by Laura Bickle
Anya wrapped her hands around her elbows. “I hope you’re right.”
Sparky slept for hours, curled tightly around Anya’s neck.
Anya thought he had the right idea.
Sitting at the kitchen table with Brian, she watched the night-vision camera feed on the computers he’d set up. Computer and electrical cables snaked across the floor, feeding images of the upstairs hallway, basement, bedrooms, and living room into the flat-panel monitors. Nothing had moved in hours. The boys were asleep in their beds, Gramps in his. Katie was sitting at the end of the hallway, staring blearily at a temperature gauge that didn’t budge. Max and Jules were poking through Christmas decorations in the basement, scanning for electrical interference on their ohmmeters.
Anya drummed her fingers on her headphones. The voice recorders were only picking up snatches of the conversation between Max and Jules, the sound of the refrigerator compressor cycling off and on. Somebody farted in their sleep.
All was quiet.
She glanced over at Brian. He was fiddling with a laptop that was displaying bewilderingly obscure strings of text and numbers on a black screen. The white text was reflected in his glasses, rendering his appearance inhuman.
Anya sidled next to him, pulled off her headphones. “Whatcha doin’?”
“Side project.” His lips pursed.
Anya put her chin in her hand. Brian did contract work for the government in his free time. She never knew exactly what he was working on, but some of the tech was creepy: biometric tracking; anti-hacker algorithms; high-tech surveillance. And that was just the stuff she knew about. “You allowed to tell me?”
“Probably not. I’m working on an artificial intelligence simulator.”
“Like HAL from 2001?”
“Hopefully something less homicidal. I’m mapping artificial neural networks to resemble those of a test subject. I’m trying to mimic human brain function to allow for pattern recognition and data storage.”
“That sounds very sci-fi.”
“Not really.” Brian shrugged. “The technology to do it has been around for a while. People just get squeamish in its application.”
Anya’s brow wrinkled. “What do you mean?”
“Well… I’m modeling this neural network on an existing human’s recurrent biological neural network. Scientists previously mapped the brains of simple organisms, like worms. A microscopic worm, C. elegans, for example, has about three hundred neurons. Easy-peasy. Humans, however, have around a hundred billion neurons and a hundred trillion synapses to model.”
“Wow. How the hell are you doing that?”
“Very slowly. I’m doing it, piece by piece, by using something similar to a self-replicating computer virus to test the multitude of connections possible. I basically sit back and let the program explore the brain and do all the work.”
“Whose brain are you using?” Anya wondered if the process hurt. Thinking about it gave her a headache.
“Strange things happen when you leave your body to science. We got a nearly perfect specimen sent to the university not long ago. We keep the brain on ice in a nice jar, give it a jolt of electricity every once in a while to light up the neurons. The modeling program does the rest.”
Anya’s mouth twisted down. “Is that really what the donor had in mind? Don’t most donors envision leaving their bodies to the medical school, for students to mutilate in gross anatomy class?”
“Maybe. But lack of specifics can kick you in the ass.” Brian seemed unconcerned. “Eventually, you’ll be able to ask Allen what he thinks.”
“Who is Allen?”
“A-L-A-N-N. ALANN: Advanced Linear Artificial Neural Network. Homage to Alan Turing, the father of computer science.”
“I’ve heard of him, I think. Wasn’t he a code-breaker of some sort?”
“He did a lot of work on breaking the Nazi Enigma code during World War Two, though he’s probably just as well known for the Turing Test. The test measures a machine’s intelligence and ability to mimic human behavior by having a judge converse with a machine and another human in isolated locations. Each attempts to appear human. If the judge can’t determine which one is the machine, the test is considered a success.”
“I can’t imagine a machine being able to fool an observer like that.”
“That’s the gist of my research, a variation of the Turing Test called the Immortality Test. The Immortality Test determines whether a person’s responses and behavior is reproduced accurately enough to render it indistinguishable from the original subject. ALANN is patterned after a once-living brain, and I’m curious to see how closely it can match that brain’s responses.” Brian swiveled the laptop over to Anya, typed in a command at the interface line. “Go ahead and say hello.”
“Are you using me as a guinea pig?”
“Not really. I’ve already told you about the Turing Test, so you know ALANN is a machine.”
Anya swallowed. Brian’s “not really” response was less than reassuring. She leaned forward, into the microphone attached to the webcam. “Hello.”
The cursor on the screen winked, then letters appeared on the screen: Hello, Anya.
Anya frowned. “How does it know my name?”
Brian tapped the webcam. “We’re working on pattern recognition. ALANN can identify faces using biometric technology. Theoretically, everyone’s face is unique—distance between pupils, brow height, mouth length, length-to-width ratios, ear size. ALANN combines these measurements and remembers them.”
“But how does it know me?”
“ALANN’s seen you before at the computer lab. It likely remembers what’s said. It’s encouraging that it can associate names with faces now.”
Anya chewed on her lip. The computer lab in the basement of the university, where Brian kept his mad-scientist laboratory, was full to the ceiling of strange technological devices. She’d have to reconsider the idea of shagging him in the server farm now that she knew ALANN was watching.
“ALANN, how many people are sitting in front of the camera?”
The cursor hesitated for a moment, then the numeral 2 appeared.
“That’s creepy.” In some inexplicable way, it reminded her of Katie’s makeshift Ouija board, pulling answers from nothingness.
“Like Arthur C. Clarke said, ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’”
The walkie-talkie on the counter crackled to life over Katie’s whisper, “Hey, are you guys getting this?”
Anya jerked toward the monitor. Katie was standing at the end of the hallway, gripping the walkie. Something pale and diaphanous curled in the periphery of the camera’s lens. Anya felt the salamander collar stir at her throat. This was definitely something more than headlights shining through a naked window.
Anya ran out of the kitchen, nearly skidding into Jules and Max, clomping up from the basement. They clambered up the carpeted stairs to peer into the upstairs hallway.
The transparent shape of a woman plodded along the hall. From this angle, Anya could see that she was a young woman, dressed in white, barefoot. Her thick, curly hair was matted, flat on one side. She turned, revealing that she was wearing a bathrobe. But something even more odd: Her eyes were closed. The ghost placed one foot ahead of the other, as if sleepwalking. From the far end of the hallway, the door to the boys’ room was cracked open, and a pair of frightened eyes peered out, watching.
Katie reached toward the figure, and Anya didn’t need to be able to see her temperature screen to know that the temperature in the hall had cooled, that the apparition had sucked heat out of the air to manifest visibly.
“Hello?” she asked.
The figure ignored her, walking slowly toward the stairway, where Anya, Jules, and Max watched. Anya could see that a silver filament trailed around the woman’s waist, behind her, and she squinted. What was that? The belt of her bathrobe?
Jules bristled at her approach. “Do it,” he growled at Anya. “Devour i
t. Get rid of it.”
Anya shook her head. She could feel Sparky winding around her knees, but the salamander showed no sign of alarm. And she didn’t feel any particular sense of dread about this ghost.
But from Jules’s perspective, the only good ghost was a gone ghost. She knew Jules tolerated Renee because she took care of Ciro, but he had no love for the supernatural.
The ghost ambled closer to the stair.
“Do it,” he hissed.
“No. She’s not hurting anything.”
The ghost shuffled to the top of the stairs. Anya and the others flattened to the wall, allowing the ghost to walk past them, down the stairs. Anya shivered as she walked by and the hem of her bathrobe brushed Anya’s knees. Sparky followed in her wake, sniffing, oozing sinuously down the shag-carpeted steps. He nipped at the silver string drifting in the ghost’s wake.
The ghost had nearly reached the bottom of the stairs when a deep rumble sounded in the distance. Anya recognized it immediately: the garbage truck, streets distant.
The ghost seemed to recognize it, too. She inclined her head toward the sound, opened her eyes…
… and vanished.
Sparky vigorously sniffed at the spot on the shag carpet where the spirit had been standing.
“Did you snuff it out?” Jules demanded.
“No. She disappeared of her own accord.”
The team clambered down the steps to crowd around Brian’s video monitors, to rewind the video and see what hard evidence had been captured.
“Shit,” Max swore, and Jules cuffed him. The camera had only captured an indistinct wobble of light, a white glare against the false-color green night vision. Anya scanned the recording to ensure that Sparky hadn’t stumbled into the frame. Much as Brian had asked to try to record Sparky’s presence, Anya always refused. She was the salamander’s protector, as much as he was hers. She wouldn’t allow his image to be captured and distributed on the Internet like an alien autopsy hoax.
A high-pitched whining snagged her attention. Sparky sat before the front door, slapping his tail on the floor, in the attitude of a dog who had to pee. Outside, she could hear the garbage truck rounding the corner. Light had begun to leak around the tightly drawn window curtains.
“Sparky?”
The salamander reached up to scratch at the door. Brow furrowed, Anya opened it. Sparky tumbled out onto the front porch, ran through the yard toward the neighbors’…
… and Anya saw a woman next door in a white bathrobe shoving her garbage can to the curb. She was out of breath, bare feet scraping the dew from the grass. Her curly hair was flat on one side, as if she’d just awoken.
She was the ghost in the hallway.
But she was as solid as the overflowing can she hauled to the curb, in just enough time for the garbage truck. The garbageman clinging to the back of the truck saw her, too, waved at her. She waved back, clutching the collar of her robe tight around her neck.
“Shit,” Anya swore.
ANYA TROTTED THROUGH THE DAMP grass to the neighbor’s yard. “Excuse me.”
The woman in the bathrobe looked up. “Yes?”
“We’re doing some… ah, work for your next-door neighbors.” Anya jabbed a thumb at the van parked at the curb and the computer cables snaking out of the van to the front of the house. “I hope that we’re not disturbing you.”
“Not at all.” The woman shook her head. “We just moved in, and Lord knows we’ve been making enough racket remodeling.… I feel bad we haven’t been over to introduce ourselves yet.”
“I’m Anya.” She stuck out her hand, wanting to test to see if the woman was really solid.
“Leslie.” Her grip was firm, and her smile was bright, though Anya detected dark circles under her eyes. She hadn’t been sleeping well. “Are you general contractors? We might need a hand with some of the electrical work in the basement we’re trying to redo.”
“We’re not in construction.” Anya took a deep breath. This conversation could go very badly, and Anya tried to soft-pedal it. “We’re more like spiritual advisers.”
Leslie dropped her hand like a hot rock, and she took a step back. “Look, we’ve already got a church.”
Anya shook her head. “We’re ghost hunters. Your next-door neighbor’s been experiencing some odd happenings in their house, and called us to take a look.”
Leslie’s shoulders sagged. She seemed deflated. “Oh.”
Sparky walked up to her and sniffed. Anya knew that he could smell the sharp edge of magick on her, too. What was she? A witch? She seemed so very… ordinary.
“I don’t mean to pry, but… have you experienced anything unusual since you moved in?” Anya kept her tone neutral, non-accusatory. She didn’t sense malice radiating from her, like she did from Hope.
Leslie sighed, and she shifted her weight from foot to foot, toes curling in the damp grass. Finally, she said, “Would you like to come in for coffee?”
Anya smiled. “I would love some coffee.”
“Please ignore the mess,” Leslie warned as she padded across the yard and opened the front door.
The place reminded her of Bernie’s house. It wasn’t just the boxes piled along the walls, the drywall dust, and the cans of paint. It was the smell: Underneath fresh paint and the smell of pine cleaner, magick gathered like dust bunnies in the dark corners of the house. At Anya’s ankles, Sparky wrinkled his nose and snorted, as if he’d just inhaled dandelion fluff.
Leslie plugged in the coffeepot in the kitchen. The cabinets were in the process of being refinished, the doors taken off the hinges and exposing backs of the cabinets, stacked with dishes and canned goods. Leslie rummaged in one of the shelves for coffee filters.
“This is our dream house,” she said as she measured the coffee. “I mean, you can’t see it now, but we’ve been trying to buy a house for years.”
“They say the market’s good for it now.”
“Yeah. When the bottom fell out of real estate, we were able to afford a house. My husband’s credit is shot. He got laid off at the plant, and has been on unemployment for six months. Mine’s okay, but no one was lending. But we did finally get some help.” Her eyes shone a bit when she said it, and she seemed very young to Anya. Very young and naive, to have invited a stranger into her house.
The coffee machine belched and bubbled as it percolated. Sparky nosed toward the counter, and she cast him a dirty look. He slunk away and lay down beside Anya’s feet.
Leslie brought two steaming mugs of coffee to the kitchen table. “Sugar or cream?”
“No, thank you.” Anya sipped at the steaming liquid. She felt it slide down her throat, but felt no stirring of anything in her gut that would suggest a ghost was near.
“I’m sure you could care less about our personal finances.” Leslie smiled sheepishly into her mug. “You asked about strange happenings around here.”
Anya nodded. “Go on.”
Leslie gestured to the backsplash behind the kitchen counter, reached over to shove a box aside. A carbon black scorch mark extended from the wall socket. “We’ve been having some strange fires. Little ones: the toaster, the baseboard heater, a stove burner.”
Anya watched her carefully. “What do you think is causing them?”
She shook her head. “At first we thought there was something wrong with the electrical system. We had an inspector check out the house before we bought it. He didn’t find anything wrong. But now… I don’t know.”
Leslie leaned forward. “I keep having these dreams. Dreams that something bad is going to happen. That someone is in our house. I hear voices talking to me in the night, but I can’t answer them.” She looked down at the floor and blushed. “I swear, I’m not crazy.”
Anya touched the back of Leslie’s hand. “I don’t have all the answers, Leslie. But I can tell you that I will try to help. There may be someone I can ask who can tell us what your dreams mean.”
“Now, that’s some interesting stuff.”
“The neighbor lady is the ghost. She has to be,” Anya insisted.
Jules folded his arms across his barrel chest. “That’s just not possible. She’s alive.”
Ciro held up his finger. “Well, she may not be a ghost, but she could still be the apparition you saw at the house.”
Katie lifted an eyebrow. “Astral projection?”
“Yes.”
Anya frowned. “I thought that was something only yogis and people who meditate in pretty gardens did when they approached Nirvana. Well, them and Bernie.”
Ciro opened his hands. “A lot of it is bullshit, to be honest. Too much acid or the right kinds of mushrooms will convince nearly anyone that they’re tripping around the world in a disincarnate form.”
“And those mushrooms would be?” Max asked.
“Not the kind grown around here,” Ciro said smoothly. “Astral travel allows individuals to occupy a parallel plane of existence. This plane intersects with our physical world in a few places, but also allows astral explorers to ascend to other, nonphysical realms. Like the Afterworld.”
“Have you ever been tripping in the Afterworld?” Max asked.
“No. I never had any desire to go. Bernie made frequent journeys there, once upon a time. From what I gathered, it was a very dangerous place. Just like in the physical world, there are positive and negative forces. But those forces aren’t checked by law or rules in the astral. If you’re weak, you easily become corrupted by negative entities.”
