The Trial of the Ghost

Chapter 1: A Normal Witday Night

While “three humans, two AI holograms, and an alien sit down to a family dinner” should have been the set up to a bad joke, it was a normal Witday night in the N’tek household.

Well. Mostly. It was Witday, the first day of the week and the last day of the weekend. That was normal. Mar, Nath, Shel, and Kra were all sitting in their chairs with food in front of them. That was normal. Orjel and Ralehal were being projected from the T-phone so they could join the conversation. That was normal.

What wasn’t normal was that Kra was silently pushing her food around her plate rather than eating and talking.

Kra was the most animated of them, endlessly speaking of the latest article she was writing, a new recipe she wanted to try, the latest save she made as the Ghost she had deemed most interesting, the latest news of her roommate Corla’s life, a cute dog or pretty flower she saw on the street—the list just kept going on a normal night. She was the life of the conversation and Mar, Nath, and Shel could only talk about the sheep, Mar’s produce garden, or their pathetic attempts to keep Kra’s flower garden alive for so long before they reached an impasse.

Mar and Nath exchanged glances. This was one apple they had to pick before it rotted.

So Mar cleared her throat. “Kra, honey, is everything alright?”

Kra looked up. “Hmm?” Her mind rewound, registering the question. She replied with a casual shrug, “Oh, sorry. I just have a lot on my mind.”

“Let’s talk about it!” Ralehal said with practiced cheerfulness. He looked around the table and the others shook their heads.

“So close,” Shel said, wishing Ralehal had a physical body they could strangle, and not for the first time. “It’s ‘do you want to talk about it?’ here.”

“Ah.” Ralehal blushed, glancing towards. Ihooyalel, help me, he prayed to the Troan Goddess of Insight, Blindness, Compassion, and Apathy. He was a scientist. Social awareness was his wife’s forte, not his. The N’teks and Orjel had been trying to help him understand, but it was a long process.

“Try again,” Kra encouraged the AI projection of her biological father.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Ralehal tried.

Kra shrugged again for a response. “It’s not much that you don’t already know. I’m worried about tomorrow. Kyp Daily is such a big paper, the biggest in Emlytos, maybe the whole country and I… I’m fresh out of college. Barely two months. It seems entirely unreal that they would want to hire me.”

“But working there was always the goal, right?” Ralehal inquired, his brows scrunched in confusion.

“I know.” She slumped in her chair. “It is and it’s such a great opportunity. I just was hoping to try for it in another five years, once I had more experience,” Kra admitted. “Getting this job now makes me worry that I’m not worthy of it. That I got this by accident. That I didn’t get it honestly because of… well, you know. My powers.” She sighed. The other shared glances. This was not the first time Kra’s powers had incited an ethical dilemma. “I want to do well so much and I find it hard to believe that this is happening.”

“You are good at what you do, Kra,” Mar assured her.

“I know, mom. It’s a little sudden. I can’t help this. I’ll be okay in a few weeks, once I’ve gotten used to it.”

Nath gave her a funny look. “Do you… do you know what you’re going to do around Allelosin?”

“Nath!” Mar scolded her husband. “Really?”

“I’m not worried,” Kra assured him. Her usual smile returned to her face, and the rest of them eased, recognizing the sign of her normal ease returning. No one was surprised at her lack of concern, even if Nath had plenty of concerns about his daughter’s secrets. “If he recognizes me from that college project two years ago,” Kra began explaining, “no big deal. I had already started doing the ‘normal human’ act back then, so I won’t be acting differently in any suspicious way, and there’s no reason he should think I’m the Ghost.”

“But what if when you meet to give him leads he feels that connection you did when you first saw him?” Nath argued, trying to sound as if his arguments were based in logical reasoning rather than pure fatherly worry. He fooled no one. “What if he feels that when he sees you tomorrow? What are you going to do?”

“Dad, you’re more worried than anyone else here.” Kra gave a gentle laugh. “I don’t think it’ll be a problem. If he was going to feel the connection, it would be when we did that journalism project and if Los felt that connection to me then, he hasn’t felt it to the Ghost.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I’ve gotten to know him really well,” she explained earnestly, resting her arms on the table to lean in closer. “If he suspected, he would have tried to find me senior year. He would ask a lot of personal questions when we meet, and my personal life has never been discussed once. Our relationship as vigilante and reporter is strictly professional, and I won’t let it become anything else. I won’t put my secret at risk. I know better than that.”

“Besides,” Shel argued, “what are the chances they even meet? It’s a big building and a big paper. Odds are fantastic they will only ever run into each other once or twice in the hallway in their whole careers.”

“Yes! Thank you, Shel.” Kra gestured to her adoptive cousin, appreciation written plainly in her brown eyes. “You see?” She turned back to Nath and grinned brightly. “No reason to worry. I’m going to be fine.”

“I swear by the ancients, some part of me does know that. I just….”

Kra smiled sweetly. She reached out across the table and squeezed her father’s hand with a gentleness only years of keeping her super strength in check had lent her. “I know dad. I love you too.” She looked at the table, at her family. Mar, Shel, Orjel, Ralehal. “I love all of you.”

They all smiled back at her. It had never been a question, never would be, but even after years of being her family, Kra’s genuineness still swelled their hearts.

It didn’t matter what side you saw: the slightly naive yet kindhearted reporter who made friends as quick as breathing and tripped over words almost as much as she tripped over her feet; the flying, strong, quick superhero with a black hood that covered her entire head, even her eyes, who spent her nights fighting crime on Emlytos’ streets; or the girl between them who cared so much about people and about her adoptive planet that it often made her heart hurt and made her wish she could do more.

With Kra, it was hard not to love her.

It was a normal Witday night for Allelosin La’dyliap; he was thinking about how he could count the number of people that loved him in any way on one hand. There was Leroena Ent, his mother; Lyrusiba Ent, his little sister; and Buiyikyuk Paitrewhi, his boss.

There were times he thought his college roommate, and current roommate, Roxeldan Thuelar loved him (plantonically, he reminded himself, not romantically–thank the goddesses he’d gotten over that initially crush on Rox quickly or else his life would be even more secretive than it already was), but then again, he had thought his father loved him for years when he’d only been a tool, and wasn’t that kind of similar to what he had with Rox?

Calm down, Losin, he told himself. Don’t go there. Again. You chose this.

He really had, he thought as he walked out of the bar, sober as a conservative Wedivej pathist (Astrakael save him, they followed the goddess of communication, he should have guessed they’d be nondrinkers) and frustrated at approaching four years of chasing this story for another one to turn him down. He had chosen all of this.

Two years ago, he’d been entering his junior year of college and staring at the name assigned to him on the housing portal. Thuelar? As in related to Pakeldan Thuelar? CEO of Thuelar Incorporated, shadier than his father yet could never be proven so? All his other former roommates had hated his guts and either dropped him for someone else at the end of the year or moved out–not like he hadn’t tried to be friendly, he just wasn’t good at it–so he couldn’t help but wonder how long (probably) rich boy would last. A month? Two?

A week?

Well, Rox had hated his guts at first, but hadn’t moved. In time, he had warmed up, claiming a friend of his encouraged him to give Losin a chance. For a moment, Losin had been a little resentful. Roxeldan was the son of Pakeldan Thuelar. Rich, closely cropped blond hair with just enough flop to give him a bad boy edge, a fanfiction worthy jawline, pale skin, gorgeous sky blue eyes, designer clothes, tall…. Roxeldan Thuelar had the world handed to him on a platter.

Of course he had friends, good friends.

They were opposites in almost every way.

But then, somehow, because of a friend Losin had never met, Roxeldan now included him in that weird category of friend.

It had been… odd? Nice? Losin didn’t know.

Then, at the end of the year, it became clear what was happening.

Rox asked him to help him uncover his father’s shady dealings and bring them to light. Losin had then seen that Rox had just been getting to know him to see if he could be trusted, and he’d passed the test. Maybe it hadn’t all been a lie, maybe Rox did see him as a friend, but it certainly hadn’t started that way.

Still, Losin knew he had more in common with Rox than either would be willing to admit. Rox claimed he wanted this because his father was horrible and needed to be punished, but if his father went to jail, he could get control of a multibillion international tech company, and well, good intentions or not, that was a nice breeze at the beach. Just like uncovering this story could make his career as a journalist, regardless of how much Pakeldan Thuelar needed to be put behind bars.

And now here he was, walking to another appointment that could make his career.

What demon did I accidentally strike a deal with to get this lucky?

It was certainly nothing he’d done. The Ghost had approached him a year ago with a deal: a heads up on her interesting saves, tips on crime she couldn’t fight to be acted on or slipped to his coworkers at Kyp Daily, and protection in exchange for tips on anything she could fight and to stop looking into something without question if she said so. And now, any day, she’d give him a tip that would lead to the story that would make his career. Or something he could use in his Thuelar investigation.

Or he could rip that hood off her face, get a picture, and get the story of the century.

Millenia.

Losin sighed. Not that he’d do that, mess up the best thing happening to his career. Second best? Was Roxeldan the best or the Ghost? He had no idea. Besides, he didn't believe could remove that hood if he tried. If her hood wasn’t as invincible as her skin, then it would be her speed or strength that stopped him. Or one of her other powers, which of all people he probably knew the best.

Or he could use his powers. She didn’t know about those. It wasn’t like he used them in his day to day life anymore.

Or who knew? Maybe she already knew. The Ghost almost certainly had even more he didn’t know about. Or she’d heard his father discuss the magical phenomenon he was to half the Lywolf intelligence community with her super hearing. Or maybe his father was finally focusing on a different magical freak. It would explain why he hadn’t found any spyware in his apartment in a long time.

Astrakael, help the Ghost if my father actually tries to recruit her. She’s talented, but father is as tricky as a demon.

Losin turned down a street and approached his building. Rox’s father didn’t like that they lived in the Hills, but it wasn’t the worst neighborhood in Emlytos. Just not one of the best ones. In fact, Pakeldan Thuelar probably didn’t like that Rox was living with a reporter in the New City rather than in the Old City with him. But it was best for their investigation, a good way to swap information without suspicion, so Thuelar could rot in What Is Nameless for all he and Rox cared.

He turned his key in the door and then fake closed it, leaving it a hair open. One, two, three.

One second, he was in the lobby of his building. The next, in a jumpcut, he was on the roof with the Ghost standing a few feet away from him. They’d done this a hundred times, her grabbing him and flying them both up to the roof at superspeed, but he’d never experienced it as she did. Sometimes, he wondered what it would be like to be that fast.

Or be that strong.

Or to fly.

He nodded at her, shoving the non relevant questions into a dark corner to contemplate another time. “Ghost.”

She nodded back. “Mr. La’dyliap.” Her voice was infuriating. Even. Steady. Confident. Collected. A purely Emlytos accent. No clues at all to where she was from. He was almost ready to just give up guessing. “Anything tonight?”

Almost.

“Nothing new on the union suppression at Sava Shipping,” he replied, some honest frustration trickling into his tone. He was not nearly as good at staying calm as she. “They’re still digging on techniques but the workers are too scared to talk. You?”

“See if you can push them towards Sainfeetos. From what I’ve heard, they’re the ones most willing to talk to reporters. And they’re the angriest.”

“Makes sense. So far north. So cold and icy all the time. Equipment is more likely to break.” He rolled his eyes. “Of course. They couldn’t be in Emlytos, could they? That would just be too easy.”

“Your big story will have to be something else. I will, of course, drop a note if anything interesting happens on the local street crime front, but I feel it will be a slow night.”

“Another power?” he quipped.

“No,” she replied and he imagined that an amused quirk of her lips accompanied it. If she had lips. He described her as having a hood but that wasn’t quite the truth. “Prophecy isn’t one of my powers.”

She wore a black shirt with an odd symbol on it, black pants, black shoes, black gloves, all covering any inch of skin. “Regular intuition then?” She had an excess of that, he’d learned over this last year.

Her head moved in a nodding motion. That hood made it hard to tell at times. “Yes.” It was a piece of black fabric covering her entire head. He’d seen her front, side, back, it was seamless. There was no neck hole in the shirt, that hood was stitched in.

The silence lingered between them.

Losin didn’t like it. “You’ll keep an ear out for more on the Sava case?”

The Ghost nodded. “And an eye.” Honestly, best reconnaissance in the entire city. Despite no eye holes in her hood, there was no detail too small for the Ghost to miss, or whisper too quiet for her to hear. If she was looking out for it. “Will you do the same?”

“Of course,” he promised, knowing his contribution would likely just be spying on his coworkers and that was nothing compared to what she could do.

“What is it?”

Astrakael save him. “Hmm?”

“You have a face. Like something is bothering you. What is it?”

“I just… I don’t know. Something feels weird about this whole situation. Like it came out of nowhere rather than developing naturally.” Losin sighed again. “I don’t know. Sava has been shit to their employees for a long time, it’s an open secret. But what did they know to prompt this now?” The corner of his mouth ticked upward and his brows narrowed. “Whatever. It's probably nothing.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. You think it’s weird and I agree. Do not discount your intuition Mr. La’dyliap,” She placed a hand on his shoulder, “it’s good and part of why I chose you. I will pay more attention and get back to you.”

“I will as well,” he said. The same empty promise as before. He wouldn’t see or hear anything like she would.

She nodded, as she truly believed his contribution was meaningful. Then she stilled. It only lasted a second before she vanished completely.

Losin smiled and counted.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.