untouched.
“My arm doesn’t hurt any more,” he said. “And I don’t mean it’s healed-more like it was never cut at all.”
“Same here,” said Melody. Happy was too busy checking himself in all sorts of important places to speak.
“And I’m fine, too!” said Kim. “Though I still don’t know how he was able to touch me…”
“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
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
