At first, I thought no one was around, but then I saw movement in the back.
“Just a second!” someone yelled, the words nearly drowned out by the noise of machinery.
Rans wandered over and leaned his elbows on the reception desk, while I looked around with interest. It really was exactly what I would have pictured if someone had asked me to imagine such a place. Empty takeout boxes littered many of the available surfaces, fighting for space with computer monitors, keyboards, and PC towers that looked like they’d been picked up cheap from a university rummage sale. Cables twisted through the irregularly lit space like spaghetti.
A red-haired guy in his early twenties made his way up to the front where we were waiting. He was clean-cut and well built. Frankly, I thought he would have looked more at home playing college football somewhere than rattling around in this place. Still, it was clear enough that he belonged here, based on the practiced way he avoided the bundles of computer cords snaking along the floor.
“Sorry about that,” he said when he reached us. “What can I do for you?”
“I spoke with Derrick yesterday about getting some EMF readings from local hotspots,” Rans said, and I perked up with interest.
“Oh, sure,” the redhead replied. “You’re that guy. Hang on a sec, I’ll get him for you. In fact, why don’t you come on back and sit down. He’s just finishing up with replacing a busted piston on the inserter. Watch your step...”
We followed the guy as he gestured us to come around the reception desk. He led us to a desk that was more or less free of empty Chinese food containers, probably because the antiquated cathode ray computer monitor that was sitting on it took up most of the available space. There were a couple of cheap office chairs next to it. I sat down, while Rans continued to stand.
When the guy left to retrieve his friend, I leaned toward Rans and spoke out of the side of my mouth. “EMF readings? Like ghost-hunters use? Why?” I asked.
“You’ll see soon enough,” he replied unhelpfully.
I looked around the echoing basement full of outdated tech and rumbling machinery. “How on earth did you even find these guys?”
“Paranormal and conspiracy forums online, of course,” Rans said, as if it were obvious. “Where else?”
FIVE
ANYTHING I MIGHT have said was cut off by the arrival of a blond guy with thick-rimmed glasses and a smudge of grease on his cheek. He was attractive in a geeky sort of way—probably about my age, with gray eyes and a slender frame. He tilted his chin in greeting as he approached, wiping his hands on a dirty rag before tossing it onto the corner of the desk.
“Hey, man,” he said. “I wasn’t sure when to expect you back. Got those readings for you last night, though.” His eyes flickered to me, an awkward smile tilting the corners of his broad mouth for only an instant before his gaze darted away.
Shy, I diagnosed. It was honestly a bit charming.
“Wonderful,” Rans replied. “But where are my manners? JoAnne Reynolds, this is Derrick Nicolaev, better known in online circles as Hypnos. Derrick, JoAnne.”
No doubt I should have been focusing on the fact that we were using the fake identities Guthrie had obtained for us, but my thoughts had crashed to a standstill.
“Wait, what?” I asked, aware that my eyes were about to pop out of my head. “You’re Hypnos? Oh my god—I read all of your papers about government cover-ups of paranormal encounters on the Third Eye forum before it shut down!”
Rans was giving me a look somewhere between curiosity and bewilderment, probably because I was enthusiastically fangirling a geeky guy I’d just met in the basement of a boarded-up office building. It wasn’t enough to stop me, though, as memories of those late night online forum discussions flooded me with nostalgia for a simpler time, before my life had turned into a bad SyFy Channel made-for-TV movie.
“You might not remember it, but we chatted a couple of times,” I blathered, my mouth flapping onward without stopping to check in with my brain first. “About the connection between political violence and instances of paranormal sightings?” I gestured to myself. “I’m TeamEdward4eva. That was my username, I mean.”
Hypnos—or rather, Derrick—looked a bit dazed by my outpouring, but to his credit he paused, obviously thinking back to that time several years ago when Third Eye had been a huge deal in online circles. Meanwhile, Rans looked like he was trying very hard not to collapse into screaming fits of laughter, so I glared at him.
“Oh, hang on.” Derrick pointed a finger at me. “You were the girl whose mother got shot, right? The... state senator, wasn’t it?”
Close. I didn’t correct him, realizing now that it might not be a great idea for him to know exactly who he was talking to. Especially since Rans had just given him a fake name.
“Yeah,” I said, glossing it over and moving on. “Wow. Small world, huh? So, you run a newspaper now?”
Derrick looked around and gave a self-deprecating little shrug. “If you can call it that. We have a pretty decent online presence, but we keep the lights on with advertising revenue from the dead-tree version. Enough about me, though. You’re getting into the ghost-hunting business these days, huh?”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Apparently so,” I said, trying to keep my tone neutral since I actually had no freaking clue why we were here.
“Cool,” he said. “Turns out you picked a good place for it. Let me get the others up here and we’ll show you what we’ve got.” He turned toward the back, where the press had just begun to power
