Orpheus - Haunting the Dead.pdf - Dice

HAUNTING THE DEAD
SETH LINDBERG
but feel, well, somehow responsible, you know?” He
glanced up at Anders, looking at him out of the corner
of his eye. “It’s been eating me up.”
Tom watched, thoughtfully. “Who has the device,
now?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know. Certain people on the
board are involved. It’s all over Farquand’s head. I
could swear that one of the outside consultants that
I’ve been working with is working for the Pentagon, but
I don’t really know.”
“How long has this been going on?” Tom asked. He
seemed tense.
“A while, but we couldn’t control it before. It wasn’t
tested on agents before, at least not to my knowledge.”
“But it was tested elsewhere?”
“I, ah. Not on you guys. It only works, you can only
attune, you know, the crazed PLEs. The ones with
nothing left. The device, it just feels evil to me. I don’t
know how it was made, it just… doesn’t work right.”
Frick seemed almost in a panic.
Anders attuned his voice, slowly. He tried to sound
soothing. “It’s all right, speak quietly. We’ll get to the
bottom of this.”
Tom sounded tense. “But it was tested on the field.
They brought those things, those spectres to wherever
the device was.”
“I think so,” said Frick, his voice small. He kept his
hand in his pocket.
“Damn them,” said Tom, softly.
Anders watched Frick, suddenly feeling wary. The
park felt cold to him, too, this late at night. “Do you
know how they got the ghost they did? The one they
call the King of Eyes. Where did it come from?”
“I don’t know!” said Frick, whimpering. “I don’t….”
He stopped.
“Frick?” Anders asked.
Frick glanced up, eyes doll-like. His voice sounded
twisted and strange. “I do think this has gone far
enough.” Frick drew out an automatic pistol.
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