Page 73 of Hot Ghost Summer

“Dead serious.” He pulls back, removing his hand from my neck. Instantly, I miss his touch. “Those ghosts are fixated on each other somehow, and I want to know why.”

“But this’ll take me the rest o’ the afternoon,” I complain.

“Done properly, I expect so.”

My whole body slumps in the chair. “Be quicker t’ crawl t’ Plot Forty-Seven for those cameras,” I mumble.

Hollis’s transparent blue-tinged form occupies the seat next to mine. “Don’t worry so much about the camera footage.” His phone screen lights up as he navigates through various folders. “I can’t access anything that happened after we left the site because my absence broke the network, but I can access everything we recorded up to that point because I set up a relay.”

Much more interested in that, I lean closer.

“Nuh-uh,” he cautions, turning off the screen. “You focus on your task. I’ll be watching.” With a wink, he disappears into his phone.

Did he just pull my signature move on me?

Pouting, I tap the keys with more force than is strictly necessary. Justified, I think, because his trackpad is broken. But Hollis doesn’t return.

My leg bounces.

Filtering the database to list all the Level Four entities from the top, I start reading, but it’s as if the lines keep switching places. Or, more likely, my mind keeps wandering. I scroll down to see how many entries there are in total—maybe dividing them into smaller groups would help—but the column goes on. And on. And on. How many Level Fours are there?

It’s not until I see the first entry for the Level Threes repeats the same information in the same order that I realise the answer is all of them. Apparently, it’s possible to get a Level Four version of pretty much any kind of entity, depending on various factors.

“Did you know this?” I accuse.

Hollis doesn’t answer.

I scoff. Of course he knows this. He wrote the database. That’s why he was so confident it would take me all night.

Narrowing my eyes at his phone, I sit up. More alert. Who does he think he is, setting me an impossible task? I’ll show him.

Besides, if our mystery ghost is Mr Bowen, then surely that narrows it down?

The orange glow from the streetlights gradually replaces the sun’s golden rays to cast long shadows over the walls of my flat. As they grow, I conclude that no, it doesn’t help at all. The ghost that haunts Plot 47 could be anything, and without knowing more about what kind of entity he is, neither can I work out how he might be connected to any other ghosts.

I flop back in my chair. “This is stupid. And my arse is numb.”

The screen on Hollis’s phone remains dark.

“Any chance o’ that cushion you mentioned?”

No reply.

“Are you ignoring me?”

Silence.

“Oh my god, you are!”

Darkness.

“What did I even do? Aside from exactly what you said.”

Nothing.

“You know what? Fine.” I push up from the chair, and right as I lean forward to kick it back, a brilliant bolt of electricity shoots out from the laptop and into my hand.

“Ouch! Motherfucker…” I rub the burning skin. “Did you just electrocute me?”