A Ghost for a Clue Read online

  “Diddit, I need you to be quiet.”

  “All right,” the little guy answered in a sad and sinking tone, “if you say so.” He hung his cubed head and slowly moved away.

  I stared at the sulking robot. Although I had programmed that response, it still hit me with a guilt trip. Diddit, day or night, stayed faithful to what he was meant to do. “No, wait. Come over here.”

  My aluminum-and-plastic best friend perked up and returned. I sighed at his silly, happy face and gave the command. “Open the gate. Username: Iambram333. Password: Remembrance.”

  A small section at the bottom of Diddit’s body slid out, and I took out the small black box it held. It was light, yet it had seemed so heavy when I’d put it there—the day I finished building Diddit way back in university. I’d done it years after both my parents died in a plane crash, yet the private ritual had still hit me hard.

  I opened the box and went through the collection of odds and ends. A storage disc of photos and videos I’d never revisited, along with other irreplaceable mementoes. A toy NASA super-rocket. Mom’s favorite locket. Cuff links with Dad’s initials.

  I clutched the tiny spaceship and squeezed my eyes shut, fighting back the sorrow I had managed to keep bottled up all these years.

  Night after night, I’d waited. For months after they had died. For a whisper. Or the smell of Mom’s perfume. Or a soft knock on the door that always came just before one of them peered in to check if everything was all right.

  But no matter how much I’d cried and begged them to come back—just to say one last goodnight—I never felt them again. Not a touch. Not a word. Not a scent.

  They were gone.

  As hard as I tried to fight it, tears broke through my armor.

  I wallowed in the quiet emptiness for a while, then solemnly returned the trinkets into the box and gave Diddit back his heart—priceless memories kept safe but out of sight in the custody of a constant companion. It made it seem as though my parents were still around, even though I knew for certain they were not.

  Diddit teetered his head left and right, pulsated the bars of light that made up his mouth, and bobbed his body up and down, doing his best to stir up some joy despite the command to stay silent. It was the essence of his programming. The reason for his being: To keep me from feeling alone.

  “Go ahead,” I said, swabbing my eyes dry. “Make some noise. It’s too bloody quiet in here.”

  Diddit heartily whistled a merry tune and spun in robotic joy. As I watched him glide away, my thoughts went back to that blurry, distorted, staticky image in Starr’s greenhouse. Something deceptively supernatural that, the more I thought about it, had looked much like a bad transmission.

  Damn it. I hated problems I couldn’t solve. I need someone who understands radio broadcasting. Someone to give two biologists an explanation as to how a hyperwill could have looked so lifelike—yet be devoid of life.

  I checked the time. It seemed all right to give Sienna, in Langley, a call.

  She answered after just a couple of rings. “Hey, Bram, what’s up?”

  “Hi. Uhm . . . I know this is coming out of nowhere, but . . . I’m, uh . . .” I cleared my throat.

  “Finally curious about what else Franco had to say?”

  Not really, but now that you mention it. “Yes, actually. Yeah.” Damn. I forgot to check the VN website for any clues if this “ghost projection” could be something they could be involved in.

  “He said that that childhood friend of yours sounds like a great girl.”

  His message was about Torula? “Well . . .” I laughed softly. “I wish he’d gotten to meet her.”

  “Wow. That’s exactly what he said. He also told me to tell you to ‘make your move’—if you haven’t yet.”

  “Don’t tell me. He ended with carpe diem?”

  She gave no answer. After all, I did just say, “Don’t tell me.” I raked a hand across my scalp and let out an anxious breath. Was Franco’s message as innocent as it sounded, or did it hint at an elaborate prank he’d planned—involving me and Torula? “Did he say anything else?”

  “That’s all he shared with me. Log into his VN, Bram. There could be stuff there that’s only meant for you. Listen, I gotta go—”

  “Right, wait. Hang on. Uhm, speaking of . . . the afterlife. Remember how I used to help friends design video games?” That was way back at university, but it helped me spin together a more or less credible web of reasons for my request. “Got any leads on someone I can consult on how to fake a ghost?”

  Sienna asked someone who asked someone else and so on until I got directions to the house of an electrical engineer a few cities away—a retired lecturer from a top university who was said to be unorthodox enough for what I had in mind. Perhaps old age made a person more curious about the other side.

  I pulled up in front of the Mediterranean-inspired home of a retired engineer whom they said knew a lot about séances. As instructed, I headed straight to the garage door with its pedestrian access left ajar, half expecting a room full of incense, old books, and pentagrams.

  One step in, and the sweet-smelling night air was replaced by the pungent odor of motor oil. A throwback R&B song was playing when I rapped against the open door. “Good evening. I’m looking for Roy?”

  “Roy Radio. That’s me.” From behind the raised hood of a car peered a well-toned black guy—late forties, early fifties—much younger than what I’d expected. “Come on in.” Roy wiped his hands on a towel, tapped his iHub, and the music went silent.

  “Hi, I’m Bram. Sorry for the late hour.”

  “Welcome to my office.” He reached for my outstretched hand, then noticed the still-heavy oil stains on his, and curled it for a fist bump instead. “Late’s okay. The place is messier and a helluva lot noisier in the daytime.”

  Roy stood just a few inches shorter than me and wore a cut-off shirt smeared with grease over pants no less greasy. With his tattooed arms and shaved head, he looked like a man one wouldn’t want to mess with, but his cool and calm aura made him immediately come off as more than amicable.

  Why would a guy like this be interested in spirits of the dead?

  The spacious garage housed an impressive collection of vintage cars, among them a Benz, a Corvette, and a Datsun. Along the work tables and shelves lay a jumbled array of tools, auto parts, and electrical paraphernalia. I let out a low whistle. “Looks like you’re getting these guys back on the road again. You’re turning them all electric?”

  “Sure am. Makes no sense parkin’ ’em in the past when we’ve figured out how to drive ’em into the future.” He gave one handsome Mustang a thump on the hood. “Even gave this the audio option to start with a good old-fashioned roar like it was still guzzlin’ gas. Wanna hear it?”

  “Absolutely.” It was late, but I’d just been given a free pass into a toy store for the big boys, so I splurged as much time as Roy was willing to spend.

  The automotive nostalgia trip came to an end with one deep, solid metallic thud as he shut an Oldsmobile door. “Easy to see why I quit my day job, huh?” Roy flashed a perfect set of pearly whites like a superhero proud to be unmasked. “So you wanna talk about ghosts for a game?”

  “Huh?” It took a moment for me to recall the excuse I’d made up to get here, so I cleared my throat. “Yeah.”

  “Is it, like, motion-sensitive or usin’ touchglobes?”

  “Uhm . . .” Project Husserl’s problem was the only answer that came to mind. “Voice control.”

  “Whatdafu? You’re gonna have a bunch o’ guys screamin’ at each other?”

  I should’ve thought this out better. “Uhm . . . I mean, thought control,” I blurted out.

  “For-fuckin-midable.”

  I sucked my breath in through my teeth and nodded, realizing that wasn’t such a bad idea—not just for a video game, but even for Project Husserl. A vision of astronauts wearing sensors on their scalps began to float around in my head.

  “But t
hat’s all a bunch o’ crap, isn’t it?” Roy was sneering at me. “You’re not really designin’ a game.”

  “Huh?”

  “There, see? You keep sayin’ ‘Huh’ and ‘Uhm.’ Sure sign of someone tryin’ to shit his way through a story.”

  I blinked away my mental fog and owned up to the smokescreen. “Sorry about that. I didn’t know how else to ask and be taken seriously.”

  “About what?”

  “How to make a ghost.”

  Roy looked at me through narrowed eyes.

  Okay, now he’s about to throw me out.

  “Well, the fact you’re too embarrassed to admit it tells me you still got your screws bolted tight. You religious?”

  “No.”

  “But you believe in heaven.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “No creed? No need for the Dalai Lama, yoga, or nothin’?”

  I shrugged.

  “What’s helpin’ you deal with life then? A shrink?”

  “Ever hear of Deltoton?”

  Roy raised his brow. “That high-pissin’ dot org religious shingamading?”

  I flinched inwardly, though it was just one of many misinterpretations I’d heard. “It’s not a religion. It’s a . . . paradigm. An ideology on how to deal with life like you said.”

  “What does that title mean, anyway? Deltoton.”

  “It’s the Roman name for Triangulum. A constellation in the spiral galaxy Messier 33.”

  Roy made a face as he walked over to a table. “Thought you were a bunch o’ geeks. But you named your faith after some astrology hooey?”

  “It’s not astrology. It’s astronomy.” And it’s not a faith.

  Roy clucked his tongue. “Well, I guess if it revs your motor, you gotta take it for a ride.” He hefted a barstool over for me. “Ah, don’t mind me. Just wanted to see where you were comin’ from—askin’ about the afterlife and shit. You don’t look the type to take it seriously.”

  Neither do you. “Do you believe in it?” I asked.

  “Beer?”

  “No, I’m good. Thanks, mate.”

  “Yeah, I guess I believe in it.” Roy dug into a cooler and popped open a Bud. “It sure beats the alternative, and it’s not my job to think of other options.” He sat back in his chair and crossed his feet up on his worktable. “All right then. Ask away.”

  “Great. First question.” I settled down on the stool. “Is there any existing 3D hologram technology, with no need for eyewear, that’s fully-animated, life-size, and life-like, capable of interacting with you in real time, projected onto thin air?”

  “Whoa, hey. One at a time there.” Roy glanced up and to the side, as though reading an invisible book. “Life-size, easy. Interactive and animated in real time, sure. Life-like? No problem. But projected on thin air? 3D with no eyewear?” He crossed his arms, beer in hand. “Put ’em all together, and you got yourself the badass holodeck Holy Grail. Hell no, that technology doesn’t exist. Yet.”

  “All right. But can you think of anything that obeys the laws of physics that could account for ghost-like apparitions?”

  Roy furrowed his brow. “You got duped in a séance or somethin’?”

  “I’m just looking for some answers.”

  “Maybe if there were sound waves . . .” Roy looked to one side and consulted the unseen book again. “Somethin’ below what humans can pick up. Come ’ere.” He got up and strode towards what looked like a portable soundproof booth. “This is somethin’ I made myself for some classroom exercises. You’re not claustrophobic, are you?”

  “No, not at all.” I wouldn’t dream of getting into a spacecraft if I was.

  “Good. Just hang in there for a few.”

  I stepped into the small chamber, and he shut the door. Within seconds, I got an overwhelming demonstration of what “deafening silence” meant. I shoved a finger into one ear and shook it.

  Roy opened the door. “Well, did ya hear it?”

  “Hear what?”

  “The ringin’ in your ears. That’s the frequency o’ the nerves in your hearin’ pathway. That’s its signature. For the moment, at least. Unless you got a broken hair cell in there, then that’s somethin’ else.”

  “Okay. So what’s the lesson?”

  “It’s about low frequency signals around you. If they vibrate at the same frequency as you or a part o’ you, like your eyeball—it can smear your vision and make you see things. So even a thin strand o’ hair at the corner o’ your eye can turn into some dark shadow sittin’ next to you.”

  “Sounds likely, I suppose.” But what we saw was no strand of hair. “So does that also mean certain frequencies can influence a person’s perception of things?”

  “Got a wife?”

  “No.”

  “Well, if you ever get one whinin’ in your ears, that there’s a perfect example o’ one certain frequency disruptin’ yours.” Roy walked off to fetch his beer.

  “Seriously.”

  “Man, you don’t know what serious is until you get a wife.” He gulped down some beer.

  I wondered if I’d have been better off with a senile retiree. “Anything less subjective?”

  “A tiger’s roar. It packs a punch that makes use of infrasound. It’s a growl so deep, humans can’t hear it. But it causes momentary paralysis. Even in people who’ve been trainin’ tigers for years.”

  “No way.”

  “Yes fuckin’ way. But it’s a tricky mix. Infrasound can pass through walls and cut through mountains, but even though you can’t hear the tiger’s roar, you gotta be within earshot for paralysis to happen.”

  That didn’t make sense. “I have to be within earshot of something I can’t hear?”

  “’Cause the tiger mixes the low-frequency growl with the roar we can hear. It’s the combination that packs the paralyzin’ kick. All I’m sayin’ is, the influence o’ one wave over another superimposes and creates altogether new interactions that’s hard to predict. It’s, like, not knowin’ what side effects you’ll get mixin’ one drug with another.”

  I nodded but remained at a loss. “Are you saying that what we think are ‘ghosts’ could just be some . . . imperceptible mix of signals we don’t understand?”

  “Damn straight. And somethin’ boosts that signal into the range someone can detect.”

  That was probably what the Verdabulary was doing. But what was it boosting?

  Roy took another quick gulp of his beer. “So can you tell me why someone from NASA’s askin’ about the physics behind a ghost?”

  Because I walked right through one. “I’m just helping out a couple of scientists who may have stumbled on a . . . well . . .”

  Roy sat up like a wolf smelling prey. “Ghost? Some scientists got one? Like a real one? Are you shittin’ me?”

  I raised a hand to temper his reaction. “No, they don’t have any idea how they generate the thing.”

  “They generate it? So, you mean, it’s not real.”

  “They turn on a computer program, and sometimes it appears. They don’t know how it works.”

  “Shit. It’s a no-brainer, man. Here.” Roy picked up a keychain and blew soundlessly into a dog whistle dangling from it. A few seconds later, a yellow Labrador Retriever came trotting through a doggie door.

  “This is Boner, my bestest buddy in the world. He’s been with me twelve long years. Bad awful eyesight, but he’s still goin’ strong.”

  I smirked. “Interesting name.”

  “Yeah, well, Boner was one hard-headed prick of a puppy.” Roy gave his pet a playful back rub; the dog collapsed on its side, its legs turning to Jell-O. “It’s all about tuning in to the right frequency. You know about the teen buzz?”

  “No, I don’t.” This man seemed nothing like a textbook professor, but he sure talked like an encyclopedia of oddities.

  “It’s a high-frequency, 17 kilohertz tone only those below twenty-somethin’ can hear.” Roy continued to rub Boner’s side. “It’s an ultrasonic
signal originally designed as a security device to drive away teenagers from places they aren’t supposed to be hangin’ out.”

  “What about it?”

  “The ability to hear it. I think the same thing goes for people who can talk with the dead.”

  I had to put the brakes on the discussion and backed up to verify. “You mean those who believe they can talk with the dead.”

  “No, I’m sayin’ that some people really have some special abilities that let ’em see or hear, smell, or feel those from the other side.”

  I shifted back into gear, easing forward cautiously. “Are you serious?”

  “The dead, once they realize they’re dead, come to accept the fact that they’re invisible. And inaudible. And more o’ less beyond our reach. But once in a while, they come across someone who suddenly reacts to their presence. Y’know, like they’ve been shoutin’ into everyone’s ears and nobody flinches. Then one day—Holy Dog Shit! Somebody suddenly turns ’is head when they walk by or gasps when they touch ’im. And once they know that about a person, hell, I suppose word gets around and more and more spirits go to that person to try and send their messages across. Maybe that software you got makes it happen. It either got your friends to hear the dog whistle or told some ghost that there’s an app that can see ’em. You get what I’m sayin’?”

  “Not . . . really.” I glanced around, wondering if Sienna was watching through a webcam —snickering—with our entire department at Langley.

  “It means your software is either actin’ like a dog whistle, callin’ in the ghosts, or it’s helpin’ those scientists see supernatural things usually beyond the range o’ their normal senses.”

  Boner loped over to my side as if to reassure me of Roy’s good sense.

  “Just let ’im sniff around so he gets to know you. He mostly sees his way around by listenin’ and smellin’ now.”

  I stroked the friendly fellow. “So where’d you get all these ideas about ghosts?”

  Roy gave a flippant wave of his hand. “I’ve never seen one myself. But I was married to someone who could, and that didn’t do anythin’ good for us.”