Simon Green - Ghost of a Chance

“We couldn’t do this without you,” said JC.

It was as close to an apology as Happy was going to get, and he knew it. He sniffed loudly and looked around him.

“Ugly place, this, in more ways than one. I mean, did they have a competition, and this colour scheme won? I’ve been locked up in cheerier institutions than this. And they had piped music.”

Happy grinned suddenly. “Anyone want to say It’s quiet, too quiet ? I mean, it is traditional.”

JC laughed briefly and went striding around the empty lobby, looking closely at everything and running his hands over the silent ticket machines. He paced back and forth, on the trail of something only he could sense, his head up like a hound on the scent, sniffing for invisible clues. His eyes gleamed, and he grinned widely. JC was on the job and having the time of his life, as always.

Melody, meanwhile, ignored them both with the ease of long practice. She was only interested in the various pieces of high-tech equipment she’d brought with her, piled precariously high onto an unsteady trolley. She just knew the Institute technicians had damaged something when they loaded the trolley up; they always did. No-one understood or appreciated her precious machines like she did. She wouldn’t be happy until she’d set up base somewhere and could reassure herself that everything was working properly. She ran through her check-list again, making sure nothing had been left behind.

She paid no attention to what JC and Happy were doing. She trusted them to hold up their end. Inasmuch as she trusted anything that wasn’t a machine. You could fix machines when they went wrong . . . She dimly realised they’d stopped bickering, and she looked around, fists on her hips.

“Yes, fine,” she said. “Don’t do anything to help, will you? I can handle all this vitally important and extremely heavy equipment myself. Unaided.”

JC shot her an amused glance. “You know very well you don’t like us touching your toys, Melody. In fact, you have been known to stab at our hands with pointy things if you even think we’re going to touch something.”

“That’s because you always break them! You two could break an anvil merely by looking at it! You break more of my things than the things we go after. What I meant was, I need your help to get this trolley up and over the closed ticket barriers. Unless you have some clever trick to get us past them.”

JC smiled at her pityingly, took out his travel card, and slapped it against the clearly indicated contact point. The barriers sprang open.

“Very good!” said Melody. “Now consider the sheer amount of equipment packed onto this trolley and tell me how you’re planning to squeeze it all through that narrow gap.”

“You’re so sharp you’ll cut yourself one of these days,” said JC. “But it’s not going anywhere yet.”

“Why not?” said Melody, immediately suspicious. “What still needs doing?”

“Listen,” said JC. He stood very still, his head cocked slightly to one side, a single finger held up, as though testing for some spiritual breeze. “ Listen . . . Get a feel for the place. It’s 5:07 P.M. Well into the city rush hour. There should be crowds of people flowing through this station, heading home after a hard day’s work or shopping. Men and women and children, workers and families—the city’s human lifeblood—chasing headlong through its arteries. They should be filling this place, loud and raucous and determined to be on their way.”

“God, you do love the sound of your own voice,” said Melody.

“It’s always worse when he gets like this,” Happy said gloomily. “It means he’s moved into full smug mode because he thinks he’s spotted something we haven’t.”

“All right, I get it, it’s quiet,” said Melody. “Can we move on now, please?”

JC looked at Happy, smiling his most superior smile. “Do you get it, Happy?”

“Maybe,” said Happy, reluctantly. “It’s the wrong kind of quiet. Not only the absence of noise but the actual suppression of all sound, of everything that’s alive and natural. As though something else has replaced the sound of people. An unwanted Presence, like a weight on the air, pressing down on the world. This light is all wrong, too. It’s too bright, too stark . . . merciless and forensic, like a dissecting lab. We are very definitely not alone down here.”

“Well,” said Melody, after a moment, “that was very nicely spoken, Happy. All very fab and groovy, splendidly atmospheric and ominous; but you’re as bad as he is. Feelings are useless until I can get my lovely machines set up, and we can start analysing the data! So suck it up, brain boy, and help JC and me lift this bloody trolley over the bloody ticket barriers. Preferably without dropping anything fragile.”

“Your vibrator broke down again last night, didn’t it?” said Happy.

“Stay out of my head!”

“Lucky guess, lucky guess,” said Happy, holding up both hands and trying not to grin. “Let’s shift the trolley and get this show on the road.”

“God loves a volunteer,” said JC. “Come, children, lift that barge and tote that bale; the ghosts are waiting.”

The three of them man-handled the trolley over the barriers without too much trouble, Melody alternately coaxing and bullying the equipment to stay in place. They then had to carry it down the escalator to the tunnels and platforms below, as none of the metal stairways was moving. Apparently the main computers were down. Personally, JC thought they were lucky to still have the lights, but he had enough sense to keep the comment to himself. There was such a thing as tempting fate. JC, Happy, and Melody bumped and clattered the trolley all the way down the unmoving metal steps, accompanied by a certain amount of bruised limbs, trapped fingers, and really foul language, before they finally reached the bottom.

Happy gave the trolley a good kick, on general principles, then stopped suddenly and stood very still, one hand upraised to ward off questions from the others. He frowned thoughtfully, listening with more than his ears. JC and Melody looked at him, then at each other, shrugged pretty much simultaneously, and listened, too. The continuing quiet didn’t seem any different.

“Well?” said JC, after a while.

“I’ve got a bad feeling,” said Happy.

“You’ve always got a bad feeling,” said Melody. “It’s your standard default position. You probably had a bad feeling as you left the womb behind and headed for the light.”

“Something’s down here with us,” said Happy, not listening to her at all. “And it’s not anything I expected. This isn’t like anything we’ve ever encountered before, people. This is something new. Or maybe something very old, come round again. Big and powerful and utterly different.”

“Dangerous?” JC said quietly.

Happy came out of his trance and shot JC a disgusted look. “What do you think?”

“Moving on, moving on,” said JC, heading for the nearest platform. “Do feel free to share your feelings with us at any time, Happy, you know how I value your contributions; but do it on the move, please. I can feel a clock ticking, somewhere.”

“Bully,” muttered Happy.

“Will somebody please help me with this trolley!” said Melody.

They finally established themselves on a southbound platform, deep under the surface. The light was as sharp and fierce as ever, the silence still heavy and unrelenting; and nothing moved anywhere. The three ghost finders bustled around, helping set up Melody’s equipment on a semicircular standing frame. Making rather more noise than was necessary, as though to impose their presence on the quiet. Melody oversaw the installation of every piece of equipment, cooing over some of them in a disturbingly maternal way. Their separate power source was a small black box that sat happily on its own, on the platform floor, tucked under the frame. JC really wanted to ask what it was, and how it worked, and how such a small box could power so much equipment . . . but he knew he wouldn’t understand any of the answers, so he didn’t bother. Melody looked a lot happier as, one by one, her instrument panels and monitor screens lit up, along with any number of flashing brightly coloured lights. Though he would never admit it, JC found the lights comforting. It wasn’t real equipment unless it had bright flashing lights.