrating so hard his face was one big scowl, trying to get some feel, some sense of what Kim was experiencing, but it eluded him.
    “I’m getting a word, JC,” he said finally. “Yes, a word. Repeated over and over. One word. ReSet.”
    And then his gaze snapped past JC, caught by something behind him. Happy cried out, and pointed urgently with a quivering hand. Everyone spun round, to stare at the cracked mirror on the wall behind them. They all looked hard, but all they saw were their own startled reflections.
    “What is it, Happy?” said JC. “What did you see?”
    “There was a face!” Happy’s face was grey, wet with sudden sweat. “There was a face in the mirror, and it wasn’t one of us!”
    They all looked again, but the reflection was still stubbornly only them.
    “It’s gone now,” said Happy. “But it was there. A face. Watching us!”
    “All right,” said JC. “I believe you. What kind of face?”
    “I don’t know,” said Happy. He looked confused, like an overtired child. “It wasn’t human . . . not really. A face, like a human face, but . . . more so. It was like God looking out of the mirror, and judging us.” He shook his head. “I can remember seeing it, but I can’t remember what it looked like any more. As though my mind can’t . . . hold on to it.”
    JC nodded slowly. For all his nervous talk, Happy was a veteran of many cases, and there wasn’t much that could genuinely shake him any more. Melody moved in close beside Happy, calming him with her presence.
    “ReSet?” said JC. “You’re sure about that?”
    “Oh yes,” said Happy. “I heard it. Clear as a bell.”
    Then the sounds started. They all looked round sharply as they heard running feet. A great many people, all heading down the corridor, towards Room Seven. JC darted out of the room, then stopped as he saw that the corridor was empty. The sounds grew louder and more urgent, and there were voices, too, shouting and crying out, voices overlapping and drowning each other out. The sounds reached the doorway and stopped