Ghost Hope

by Ripley Patton

  I wasn’t sure which surprised me more, that Kaylee had gotten out of bed, undone her IV without alerting Pete and Reiny, commandeered Samantha, walked to the van, and brought back the heavy faraday cage, or that she was insisting we all go back to the tank.

  “We can’t go down there,” I told her, sitting up. “You and Olivia barely survived last time.”

  We have to, she insisted. And we don’t have much time. If we don’t do this, everyone with PSS dies.

  “Everyone? What do you mean ‘everyone’?” Olivia asked, sitting up next to me.

  I saw what it was doing when my face went inside, Kaylee explained, her voice desperate. It’s pulling PSS from everyone, not just from us and Chase, but everyone in the world. And when it reaches its fullness, it will displace to—somewhere else—somewhere different than our plane of existence—it’s hard to explain—but it will take all the PSS with it.

  “And when the PSS goes, anyone who had it dies?” Samantha asked.

  Yes, Kaylee whispered. Unless they had Passion’s vaccine before the process started. Her plasma blocks the connection.

  “How can you know that for sure?” I asked.

  I saw it, she said, jutting her chin out at me. I saw it all in my head while I was asleep, but it wasn’t a dream. And I saw how to stop it too. The machine is changing the resonance of the PSS in the tank—reverting it back to its original state before it became PSS. As a result, PSS everywhere is being called to it and changed back as well. I don’t know how to stop the machine. But the artifacts have an effect on the PSS in the tank as well. One or two aren’t strong enough to reverse the pull. But all of them combined with the cubes might be, especially if we can tune the machine to just the right resonance. But I can’t do it alone. I need your help.

  “I think it’s our only option,” Samantha said.

  “Okay,” Olivia said, reaching down and carefully detaching her IV. “We’ll help you.”

  “No.” I grabbed Olivia’s arm, determined to stop her. “This is crazy. It’s going to kill you both, and I can’t be responsible for that.”

  Olivia turned and stared at me. “Before you got here Chase found some of Fineman’s experiments and files,” she said. “They indicated that he was working on a method for reverse-engineering PSS, a way of eliminating it from human DNA altogether. He was just missing one key ingredient—a sample of the original PSS gas from the Umatilla accident. That sample is downstairs in the tank, and we know Fineman had access to it. So, it doesn’t take a leap of logic to assume that machine is doing exactly what my sister says it’s doing. Fineman and the CAMFers would like nothing better than to rid the entire world of PSS, but we’re not going to let that happen if Kaylee thinks we can stop it. Now, you can either help us or get out of the way. That’s your choice, but what we do IS NOT and never has been your responsibility. If I die going down there, make no mistake, it was my choice, not yours.”

  We need you, Kaylee said to me, pleading. I have a plan, but it will not succeed without you.

  “Fine. I’ll help.” I let go of Olivia’s arm. “But we should at least tell the others what we’re doing.”

  There’s no time, Kaylee said, handing me the faraday cage. And they’d only try to talk us out of it.

  “She’s right,” Olivia said, getting up to slip on her shoes and pull on her sweatshirt.

  “Okay,” I stood up, hefting the faraday cage onto my shoulder.

  The entire way through the CAMFer compound and down into the morgue, I marveled at the bravery of my cousin and the two Black sisters. Olivia had been so physically weak she could barely stand, but adrenaline must have kicked in because she was walking on her own, clamoring between the pipes into the tank room, following Kaylee.

  Once inside, the artifacts in the cage bounced around, shifting toward the tank, and I almost dropped them. I held on, though, stumbling up next to Samantha and Olivia.

  I can’t see, Kaylee said, raising a hand to shield her eyes. It’s so bright. We have to hurry.

  To me, the room and the pulsing looked the same as before, but it was obvious Kaylee was being blinded by it. She wasn’t even facing the right direction as she took a tentative step, leading us toward where she thought the tank was.

  “It’s this way,” Olivia said, taking her sister’s hand. “Tell us what to do.”

  Samantha must go to the controls of the machine, Kaylee said. I’ve already told her what to do and what to listen for. And you must guide me over to the tank. The three of us need to be next to it.

  Samantha gave us a nod and crossed to the machine.

  Then Olivia took Kaylee by the arm and guided her as I followed with the cage. When we got to the tank, Kaylee reached out to touch it and her hand immediately phased through.

  Good, she said. We’re not too late. Now, she turned, looking slightly to the left of Olivia and me as she addressed us. I must phase all the way into the tank, and Olivia must hand me the artifacts as I call for them, exactly in the order that I call for them, while Samantha moves the sliders on the machine. But Olivia can’t pass the artifacts to me without protection for her ghost hand. Direct contact with the gasses in the tank would suck her PSS dry before we could finish. That is why, David, you must stand next to the tank, but not touching it, and, Olivia must hand the artifacts to me through your chest.

  “Through my chest?” I asked, hoping I’d misheard. While it was true that kind of maneuver wouldn’t disrupt my PSS anymore and turn me into a flopping corpse, I still wasn’t thrilled with the prospect.

  Your PSS contains elements of Danielle’s healing and Passion’s vaccine, Kaylee explained.It is the best protection we have.

  “Why risk Olivia when I’ve had the vaccine?” I asked. “Why can’t I hand you the artifacts?”

  You wouldn’t be able to control them, she said. And if the tank materialized while you were handing something to me, you’d lose your hand. Now, please, stand against the tank.

  “Wait,” Olivia said to her sister. “If reaching into the tank would hurt me, won’t phasing into it hurt you?”

  A little, Kaylee said, but my phasing ability will protect me.

  “Okay,” Olivia said, positioning Kaylee facing the tank.

  I set the faraday cage at Olivia’s feet, stepped up to the tank next to Kaylee, with my back a couple of inches from it, and then realized I was going to have to take off my shirt. I stepped away, pulling my t-shirt over my head and tossing it on the floor.

  “It would be better if you faced the tank,” Olivia pointed out. “That way you won’t accidentally touch it or something.”

  She was right. It made sense. But then I wasn’t going to see when she reached through me. I’d have no warning.

  “I promise, I’ll be gentle with you,” she said, teasing me, attempting to keep the mood light despite the dire circumstances.

  “You’d better be.” I turned and faced the tank’s swirling blueness, positioning myself as close to it as I safely could without touching it.

  I heard Olivia fiddling with the faraday cage’s latch, readying it to open quickly. Then I felt her step up behind me, her left hand settling on the bare skin of my lower back for balance, sending a shiver up my spine. Her face was near my right shoulder, looking over it so she could see into the tank.

  “We’re ready when you are,” she said to Kaylee, and I felt her warm breath against my neck.

  Kaylee hesitated just a moment, and then she stepped past me, phasing into the tank.

  41

  OLIVIA

  I had no idea if Kaylee’s plan would work, but I’d thrown together a few creative solutions of my own in the past, and they hadn’t been complete disasters. Besides, it was either this or die a slow, agonizing death in bed like my dad. I preferred death-by-doing-something-crazy than death-by-doing-nothing-at-all, thank you very much. And the vaccine would protect Marcus. Reiny and Pete had said so, and Kaylee had confirmed it. Marcus and my mom would survive, as well as many of my friends. T
hese were the facts I tried to focus on as my sister stepped into a throbbing tank of PSS gas.

  As soon as Kaylee phased through, she floated up a little, hovering slightly above and to the right of where Marcus and I stood, which was good because I could see her clearly, and she seemed to be able to see again as well, her eyes scanning the interior. As I watched, she turned away, raising her left hand, and something came whooshing out of the fog toward her. It was the PSS-severing knife Fineman had made out of Passion’s blades, and Kaylee caught it, gripping the handle firmly.

  Olivia, the dog tags, she commanded, holding her right hand out to me.

  I reached down, flipped open the faraday’s lid, and grabbed the tags, the other artifacts batting at me but staying inside the cage.

  I stood up, facing Marcus’s bare back. “Here we go,” I said, warning him as I pressed my ghost hand into his PSS.

  Once, in a steamy bathroom back in Indy, I’d touched Marcus’s PSS chest with my PSS fingers. That had been intimate and sensual. This was something completely different. I don’t know if it was because of the effects of Passion’s vaccine, or his own resistance and fear, or just because I was doing a hell of a lot more than touching him, but his PSS resisted. A lot.

  I had to push hard, ignoring the weird sensation of my hand passing through his ribs and organs. Not only that, but I also had to resist the subtle, intoxicating pull of some artifact buried deep inside him, making my hand want to drop the tags and search for it. Whatever it was, its resonance was strong. It took every ounce of willpower I had to press on, pushing my hand through the front of him, and I could feel his PSS coming with it, surrounding my hand like a glove as it phased through the wall of the tank and I handed the tags to Kaylee.

  Samantha, move the first slider, she called, snatching the tags from me.

  Over Marcus’s shoulder, the tank’s pulsing effect sped up, just like it had last time, strobing my sister in black and white relief, and fear clenched my gut. We couldn’t take that kind of abuse again. We wouldn’t survive it.

  But then Kaylee raised the artifacts in her hands, swirling them in the gas above her, until the strobing slowed, then stopped. As it did, a whirling funnel of air appeared over her head, and she gently released the knife and the tags into it where they continued to spin, caught up in its vortex.

  I slipped my hand from Marcus, and he staggered back against me before quickly righting himself. “I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I wasn’t—I didn’t realize it would feel like that.”

  I glanced at Kaylee, but she had turned from us again, and this time something small and metallic was flying to her hand inside the tank. She caught it, pinching it between her thumb and forefinger, and I realized it was Jason’s bullet. As soon as she had it, she called out, Samantha, the second slider. Then she raised the bullet upward, just like before, and it joined the knife and the blades in a spinning dance over her head.

  Now Major Tom’s knife, she said, and I thought she was talking to me but that knife wasn’t in the cage. I looked up, confused, to see Major Tom’s knife hurtling toward her inside the tank. She’d been commanding it, not me.

  She caught it just before it struck her, holding it at bay, her hands bleeding a billow of PSS around her as the blade drilled toward her.

  “Kaylee!” Marcus called in alarm, and I grabbed his shoulders, holding him back.

  Samantha, the third slider, Kaylee said, her voice strained as she wrestled the knife into submission, straining to lift it over her head. And she did, freeing it into the swirl with the other artifacts, where it spun as obediently as the rest. But they began moving faster, whipping round and round.

  Olivia, the eight ball. Now! Kaylee demanded, holding her hand out to me.

  I grabbed it from the faraday cage and lifted it to Marcus’s back. Shit. What about his memories? Would they be lost forever?

  “Olivia, do it,” Marcus said, sensing my hesitation, and I did, slipping the eight ball through him. Again, his PSS cushioned my hand, surrounding it as it went into the tank.

  Kaylee called to Samantha for the fourth slider and raised the eight ball over her head into the swirl.

  Our father’s rock, Kaylee said, her eyes drilling into mine, and I handed it to her through Marcus, ignoring the nostalgia that washed over me as she placed it with the other artifacts swimming above her. With that addition, the PSS in the tank grew brighter, making it hard to see Kaylee and filling the room with a blue-white glare.

  Now both the cubes, Kaylee said, her voice panicked, and Mike’s matchbook. Do them all at once. We don’t have much time.

  I couldn’t really see the faraday cage anymore, but I reached for it, feeling inside, grabbing both the cubes awkwardly in my hand and then finding the matchbook with my fingers, elongating them a little to latch onto it.

  I turned toward Marcus and felt for his back.

  My hand went in, pressing, pushing, too full, but his PSS accommodated it, and then I felt Kaylee’s hand take the artifacts from me.

  I looked over Marcus’s shoulder, straining to see her.

  I’m sorry. Her voice was a weak whisper in my mind. I love you both, and Mother, and Mike. That’s how I know you will understand.

  I was still processing those words, trying to make sense of them, when I heard a familiar sharp snap, the sound of a match being lit, and darkness flared out of the middle of the tank, eclipsing the glare of light around it.

  Kaylee was floating there, the artifacts spinning above her, her hair caught up in the motion and hovering around her head like she was a mermaid or an angel. In her left hand, she was holding the two cubes, stacked one on top of the other. In her right, she held Mike’s matchbook, the entire thing going up in flames, engulfing her hand like a torch.

  Don’t be angry with me, she said, smiling lovingly at Marcus and me as she brought those two hands together in front of her, baptizing the cubes in fire. This was the only way.

  “Kaylee, No!” Marcus yelled, but it was too late.

  She raised the burning cubes over her head, touching the swirling mass of artifacts, and the world went supernova.

  There was a high-pitched whine in my ears as I flew backwards. I landed hard on the floor and Marcus fell on top of me, his body heavy and limp over mine.

  Then, everything went dark.

  * * *

  I had a vision while I was unconscious. Not a dream, or a nightmare, but something I knew was true.

  In it, Kaylee floated above me as I lay on the tank room floor, Marcus slumped across me, and PSS was all around us, and in us, and connecting us. I could feel Samantha in the round room with us, and my mother and friends sleeping upstairs in the dome. I could feel Anthony in his cell, and all the people in the crowd outside the compound. I could feel the pronghorns, and the people in Hermiston, the people in Portland, and further, and further, all over the world, as if my senses and nerve endings had been stretched to encompass the entire planet. It was the most amazing thing I had ever felt.

  What are you doing? I asked Kaylee, speaking into her mind.

  I’m giving everyone a gift, she said, smiling, so they can see what I see. I know you and mother will be sad that we couldn’t be together as a family. I’m sad about that too. But this is the best ending I could possibly imagine for my story, and the best beginning for yours.

  And then she was gone.

  42

  JASON

  Some people remember where they were when we landed on the moon, or when the President got shot, or when the planes struck the two towers in New York City, but everyone remembers where they were when The Change happened. It doesn’t matter if they were there, knocked on their asses into the desert sand next to the dome itself, or they were sitting in their living room at home. It doesn’t matter if they were in the US, or South America, Europe, or Asia. What happened, happened to all of us, all of humankind, all at once, a global phenomenon. That’s what they called it.

  All I knew is one minute I was in an undergrou
nd bunker, planning how to use Allie’s resources to keep my old man off my back, and the next minute we were hit by a blast of light and energy. It threw me to the ground, washing over me and through me, and then the world went black.

  That’s how most people describe The Change, no matter where they were when it happened.

  What they won’t describe is the vision they had while they were unconscious, at least not in any detail. Oh, they’ll tell you they had one, because everyone did. But visions from The Change are considered a very personal matter. I’ve never told anyone mine, and I don’t plan to. I do believe that without the visions, the world after The Change would have descended into utter chaos. As it was, things still got a bit crazy after the blast—after Allie and I woke up side-by-side on the ground of the bunker.

  “What the hell was that?” Allie mumbled, sitting up.

  I fumbled to get up as well, dizzy and disoriented. When I finally managed to stand, I turned toward Allie and I could see the glow of her PSS birthmark, the one on the back of her neck, even though she was facing me. I could see it right through her—like she was transparent, except she wasn’t—but I could see her PSS glowing at me as plain as day.

  She was looking at me too, staring at my leg.

  “I can see your PSS through your pants,” she said.

  I turned, scanning her crew, all the locals who’d gathered to help us protect the dome from the CAMFers and The Hold, and it was like looking at a sky full of stars. Everyone sparkled and glowed, some part of their body radiating PSS. Some had it on their skin, others had it deeper inside. And there were a few who had it like a pinprick of light in one or two of their cells.

  I turned back to Allie. “Um, can you see that?”

  “Yeah,” she nodded, her eyes panning the room.

  Some of the others were beginning to get up and it was obvious they could see it too. Everyone was glancing around and beginning to question each other, just like Allie and I had.

  Suddenly, the bunker door flew open and Matty charged in, his left pec shining with PSS like a fucking headlight. “Something happened at the dome,” he said, panting. “There was an—explosion or something—and now—come and see.”