Smith's Monthly #13

by Smith, Dean Wesley

“Got it,” Nancy said.

  A moment later Belle joined them. “This the right place for the party?”

  Nancy and Jewel laughed.

  “How can I hear you both in here?” Belle asked.

  “K.J. explained to me,” Jewel said, “that we exist on a slightly different plane of existence. So what happens on the other plane, the real world plane, doesn’t bother us. When inside another person, we can interact with the real plane because people have ghost elements as well as everything, but that’s about all.”

  “So we could be standing inside a stone wall,” Belle said, “and be able to hear each other and sense each other like this.”

  “Exactly,” Jewel said.

  Jewel showed Belle and Nancy how to take over the woman’s movements.

  “Is she going to remember any of this?” Nancy asked.

  “Not a bit of it,” Jewel said. She then had the supervisor bring up on her computer the available suites. As Jewel had expected, there were at least ten open, all waiting for major customers to arrive. None of the suites were reserved or even shown to regular guests or the reservations department.

  Jewel knew from the woman’s mind how to reserve those suites and how most reservations for those suites came down from either corporate or the casino floor or the sales departments.

  “Can I try driving?” Nancy asked.

  Jewel knew that both Nancy and Belle could read the same knowledge from the supervisor’s mind, and since both of them were much better at computers and corporations, this was again a great training exercise.

  “I’ll release control of the supervisor’s body,” Jewel said. “Just feel what you want and you should be able to control her.”

  Jewel eased back and Nancy took control as if she had been doing it for a very long time.

  “Perfect,” Jewel said.

  The next thing Jewel knew, the supervisor’s fingers were flying over the keyboard and screens were flashing up and then vanishing.

  “There,” Belle said.

  Nancy stopped. “Perfect.”

  Then again the supervisor’s fingers were flying over the keyboard, and a moment later Nancy said, “Done. Printing keys to hold back in the reserve drawer.”

  Jewel wasn’t sure what Nancy had done, it had all happened so fast. As a doctor, Jewel had been sort of experienced with computers, but only enough to get by with modern medical treatments and getting e-mail and other web activities.

  “So what just happened?” Jewel asked as the supervisor got the two keys, slipped them into an envelope, printed the room number on the envelope and dropped it in a back drawer, tucked in where it would not be noticed easily.

  “I went into corporate,” Nancy said, “untraceable, of course.”

  “Good,” Jewel said.

  “And she found the perfect person to have a room reserved,” Belle said.

  “Actually,” Nancy said, “you spotted it. This casino, as most major corporations, has a sales and banking branch not located in Las Vegas. I had one of the major vice presidents in the corporate division send in this request to hold the room for five days.”

  “The request came from his personal computer,” Belle said, laughing.

  “He’s in Japan at the moment and won’t be back for a week,” Nancy said, “so I made it look like a prank hack just got through is all.”

  Jewel just felt stunned. Together, these two were going to be unstoppable.

  Nancy cleared all evidence from the computer and all trails other than the request coming from corporate. Carrie, the supervisor looked like she had done exactly as she should have done.

  “Perfect,” Jewel said. “You two are amazing.”

  “Thanks,” Nancy said.

  “That’s nothing for her,” Belle said. “She’s that good.”

  “And from the sounds of it,” Jewel said, “we may need that good.”

  “Thanks,” Nancy said. “Can I give Carrie our host here a few suggestions on how to move up this corporate ladder a little faster?”

  “By all means,” Jewel said. She showed both Belle and Nancy how to influence future actions of a person and Nancy gave their supervisor host a few suggestions on some information. And Belle gave their host a couple of ways to act in meetings to gain power in corporation settings.

  Jewel just shook her head. None of this stuff was anything she had ever guessed went on. She had been really, really sheltered in her medical education, that was for sure.

  “So let’s go rescue Tommy from all the luggage,” Jewel said, laughing as the two women finished with the supervisor.

  “He had a tough job,” Belle said.

  “But someone had to do it,” Jewel said, laughing as she emerged from the supervisor’s body and smiled at the wonderful man she loved more than anything in any world.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Belle and Nancy made their way to their suite in the Rush Tower of the Golden Nugget Hotel pulling their suitcases while Jewel and Tommy headed to their home in the University area about two miles away. Belle had no idea how they had managed to get a home that didn’t always have people coming and going from it, but she would ask them later.

  All four of them were to meet for a late lunch back at the buffet in two hours. So much had happened this morning already, Belle couldn’t believe it was only a little after noon Las Vegas time.

  And she really couldn’t believe that she and Nancy had only been dead for about a day. Belle hadn’t felt bad at all about dying and was enjoying the new freedom of this new existence more than she wanted to admit.

  For some reason, not being upset about her own death bothered her. But not enough to ruin her growing good mood.

  And she was really enjoying being with Nancy. Belle was so glad the two of them had decided to take their friendship to the next level. It felt so right in so many ways.

  “Wow!” Nancy said as they walked through the door into their suite.

  And Belle had to agree. This suite was amazing and very, very comfortable. The suite was decorated in oak and brown tones, with soft couches and chairs in a huge living room area near an oak wet bar. The floor was covered in plush carpet and the room had tall ceilings and windows that seemed to just go on and on.

  Right now the natural desert light gave the room a warm glow.

  “I might never leave this room,” Belle said.

  “Wait until you see what’s in here,” Nancy said, indicating a door to the left. Beyond the door was a huge bedroom, with two closets and a bed that seemed far bigger than any king-sized bed that Belle had ever seen.

  Nancy put her suitcase against one closet door, then headed for the bathroom with Belle following her.

  “Now that’s going to be fun,” Nancy said, pointing to a huge jet tub that filled a corner of the room under a huge window that looked out over Las Vegas.

  “That it will,” Belle said, smiling at her.

  A glass-walled shower filled the other corner that was larger than some bedrooms Belle had seen.

  “The toilet seat is down, thankfully,” Nancy said, laughing and pointing.

  “Well, that makes it perfect,” Belle said.

  And it was perfect as far as she was concerned.

  She moved over and took Nancy into her arms. Nancy put her arms around Belle’s neck and just melted against her.

  “You sure feel wonderful for a dead woman,” Belle said.

  Nancy laughed. “I’m feeling a little guilty about being in such a good mood after dying so recently.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Belle said. “Should we be mourning or something?”

  “Can’t see much reason for that,” Nancy said, “since it sure feels like we are still alive.”

  “Actually,” Belle said, “it feels better.”

  And she pulled Nancy tighter and kissed her.

  After a moment Nancy pulled back slightly and smiled. “We have over an hour until we have to be back down to the buffet. You want to break in the tub, the shower, or the bed?”
>
  Belle laughed and then kissed the woman she was falling even deeper in love with.

  Finally she pulled away enough to say, “How about the shower and the bed.”

  “Perfect,” Nancy said, kissing her back as hard as Belle could remember ever being kissed.

  The kiss was wonderful.

  And an hour and a half later, they were only five minutes late to lunch, which Belle considered a minor miracle.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Jewel was impressed at how fast Belle and Nancy picked up being Ghost Agents. They seemed to need to only be guided once and then they would run with the idea from there.

  They met for lunch, then the four of them spent the afternoon moving all over Las Vegas, working on controlling people, hiding inside people, and just learning all the basics.

  As they moved around, Jewel and Tommy explained what they knew about the overall world, which they admitted, wasn’t much at all.

  And at one point Jewel pointed out the floating office that was Poker Boy’s office. “It’s invisible to everyone but us, I guess,” Jewel said.

  Belle was stunned at the square, glass-encased room just floating way up there.

  “The view from there must be stunning,” Nancy said.

  Jewel was also impressed at how Belle and Nancy just loved to laugh and loved being ghosts. And they clearly loved each other as well. They seemed to always be touching in one form or another, which made Jewel realize that she and Tommy were the same way. They also always touched and laughed a lot.

  They all decided that instead of trying to find a restaurant, they would just go back for comfort food at the Golden Nugget buffet and talk about all they had done during the day. They were to meet K.J. in the same place in the morning with more information. Jewel was fairly convinced he would be happy at the progress Belle and Nancy had made.

  They worked their way back to the Golden Nugget buffet and by seven in the evening were talking and eating.

  Then Jewel noticed Nancy looking at the entrance beyond the cash register to the buffet. There was a small lobby out there beyond a planter wall with low green plants that divided the entrance area at the top of an escalator from the restaurant. There were three empty booths along the planter wall and no one in the lobby area that Jewel could see.

  “Something out there?” Jewel finally asked, glancing over her shoulder.

  “No, nothing,” Nancy said, laughing. “I just keep thinking that K.J. expects us to learn all this on our own, for the most part, right?”

  Jewel nodded. “Drove us crazy at first.”

  “And Tommy keeps asking him to teach you how to teleport, right?”

  Jewel looked at Tommy and he nodded.

  Jewel had no idea where this was going.

  “So I’m going to go out to the lobby,” Nancy said, squeezing Belle’s hand. “Be right back.”

  And then she just vanished.

  “Oh, shit!” Belle said.

  Then Belle waved and smiled.

  Jewel and Tommy spun around.

  Jewel flat couldn’t believe it.

  Nancy was standing in the lobby.

  Then she vanished.

  And she was again sitting next to Belle, who hugged her long and hard as Jewel and Tommy turned back around.

  Jewel just stared at Nancy. She could think of nothing to say.

  Flat nothing.

  “My turn,” Belle said, laughing.

  She stared at the lobby behind Jewel and an instant later she vanished.

  Nancy laughed and waved “hi” and then before Jewel could turn back around, Belle was back in her seat.

  “Damn this is fun,” Nancy said, the smile on her face so big it looked to Jewel like it might hurt.

  Jewel just glanced at Tommy, who looked completely shocked. Finally, Jewel leaned forward. “How did you do that?”

  “We’re dead, right?” Nancy asked.

  Jewel and Tommy nodded. Jewel had no idea what had just happened, but she really, really wanted to know, so she said nothing.

  “So all day we’ve been walking through walls and doors and sides of cars and climbing in and out of people, right?” Nancy asked.

  Again Jewel and Tommy just nodded.

  “So we’re not really restricted by physical laws that much if we don’t want to be,” Nancy said. “So I just believed I was standing in the lobby and I was.”

  “That’s all I did as well,” Belle said. “I just knew I was standing in the lobby.”

  Jewel opened her mouth to say something and flat couldn’t think of anything to say yet again.

  Tommy nodded and turned around and glanced at the lobby. Then he vanished.

  He waved from the lobby and then reappeared.

  “Give it a try,” Tommy said, touching her. “It’s as easy as they say it is.”

  Jewel nodded, doing her best to not think about anything. She felt the same as she had felt right after they had died. Scared and puzzled at the same time.

  She glanced back at the lobby and then just knew she was standing there.

  And suddenly she was standing there, right in front of a group of overweight tourists in far too tight shorts coming at her like a herd of cattle. She was between them and their food.

  She knew she was sitting at the table again and she was.

  Belle and Nancy applauded and Tommy gave her a long kiss.

  “That’s going to take some practice,” Jewel said, laughing.

  “Tomorrow,” Tommy said.

  “And there’s one more thing Nancy and I were talking about before lunch that we wondered about,” Belle said.

  “What’s that?” Tommy asked.

  “After that I’m almost afraid to ask,” Jewel said, shaking her head. And she was. These two women were clearly two of the smartest and quickest thinkers she had ever met. And they didn’t seem to think they had any restrictions at all.

  Which it seemed they didn’t.

  “We have been wondering why we can’t do this?” Nancy asked.

  Slowly, as Jewel and Tommy watched, both Belle and Nancy, hand-in-hand, just floated up off their chairs about five feet and then drifted back down.

  Jewel had her mouth open.

  And for the third time in just a few minutes, there was not a damn thing she could say.

  Finally Tommy said, “K.J., some help here.”

  “We didn’t do anything wrong, did we?” Belle asked, suddenly very worried.

  “Oh, heavens, no,” Tommy said, shaking his head. “I just need some explaining from K.J.”

  Jewel was still doing her best to just catch her breath. She had just watched the two new recruits teleport and then fly.

  “Thirty seconds,” K.J.s voice came out of thin air.

  “Do me a favor,” Tommy said, smiling. “Float up there near the ceiling until K.J. gets here.”

  Both Belle and Nancy laughed and a moment later Jewel watched the two women float up to the ceiling.

  “Smells wonderful up here,” Belle said to Jewel and Tommy.

  “Yeah,” Nancy said, “We going for seconds shortly.”

  At that both of them giggled as K.J. arrived and glanced around. “I thought you had the two new agents with you.”

  “We do,” Tommy said. “And that’s what we want to talk with you about.”

  Jewel just smiled at K.J. and pointed upward.

  K.J. glanced up as Belle and Nancy waved and then came floating back down to their chairs.

  “Oh, shit,” K.J. said, softly. “How did you two do that?”

  “I’m betting it is sort of the same way they showed us how to do this,” Tommy said.

  An instant later all five of them were standing in the middle of the lobby.

  Then they were back at the table.

  K.J. barely managed to pull up a chair and sit down before his knees gave out and he fell down.

  “What’s wrong?” Jewel asked.

  “It took me over thirty years to learn how to teleport,” K.J. said, “
and I never knew Ghost Agents could fly.”

  “That’s all right,” Jewel said and patted K.J.’s hand. She winked at Belle and Nancy. “That’s what you get for recruiting two really smart women.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Belle mostly just listened, sitting, holding Nancy’s hand, as K.J. gave them some tips on how to teleport to places they couldn’t really visualize.

  “You sort of slow down time right as you arrive,” he said. “Saves you landing inside something you don’t want to be inside of.”

  He pointed to a woman walking at a normal pace and then suddenly she was frozen where she stood and all the sound and everything vanished.

  Then she moved and the sounds of the restaurant and people talking and background music came smashing back in.

  Belle just sort of shook her head. It hadn’t felt that noisy in here until all noise was taken away.

  “This isn’t actually stopping time,” K.J. said, “No one can do that, but you can move between instants of time. When you teleport long distances to a place you can’t visualize, do it between instants of time and that way if you land in a wrong spot, you can adjust before coming back into time.”

  “And we can all do that?” Nancy asked.

  K.J. nodded. “Since you learned how to fly and it never dawned on me to try that, I’m sure you can. Just imagine stepping between instants of time. Nancy, you first and take us all with you by imagining a bubble around this table.”

  Nancy nodded and a moment later the sounds vanished and the few people in the buffet froze.

  “Wow, this is nifty,” she said, squeezing Belle’s hand.

  Then the sounds came back and K.J. pointed to Belle.

  She took a deep breath and just imagined a bubble around the table and that bubble slipping between a flow of time, like a rock in a river.

  Again the sounds vanished and everyone else in the buffet froze.

  “Wonderful,” Nancy said and kissed her.

  Belle had never imagined feeling this powerful. She was suddenly like a superhero. She could teleport, slip between moments of time, fly, walk through walls, and control people inside their minds. All that while being dead.