Synergeist: The Haunted Cubicle (14 page)

First he tacked the temporary name he made to the outside of the cubicle with pushpins. He would order a real one from home. He arranged the pictures so that anyone walking by would see them. The thrift-store “World’s Greatest Mom” cup became a pencil holder. He arranged the stapler and tape dispenser as if they were ready for use. The “Wake up and be awesome” cup he put on the desk, ready for a fresh cup of joe. He laid the briefcase on the desk and arranged a few pages of printed code on the desk with red marks on them. Then he crumpled a couple of sheets up and put it in the trash can along with his power bar wrapper he had shoved in his pocket after eating the contents on the drive over. He hung one of the sweaters on the back of the chair, put the other one in a drawer, and added his old books on programming to the shelf. The visual scene was set, now for the computer. Without thinking about it, he sat in the chair.

He froze and caught his breath. Suddenly he had the subliminal feeling that someone was in the room. He smelled some indefinable but agreeable scent. He closed his eyes. Faint images like the particle collisions in his dream danced behind his eyelids. He tasted strawberries and a warm breeze kissed the back of his neck.

Either he felt all that, or he suffered a massive hallucination, both scary possibilities. Weren’t ghosts usually associated with cold? He held his breath and wished he could somehow communicate. The particles coalesced into a faint image of a young woman smiling and handing him a slice of cake, and then it was over.

“
Millie?” he whispered. He sat without moving, his heart racing, and waited to see if the feeling returned, to see if Millie came back, but nothing happened. He opened his eyes, looked around, took a deep breath, and again whispered, “Millie?” There was no answer. If she could speak, he doubted she would be leaving messages in chads from the hole punch.

After a minute he returned to his task. It would be good to change the name on the login screen in case someone looked, but he would need to get in to do that. He powered up the computer with a touch of a button, but he would also need her password.

Martin knew most people had a list of passwords handy even though they were not supposed to. There were too many systems to be able to remember a different password for each, and different requirements on various systems prevented making them all the same. People were forced to break the rules or to face having to constantly navigate the Help Desk’s dreaded
Call Routing System of Eternal Torment
to get their passwords reset.

While the machine churned through its startup, Martin retrieved the box of Millie’s effects from under the desk to see if he could find a list of passwords amongst her stuff.
Maybe tucked in her Yoga book.
The two sculptures were on top. He picked them up and admired them briefly before setting them on the desk beside the box.

The machine finished booting up and presented the standard login screen. It was pre-populated with what appeared to be her user id, so all he needed was her password. Before he could return to the box to resume his search, seven asterisks marched across the password box, and the machine began loading Millie’s desktop.

He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

—
From
Wuthering Heights
by Emily Brontë

For the briefest moment, there was panic as reality and memory flipped back to the normal order of things. The holographic light show of her current existence seemed so much less real than the memories.

Her alarm had not gone off. No one was observing her. But something was happening. It only took a nanosecond to realize she was in contact with the familiar aura of Martin. He was on her chair. Embarrassed by the inadvertent, intimate touch, she slid off to the side, out of contact.

Apparently, since Martin could not see her, his presence did not trip the alarm. But Martin became aware of her with the contact. He sat still a moment, looked around. She saw his mouth move. She couldn’t interpret the energy of the sound waves.

But she could read his lips. He said, “Millie?” He reached out and turned on the computer. Now she knew the energy pulse required to turn it on. She knew most of the keystrokes, enough to leave a message certainly.

It seemed like it took forever for the machine to boot up. It had always felt like it took forever. He reached for her box of stuff; she assumed he hoped to find a list of passwords in there. He wouldn’t find a list. She had kept it on her phone, which was locked and probably as dead as she was. Martin put the box on the desk while the machine continued to chug. He lifted the two sculptures from the box, one in each hand, and studied them a moment before placing them on the desk in front of him. Finally, the login screen appeared. He went back to searching through the box.

With a thrill she created the energy pulses that would tell the computer her password had been entered. The machine began to load her desktop. Martin sat back, stunned. After a moment he reached to the back of the computer, unplugged the network cable, and then checked for Bluetooth connections. He was still skeptical.

Millie moved the mouse cursor to the icon for Notepad and created a click pulse in the USB cable. A number of emotions ran through Martin’s aura, from curiosity to apprehension.

She created, “Hi Martin.”

Martin keyed, “Millie?”

“
Yes,” she responded, monitoring her energy expenditure as she sent the pulses. It used very little to create a character, but she didn’t have much stored. She kept it as brief as possible.

She watched his fingers dance across the keys, “How do I know it’s you?”

He asked a good question. How to prove her identity? With a limited amount of energy, she didn’t think she could type enough to convince him she wasn’t a hoaxer or another ghost pretending to be her. There was only one way she knew of and that was for him to experience the touch of her soul the way she experienced his. She hesitated.
Is that possible? Would it work both ways? What if he didn’t like what he saw?

Her time was probably short. The destruction of her habitat from of the dispersion of her stuff was imminent, the predator possibly closing in on her even at that moment. No better option came to mind.

Not knowing how else to put it, she wrote, “We could touch/share,” and waited for his response.

But, soft: behold! lo where it comes again!

I'll cross it, though it blast me. - Stay, illusion!

If thou hast any sound, or use a voice.

Speak to me.

—
From
Hamlet
by William Shakespeare

“
We could touch/share” appeared behind the cursor as it marched across the window. Martin lifted his hands from the keyboard while he considered it. He didn’t know exactly what it meant, but he had felt something on his visits to her cubicle, some kind of contact. Brief smells, sounds, visions of wild lights and a smiling girl. Might have been his imagination, but he couldn’t deny experiencing them.

Should he be worried about possession? Maybe he’d seen too much
Supernatural
. “Got the rock salt and lighter fluid?” There had been nothing in the contacts so far that indicated any kind of aggression. On the contrary, his feeling was that Millie, whoever, or whatever, was reluctant to make contact. Of course, maybe it was all an elaborate ruse to trick him into consenting.

All that flashed quickly through his mind.
Oh, to hell with it. An unfortunate choice of words
, he thought wryly. The feeling that this felt right overwhelmed his reluctance. He typed, “OK. What do I do?”

Ghosts, like ladies, never speak till spoke to.

—
Richard Harris Barham

That’s a good question.
She didn’t know any better than he did.
Once again, an owner’s manual would be useful. The theme of this amusement park is willpower. If they wanted to communicate through a touch, they could.
She hoped so.

She entered, “Want to communicate with me,” in the window.

He typed, “Yes”

He thought it was a question instead of instructions. She wanted to elaborate, but her energy pool was shrinking, and she didn’t want to draw any more off her items. They were her last line of defense. She conjured up, “Want it, and will it to work. No doubts.”

He hit one key, “K.”

He folded his hands on his lap and closed his eyes. She would have taken a deep breath if she still did that sort of thing. She moved toward him until she felt the rush of contact with his aura.

Little ghost, little ghost

One I'm scared of the most

Can you scare me up a little bit of love?

—
From “Little Ghost” by The White Stripes

Martin shut his eyes and cleared his mind. He sensed contact much like the earlier encounters, with glimpses of images, sensations, and emotions. Ancient memories of dreams and semiconscious sensations: the satisfying feel of a sheet of art paper between the fingers, a bulldozer pushing over a tree, the smell of a welding torch, the crash of the ocean, and fear. These jumbled together, but they somehow made sense. They hinted at a story, a story he wanted to see more clearly. She had said to want to, to will it. He had allowed contact. That wasn’t enough. He needed to be actively engaged.
Make it so, Number One.
He did.