The thing arced in a soundless scream as Lenny Jacobs jammed down the hammer. They always did, once he caught them, though he’d never quite gotten used to the way they bent double on themselves, incorporeal hands clutching at too-wide mouths and wispy forms wavering for a moment before the Device finally snapped them up.
In twenty years of Ghost Running, Lenny had never watched one destroyed from start to finish; something about it just seemed wrong – too personal to watch.
Most of the other Runners didn’t have his problem; they lived for the thrill of the hunt, the quick kill and the sweet rewards that came afterward. He was more methodical, more paced in his approach and despite young gun after young gun touting their ability to replace him, he’d always come out ahead when the tallies were done at the end of the year.
Fact was that he liked the cases that were less than 90% odds, the ones where homeowners had no real proof they had a spirit or churches weren’t sure if the graves beneath their cellars had been consecrated. Lenny reveled in the challenge, in the game of figuring out what and when and where so he could finally home the Device in, finally bring the thing out of hiding and back into the light.
He had no illusions – the spirits he took weren’t being taken to a higher plane and they certainly weren’t given a new home with harps to play and clouds to perch on. They were being broken down into particulate matter; Ghossitrons, some egghead had named them, and just a cubic centimeter of them at a low density could power a city block of homes for a month. They were big business and the few companies that were licensed to Run stood to make big money, so Lenny just couldn’t say no.
That was the official story, at least; Lenny didn’t care as much for the money as he did for the fact that he couldn’t imagine himself doing anything different. He was a Savant, one of only a few Runners that could actually sense ghosts without the assistance of technology. A century ago he’d have been called a fraud and a liar; someone who claimed to see spooks and haunts at every turn, but now his special skills had a real-world outcome, a practical application that gave him a way to support his family.
That was an official story too; his wife had left him long ago, taking the kids with her when she went. He should have cared more, should have been more upset, but she knew him well – better than he had imagined. The work was his life, and it always would be. He’d always felt like a fragment of a man, and his work was the only place he fit.
There was one more here – he knew that much. Asylums were favorite haunts for the disturbed and the still-remaining, those who couldn’t break free or hadn’t been given the proper death rights their religion demanded. Crazy houses tended to be low on holy men, owing to any number of ethical, moral and plain stupid concerns.
Lenny snorted. He could smell the last one upstairs somewhere, floating around. The things didn’t really have much will left in them, or at least none that he’d ever noticed. Science said that they were remnants, parts of the dead that were broken off somehow, left down on earth while the rest of them went somewhere else. They were a piece of the person they’d been, but they certainly didn’t bear any similar traits – just a mindless need to wander and wail.
Two quick flights of stairs brought him to the cafeteria level and he strode confidently across the slick linoleum floor, not bothering with the light on his Device. Ghosts couldn’t hurt men, not really, and they were about the scariest thing that went roaming around in the dark. Lenny was far less at ease with those things that skulked around in broad daylight than anything he’d find in here. Ghosts were evil without purpose; men were evil by intent.
A movement from the door to the kitchen caught his eye and he stumbled; ghosts weren’t evident to the naked eye without the Device and they had no ability to affect physical the physical world.
He wasn’t alone.
“Come out!” Lenny bellowed as he stalked toward the lunch counter. He’d never been one for subtlety and he wasn’t about to play a game with whoever was hiding. Likely it was a squatter, but he loosened his pistol in its holster just in case.
“Lenny.” The voice came from behind him, and was one he was unfortunately familiar with.
“Patterson,” he said it like a curse. Jim Patterson was one of the new Runners; another hot shot who figured he’d challenge the big dogs. So far, he had an impeccable track record, but this would put him severely off-pace. Interfering with another Runner’s contract was strictly forbidden.
“I figured you’d crack eventually, Patterson, but I’d given you at least four more months.” Lenny spun to face the other man; shorter than he was with spiked blond hair, Patterson was well-built and good-looking, but with a curl to his lip that made most women stay the hell away.
A laugh cracked out of him; Patterson hadn’t bothered to draw his own pistol but instead held his Device, leveled at Lenny’s chest.
“This one is mine, Jim. Put your damn Device away and get the hell out right now. I won’t even report you to the Board.” All things considered, Patterson was getting off light.
“It took me a while to figure it out, Lenny,” Jim said, his voice think with self-congratulation, “I’d always wondered how you were so much better than the rest of us, so much quicker at getting every job done.”
There was a click as the hammer on Patterson’s Device came down, and Lenny could see a dark blue beam spring to life and lance out toward his chest. He smiled.
He smiled all the way to the ground as his back arced and his hands groped soundlessly for his mouth.
He’d always felt like a fragment of a man.
- D
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