And that, mercifully, had scared him wide awake. As for the dream’s meaning: Kyle had long since given up trying to read meanings into such precognitive glimpses. That was the trouble with them: they were usually cryptic, rarely self-elucidating. But certainly he’d known that the dream was one of those dreams, and now he guessed that this had something to do with it, too.
‘Harry?’ he breathed the query into the suddenly frigid atmosphere of the room. His breath actually plumed in the air; in the space of mere seconds the temperature had taken a plunge. Just like last time.
Something was forming in the middle of the room, in front of Kyle’s desk. The smoke of his cigarette trembled there and the air seemed to waver. He got up, crossed quickly to the window and adjusted the blinds. The room grew dim, and the figure in front of his desk took on more form.
Kyle’s intercom buzzed urgently and he jumped six inches. He leaped to his desk, hit the receive button, and a breathless voice said, ‘Alec, there’s something here!’ It was Carl Quint, a top-rank psychic sensitive, a ‘spotter’.
Kyle pressed the send button, held it down. ‘I know.
It’s with me now. But it’s OK, I’ve been half-expecting it.’ Now he pressed the command button, spoke to the entire HQ. ‘Kyle here. I don’t want to talk to anybody for – for as long as it takes. No messages, no incoming calls, and no questions. Listen in if you like, but don’t try to interfere. I’ll get back to you.’ He pressed the secure button on his desk computer keyboard, and door and window locks audibly snapped shut. And now he and Harry Keogh were completely alone.
Kyle forced himself to relax, stared at the – ghost? – of Keogh where it confronted him across his desk. And he thought an old thought, one which had never been far away, not since the first day he’d come here to work for INTESP:
Funny bloody outfit. Robots and romantics. Super science and the supernatural. Telemetry and telepathy. Computerised probability patterns and precognition. Gadgets . . . and ghosts!
No ghost, Alec, Keogh answered with a wan, immaterial smile. / thought we went into all of that last time?
Kyle thought about pinching himself but didn’t bother. He’d gone through all of that last time, too. ‘Last time?’ he spoke out loud, because that was easier for him. ‘But that was eight months ago, Harry. I had started to think we’d never hear from you again.’
Maybe you wouldn’t have, said the other, his lips moving not at all, for believe me I’ve plenty to keep me ; occupied. But. . . something’s come up.
Kyle’s awe was ebbing, his pulse gradually slowing to its norm. He leaned forward in his chair, looked the other up and down. Oh, it was Keogh, all right. But not exactly the same as the last time. Last time Kyle’s first thought had been that the – apparition – was supernatural. Not merely paranormal or ESP-engendered but actually supernatural, extra-mundane, not of this world. Just like
now, the office scanners had failed to detect it; it had come and told K’yle a fantastic true story, and gone without leaving a trace. No, not quite, for he’d written down all that had been said. Even thinking about that, his wrist ached. But you couldn’t photograph the thing, couldn’t record its voice, couldn’t harm or interfere with it in any way. The entire HQ was now listening in on Kyle’s conversation with this, this . . . with Harry Keogh – and yet they’d hear only Kyle’s voice. But Keogh was here: at least the central heating’s thermostat knew it. The heating had just come on, turning itself up several notches to compensate for the sudden drop in temperature. Yes, and Carl Quint knew it, too.
The figure seemed etched in pale blue light: insubstantial as a moonbeam, less than a puff of smoke. Incorporeal, yet there was a power in it. An unbelievable power.
Taking into account the fact that his neon-limned feet weren’t quite touching the floor, Keogh must be about five-ten in height. If his flesh were real instead of luminous filament, he would weigh maybe nine and a half to ten stone. Everything about him was now vaguely fluorescent, as if shining with some faint inner light, so Kyle couldn’t be sure about colouring. His hair, an untidy mop, might be sandy, his face slightly freckled. He would be twenty-one, twenty-two years old.