1986-
Mark Hadron examined the specifications on the prints in front of him. He thought
he had the right mapping on the circuitry. Once he had everything the way he wanted
it, he could build a lantern. It would run on local psychic energy if he was right.
It might be a clean power source if he could build a lantern big enough to act as a
battery for a city. It would run on people power which should be great inside a city.
If he could get the first step in motion, he could work out how to power lanterns in
the country.
All it would take is enough psychic energy to be turned into electricity.
“What you got there, boy?” Milton Kearn stepped into the shop, adjusting his battered
cowboy hat. He looked like he stepped out of some John Wayne movie, with his jeans
and shirt with vest worn over it. All he needed was a gun and a lasso to go along with
his long mustaches.
“You’re only three years older than me.” Mark rolled his eyes. “Don’t you have an
exam to study for right now?”
“Already took it.” Kearn examined the schematics. “I don’t understand this thing
here.”
“I devised a way to trap mental energy.” Mark spread the papers out for him to look
at so he could point out the flaws. “I’m hoping to turn it into a clean source of
energy.”
“Never happen.” Milton shook his head. “You could maybe absorb psychic energy
as you call it, but it won’t turn into electricity. It’ll sit in this thing until it’s used up,
or released back in the environment.”
“So this new type of energy is possible, but using it for electricity is not?” Mark sat
back in his chair. “I haven’t built a prototype, much less tested things. How would
you know that?”
“I just know things when I see them.” Kearn stroked the end of his mustache. “You
could set one of these up and use it to clear the air, but not much more than that.”
“You don’t think I can do anything else with this?” Mark looked at his design. He
was sure he was on the edge of a great discovery. He didn’t believe his friend was
wrong. He hoped he was.
“You could probably kill ghosts with it, boy.” Kearn shrugged. “I don’t know how
much call there is for that.”
“You’re kidding me.” Mark rubbed his eyes. “What do you mean kill ghosts?”
“If Professor Jenkins is right, ghosts are made up of emotion that uses this pseudo
energy you are trying to harness as fuel.” Kearn pushed his hat back so he could
scratch his head. “If this thing works like you want it, it should stop that from
happening.”
“That’s great.” Mark stood, stretching his back. “Who would pay for something to do
that?”
“Anybody who didn’t like ghosts.” Kearn shook his head. “If you could prove they
had a ghost problem, and that you could get rid of it, you could write your own ticket
and get your dissertation done.”
“That’s a crazy way to do things.” Mark paused as he considered the rarity of ghosts
that needed to be murdered. “How would I even advertise something like that?”
“You have to get this built first.” Kearn waved at the prints. “Dyson can help with
some of this. He’s taking that metal working class.”
“So we go down and ask Dyson to help us with the basic shape.” Mark began
stacking the prints together. “Then we can start building the circuitry to get things
done.”
“I don’t see the problem with that.” Kearn smiled. “We can ask Harry for parts if we
need them.”
“He’s still working at that new electronics place, right?” Mark would give his
eyeteeth to work in a job where he could snatch parts as he went about his job.
“Yeah,” said Kearn. “We’ll have to pay him for the parts. We can’t ask him to give
up his job for some harebrained scheme.”
“I guess you’re right.” Mark gathered his drawings and his keys. “Let’s go down and
talk to Dyson. He’ll be able to give us some idea on how big we can make these
lanterns.”
“He can probably make a small one as a test.” Kearn straightened his hat. “Then we
can scale up into something we can use to get rid of any bad influence in the city.”
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
“No one will pay for that.” Mark waited at the door for his classmate. “It has to be
something we can paint as a threat.”
“Trust me.” Kearn waved for him to go ahead. “If we can make this crazy lamp work,
I know some people across campus who will write us some advertisements and help
us out.”
“You know people who will do that?” Mark blinked. He had gone from planning an
experiment to setting up a business to kill ghosts. He wasn’t sure how that had
happened.
“Some of the kids.” Kearn smiled. “They need some experience in copy writing and
basic layout. They might give us a good advertising if we hurry over and don’t act
like jerks.”
“That sounds good to me.” Mark put the advertisement idea to the back of his brain.
If he needed it, he would do research and then help it out.
He didn’t see any possibility of his idea being anything more than something to give
free lighting. Kearn talked folksy, but he knew a lot about exotic control systems and
how to use them. If Kearn said there was no way to convert the gathered psychic
energy to real electricity with what they had, he was inclined to believe his classmate.
If anyone could reconfigure the diagrams and circuitry into doing something more
than glowing in the dark, that person was Milton Kearn.
Mark followed his fellow student across campus to the Arts area. Students worked to
put on plays, figured out advertisements, ran the campus radio station. They entered
a shop area where the students put together props for their productions when they
couldn’t find them at yard sales and online.
They found Dyson Baker shaping a rod into something that looked like it had a snake
wrapped around a tree. He cooled it in some water, then inspected it with dark eyes.
He nodded as he set it on a rack nearby.
“It’s the Trouble Twins.” Dyson smiled at his visitors. “You guys going haunted
house probing? I made out big the last time.”
“How did you do that?” Mark remembered that Dyson had come along with two
cheerleaders from another school. “You didn’t.”
“Remember all that moaning.” Kearn shook his head. “Thanks for ruining the field
trip.”
“What.” Mark considered the pieces for a brief second. “You didn’t. Not at the
Lovejoy House. I warned you about the curse.”
“What curse?” Dyson smiled. “The only curse I got was stopped by Gatorade, if you
know what I mean.”
“The Lovejoy House Curse is a real thing, Dyson.” Mark shook his head. “People die
from it.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Dyson looked at the two of them with disbelief. “Anybody
who has sex, there dies?”
“It takes a while.” Kearn pulled out a tin flask. He twisted off the lid and took a sip
of the contents. He sealed the can and put it back in his pocket. “You won’t drop dead
tomorrow, and we need your metal working skills.”
“For what?” Dyson crossed his arms. “First the scare tactic, then the favor. Is that
how things work?”
“Nope.” Kearn smiled. “Look at this. Show him the prints, boy.”
Mark picked a clean table and spread the sheets of paper out. He picked pieces of
metal to hold the corners down. He stepped back.
“We need this in a cylinder of metal with a cut out for a glass window.” Kearn
pointed to a diagram. “We’re going to put some wiring in to create the effect we
need.”
“It looks like a lamp.” Dyson scratched his chin. “Two by one by three should be all
right from what you got down here.”
“So you can do it?” Mark frowned. Things seemed better when it was just him
working on this idea. Now he had Kearn and Baker in on the act.
“Sure.” Dyson nodded. “I have pieces I can use for part of it right now.”
“We’re going to have to get the guts ready to go.” Kearn pointed at the circuitry
diagram. “We’re going to need a space of a couple of inches to slide things into place
between an inner and outer wall.”
“Should be a snap.” Dyson smiled. “I’ll set a shim in place to keep things separate
until you can plug everything in place.”
“How long do you think the casing will take?” Mark didn’t think it would be done
sooner than two days.
“Give me a day to get everything together, then a day to work on it.” Dyson gestured
at the snake stick. “I’ll have to do it after I get done with this caduceus.”
“We’re in no hurry.” Kearn waved him off to get back to his work. “We don’t even
know if this thing will work.”
“It’ll work.” Mark didn’t fight the annoyance in his voice. “Once we put it
somewhere to gather up the ambient energy, this thing will light up like a spotlight.”
“He’s right.” Kearn nodded. “It’ll do something.”
“I can get the shell together for you in a few days, maybe a week.” Dyson smiled.
“Then we’ll see how things go.”
“We’ll check in with you in a couple of days.” Kearn adjusted his hat. “Stay out of
trouble.”
“Don’t I always.” Dyson waved at them before reaching for safety goggles on his
forehead. He pulled them down over his eyes and picked up the snake sculpture. He
started heating it again so he could bang it into the shape he wanted.
“He’s as good as dead.” Mark kept his voice low. “The Lovejoy House Curse always
kills people who have sex in that house.”
“Hopefully it won’t kill him before we get our prototype.” Kearn took another sip
from his flask as they walked out of the building. “I’m not going to do it.”
“If the lamp works, it might stop the curse.” Mark held the door open so they could
step outside. “We might be able to sell that as a positive feature.”
“You’re saying that curses work through this ambient energy, and we can stop them
cold if the lamp sucks enough of it out of the air to prevent crap from happening.”
Kearn rubbed his chin as he thought about the implication. “It could promote self help
people trying to use the energy to skip exercise and a good diet.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Mark smiled. “But we could keep a lamp around
Dyson just in case it can do something. It might stop the curse.”
“That sounds reasonable for a just in case type thing.” Kearn nodded. “And it lets us
test the effects without letting Dyson know we’re using him as a guinea pig.”
“If we can kill a curse, we might have a business as debuggers.” Mark nodded. “We
can run anyone cursing people with harm out of business. We could stop the effects
as soon as we know they’re activated.”
“And it could be a business on its own if we get it to launch.” Kearn nodded. “We’ll
be rich.”