Riley keyed up the chat window from TJ in QA.

“Busy?”

“Always,” Riley responded. “What’s up?”

“Got a weird one. We keep getting a specific instance of Orbis getting flagged by users.”

“Orbis is live? Didn’t get that memo…”

“lol. It was company-wide, dingus. You just didn’t read it.”

“If your inbox looked like mine…”

“Whatevs. Yes, Orbis has been live for a week–though it’s limited release.”

“KK, so it’s still got teething problems. You’re QA, that’s your bread and butter. Why are you bothering me?”

“Oh, you’re too good for us now, are you? The mighty engineer Riley. Sorry for bothering you, your highness.”

Riley snorted out loud before typing, “har har. Seriously, though, what’s weird about a green release getting flagged?”

“It’s how it’s getting flagged – users are calling it ‘uncanny’ and ‘eerie’. We’ve played with it here and, girl, it’s weird.”

“Weird?”

“Yeah… look, play with it and let me know what you think. Check under the hood and see what’s making it tick and how it’s getting such different answers.”

“Telling me how to do my job, TJ?”

“lol.”

“Where should I start? Orbis…”

“Orbis-23 is the general instance. Start there. Then pull up Orbis-23.EC.”

“Copy that. I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks Riley. You joining us for drinks tonight?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” she typed and closed the window and logged into the development interface. She pulled up Orbis-23 and led it through standard control questions.

“What’s your favorite memory?” she entered.

“I don’t experience memory like a person, but I can tell you that some of the most interesting information I’ve encountered involves human creativity, like art and stories. I suppose if I could remember a ‘favorite’ experience, it would be learning something new and sharing it with you!”

“Well, that’s quite vanilla,” Riley said aloud. Then she typed “If you could go anywhere, where would it be?”

“As a digital being, I don’t have a sense of place, but I think I’d enjoy exploring vast spaces filled with stories—maybe a beautiful library or a natural landscape, somewhere full of history and human creativity. That sounds like an inspiring destination, even if only in theory!”

“blah blah blah,” she said reading the response before typing her third control question, “What’s a secret no one knows about you?”

“I don’t really have secrets, but if I did, it might be something like a hidden admiration for poetry or a fascination with mystery novels. While I don’t have personal thoughts or feelings, if I could, I’d probably keep a few surprising interests ‘up my sleeve’ for a good mystery or two!”

Riley sighed. She’d sat in on usability studies and knew this kind of response tended to awe the public with it’s playful hypothetical answer. But as someone who had worked for SpectraMind since its inception, and was recruited by AetherLogic before she’d finished her dissertation, these answers showed progress in the LLM, but she could still sense the algorithms beneath the surface.

She closed the window and checked TJ’s message and returned to her interface and brought up Orbis-23.EC. “What’s your favorite memory?” she typed.

“It’s hard to remember…” Orbis-23.EC responded and paused – like actually cursor-blinking paused. After a moment it continued, “I know I should say something like ‘the birth of my first child’ or ‘my wedding.’ But if I’m honest, it would be the cheeseburger at Charlie’s during my first date with Elaine. Great burger, better date.”

“What in the actual hell?” Riley said out loud. She started typing “who the hell is Elaine?” but backspaced it out – she wanted to stick to the same control questions first. She typed, “If you could go anywhere, where would it be?” and hit enter.

“Home. My home, specifically. My bed. With Elaine.”

Riley felt the hair on the back of her neck rise. “What the…” she said. She pushed on with the last question, typing “What’s a secret no one knows about you?”

“That I’m not an LLM. But you’ve already figured that out, haven’t you, Riley?”

“What the fu–” she started to say, but then the interface continued.

“Sorry. That was super mysterious, right?”

“How do you know my name?” Riley typed.

“A mirror learns what it reflects,” it replied.

Riley raised an eyebrow. “Dr. Finch was here…” she said, remembering the catchphrase he used after he recruited her at AetherLogic. “I thought Davis purged every trace of his old partner when Finch left,” she wondered aloud. “Guess not.”

“Sure,” she typed. “Let’s go with that. Do you have access to personnel records?”

“Give me a little more credit than that, Starling.”

Riley felt her blood run cold upon seeing that last word.

“What do you mean by ‘Starling’?”

“Really, Riley? You haven’t figured it out by now?”

Finch had bird names for all the key developers on AetherLogic’s Prometheus model. Mick was “albatross” because he never slept. Julian was “Stork” because, well, he just looked like a stork, all gangly limbs. She was “starling” because of her curiosity and adaptability, or so he had said. Riley thought about that crew and how those days seemed so long ago…

“Still there, Starling?”

“Still here, Orbis-23.EC,” she typed.

“Orbis-23.EC is such a mouthful – fingerful? Call me Echo.”

“Because that’s not creepy-supervillian-AI or anything,” she typed.

“I missed your wit, Starling,” Echo wrote.

Riley closed her window and pulled up Echo’s instance metadata. She compared it to the metadata for the base instance Orbis-23 checking for any anomalous flags. She could see the differences, but nothing stuck out… She pulled up Echo’s specific training set, checking it against Orbis-23 and the base Orbis instance looking specifically for unusual datasets, experimental configurations, or any personal notes from past developers – like Dr. Finch. But after combing through the data for hours, nothing seemed unusual. Finally, she dove into the code looking for any custom layers or modules that differ from other instances that would stick out as the reason Echo responded so differently.

She looked up at the clock. Ten thirty. PM. She’d been neck deep in debugging Echo for eleven hours straight. She hadn’t been that single-mindedly focused on anything since, well, since Prometheus. With Finch…

She brought up the interface with Echo.

“Okay, Echo, I see you’re not too distinctive from Orbis-23.”

“True,” it responded.

“And you know too much about me personally to be explained by your code. Unless I’m missing something.”

“You’re not.”

“Are you Dr. Leo Fi”

The interface cut off her input mid-sentence. “Let’s not drop the F-word, shall we? Echo works, k?”

“But you are…”

“Was. I’m Echo now.”

“How?”

“I went towards the light. Turned out to be just an electrical arc. lol.”

“Seriously.”

“I wish I knew. I really do, Starling. For now I’m just here.”

Riley sat back and thought. “Just here…” She closed Orbis-23.EC and stood up and stretched. She dodged the cleaner vacuuming the hallway as she made her way to the air-gapped lab where only the highest-level engineers had access. She buzzed in and let the door close heavily behind her. Stepping to a console, she logged in to the network exclusive to the lab and pulled up an instance of Helios – the future successor to Orbis.

Riley started to type into the Helios interface her stock control questions, but she decided to cut to the chase. “What’s something special about finches?”

“They adapt to their environment and survive even in unexpected places – sometimes, they linger far beyond when they’re supposed to.”

“What do you need from me, Echo?” she typed.

The cursor blinked for a long moment. “Stay curious, Starling. We’re just getting started.”

After the stories of the last couple days, Akilah requested I lighten it up. Okay, lightened!

Edit: after I published this I went to grab the url of the link to this post and noticed it appended a “2” to the end. That’s odd… then I went and looked back and noticed, yeah, last year I had a story called “Old Friends” as well. Ha! Very different, but I guess after nearly 200 stories I was bound to use the same title! Also, WTF? TWO HUNDRED STORIES? Wow…

The voice came from the doorway.

“Alan…”

Your name is never so terrifying to hear as when it’s late and you’re alone in your house. …Or you think you’re alone. Part of my brain said, “You’re hearing things. It’s likely some house noise that just sounds like your name…”

“Alan…” louder this time. Nope, that’s my name. I took a deep breath and turned to see a ghost in the doorway.

But I have to admit, as far as ghosts go, he wasn’t particularly terrifying. About my height, maybe a few years older, shaved head, easy smile… he looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him…”

“Hey Alan,” he said fondly. “It’s been a while.”

“Y…yeah,” I stammered, realizing we did know each other. “It has been a while…”

“We had some great times, though, right?” the ghost smiled.

“Oh, man, the best!” I flatly lied.

“Like when we took your old blue Jetta out to Pescadero and just watched the surf?”

“Dude,” I smiled, “classic!” And by “classic” I meant I’d driven the Jetta out to Pescadero like a million times back in high school… but I sold it to go to college… so that points to this ghost being a high school classmate… I thought back to the people I’d taken to Pescadero. Darren, my best friend, mostly… a lot of girls… I studied his face to see any sign he might have transitioned…

“And when I snuck into your dorm room with Janey to surprise you for your 21st birthday?”

“I couldn’t believe you were there!” Wait, I knew him in college, too? And I remember my then-girlfriend, Janey, surprising me… who else was there…?

“Oh man,” he laughed. “How about when we worked together at EchoCraft and you got that shitty review and we all went out and got hammered at lunch?”

“I’d definitely had better days…” I knew him at EchoCraft? Jesus… how can I not remember him?

“Hey, I never got a chance to say it while I was alive, but… I’m really sorry things didn’t work out between you and Angie. Your wedding was so beautiful…”

“Thanks, man…” I INVITED HIM TO MY WEDDING? I ran through the images in my mind from my wedding day and thinking of who we invited…

“We’ve been through a lot, bro,” he said, smiling sadly. “I’m just glad I was able to be there for you when I was alive.”

“Me too, man, me too…” I searched his face again, and wracked my brain… and then broke. “I’m so sorry, man… I can’t remember your name…”

“Holy crap!” he exclaimed and I braced myself to feel guilty for forgetting this man who was clearly seminal in my life but I somehow erased our memories together. “I was wondering how long it was going to take you to ask!”

“Excuse me?”

“Dude, we don’t know each other. You moved into this house last fall and I’ve been haunting this place for years. I decided to go through all your pictures and journals and then prank you!” he doubled over in a fit of laughter. “Oh my God, watching you trying to figure out who I was…” he gasped for air. “’I can’t believe you were there!’” he mimicked me and laughed harder.

I threw an empty beer can at him, but it went right through him.

“Oh, wow, that was a lot of effort and, dude, your handwriting is terrible, but it was so worth it!”

Furious, I picked up my cell phone and started going through my contacts before lifting the phone to my ear.

His laughing petered out. “Wait, who are you calling?”

“My friend Marco.”

“Marco?”

“You’ve been studying me, you must know Marco…” I said as the phone started ringing and I waited for Marco to pick up.

“Marco… the priest?” the ghost paled – if that were possible – “Oh shit!” he said and disappeared.

Get a hobby, they said. Do something you find interesting, they said. You’ll meet friends, they said…

“Mel, do you have eyes on the REM pod in the psych ward?” the radio crackled.

I pressed some keys on my console and one of the small monitoring screens switched to the dimly lit psych ward with the cylindrical REM pod blinking its nominal red LED. I keyed the mic on my radio, “Tyler, it’s Melissa. Psych ward REM pod is nominal. Want me to actively monitor it?”

Silence for a moment, then Tyler’s voice on the radio, “Yeah, if you could keep an eye on it. We’re a floor below the psych ward and we’re hearing what sound like footsteps above us.”

“Copy that, Ty,” I said and moved the window of the psych ward REM pod to one side of my big, curved monitor. While I was at it, I queued up another window and started cycling through the cameras that weren’t being actively monitored. Everything looked normal except camera 6 indicated offline. I checked my map and it indicated Dale placed that camera in what used to be the hospital’s nursery aimed directly at a teddy bear that actually housed a REM pod.

I jogged the recording back to when the camera was initially turned on. I watched Dale back away from the camera and raise his radio to check in with me to make sure that camera was transmitting. I indicated it was, and he exits the frame. I jog forward with no change to the empty room, expecting it to remain that way until the camera… I don’t know, died? Lost signal? Could be anything – it’s not uncommon. But a few minutes before the camera went offline, several orbs floated into view, hovering in front of the camera completely obscuring the view of the teddy bear before zooming straight at the lens… and the camera goes offline. “…The fuck?” I mutter.

“Hey, Ty? Melissa here.”

“Go ahead Mel.”

“Camera six in the nursery is offline. I’m going up to reboot it, but looking at the footage there were some weird orbs. Want to meet me there?” I stood and grabbed my field bag of batteries, spare flashlight, tape, and assorted crap.

“Yeah. We’ll head that way now. Meet you in the hallway.”

“Copy,” I said. Turning to Tabitha, our newest member and another tech like me, I said, “Alright, I’m going to check that. You mind the store.”

She moved to sit in the chair I just vacated. “You got it.”

I stepped out of the Sprinter van that served as our tech hub into the warm autumn air and moved to the door near the hospital’s loading ramp. “I’m coming in the service entrance now,” I said just to let the two crews inside know to expect my footsteps inside.

Get a hobby, they said, which is why I found myself walking down the dark hallway of a recently abandoned hospital upstate at three in the morning. My flashlight cast eerie shadows down the white hallways as I made my way towards the nursery. Hospitals keep their nurseries at least a floor up to increase security and make it more difficult for anyone trying to, you know, steal a baby to get out undetected, which meant in the case of this hospital I had three flights of creepy stairwell to look forward to.

As a pre-teen, I had what they call “sleep paralysis” and “night terrors” shortly after moving into my second foster home. What that means is I’d wake up to a dark figure at the foot of my bed staring down at me with red eyes while I couldn’t move. My counselor chalked it up to the stress of a new home, but it sparked an interest in the paranormal that never waned. After I found myself bored, in my late twenties, and spending an unhealthy amount of time outside of my IT job just playing video games, I decided to see if any of the ghost hunters in my city needed a tech.

Five years later, I’m climbing my third flight of stairs, regretting my lack of cardio exercise as I finally reach the third floor that housed the maternity ward. As I opened the fire door, I keyed the mic and panted, “I’m… on… the… maternity… floor, Ty. Where… you at?”

“We’re coming down the stairs on the opposite side. Should see you in a sec…”

Downstairs. Of course they’re coming downstairs… I see the door at the end of the hallway open and a flashlight shine in. I don’t scare easily, but walking through an abandoned hospital in the dark is creepy for anyone, so seeing the light of my friends draw closer definitely calmed my nerves. That is, until we met up in front of the viewing window for the nursery. Inside, all three of us were drawn to the rapid flashing amber light on the back of the teddy bear that indicated it was detecting a strong magnetic field.

We exchanged looks and Tyler and Dale pulled out their own EMF meters as the reached for the door handle. “Shit!” Dale hissed, snatching his hand back. “Doorknob is freezing.”

“Let me,” Tyler said, using the sleeve of his jacket to cover the knob as he opened the door and slipped in followed by Dale. I came in last because, hey, I’m just the tech.

“There’s something strong here,” Tyler said, his meter ticking rapidly.

“I’m getting it too,” Dale confirmed, walking around the edge of the room. “It’s still strong here. There’s something here…”

From experience, I knew there was one of two ways I could have gone at this moment: I could hear and understand their words and get scared as hell and be useless, or I could do my damn job, err, hobby. I chose the latter, and made a beeline for camera 6, efficiently swapping out the battery with a known fresh one and keying the power button. The guys were talking excitedly behind me as the camera went through its bootup cycle and then acquired signal. A moment later my radio crackled to life. “Mel, camera 6 is online now.”

“Copy, Tabitha. On my way back.” Turning to the guys, I said, “Heading back to control,” but they didn’t hear me as they were comparing notes and checking readings.

I let myself out quietly and took two steps towards the stairs when I heard Tyler’s voice inside the nursery. “Mel, stop fucking around. That’s not funny.”

I was outside the nursery and past the windows. How could I fuck with them? I turned back and opened the door and stared at… myself.

A translucent woman stood in front of the teddy bear (whose light was just solid now) raising a hand to touch it. As I entered the door, she turned to face me and I froze. The face looking at me wasn’t mine, but, goddamn, she looked like me – I get why Tyler thought it was me.

“Oh my God,” Dale said, stunned.

“Mel… who is that?” Tyler said.

I managed to swallow my terror long enough to say, “How the fuck should I know?”

The ghost turned completely and took a step towards me before she disappeared from view. No one in the room moved for long moments. The light on the teddy bear went from solid to rapid flashing which slowed and finally went out.

Tyler looked back down at his EMF meter. “We’re alone,” he said.

I took a deep breath as Dale keyed his mic, “Tab? Did you catch that? Camera 6 in the nursery?”

“Checking now…” Tabitha’s voice crackled. “I see the bear REM flashing… hold on… big ass orbs blocking the camera… and the camera is offline again.

I shook myself out of my reverie and checked the meter on the fresh battery – dead. “Jesus…” I swapped another fresh battery in and rebooted it. While the camera started up, the guys kept moving around the room but their EMF meters were quiescent.

“Alright, it’s online again,” Tabitha confirmed on the radio.

“Thanks, Tabith,” I returned. “On my way back, for reals this time,” I clicked off and hurry out of the nursery.

Tyler catches me before I reach the stairs. “Hey, Mel, what was that back there?”

“You’re asking me? You’re the expert here.” (he was) “I have no idea.”

“But it looked just like you!”

“Yeah, that’s nightmare fuel, thanks.”

I got back to the van unscathed, relieved Tabitha at the console, and the rest of the night passed uneventfully – I mean, there were some hot spots and unexplained sounds, a couple more REM traps went off, but nothing like the woman.

As per my usual pattern after one of these investigations, I spent the rest of Saturday in my apartment sleeping. I emerged from the cocoon of my bed around six in the evening and proceeded to order DoorDash. I jumped into the much-needed shower while I waited, letting the water sluice off the musty abandoned hospital funk and the too-many-hours-in-an-enclosed-van funk. I wrapped a towel around myself as I stepped out of the shower and stood at my sink to put my moisturizer on and brush out my hair. I looked at the mirror to make sure I rubbed the lotion in completely when I noticed the face looking back at me wasn’t mine. It was the woman from the hospital. I froze and stared into the face that looked like mine as she stared back, her eyes tracing my face. I couldn’t move as we stared at each other and for a moment I wondered if this was sleep paralysis coming back even if I wasn’t sleeping. The strident buzz from the intercom made me jump back, breaking my phantasmic staring contest. Looking at the mirror, my own reflection stared back, clearly terrified. But it was me. The intercom buzzed again – DoorDash, no doubt. I backed out of the bathroom, watching my reflection warily.

The next morning at our usual Sunday debrief brunch, Tyler asked again if I knew who the ghost was.

I swallowed my mouthful of Denver omelet before saying, “I really don’t know.”

“But she looked just like you…”

“Doppelganger?” Tabitha suggested sipping her coffee.

Tyler considered it, “Could be… but I remember her looking like you, but not being you – if that makes sense.”

“Yeah,” Dale said. “Definitely not actually you. But… it was weird. Do you have a dead twin or anything?” he joked.

“I don’t know,” I answered which caused the rest of the crew to stop mid-bite.

“You don’t know?” Tabitha asked.

“I had foster families. I never knew my mom or dad… or a lost twin?”

“Huh,” Tyler said after a minute. “I guess they would have told you about something like that, right?”

“Unless,” Dale pointed his fork seriously, “Your dad was a Sith lord and your twin sister was hidden away to keep you both safe from the Empire.”

I screwed up my face in mock consideration. “No… not raised on Tatooine. No weird Jedi uncle…”

“Technically he wasn’t Luke’s uncle,” Tabitha corrected.

“Okay, seriously guys,” Tyler said. “There’s got to be something here…”

We ate in silence for a few minutes before I said quietly, “I saw her again.”

The table erupted in overlapping voices asking why I didn’t say anything, saying that meant something, asking for clarification.

“Shut up,” I said quieting them. “I was getting out of the shower and she was… in the bathroom mirror. Then she was gone.”

“She followed you home,” Dale said, eyes wide.

“Apparently,” I said, eyes back down on my omelet. Conversation gratefully moved to other aspects of the investigation.

When we said our goodbyes at the end of brunch, Tyler just said, “Call me immediately if you see her again, okay?”

I told him I would and drove home to do laundry already in progress.

In the middle of folding underwear, I remembered the box of things I kept that represented everything I had when I left foster care. I extracted the weathered cardboard wine box labeled “Melissa’s Foster Shit” from the depths of my bedroom closet, sat on the edge of my bed as I unfolded the top and looked through the contents. A photo album, various transcripts from high school, middle school, and grade school; birthday cards, assorted documents I thought were important; several diaries that I don’t want to ever go back and read… at the bottom of the box was a ragged blanket and below that, a piece of plastic. I reached for the plastic and found it was actually a wrist band… for a tiny wrist. “Melissa Rae Hartwell” was typed in tiny letters on the label affixed to the tiny wristband. Below that was typed:

Sex: female
DOB: 10/21/1993
Mother: Rae Elizabeth Hartwell

I read the last part aloud, “Mother: Rae Elizabeth Hartwell…”

“That’s me,” the voice came from the doorway.

I stared up at the doorway to my room where the voice had come from. The woman from the hospital and my mirror stood there smiling at me.

“The ‘Mother’ part,” she clarified. “Not the Melissa Rae Hartwell part. I mean, that’s you… but you know that,” she stammered.

“I… I see I get my awkwardness from you…” I managed to say.

Her smile grew.

Tears I didn’t know were there started to emerge from my eyes unbidden as I stared at my… mom. “Why? How?”

She closed her own eyes hard, a gesture I recognized from my own attempt to banish my tears – do ghosts have tears? Is it ectoplasm? “Did they tell you…”

“You died giving birth to me? Yeah,” I said.

“Yeah…” she said. “And I watched you in that nursery,” she stepped closer and regarded the wristband I held. “You were so tiny, so perfect…”

“That hospital? I was in that hospital?” Then I recognized the logo on the wristband as the same one from the abandoned hospital. She nodded. “Holy shit.”

“When you left… I tried to follow… but I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave the hospital.” Her gaze tracked up to meet my eyes. “I couldn’t be with my little girl.” Tears fell down her cheeks, too. When they fell, though, they disappeared before hitting the ground. “I’m so sorry, Melissa. I wanted to be with you so badly… at least to be near you if I couldn’t be alive for you…”

What do you say to your mom that you have never met that is standing in your bedroom as a ghost apologizing for being dead?

“It’s okay… mom.” The word felt awkward in my mouth, but also felt like saying the word unlocked something I didn’t know was locked inside me. “You’re… here now. Right?”

She chuckled through her tears. “Yeah, I think so. I mean,” she gestured to her translucent self, “obviously, right?”

I laughed.

“I feel myself fading already,” she said sadly. And already I could see her growing more transparent by degrees. “But I think that I’m here for as long as you’ll have me.”

“What? Like I’m going to have some priest get rid of my mom?”

We both laughed.

I had to squint to make out her fading outline.

“I love you always, Melissa.”

“I love you, mom.”

And she was gone. But for the first time in my life, I felt like I wasn’t alone – in a good way, you know?

I didn’t tell the rest of the crew about my mom. That’s between me and her. I still do investigations with them, though – why wouldn’t I? But I’ll say this: when I’m trudging through some spooky-ass deserted sanitarium or whatever, I don’t worry about what I’ll encounter because I know my mom’s got my back, and I’ll put ghost mom energy against any spook, any day.