We arrived back at Riowyn's house as the night ticked over to the next day. We moved groggily through the doorway, feeling the effects of the evening's stress and fear and running. We hadn't talked much on the transport trip home. I'd yawned a bit. As we entered the room we didn't even turn on the light; Riowyn turned to us in the glow from the streets that reached through the window.
"It's probably a good idea to get some rest. Then we can work on all these things in the morning." She said tiredly, then glanced around the dark room at the lack of furniture. "You'd probably be more comfortable going home and coming back in the morning, but you're welcome to stay here."
I knew what she meant but I still felt like laughing at her wording. Home. I couldn't even imagine going back to Flauraan, sleeping in my own bed, as if none of this had ever happened, as if this was just a fun holiday and nothing had gone wrong, as if the ghosts didn't exist, and nobody had died, and Sophie and I weren't in some way involved, and we didn't feel obligated to, desperately need to ensure everyone was safe, do something about it. To return home and give my parents hugs and go to my classes and study my books and talk to my friends and act as if nothing in my world had changed. I'd never in my life intended to become the character that ends up in schemes to 'save the day', even if I had anticipated the Weraynian scare on Flauraan. Yet here I was, struggling in the dark with two aliens to stop a force we knew next to nothing about, and there was no possibility of going home until all of this was over.
"What do you want to do?" I turned to Sophie and murmured.
Sophie seemed to stare distantly for a moment. "We can just stay," she said. "Might as well."
"Okay, that's fine." Riowyn said, and I nodded.
We settled in for the night on the floor. Each having blankets in our bags, Sophie and I lay down with the provision of pillows from Riowyn. The ground was soft, and as unimpressive as the lodgings may be, I was exhausted and knew I'd sleep well. Beside me, Sophie curled up under her red blanket, and faced the wall away from me.
"Goodnight Abi," she said, muffled by her position.
"Goodnight Sophie," I replied. After a moment, I felt the compulsion to offer some sort of encouragement and added, "I'm sure we'll be able to work out the source of this soon. Hopefully the ghosts can be stopped."
She didn't answer, ignoring me. I understood, I guess. I shrugged and rolled over. My eyes were heavy and I fell into sleep.
My dreams were fraught with visions and voices and ghosts. My fears had condensed into some horrifying amalgam that was impossible to describe. I was suffocating in my own mind. I couldn't handle this. I couldn't stay asleep. I awoke with a stifled gasp; eyes open to the depth of the night in Riowyn's front room. I sat gently up. Sophie was no longer beside me. My eyes roamed the room until I saw her sitting by the window, reflected in the glass. She was still, silent, mouth set, eyes like glass, eyes gone. As much as my empathy called me to go over and comfort her, I also knew from observing her – I understood – that she wanted to be left alone, thinking things through.
Considering how early in the morning it still was, I lay back down, to sleep once more. This time, however, I focussed on relaxing my mind, on shutting it down so that thoughts weren't racing through it; I wanted a dreamless sleep for once. Within a few minutes I achieved this, and I drifted off into nothingness.
The next morning we packed everything up, talking little, and Riowyn sat at her table for a long while concentrating on flicking through her files she'd brought back from work the day before, and switching between looking at that and a page on her device. When I glanced over her brow was furrowed; she seemed to be concentrating intensely. I recalled that she'd said she might know what the machine is that the ghost was referring to the previous night (other than the teleport watch of course). Hopefully we could work out something that would be able to help, shed some light on everything that was going on.
Sophie and I were adjusting our backpacks on our backs, as Riowyn hissed a triumphant noise through her teeth and rose, pulling a particular file into her grasp and shoving it into her satchel, rising hurriedly and crossing the room toward us.
"Come on, let's go. I think I found what I was looking for. But I'll look at it more while we're on the way." She explained.
I nodded. "Okay cool."
Riowyn opened her door and we moved out into the hallway. She locked the door and we headed out. Soon after, we boarded a transport, and settled in for a long journey across the continent. Riowyn sat hunched in her seat in the corner, eyes in shadow as she read through the file, checked other files, rechecked the files. I wanted to know what she was thinking this all meant, but I wasn't to ruin her concentration. Sophie and I sat for a bit, thinking, making idle comments to each other every now and then. Sophie pulled out her digifile, looked at some reports, touched up one or two things, then shook her head and put it away, staring into the distance at the swiftly passing landscape that could be viewed through the windows. I read one of my nursing books.
When we reached the coast we ate a quick lunch and boarded a boat, Riowyn led us into a cabin where we sat again, silently. Sophie seemed to have regained a bit of herself by then and she challenged me to her planets card game that she had. We played for a bit, chattering and laughing while Riowyn scribbled down some notes. After Sophie exclaimed in triumph over a win, Riowyn cleared her throat and we turned to her with raised eyebrows.
She looked worried. After a moment's hesitation she began, and we listened attentively. "So when my colleagues originally traced the history of these ghosts, they eventually found what we think is the first appearances of a ghost, and like, energy readings from that line up with what we know now. Someone looked into why those tests were ordered, and apparently they were ordered by the Halapatovian High Court. I grabbed the file from that investigation when we left home, and I'm almost completely sure that..." she held up her file and tapped on a profile displayed there. Sophie and I leaned in, intrigued. "Well, I think that it was this guy. He was a scientist at the time. Kobalt Dresden. From what I can gather he proposed an experiment, asking for a grant, that the high court dismissed, and then later he was working in a research institute under strict supervision. It was really insignificant in terms of historical events, not really noteworthy. But the records are there. If we knew where he had lived that might help us, because all we know is the district where the energy tests were ordered, and no specifics. Because I feel like there must be some remnant of whatever experiment he undertook. But I don't know. I don't even know if the ghosts can be stopped. But they seem to be energy? And that needs a source. So hopefully if we can find what is causing them, we can destroy it, destroy them, or at least, get them away from here."
I sat there thinking. This was all so vague. Maybe Riowyn was right, and we wouldn't be able to make a difference. "I guess we'll see." I said after a minute. "Do what we can. With any luck the astronomy centre has the technology to help us work more out."
The others mumbled agreement, and soon we reached our stop and disembarked. An hour and a half later, we found ourselves at the entrance to the astronomy centre. Showing identification at the gates, and passing the checks, we passed through to the main foyer.
"Hello!" Sophie said cheerily to the familiar red-haired receptionist as we entered the foyer, the door swinging closed behind us. Riowyn gazed around at the technology and astronomy information; knowing her, this place wasn't the kind she frequented. Sophie, on the other hand, was completely at home. Our planning and purpose seemed to have reenergised her. She'd been wallowing in worry and guilt when we'd had no news, no ideas. But now there was a chance, however slight, that we could do something. Riowyn's knowledge may come in handy, who knew? I was extremely curious about the scientist she'd unearthed. The fact that one appeal to the Halapatovian High Court, and a subsequent order to cease an experiment, had led Riowyn to a connection with the ghosts was extraordinary. And it might just be of use. Perhaps.
The receptionist raised his head, and then cocked it to the side with a grin. "Miss Lestari! You're back." He was the same man who'd been working the day we'd been here the week before, and had directed us around the centre, and exchanged a lot of information with Sophie about the research and technology here. I'd been too focused on observing the observatory and everything here to tune in too much to those conversations. He seemed quite surprised to see us again. "What may I help you with?"
"I showed you the teleport watch, didn't I, last time?" Sophie waved her arm in his face; he nodded. "Well, we've noticed some anomalies, and I was wondering if we could hook it up to your system, track transmissions and whatnot..."
"Do you think Sophie will be able to convince them to let us use their equipment?" Riowyn asked me quietly, as Sophie continued explaining.
I nodded. "As eccentric as she may be at times, Sophie earned their respect the last time we were here, with the really quite impressive research she's done for the Science Institution on her home planet. Besides, they've all read the report on the incursion at Flauraan, apparently, you'd be surprised how easily we gain people's trust."
Riowyn looked thoughtful at this. I was going to expand on my palaver, but then the receptionist stood up and Sophie waved us over. We moved over and walked in line with her.
"This is Riowyn, she's an investigative journalist," Sophie introduced briefly. "And you already know Abi." He greeted Riowyn and I, very friendly, and led us all through the corridors of the observatory to a door, that opened into one of the smaller laboratories, displaced from the telescope lab.
He quickly handed us over to one of the scientists on duty that day, and Sophie and Riowyn assisted in explanations before they led us through the room to one of the machines with screens, what Sophie had referred to as a signal interpreter.
The scientist was introduced to us as Karn, and then I listened unintelligently as Sophie spoke some muted technobabble at Karn and Riowyn helpfully interjected, so that we would know how to connect the teleport watch to the signal interpreter, and be able to determine the source of the ghosts (which, to be fair, might not coincide with the signal the teleport watch was receiving anyway). Relatively quickly, Sophie was able to sit down and hook it up to a part of the machine, and soon the interpreter had translated the input and was showing a mess of code and data. Karn was supervising our use of the machine, and indicated that Sophie should use a certain function to use the coordinate technology and show signal sources on a map. With a little effort, the screen showed a section of Halapatov, with three glowing dots that pinpointed the source on the two landmasses visible within the range.
Sophie frowned in confusion, manipulating the screen controls so that the map data fluctuated, showing a wider range.
"It's like the signal's been scattered." She said, pointing to a few of the glowing blips on the system.
"So you mean, it could be being bounced off multiple points?' Riowyn said thoughtfully, leaning in, hand placed against the desk. Just like Sophie, Riowyn had lots of practice with interpreting this sort of data. I, however, wasn't much help. Sure, I could make some inferences but I lacked the experience or skill to form any synthesised conclusions. So I sat there, vaguely useless.
Karn, who was watching us work, moved closer and reached for the switches on the side. "If you overlay it with the intensities, that could help you track the signal to its source."
"Oooh nice." Sophie responded appreciatively, as the screen showed, alongside the map, a series of numbers and a bar for measuring intensity. As she scrolled over various points on the map, the intensity levels changed.
With a bit of scrolling and clicking, she managed to isolate the glowing coordinate areas where the signal had the highest intensity.
"That must be it!" Riowyn exclaimed, pointing at a region on one of the countries of the north hemisphere of Halapatov. "Maybe we can narrow it down to the actual source, but that's a start."
"Sophie, are we able to get a copy of that location?" I turned to my friend, whose eyes were fixed on the still glowing part of the map intently. As if jerking out of a haze she glanced to the commands options on the screen.
"Using print readout will get you what you need." Karn took the controller from Sophie and clicked on one of the options. A few moments later a machine on one of the main desks started whirring and soon a piece of paper with the information we'd found had ejected itself from a slot on it.
"Neat." Sophie hastened to unplug the teleport watch from the processor and, untangling herself, she stepped back from the machine, letting Karn deal with the machine for whatever they wanted done next.
"Is that all, girls?" Karn asked. We nodded. "That's good. You can take that sheet with you when you go."
"Thank you ever so much." Riowyn said earnestly as Sophie jogged over and snatched up the piece of paper. With hasty goodbyes, we rushed out of the building, Sophie still poring over the sheet.
"So we're going to go there, then?" I asked, mind whirring with everything, trying to plan and process and see the best action to take from here, as we hurried down the street from the observatory. I assumed we were going to the transport centre, following Riowyn's lead.
Riowyn hesitated to answer my question, thinking. "No one from the active group of us on this is in that area. Besides, it may take too long to explain or convince anyone. I mean, people are dying at a faster rate than ever before. We need to do something now."
I considered this. Sophie was still deep in thought on the readout, her pace quick and urgent. Her watch arm was twitching a bit. I pushed down my concerns, knowing that this behaviour was understandable and also that there were bigger fish to fry, as the old Earth saying goes (or so Sophie tells me).
"Surely there are authorities who we should tell?" I said, frantically pinning down the most pressing worry in my mind. "You may be an adult, but you're still young, and Sophie and I are technically children. And you're right, people are dying. I can't imagine them not at least listening to us. Then maybe someone with a bit more leverage than us can do something."
"Yeah, I guess that is true." Riowyn said but I could see the glint in her eye. No matter who we told, or what happened, she wanted to go there too. She wanted to fight somehow, make some difference, to stop this all. I couldn't blame her really, after all her investment in this. But the fact still remained; here we stood facing a threat that had supposedly been around for centuries, that hadn't been stopped in all that time, and despite the fact that due to circumstance Sophie had come equipped with technology that allowed us to track down the reason behind all this, this was bigger than us. No matter what Sophie and I had done on Flauraan, I couldn't let us play act the part of the hero when so much was at stake, and we didn't even know what to do.
As we walked along, we each stewed in our own thoughts, Sophie still poring over the readout, Riowyn composing a suitable argument to convince me to take us off to defeat ghosts and myself still considering what to do, what we possibly could do. In the midst of this, Riowyn glanced over at the readout and frowned thoughtfully.
Suddenly she stopped, and we fell out of step with her.
"That area is really familiar," she said, and pulled out her files on the ghost once more, searched through them, and pulled out a map herself and the information on Kobalt Dresden, the scientist she'd mentioned before.
Sophie watched her silently, solemnly, holding her readout up alongside what Riowyn was studying. I already thought I knew what she had figured out, but I waited for her to voice it. It didn't take too long.
"I think we know where the ghosts are coming from, or whatever those things are. Pan-dimensional beings or whatnot." She said. "This energy reading centres on the neighbourhood where Kobalt Dresden was doing his experiment. It has to be him. We can find the ruins easily. I can't believe this research has actually paid off." She looked up at me. "See, Abigail, we know exactly where this is. It has to be his machine, being affected, accelerated, whatever, by the teleport watch. If we take it there and find the machine, we should be able to stop it somehow. And we can let some authorities know as well, giving us an even better chance of stopping it."
I stared at her, feeling as if the world had compressed itself into just this space with the three of us in it, even as Sophie's eyes slid further away from reality; we had to do this, didn't we? I was so young, but I was here, this was ridiculous, but I was here. My best friend was suffering from PTSD, and thought that all these deaths were her fault, and I needed to fix that. People were dying, and we had made it worse, and I needed to fix that. Riowyn's whole life had led up to this, and she needed us with her. I wanted to run away and cry and pretend that the world was not this crazy, but after that ship landed on Flauraan and I, a literal child, had been expected to step up and lead and figure things out and make a difference. And I was being deferred to again. So I nodded, and Riowyn flashed a glimmer of a smile.
"So how do we get there?" I asked.
The best way to go to this place, of course, would be to use the teleport watch, of course. Except for some more local travel, Sophie and I had used the teleport watch this whole month to circumvent the globe, and it had worked fine. We did have money, between the two of us, to afford being here, but to cross the globe now would take a lot more than we could plausibly put forward for this. However, I knew, by the tension in her shoulders, the distant fear in her eyes that she was trying to glaze over, and by her state since the first death, that she would never agree. She feared, and I silently agreed with her, that the fault for the increased number of ghosts was the teleport watch and would not be able to bring herself to risk causing more harm in using it again now. We would have to make our way there by our own volition.
Riowyn seemed to understand this. She bit her lip. "We fly."