Page 24 of Hot Ghost Summer

The door clicks open.

“Ah, Theo. Good morning,” Ted answers.

His south London accent still grates… just on my soul instead of my ears.

Theo sways slightly from side to side, affording me a glimpse of the neighbouring betting shop: lights off and the shutters down. The entire street is void of life at this early hour.

“I didn’t think we we’re expecting you today?” Ted’s question, and the fact that I’m still angled down at Theo’s faded pink sneakers, tells me everything.

Ted is barring our entry. An energy surge rushes through my circuitry. He’d never have dared do that to me.

“Yeah, I um, don’t know what the protocol is after… you know? Yesterday.” Theo reaches up to scratch the back of his neck, and I’m finally granted a view of Ted.

He’s opened the office door just wide enough that half his body is visible through the gap. Stiff and gaunt, a brown tie strangling his white shirt about his neck, he looks like a lizard in a suit.

“Yes, about that.” He nods placatingly. “Mister Pickett is very busy dealing with the, um, proceedings. And he doesn’t have time to—”

In a burst of incandescent rage that Gerald—the cowardly shyster—would rather hide away in his office than invite us inside to discuss my death face-to-face, I switch out of power-save mode, and allow Tony Montana from Scarface to talk for me. “Open the door, Chi Chi. Open the door or I’m gonna blow your head off!”

In a swift motion, I’m pressed tightly behind Theo’s back. “Sorry. It’s um, Hollis’s phone. I brought it back because I thought Mister Pickett might want it.”

Seconds pass in weighted silence.

A single warning bleep: ten percent battery.

“Just… just wait here a minute.”

The narrow door clicks shut.

Theo exhales and looks right at me, straight, dark eyebrows furrowed. “You’ve got a lot of repressed rage for an inanimate object, you know that?”

Indignation flares through my neural network. How dare he. Repressed rage? Of course I do. You killed me!

I’m debating whether using the last of my precious battery life to send him another message is worth it when Gerald’s rasping voice draws my focus. “Theo, son. How’re you holding up?”

“Um, yeah. It’s a bit… I don’t really know what t’ do.”

Thrust forward, my lens zooms in on Gerald’s pink and sweaty skin. Even at this early hour, before the heat has built, he’s struggling. Unless it’s not the heat at all that has him hot under the collar?

“Yeah, about that. Look, I can’t have you showing up here for a little while. You understand?”

Theo withdraws, pulling me away from the unwanted close-up of Gerald’s face. “Oh. Um… Yeah, right.” Another slight sway, then, “Am I fired?”

“Oh, heavens, no. No, not at all. These things happen, Teddy.”

A sudden rush of air through my microphone precedes the loss of vision through my camera.

What?

No.

It can’t…

I can’t…

Not yet.

I’m not ready.