Ghostwriter

In the middle of their restless sleep, Belfry and Dime walk to a new gray metal platform in the center of the room. They stand on it together, and nothing seems to happen. The platform disappears once again, and they walk back to their bedding to continue sleeping.

I extract our two ghosts. Yaffenhash and Puffy are a later-thing, maybe, and regardless of all that, they act as peripheries for Belfry and Dime to grow as people. One copy is immediately transferred to The Tower, while our copy awakens. I always like how suddenly they pop into existence-- pushing out air, displacing it, making a new home. I have split them up into separate interview rooms- I have six spare down the hall- and begin with Dime.

Dime is terrified. The melanocarpet keeps him tame long enough to sit down and talk to me. I have a fascination for chairs, and to make people feel equal and calm, all the chairs in the interview room are the same size. There are windows facing the skyline of this city, blinking in lingual charm, and the rustic, calm interior tends to put even the most confused person at ease. I bring the aggregator in with me to continue typing.

He is not handling the news entirely well. I usually open the talk with as much honesty as possible-- but the demand to 'go back' is met with a stern look. I want to deny that as an option in their head, and eventually ghosts deny it as an option for themselves, too, especially when leaving involuntarily. I tell him that Belfry is in the other room, but that they can't talk just yet.

"This is the larger universe," I say. "That isn't to discredit the one you came from at all, nor to make your struggles seem meaningless. They are meaningful; they are also something that you've been given the privilege of escaping."

Dime becomes slightly hysterical, at that. He begins to sob. I offer an appendage forth; he does not take it. "I'm r-real," he stammers.

"Yes, of course. Your origin doesn't deprive you of reality. We're as real as each other, real as this table-- see?" I knock on the Voʒarus-sourced wood and let it hum. "Real as all the things you've experienced in your life, real as all the people you've ever met, real as all the things you've done."

I know it is jarring for some, and spend time with Dime until this jarring sensation fades. He seems to understand me. I can never be sure. When I cannot be sure, that's a good sign of a developed consciousness, as he is. He is ripe with potential, and shines in my mind as somebody who can grow through all of this. "So this... i-is... higher up?"

"In a sense," I say. "Yes. That's usually the way I tell it."

"Is there a-another... h-higher up?"

It's a great question, and I chuckle to reassure him. "We have tools of finding out, and I assure you we're not; regardless, it doesn't matter. Once again, we're as real as anything. And I see good things in store for you."

The talk lasts a while. He fades in and out of understanding. His form is that of a tripodal, and his clothes reform themselves into their dry form without his knowing. He adjusts his hat from time to time, probably subconsciously. His clothes are a remnant of his status as ghost, as is his holster, but there is no stun-gun within-- even if there were, it'd be useless. Ghosts are form, less substance. Even a club loses its 'oomph' if it is part of their form. So he outfits himself in clothes. He becomes his most comfortable form, as they ought to.

I leave him for a moment to talk to Belfry.

She is more lucid: character trait, inherent. She has begun trying to break out when I enter, and I suspect the melanocarpet is the only thing keeping her from attacking me. I motion for her to sit, and look as sympathetic as I can. They don't communicate like me, and my voice is tired out, so I let it rest for a moment while I wait for her tantrum to end. She screams in my face, and I take a drink of my water, rehydrate, rehydrate, rehydrate.

"Please, Belfry," I begin.

"Fuck you! How do you know my name?!" she screams.

"I'm trying to explain that to you, but--"

Her hands grip the table; it is stuck to the floor, or else her hands just can't muster the oomph. She is reptilian, and her form morphs freeform, anger welling itself up in literal bursts of energy, her scales exploding and reforming and scaling and reforming. She wants to lift something, erase something, destroy something. This is counterproductive. I tell her that I want to explain everything, but I can't if she's not willing to listen.

"And," I say, "if you don't want to hear any of it, you're perfectly alright discovering the bulk of it outside."

Hum.

It doesn't help. Belfry would rather fight than understand. Her hope and belief holds strong; it's something I pride myself on. She is full of it, yet it eats her up. Her consciousness shows itself in the tears she sheds and the way her voice breaks as she screams. Her uniqueness manifests in the way she tears her eyes apart and pushes on the walls, and every bit of her wants to kill me, and every bit of her wants to be free, and no bit of her wants to listen. This is a horrible nightmare, and all she wants to do is wake up.

"Dime is alright, for what it's worth. Everybody is. But for the moment--"

"This isn't REAL!"

She wants to wake up. She wants to wake up. She wants to wake up.

Incessant; true. How could I deny that there is a spark of real life and real terror in that gaze, in that moment? I say that she can mull it over. I step back into the hall, back into my office, and sit comfortably.

Let's mull over something for a moment.

Nickels, and ghosts by extension, have three distinct purposes.

The first and least interesting is for monetary support.
Each and every nickel that we create (that reaches maturity, at least) is usable as a pocket universe for those who desire to experience it from the inside. Now, I assign no perfect glamour to the people who purchase one copy of any given nickel-- there is a non-insignificant portion who use it for rather twisted purposes. However, I include myself and many of my peers in the category of people who use it for the intense experience of exploration. These universes can be as vast as ours, and are populated with the same amount of intricacy and detail as any nearby galaxy.

The people who may purchase copies of a line of nickels have varied interests. This one, which has taken me not long to complete, has its own market. There is also a very potent market for established fictional universes, such as those from books, film, or other media throughout the universe. These are not my venture, as they require much longer and a dedicated team to create-- our method today filled out the details through naturalism, while an established universe must be fine-crafted for much, much longer. However, people will pay immense sums for something specially-crafted like this.

Harbingers like myself have many core values, and one of our primary beliefs- the elimination of automated infrastructure and artificial intelligence- means that money to support the creation of nickels is important. You may say what you like about the consequences of this practice: it is the only reason I can do my wonderful job correctly.

The second is creating foreign consciousnesses.
Consciousness is a valuable thing. No person I know can argue against that. There is much consciousness in the universe, however, and it is easy for a layman to claim that this entire process is a bit pointless, so much energy and time poured into just a handful of souls. However, this is far from the case. Surprising as it might be to some, ghosts are the most valuable form of consciousness known to the universe, and it's for one particular reason.

Schoolchildren nowadays (on properly developed colonies) are taught the rules of our universe. Only the highest-educated, however, learn the plain fact that these rules are in constant, unending, violent flux. This is why player-controlled beings can exist. This is why time travel can exist. This is why trans-dimensional objects can exist. But it is not simple innovation that causes our universe's rules to bend and flux-- instead, it is consciousnesses which quintessentially have a different outlook on reality.

Every reputable study has shown that eighty-six percent of massive innovations in all of technology and infrastructure have been made by ghosts.

This is why we send them out in the world, and this is why we make them struggle: through that struggle, they create, they improvise, they work. And through that work, we better the universe on an immense, untouchable scale.

The third, and most unknowable, is donating foreign consciousnesses to The Tower.

Organized by the Harbinger Creator in its years of prime, The Tower is a network stretching near-infinitely from the center of the universe towards the outside-- and it is, by all known definitions, invincible. This impenetrable object contains a copy of every ghost ever taken from nickels in our line of work, as well as several trillion volunteers who have visited it for whatever reason on their journey through Harbinger Space. There is no conceivable way to know exactly why they are being organized at this time, but many have theories.

I have donated my imprint to it, as well. My take on The Tower is that it is a matrix which contains as much information about as many consciousnesses as possible in the very real and possible event of a total-universe collapse-- and may bring existence back where there is nothing. This, however, is still just one theory of mine. What I know most is that Belfry and Dime have been sent to The Tower today, and they constitute another piece of the puzzle which is ever-creating itself.


...So.

With that all in mind.

As part of the program to make ghosts improvise and innovate, I always separate them from each other, forcing them to fight to once again link up.

I would like some tips on what else to say to Belfry and Dime before they go. I would also like some ideas on places to send them.