Ghost of a Smile g-2 Read online

  “Belief,” Happy said finally. “It’s all about belief. They were imposing their world-view on us, so if they thought they could cut us, they could.”

  “You’re right,” said JC.

  “Someone take a photo,” said Happy. “Moments like this don’t happen very often.”

  “You were right when you said this isn’t what we signed up for,” said JC. He looked slowly around him. “This is above and beyond the call of our pay grade. We’re investigators, not soldiers. But… someone has to stop these New People, and we’re all there is.”

  “You heard the loony ghost,” Happy said reluctantly. “The New People want to see us, and they’re not going to let us out of here till they get what they want.”

  “But are they the ones running the shells, and the Mad Doctor ghosts, or is there another unseen party, operating from the shadows?” said Melody.

  “Wonderful,” said Happy. “More complications.”

  JC looked around at the high tech scattered across the laboratory. A lot of it had been smashed or knocked about, but some still seemed more or less intact. He looked at Melody.

  “Any chance you could use something here to get a message out to Patterson, or the Boss? Tell them what’s going on, get them to send in some serious reinforcements?”

  “You really think the New People would let us talk to the outside?” said Melody. “I mean, I’ll try if you like, but…”

  JC looked at Happy, who shook his head immediately. “I’ve been mentally yelling for help for ages. Screaming at the top of my mental voice. No response.”

  JC scowled, folded his arms, and thought hard. “We know a lot more than when we started,” he said finally. “But I don’t think we’ve got anything like the full picture yet. If these New People really are everything they’re supposed to be, why are they waiting around for us? No… something else is going on, and we need to find out what. So let’s go up and take a walk through the other floors and see what there is to see, before we go have our nice little chat with the New People.”

  “I just knew he was going to say that, again,” said Happy.

  “You must be psychic!” Kim said sweetly.

  FIVE

  SOMETHING OFFAL

  There comes a point in every investigation into the unnatural when it’s easier to go on than to go back. When you’re in so deep you have to pull up your waders and press forward, and let the Devil take the hindmost. Though no-one had ever really been able to convince Happy of that. But JC drove him up the next set of stairs with kind words and curses, and soon enough they came to the next set of doors, the next floor, and the next chance to find a few answers. JC didn’t bother with listening at the closed doors. He barged right through and into what proved to be another long open-plan laboratory. More workstations, more computers, and more high tech he couldn’t even name, let alone understand. The only difference he could see was that on this floor there was a tall standing partition, some two-thirds of the way down.

  JC strolled through the place liked he owned it, hands stuffed deep in his trouser pockets, smiling cheerfully around, defying anything to jump out at him. Kim strode along beside him, head held high, and only the truly unkind would have pointed out that her feet weren’t quite making contact with the floor. Melody followed, stopping and starting as she was distracted by some new shiny machine she hadn’t seen before. Happy settled for sulking in the rear, glowering suspiciously in all directions.

  Surprisingly, it was Kim who stopped first and looked unhappily about her. “I’m getting a really bad feeling from this place,” she said slowly. “But nothing like what we experienced downstairs. The scientists were working on something different here, something completely unconnected with the ReSet drug. I think this… is where they made monsters.”

  “What?” Happy snapped. “Monsters? Could you perhaps be a little more specific?”

  “No,” said Kim. “You’re the telepath. You tell me.”

  Happy shuffled his feet and avoided everyone’s eyes. “It’s like. .. the closer we get to the New People, up above, the more their sheer presence overwhelms everything else. I feel like I’m trying to peer through a thick fog, but even so, I’m not picking up any thoughts here.” He stopped, and sighed. “Melody, put that down. You don’t know where it’s been.”

  “I was only looking at it!” said Melody.

  “No you weren’t,” JC said sternly. “You’re like a little kid-you can’t look without touching. And I would have to say that you weren’t just touching that… whatever it is-you were caressing it in a quite disturbing way. Don’t think I haven’t got my eye on you, young lady.”

  “But they’ve got things here I’ve only heard about in nerd and geek chat rooms!” said Melody. “Tech so advanced Stephen Hawking would get a hard on from just looking at it! I am having this, JC. If it doesn’t all go bad like the tech on the lower floor did, I am having all of it. It belongs to me on a moral level.”

  “Melody…” said JC.

  “I found it! It’s mine!”

  “Concentrate on the job,” said JC. “And we can talk about a little quiet looting when it’s all over.”

  “It’s not even close to being over,” said Happy. “Heads up, people, we are not alone here. Still not getting any thoughts, but something’s in here with us. Not human as such… I can sense its presence, but I’m damned if I can get my head round what it is.”

  They all stood close together, staring quickly about them. Fierce fluorescent lighting picked out everything in sharp detail, with hardly a decent shadow anywhere. No sound, nothing moved, and there wasn’t a sign of a living soul anywhere. The atmosphere was cold and tense, but the Ghost Finders were getting used to that. They all still jumped when Melody abruptly broke from the group to pick up and study some papers on a nearby desk. They watched as she speed-read through them.

  “Well?” JC said politely, after a while. “Anything interesting, or indeed, you know, useful?”

  “Oh, you will not believe what they were up to here,” said Melody, skimming through the last few pages. “What happened on this floor is officially banned in every civilised country, and even a few others who have problems with the basic concept of civilisation. The scientists here were working with stem cells, because they can be made to function as any kind of cell, and they’ve been using them up by the truckload. Remember the invoices I found below? You can’t legally get your hands on this amount… You know stem cells are derived from aborted human embryos, right?”

  “I thought I read somewhere that scientists can get stem cells out of the human placentas, these days.” said JC.

  Melody sniffed. “Some scientists don’t like to change their ways. As long as something works, they tend to stick with it. But what’s really nasty is what these people were using them for. They had their very own Bio Reactor, basically a machine that can build living materials from a basic set-up. So-stem cells, artificially strengthened through genetic modification, then persuaded to form complete individual human organs. For the transplant trade. And they didn’t stop there. They weren’t only making hearts and kidneys and lungs to order-they were working to strengthen and improve these organs, to make them more suitable for transplantation. Super-organs. Very expensive, for very illegal black-market transplants.”

  “JC,” said Happy. “We really have to get the word out about what’s going on here. You can bet that Mutable Solutions will make all this evidence disappear long before the proper authorities can get involved. These bastards can’t be allowed to get away with this.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Kim, “but I don’t understand. More organs, for transplant? Better organs? That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

  “Depends how much you charge,” said JC. “People are supposed to receive organs based on how badly they need them. This is an expensive way to queue-jump. This whole floor is a crime scene.”

  “We have to make contact with the outside world!” said Happy. “People have to hear the t
ruth, before MSI can bury it!”

  “I’m not disagreeing with you, Happy,” said JC. “I just don’t see how. No phones, no e-mail, no telepathy. Everything’s being jammed.”

  “Then one of us has to get the hell out of here and deliver the bad news in person,” Happy said firmly.

  “Of course,” said JC. “A volunteer is what’s needed here. Would I be right in thinking that you have such a person in mind?”

  “I’ll go!” said Happy. “Be glad to see the back of this place. Really!”

  JC considered him thoughtfully. “You’re really willing to go back down all those stairs, on your own, past all those very dangerous floors, and through a lobby probably still booby-trapped with things even worse than shell ghosts? In the hope that, if by some chance you should actually reach the exit door, you would be allowed to leave the building alive?”

  “Well,” said Happy, “When you put it like that… Not as such, no.”

  “There is a short cut,” said Melody.

  “Where?” said Happy immediately. “Point me at it. Oh wait a minute-the elevator? I don’t think so.”

  “I was thinking more about the window,” said Melody. She pointed at the glass windows that made up most of the opposite wall. “I mean, I’m sure they’re all heavily reinforced security glass, but one good burst from my machine pistol should take care of that. Then all you have to do is climb down the outside of the building, thus avoiding all the nasty floors and unpleasant surprises in the lobby, and hurry off to summon the cavalry.”

  “Climb?” said Happy. “The word plummet comes more forcefully to mind! You know I hate heights.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” JC said cheerfully.

  “You’re all against me,” said Happy.

  “Cheer up, lover,” said Melody. “I was only kidding. I won’t let the nasty team leader throw you out the window.”

  “Thank you,” said Happy.

  “Not as long as there’s any other option.”

  Happy glared at her. “I don’t know why I put up with you.”

  “Because I can do that incredibly disgusting thing with my tongue,” said Melody. “And you love it when I…”

  “Not listening, not listening!” JC said loudly. “Far too much information. Let’s leave the topic of throwing Happy out the window for the time being. Truth is, I don’t think whatever is in here is going to let any of us out, through the doors or the windows, anytime soon. Melody, if you’d be so good…”

  “I know, I know, find a computer. Got one right here.”

  “Then boot it up and get me some answers,” JC said brusquely. “In particular-why this whole floor feels so bad…”

  Melody sat down before the computer, and it turned itself on before she could even touch it. She scowled at the glowing monitor for a moment, then stabbed at the keyboard. Files came and went on the screen. Melody sniffed loudly. “No firewalls, not even basic security protocols, just like before… Someone is definitely going out of their way to make this easy for me.” She glared up at the ceiling. “I do not need any help! I am a genius, dammit! I do not need my hand held!”

  “Never mind the mysterious helper,” said JC. “What appalling and completely illegal things were these scientists up to?”

  “It confirms what was in the papers I found,” said Melody. “None of the work on this floor had anything to do with ReSet. The work here was MSI’s original research, before the extra funding diverted them. The company kept this research going in the background, just in case. .. The scientists were trying to develop improved human organs, to be better than the originals. Organs that would be far more resistant to damage and could actually supercharge the human body.”

  “I told you,” said Kim. “Monsters. They were making monsters here.”

  “They were working with individual organs, not creating Frankenstein creatures,” Melody said dryly. “And according to this, they weren’t having much success. Stem cells to organs to superorgans-a lot can go wrong along the way. But something happened on this floor when the New People were created below. Strange energies were released. They sleeted through the whole building, changing everything they touched. It affected the organs being produced by the Bio Reactor. It made things. New things. The scientists took one look and ran screaming.”

  “Took one look at what?” said Happy.

  “I don’t know,” said Melody. “But I’m pretty sure whatever these things were, they’re still here.”

  She shut down the computer and stood up abruptly, glaring about her. The others huddled together unconsciously, checking out every possible hiding place with a hard look, and still they couldn’t see anything. The atmosphere had moved beyond tense to actually oppressive. They all felt like they were being watched, studied, by cold, unseen eyes. Happy sniffed the air.

  “Is it only me, or can you smell something?”

  “Yes,” said JC. “A ripe, spoiled sort of smell. Meat that’s gone off. Blood, too. Other things of that nature, none of them good.”

  “It’s getting stronger,” said Happy. “It’s leaving a really nasty taste in the back of my mouth.”

  “Hush,” said Melody. “I can hear something…”

  They all stood very still, straining their ears against the quiet, and slowly they began to hear soft, approaching sounds. Dragging sounds, of something heavy hauling itself along the floor, through sheer will-power. Wet, slapping sounds, slipping and sliding, coming from a dozen different directions at once.

  “Oh no,” said Happy. “I know it’s going to be some horrible human shape of patched-together organs, probably all red and blobby with no proper exterior, so you can see things moving inside, with dozens of eyes bobbing about at the top. Dripping blood and bile and leaving a smoking trail of acid behind it…”

  He stopped as he realised they were all looking at him.

  “You’ve been watching those Japanese manga movies again, haven’t you?” said JC.

  Happy wrapped his dignity around him, and stared back. “ Legend of the Overfiend is a classic! Though it does practically define the phrase guilty pleasure.”

  “Take a few of your little chemical helpers, and get yourself together,” said JC. “You’re no use to me if you can’t keep your head in the game.”

  “I am trying to cope without them,” said Happy. “Ever since my piss started turning funny colours. Better living through chemistry is all very well, but in practice it doesn’t half take it out on your liver.”

  “And because you can’t get it up when you’re trashed,” said Melody.

  “Why do you keep putting mental images into my head that I know I’m going to have to scour out with wire wool?” said JC.

  “Heh-heh,” said Melody.

  Kim drifted in beside her. “Maybe we should make time for some girlie talk, later,” she said. “It’s not easy having a love life when you’re dead.”

  They all looked round sharply. The heavy, dragging sounds were definitely closer. Wet, slippery sounds accompanied them, sounds that grated on the nerves and upset the stomach. All of them heading straight for the group, with definite purpose.

  “I suppose a big transplant Frankenstein thing isn’t entirely out of the question,” said Melody. “But the noises don’t seem right for that.”

  “Definitely organic,” said Kim. “And kind of squishy.”

  “They were only developing organs,” JC said firmly. “Not building actual people.”

  “Who knows what happened after the new energies changed things?” said Melody.

  “Hell with this,” JC said briskly. “I’m not built for standing around and waiting.”

  He strode down the long, open floor, towards the sounds. It took him a while to realise that none of the others were following him. Not even Kim. JC stopped and looked back.

  “Oh come on! This is definitely time for Go team go! ”

  “Not even for a substantial raise and a stretch limo all my own,” said Happy. “I know my limitations.
And they very definitely include squishy things.”

  “Right,” said Melody. “I have a really bad feeling about this. I say we skip this floor and go straight up to face the New People. I could cope with New People. Strange, invisible, squishy things is something else entirely.”

  “What is the matter with you people?” said JC. “Big Black Dogges with mouthfuls of huge jaggedy teeth didn’t even slow you down!”

  “Don’t like strange squelchy things,” Kim said firmly. “Especially ones I can’t see.”

  “Right,” said Happy.

  “Damn right,” said Melody.

  JC looked round suddenly. Something was moving about very near him. He spun round and round, glaring in every direction, and then, finally, he looked down. And said, “Oh shit.”

  “What?” said Happy. “What?”

  But JC was already sprinting back to join the group. He stumbled to a halt before them and put a hand on Melody’s and Happy’s shoulders to support himself while he got his breath back. His face was slack with shock. The others stared wildly back to where he’d been, but they still couldn’t see anything.

  “Damn, JC,” said Melody. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you move that fast before.”

  “Should we be leaving?” said Happy, practical as ever.

  “JC, talk to me, sweetie,” said Kim. “What was it? What did you see?”

  “Should we be running?” said Happy. “JC, what did you see?”

  “They’re coming,” said JC.

  “What’s coming?” said Melody.

  “We were looking in the wrong places,” said JC, straightening up and regaining his composure. He glared back the way he’d come. “We should have been looking down. At the floor.”

  He pointed, and they all looked, just in time to see the first attackers hump and slide into view. The things were crawling across the floor, humping along like massively oversized worms or slugs, leaving long smeared trails of blood and filth and steaming acid behind them. They were red and purple and black, lumpy and distorted, though their basic shapes were still recognisable-and they were all much larger than they should have been. More of them came crawling across the walls, leaving streaky viscous trails behind them, and even more hung from the ceiling. Hundreds of modified, improved, augmented human organs, made strong and self-sufficient by the Bio Reactor and unknown energies, set loose to move independently, with implacable progress and intent.