Rise of the Ghostfather

by Barry Hutchison

  Down at his feet, Denzel groaned and slowly untangled himself. “Speak for yourself,” he wheezed, wincing in pain as he clicked his various limbs and fingers back into place.

  A hundred tiny agonies zapped through him as he pulled himself to his feet. The escape pod was hanging in mid-air a few thousand metres above the ground, a faint blue light pulsing beneath it.

  “What now?” Denzel whispered.

  Tabatha peered down through the floor. “We can’t just go back down there. They wanted me to get you out of danger.”

  “I don’t feel very out of danger,” Denzel said. “I feel very in danger, actually.”

  Smithy frowned. “Why?”

  “Because we’re hovering thousands of metres up in the air in a glass box!” Denzel pointed out.

  Smithy looked down. “Oh. Yeah. Forgot about that. Wait, aren’t you scared of heights?”

  “Yes!”

  “Like, really terrified?”

  “Yes!”

  Smithy nodded. “Thought so. Then we should probably get dow—”

  Tabatha clamped a hand over his mouth, which immediately became the greatest thing that had ever happened to him.

  “Don’t say ‘down’,” she warned.

  Smithy looked confused for a moment, then nodded to indicate his understanding. Tabatha removed her hand from his mouth.

  “So if we’re not going in that direction,” said Smithy, pointing to the floor, “then where are we going?”

  Tabatha clicked her tongue against the back of her teeth. “I have an idea. But it’s a bit off the wall,” she said. She flashed Denzel an apologetic smile. “And you’re probably going to wish you’d gone to the toilet before we left.”

  Denzel looked confused. “Huh? Why? Where are we going?”

  “East,” said Tabatha. “Far east…”

  Denzel hopped out of the pod and ran as fast he could towards a clump of bushes, hurriedly fiddling with the button of his trousers.

  Tabatha and Smithy stepped out after him, and made a point of ignoring the sigh of relief that rose from behind the bushes a moment later.

  Night was drawing in fast, and the sky was a palette of pinks and purples. Tabatha looked up, marvelling at it in silence.

  Smithy danced awkwardly on the spot, watching Tabatha. She had already switched from admiring the evening sky to taking in their surroundings, checking for signs of trouble. The only danger at the moment was a slight risk of flooding from Denzel.

  It really had been a long trip.

  A moment later, Denzel emerged from behind the bush. He looked quite a lot more relaxed than he had done for the past hour and a half.

  “Feeling better now?” Smithy asked. “All done in the toilet department?”

  “Much better,” said Denzel slightly sheepishly.

  While the boys talked, Tabatha climbed up to the top of the escape pod and balanced on it. She turned in slow, steady circles, her eyes scanning the scenery around them.

  Bushes and cherry blossom trees stood on one side. On the other, a large mirror-like lake stretched across to a snow-capped mountain in the distance. The pinks and purples of the evening sky were perfectly reflected in the smooth water.

  Smithy put his hands on his hips and joined her in looking around. “So,” he said, nodding sagely. “This is France.”

  “Japan,” Tabatha corrected.

  Smithy raised his eyebrows. “Huh?”

  “It’s Japan.”

  Smithy stared blankly up at her.

  “Not France,” Denzel clarified.

  “Did we get lost?” Smithy asked.

  “No. We’re not lost,” said Tabatha. “We were supposed to come to Japan.”

  “Were we?” asked Smithy, looking highly doubtful. “Why would we do that?”

  Tabatha pointed to the pendant around Denzel’s neck. “Because that was in Japan before it was in Scotland,” she said.

  “And because of the Samurai-ghosts,” added Denzel. “They’re our best lead. We had a whole conversation about all this in the escape pod.”

  Smithy nodded. “Aha! Is that when you were both talking a lot and I played noughts and crosses on the window?”

  “Yes. That was then,” Denzel confirmed.

  “Gotcha,” said Smithy. “Oh, and I won, by the way. In case you were wondering. And yet at the same time, I lost. It was a real roller coaster.”

  He looked around. “There doesn’t seem to be a lot here. Nice mountain though. They call that one Mont Blanc.”

  “Mount Fuji,” Tabatha corrected. “Mont Blanc is in France.”

  “Right. Right,” said Smithy. He pointed to the ground at his feet. “And this is…?”

  Tabatha jumped down from the top of the pod and landed between Denzel and Smithy. “Japan. But I don’t get it. The pod was supposed to take us to the local Spectre Collectors base. There’s nothing here.”

  “Or is there?” said Smithy in a mysterious whisper.

  Denzel and Tabatha both looked at him. “Is there?” Denzel asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Smithy. “That’s what I was asking you. Is there? I have no idea.”

  Denzel tutted, then crossed to the pod. He leaned in through the open door, being careful not to step inside in case the thing suddenly took off again.

  “Um, hi,” he said. “You said you’d take us to the Japanese Spectre Collectors HQ.”

  “Affirmative,” came the reply. “We have arrived at the entrance.”

  Denzel turned and regarded the scenery around them. “Is it in the bushes?” he wondered.

  “Negative,” the voice chimed. “Would you like me to activate the entryway?”

  Denzel checked with Tabatha, who nodded her approval. “Go for it.”

  “Uh, OK. Yeah. Sure,” said Denzel, turning his attention back to the inside of the pod. “Activate it.”

  “Confirmed,” said the pod. “Entrance activating in three, two—”

  Denzel didn’t get to hear the “one”. Instead, a swirling vortex of pearlescent blue light opened behind him, and a sudden gale knocked him off his feet. He caught a fleeting glimpse of Tabatha and Smithy both tumbling through the air beside him, and then the world turned icy cold around him as he was swallowed by the light.

  Denzel was the first to be ejected through the other side of the entrance. He flapped and flailed as he tumbled through the air, then he bounced into a net, rolled clumsily backwards, and landed in an undignified heap on the floor.

  A moment later Smithy shot by above him, passed through the net and became solid just in time to thud against the wall behind it. While he slid slowly down it, Tabatha hopped through the portal and alighted stealthily, her cane raised and at the ready.

  The entranceway snapped shut, revealing what looked like some sort of security checkpoint. It reminded Denzel of the immigration desk he and Smithy had to go through at the airport in New York.

  A little booth stood directly ahead of them next to a revolving metal gate. The bottom half of the booth was made of a dark, polished wood with various Japanese letters carved into it. The top half was glass, with no visible openings that Denzel could spot. A little speaker was mounted on the shelf where the wood met the glass, presumably so someone outside could hear whoever was inside.

  There was nobody inside now, though, unless they were very short. There was nobody else in the room, in fact, and although there was nothing obviously wrong, something tingled uneasily across Denzel’s scalp.

  Through the gate was a sliding door made up of lots of white panels. From this distance, they looked like paper, although Denzel was fairly certain they’d be something more secure than that.

  Mind you…

  He turned slowly on the spot, taking in the rest of the room. There was no door behind him, just a painting of the same mountain scene they’d arrived at in the escape pod. The only way in and out of the room was either through the sliding door, or the magic one they’d come through. He supposed that, as secure entrances
went, “only accessible via a mystical portal” was up there with the best of them.

  “It’s smaller than I expected,” said Smithy.

  “I doubt this is the whole thing,” said Denzel. He pointed to the door. “I think everything else is probably that way.”

  “Uh, guys,” said Tabatha. She was over by the security booth, peering in through the glass at something on the floor. “You’d better see this.”

  Denzel and Smithy exchanged worried looks, then joined her at the booth. Denzel immediately let out a gasp. The window was quite high, so Smithy had to stretch up on his tiptoes to see the floor on the other side.

  When that didn’t prove enough, he levitated a few centimetres until he was high enough to see over the shelf to the floor below.

  “What am I looking for?” Smithy asked.

  Denzel shot him a sideways look, then nodded in the direction of the floor. “Him!”

  “The man?” asked Smithy.

  “Yes, the man! Of course the man!” Denzel replied.

  There was a man lying on the floor. Well, technically a teenager, Denzel thought, but close enough. He wore a variation of a Vulteron uniform that looked like something that would be reserved for parades. The camouflage and colours were the same, but it was all shiny buttons and neat lines, and nothing like the combat fatigues Boyle wore.

  For a moment, Denzel wondered if Boyle, Samara and the others were OK, but then he returned to the more pressing matter of the man on the floor.

  “Is he dead?” Smithy asked, his voice dropping to a whisper as if he was scared of offending the motionless figure.

  “I don’t know,” Denzel replied. “Phase through and check.”

  “You phase through and check!” said Smithy.

  “I can’t,” Denzel pointed out.

  “Well, I’m not touching him!” Smithy retorted. “He might be dead! Or worse, he might be alive, and when I go to touch him he might jump up and go ‘Wargh!’ at me.” He shook his head emphatically. “No. There’s no way I’m going in there. Not in a million years.”

  Tabatha raised an eyebrow. “Scared?”

  “Fine, I’ll do it,” said Smithy, immediately phasing into the booth. He looked down at the figure on the floor, but kept out of grabbing distance. “Hello?” he said. “Are you dead?”

  “He’s hardly going to say ‘yes’, is he?” Denzel pointed out.

  “He might,” said Smithy. “I would.”

  “Check properly,” Denzel urged.

  “Properly. Right,” said Smithy. He took a moment to steady himself, then put a foot on the man’s chest and jiggled him a bit.

  That done, he immediately jumped backwards, shut his eyes and started flailing wildly with his fists.

  After a few moments of this, he opened his eyes and stopped swinging. The man hadn’t moved a muscle.

  Smithy lowered his hands. “Definitely dead,” he confirmed, then he was brushed aside when Tabatha phased into the booth beside him.

  Squatting beside the fallen figure, she placed a finger on his throat and checked for a pulse. “He’s not dead,” she announced.

  “I’m pretty sure he is,” said Smithy. “I’ve seen alive people before, and they’re usually moving.”

  Tabatha dug her fingers up under the man’s jaw and then, to Smithy’s horror, pulled his face off.

  “Well, he’s bound to be dead now,” he remarked, then he got a clear view of the man’s skull. It was made of a clear plastic, with dozens of little motors built into the structure.

  “See? Not dead. Just a robot,” said Tabatha. She looked down at the plastic skull again and nodded appreciatively. “It’s pretty cool actually.”

  Being the only person in the group not able to walk through solid walls, Denzel had taken it upon himself to creep over to the door. Up close, the white panels did seem to be made of paper, and the door was light enough to easily slide aside a few centimetres, allowing Denzel to see into the room beyond.

  He stared for a moment, then quietly slid the door closed.

  “Um, we’ve got a problem,” he said, turning to face the booth. Tabatha and Smithy both emerged through the side.

  “Is it your hair?” asked Smithy. “I know. I didn’t want to say anything.”

  “No, it’s—Wait, what’s wrong with my hair?” Denzel asked, reaching up and giving it a pat. He quickly came to the conclusion that now wasn’t the time to concern himself with it.

  Jabbing a thumb over his shoulder, Denzel dropped his voice to a whisper. “I think there’s been…”

  His voice tailed off. He gave a shake of his head. “In fact, it’s probably best if you see it for yourself.”

  Taking a deep breath, Denzel pulled the door aside. When he did, a scene of absolute chaos was revealed.

  The room beyond was a large hangar full of what had presumably once been Vulteron equipment, but was now mostly smouldering piles of scrap. A Spook Suit – a towering suit of robot battle armour – lay in pieces on the floor, its components sparking and fizzing.

  Several long racks of shelves were buckled and twisted, their contents lying broken and scattered all across the room. One of the room’s fluorescent strip lights hung down, its broken cable sparking at the exposed end. The other lights flickered erratically, plunging the room into stuttering fits of darkness.

  On the wall directly across from where Denzel and the others stood, someone had spray-painted a now all-too-familiar symbol.

  “Well, I guess we know who did all this,” Tabatha said.

  Smithy nodded sagely. “Raccoons.”

  Tabatha turned to look at him. At this point in their relationship, Denzel didn’t bother.

  “Very destructive things, raccoons,” said Smithy. “In America, they call them trash pandas.”

  “The Cult of Shantankar,” said Tabatha. She pointed with her cane. “That’s the symbol for the Ghostfather.”

  “Oh. Right. Gotcha,” said Smithy. He regarded the symbol painted on the wall. “I did wonder how raccoons could get high enough to paint that, but thought if they made a sort of pyramid—”

  “Shh,” said Tabatha.

  Smithy glanced around. “Why?”

  “No reason. Just shh.”

  While they’d been talking, Denzel’s eyes had fallen on one of the pieces of equipment that had been knocked on to the floor. It was a Spectral Energy Scanner, similar to the one Boyle used.

  Picking the gadget up, Denzel turned it over in his hands, searching for the on switch. Boyle had let him play with one of the devices soon after he’d first joined the Spectre Collectors. Although, naturally, Boyle hadn’t used the words “play with” because he had no concept of fun.

  After a few moments of searching, Denzel found a slide switch and pushed it up. The scanner display lit up in oranges and reds. Several bar charts appeared at the bottom and began to fluctuate up and down.

  “Finding anything?” Tabatha asked.

  Denzel turned to her and Smithy and one of the lines on the display shot up to the top. He angled the gadget away and it dropped to around the halfway point.

  “Found you two,” he said.

  “Well, that’s not exactly fair,” said Smithy. “You didn’t give us time to hide.”

  “Getting anything that isn’t us?” Tabatha asked.

  Denzel consulted the scanner again, and took a few tentative steps further into the hangar. The display stayed mostly static, but for a moment he thought he saw a blip appear on the top part of the screen, which contained the long-range sensors. If there was something there, though, it didn’t hang around long enough for Denzel to analyse it.

  “Doesn’t look like it,” he said. “Seems pretty clear.”

  “Does it have a mode to scan for crazy cult people in big robes?” Smithy asked.

  “Sadly not,” said Denzel. He kept the scanner running, but clipped it to his belt out of the way.

  “OK, so here’s what we need to start figuring out,” Tabatha announced. She tucked her
cane under one arm, then began counting on the fingers of her other hand. “One, what happened? Two, where is everyone?

  Three, is whoever did this still here?”

  “Four, is that guy in the booth alive or dead?” Smithy asked.

  “He’s still a robot,” said Tabatha.

  “An alive robot or a dead robot?” Smithy wondered.

  “A broken robot,” said Tabatha. She raised another finger, then hesitated. “Great, now I’ve lost my train of thought.”

  She shrugged. “Let’s focus on those first few and try to figure out what went down.”

  “How are we meant to do that?” Denzel asked.

  “By exploring,” said Tabatha. She whipped the cane out from beneath her arm and pointed ahead. “Onward!”

  The hangar wasn’t the only room to have suffered damage. A roll-up garage-style door had taken them into a corridor whose paintwork was an irregular pattern of cracks and scorch marks.

  That, in turn, had led them to one of the more disturbing finds – an empty Spectral Storage Vault. Hundreds of drawers had been prised open, and all the gemstones containing ghosts removed from inside.

  A few gems lay smashed on the floor, suggesting whoever had cleared the place out hadn’t been very careful.

  There were six other Spectral Storage Vaults on the same level as the first one. Tabatha phased through the walls of each of them, returning to confirm that they had all been cleared out in exactly the same way as the first.

  The three of them continued along the curved corridor, stopping to check in every room they came across. They found no one. Offices stood empty. Briefing rooms were abandoned. The lights were on all over the complex, but it seemed like no one was home.

  It was only when they’d been walking for a while that something occurred to Denzel. Something had been niggling away at him for a while, but he hadn’t quite been able to put his finger on it until now.

  “So, I’ve been thinking,” he began.

  “Was it about bees?” asked Smithy. “Because if so, me too.”

  “Uh, no. Not about bees,” said Denzel.

  Smithy looked disappointed. “Oh.”

  “Samara and Boyle said we should get me somewhere safe, right? Somewhere out of harm’s way, away from the mad cult people.”