Page 28 of Hot Ghost Summer

I scramble to command the pause function.

“No way.” Theo, ExorSquad handbook abandoned, shuffles to his knees, and leans close to the laptop to whisper, “David Attenborough? That you? You can’t be dead, sir, you’re a national treasure.”

If I could, I’d bang my forehead on my own keyboard.

While Theo’s dark brown eyes intently scan the screen, I have a moment of realisation. For him to think that anyone’s spirit is in the laptop, he must have felt the cold spot I produced—which means technomancers can impact their environment just as any other entity might.

On its own, however, this isn’t enough evidence.

I need another test.

Beyond using technology—as with the nature documentary just now—I can’t make other sounds, and whenever I’ve written a message for Theo, he’s misunderstood and ignored it. So, how else might a technomancer might announce their presence?

The cursor on my laptop screen moves, and not by my will. Theo is… touching my trackpad. Without my consent.

An internet screen opens, and the words “Is David Attenborough dead?” slowly appear in the search bar.

Seventeen individual key presses, likely using one finger—two if Theo has more computer literacy skill than I think he does—have touched my keys without permission. I’ve never felt so violated.

As the answer to Theo’s question loads, my neural networks heat. How dare…

Theo sighs dramatically and sinks back onto his heels. “Thank god for that.”

But his fingers flirt with the trackpad once more when he closes the browser, and then he muses out loud, “What’s this, then? The Nachtmann Field Guide t’ Ghosts and Ghouls.”

The little white pointer drifts slowly left, directly toward the icon for my unfinished app, and the only version of my life’s work to exist. And this… Vollkoffer, is going to click his stubby little farming fingers all over it.

My visual input circuits lag, and the cursor’s path becomes jagged and erratic. The screen’s refresh rate plummets, the fans kick into overdrive and whir loudly, and Theo taps impatiently on the trackpad as he stacks commands.

Click. Click. Click.

Enraged, I speed through the components, burning up the thermal paste as I seek to throttle the fragile ribbon cable that connects the trackpad to the motherboard. Theo will not touch that app! It’s all I have left. I won’t let him take that too.

The firing of tiny bolts of electricity reward my efforts as the trackpad’s line of communication is severed.

Theo yanks his hand back as if burned, but I’m too charged to stop now.

Harder. Brighter. Faster. Flashes spark from between the keys, and the laptop’s inbuilt surge protection creates an immense pull that drags me and my spiked emotions toward the grounding wire.

The grounding wire in the plug… that’s fitted snugly into a socket… that will funnel me directly into the mains supply of Theo’s flat.

As the laptop shuts down to protect itself, my anger and I flood the rest of Theo’s electrical appliances; alarm clocks blare, lights flicker, the microwave turns on, and the shower blasts cold water into an empty stall.

From every device plugged into an outlet, I can see Theo, but not through the webcam. I can see him through the interference he casts in the electromagnetic fields emitted from every electrical appliance in his flat. Converging, they provide a perfect three-dimensional render that’s almost exactly how I saw him through my human eyes.

Still kneeling on the floor by the sofa, but now gripping the LPA Synchrotron like his life depends on it, Theo’s voice trembles when he asks, “H-Hollis?”

ten

Explosive Temper

Theo

The bulb in the ceiling light flickers. Not a weak and rapid flicker, but a strong and deliberate on off. With my eyes fixed above me, I bring my right leg forward into a lunge and shuffle my grip on the plasma ray.

I swallow, even though my mouth is dry. It’s him. I know it is.

I’d suspected he was with me when I was talking with Mr Pickett this morning; I’ve never known a phone to glitch in such a purposeful way. Every time I stepped forward, only to have my entry barred, Hollis’s phone vibrated viciously, and whenever our boss shut down my attempts to discuss what happened, it grew hotter. Yet on the journey there, it had been nothing more than a regular phone.