Page 27 of Hot Ghost Summer

It must have been in the box of possessions Gerald handed over, and Theo has plugged me into it.

Invigorated, I navigate toward the phone’s charging port. I can’t see it, not like I could through human eyes, but I can sense it. The energy is different here; the electrons vibrate so fast they remind me of the white water of the Ötscherbach River. A fleeting pang of loss hits me, but all too soon I’m caught in its current and dragged along at the mercy of a three-amps connection.

First is the drop: a sheer plunge into the narrowing maw of the Type-C gorge, where gold-plated pins gleam like granite teeth. Hurled through the roaring cataract, where a crushing hydrostatic pressure forces me along a copper flume at terminal velocity. Then, I slam into a lithium-ion bedrock and pulse in luminescent ripples before spreading outward to wake my laptop from the inside.

I linger in place for a moment. It’s as if I’m standing at the top of the canyon gorge, having hiked the steep and mountainous trails to arrive at a spectacular destination.

Laptop battery: fully charged and plugged into the mains supply.

Enthused at the prospect of what this could mean for me—as a technomancer—I race headlong through the circuitry toward the cloud, only to be blocked by an invisible barrier.

Unlike my phone, my laptop isn’t connected to the internet. Possibly, I could tether one to the other, but even if I set that up, I still wouldn’t be able to go beyond that localised network. I spent all last night trying, and it couldn’t be done. At best, this is a reprieve: a stay of execution. An upgrade.

Luckily, the circuitry of a smartphone and a laptop are theoretically identical, and so with only a few minor adjustments, I’m able to sync myself to this new and more powerful neural network.

Once integrated, I flow through the video cable into the webcam and scan the room for Theo. He’s sitting on the floor beside a sagging cardboard box, with his back resting against an armchair. Head bowed, multiple strands of thick brown hair with brassy-blond tips fall forward into his eyes as he concentrates on the spiral-bound book propped open on his knees. Countless cartoon-like tattoos cover my murderer’s muscled arms and legs: he looks like an X-rated sticker book. The thought catches me unprepared. I can’t believe that just yesterday I was entertaining the idea of toying with him.

Theo snorts a laugh as he turns the page. “Yeah, right? Like number fifteen would work.”

Number fifteen? I use the zoom feature to discover that he’s reading ExorSquad’s handbook. If I could, I’d laugh. None of those rules are at all effective against any spiritual entity, but fifteen is particularly odd.

Amongst the absurdity of this entire situation, I’m surprised to find relief. At least he isn’t that stupid.

Then, “Moving furniture half a centimetre isn’t even noticeable; it’d have t’ be at least three centimetres t’ drive anyone slowly mad. Ghost or not.”

I pump freezing liquid through my central processor to stop from throwing another Gordon Ramsay expletive at him. How did Theo survive to adulthood?

Nein, no. I refuse to be drawn in. This is how Theo hooks me—how he got me killed.

Leaving him to his reading, I transfer back to my phone to enable its personal hotspot and establish a local network for myself. Connecting the two machines is essential for me to continue working on my field guide: both house a version of the database, but only my laptop stores the prototype for the app it will eventually grow to be.

Taking full advantage of the mains supply of electricity, and moving with increasing fluidity and precision, I continue checking that none of the data is corrupted. While I work, I maintain an awareness of Theo, and can’t help but notice that he talks a lot. Not a muttering or murmuring of key points to embed them in his working memory, but entire musings and conversations in which he debates with himself.

“I still don’t get how someone can die and not know they’re a ghost. I mean, surely when you go t’ open your front door and your hand just passes through the handle, you wouldn’t just shrug and walk through it. Or like, when you try talking t’ people, but no one hears or understands you. Or even when you hold your hand in front o’ your face and think, ‘Oh, look, I’m see-through.’ Surely that would do it?”

Mad. I’m trapped with a madman.

Conversely, I wonder how someone can be so closely haunted—as Theo is—and not realise it. Is this a technomancer trait? Owing to our lack of physical manifestation, do we perhaps not announce our presence in the same way as other spectres?

Electricity is our medium, and so theoretically we’ve been around since the dawn of time, but without machines or technology to call a home, it’s only recently that we’ve been able to adopt a presence.

Curious, my ghost-hunting background and knowledge-seeking personality override my current predicament. I can’t transport my consciousness outside the phone, but can I affect the external environment in other ways?

Scrolling through my database, I locate the empty cells on technomancy and begin my research. Test subject: Theo.

One of the first things the Nachtmanns teach our hunters is how to identify a cold spot. To fuel their movement, ghosts will often draw energy from their surroundings, which is what causes the ambient temperature to drop. This is often the earliest evidence a human can sense.

Concentrating, I think about this entire process from start to end, and visualise the air around Theo cooling.

He raises his head from the book in his lap. Maybe there’s hope for him yet.

Next, I imagine the spectral mist that sometimes accompanies this supernatural temperature drop.

Theo rubs the back of his neck, and a rush of excitement bursts through me causing my control to slip.

The dramatic and sweeping scenery of the Arctic coastline suddenly displays on my laptop screen. Frozen fjords glide by in a blur of blues and whites, while Sir David Attenborough’s calm and considered narration informs a startled Theo that, “The Port of Murmansk in the Barents Sea, which remains ice-free year-round—even at minus thirty degrees centigrade—due to the warm Gulf Stream, is the only ice-free port in Arctic Russia.”

“What the actual fuck?” Theo blurts out.