The room dipped when I took them off to hand them over. But no more than it does when I try on Jacob’s cheaters. Evelyn pulled out her multitool. She popped open a panel on one of the arms and used a fine screwdriver to give something a tweak, and then she handed it back. “See if that makes any difference. I broadened the range to peak at 7.2 hertz.”
I slipped on the glasses and the whine was back. Not quite as loud, but somehow worse, like I could taste it on my molars now, itching like scorched plastic. And I couldn’t field a guess asto which of the normal five senses was picking it up anymore. The room distorted and I had to really concentrate to feel my feet on the floor. I was looking down at my shoes, doubting the wisdom of mixing salt with catnip, when an electric tingle ran up my spine and a figure streaked past. I caught a glimpse of bare feet, slender legs, cutoffs and a baby doll T-shirt, just as the fleeing woman banked off the wall, silently screaming, and pitched through the closet door. But this time felt more like an IMAX than a film loop. Or even virtual reality, like maybe I could reach out and touch her.
And it was definitely Sarah.
The whiny scorched plastic molar sensation ramped up, as if it had been waiting for me to focus on the repeater so it could billow out like refrigerated biscuit dough from a paper tube. Evelyn whirled around, pale and serious, and fixed me with a look. “Are you all right?”
You look like you’ve seen a ghost.She didn’t say it, even so, the cliche hung in the air unspoken. But I don’t advertise that I can actually see them—especially not to someone from National, helpful or not. “I’m fine,” I said reflexively, but then the floor shifted like a tilting funhouse, and I realized my knees were rubber. I stuck a hand out to catch on the wall and then thought better of contaminating the scene any worse than I already had. But I’d misjudged the distance anyhow and ended up swiping at thin air. “Actually, I feel like I just got off a carnival ride.”
Evelyn hurried to my side and slung my arm over her shoulder to prop me up. “The SPECs are affecting your equilibrium. Take them off.”
She didn’t need to tell me twice. I pulled them off and the room re-tilted. Normal now? Maybe. If only my eyes agreed with my feet.
Evelyn switched off the prototype and tucked it away. “Don’t worry, it’s not a brain thing, it’s your inner-ear.” I hadn’t even considered that it might be a brain thing. After all, she’d created Mood Blaster—safe enough for five-year-olds. Why would it be a brain thing? “Oh no, I’m only making it worse. Really, Vic, there’s no damage done, it will settle down in a minute.”
Too late. I was already reeling down the hall, boffing it left and right the whole way. My shoulders would complain about it later. But right now, I just needed to get to the toilet. Stat.
Evelyn did me the courtesy of not watching me lose my lunch. I stayed put in the can until the room stopped pitching. Though I wouldn’t be suggesting another pizza pit-stop anytime soon.
By the time I was ready to face the world again, I found Evelyn standing in the hall, dabbing at her eyes. She greeted me with a tremulous smile. “I guess I need to work out a few kinks.”
So help me…I laughed.
And then her waterworks really let loose. “This is the type of thing that could end a career. We’re outside the lab, there’s no medical team standing by. It wouldn’t have affected a regular person so strongly—but you’re a fifth level medium. Of course you had a reaction.” She sniffled, blew her nose, then added in a small voice, “If you have to include this in your report, I understand.”
Obviously, I wasn’t about to end her freaking career. I’d been just as eager as her to take the damn thing for a spin. But I’dneed to say something, given that I puked. If this place was a crime scene, forensics would be all over it—
Hold on. If the repeater belonged to Sarah, and Sarah was still alive….
I tapped out a quick message to Laura—don’t send cops yet. False alarm??—and said to Evelyn, “It’s not just any repeater in there, it’s Sarah.”
“And that…frightens you?”
No, not really. Sure, there was the performance anxiety that came with being a one-trick pony who forgot how to dance. But… “Mostly, I’m just confused.”
Evelyn tucked away her soggy tissue. “I don’t blame you. What is a repeater, technically—etheric energy? Is there a definitive reason it couldn’t be Sarah?”
In the Police Academy, I was told time and time again not to jump to any conclusions. Don’t call the suspicious white powder cocaine. Don’t refer to the red stain as blood. And make liberal use of the word “alleged.” Because you know what they say about assuming.
I’d never challenged the assumption that a ghost was obviously dead—but as someone who’d experienced being separated from his own body, maybe I needed to rethink the whole shebang.
Evelyn said, “My grad advisor encouraged me to toss around the wildest theories I could think of—because sometimes you can discount them, but sometimes they lead you to a solution you wouldn’t have come to otherwise. So let’s start with the idea that Mr. Boswell was right. The ghost is Sarah. How might that be possible?”
“Under the right conditions, etheric bodies can eject.”
“Under the right conditions,” she echoed.
I didn’t tell her those “conditions” involved a GhosTV. Evelyn might be helpful, but she was still National. And I didn’t need her boss linking the one we’d found in Iowa back to Dr. K. While I didn’t know where he’d stashed it…best not make myself any more interesting to Big Brother than I already was. “It’s like astral projection. But etheric. And you don’t have to be asleep for it to happen.”
“All right, so let’s theorize that Sarah left her etheric body behind.”
It looked more like that asshole Sledge smacked it out of her. “Except, whatever’s in the bedroom doesn’t act like an etheric body. Best way I can put it—the etheric is where your ‘self’ lives. The woman in the bedroom is basically a nonphysical snapshot in time. Nothing that’s got any kind of awareness.”
“So, the entity isn’t etheric.”
“No…but we’re full of subtle bodies. It could be one of the other ones.”
“What a relief you insisted on keeping it intact for evidence.”
