“Somehow, Giona knew we were going to need a safe place to return to,”
Jimox explained to all those seated at his feet, listening. “That beautiful old train station gave us everything we needed for nearly two weeks. Hardly more than a few ants had gotten in to bother the food and drink stacked up in two restaurants and several snack bars.”
Teina brightened at the memory. “It’s still used today by anyone from Nebador studying old downtown Westron.”
“So we set up camp in the station,” Jimox continued, “then worked up enough courage to poke our noses into the city. At first, the streets and walkways between the skyscrapers were dark and mysterious to us . . .”
Teina
grinned.
“But we soon learned that we were as safe as we could be . . . and eventually we learned why.”
Jimox stood in the middle of a silent street between massive buildings, peering into the shadows ahead with his spyglass.
Teina scanned in all directions, and frowned at several artistic murals within sight, all about machines, wires, motorways, or other things hard and ugly.
“Dog two blocks down,” Jimox reported. “Nope, it just whined and took off, away from us.”
“Weird,” Teina commented. “Have you seen Giona?”
“Not since we left the station.”
“Two more blocks, then circle back to the mayor’s office?”
NEBADOR Book Eight: Witness 76
“Sounds good,” he replied and lowered his spyglass.
The contest between the city hall’s security system, and Jimox’ pry bars, wasn’t a fair fight. Batteries that hadn’t been charged in seven years complained weakly, then fell silent. Metal detectors, by themselves, could do nothing. Polished brass locks looked nice, but broke easily.
Teina started with the mayor’s desk itself. After shuffling through papers for a while, she stopped and read one carefully. “What’s a .
.
.
R-E-F-U-G-E-E,” she asked.
Jimox, working through a filing cabinet, defined the word.
“Well, they had a camp for them, out in the desert, and told everyone the plague wouldn’t get there, but it did.”
“The
Gosa Desert? That’s where they invented it!”
Teina laughed. “No, different desert. But that’s it. Everything else here
. . . we already know about from other offices.”
Jimox closed the filing cabinet drawer with a bang. “Nothing in here either. I bet he didn’t have a . . . what did they call it? . . . a need-to-know. He was just the mayor of one of the biggest cities in the world — no one important.”
Teina could feel her friend’s frustration, so she sat down on the floor beside him. “We know things none of them ever knew.”
“Like what?” Jimox asked with almost a pout.
“Like which kinds of cookies are still good after all these years, and how to talk to ghosts and give them a chance to move on, and how to be happy even though we’re the only two people in the world!”
Jimox tried to smile.
Teina grabbed his tail with hers and squeezed until he took a deep breath and was ready to head back into the city.
Another week passed as they explored more sections of downtown Westron, and riffled through every office that might have known anything about the plague.
Each evening, they returned to the train station to relax, make a tasty meal, and look over official memos, tourist pamphlets, and anything else
NEBADOR Book Eight: Witness 77
interesting they had found that day.
Giona was often there, and quickly introduced the sixteen ghosts who called the station home. One was freed from his worldly bonds just by Teina saying hello and repeating back his name. Three more moved on after the pair of monkey mammals listened to their stories of life, and then death.
While out and about in the city, the pair was sometimes warned by loud squawks and threatening swoops when they got too near some bird’s nest, but never, during their entire stay in downtown Westron, did they have to fend off a single dog. As yet, they had no idea why.
A day came when they had no plan, but didn’t feel like staying at the train station, so they wandered aimlessly through the empty streets. The city was even more silent than usual, seeming to soak up the very sounds of their footsteps. A funny color crept into the sky, but so little of it was visible from street level that the pair of monkey mammals didn’t notice.
Slowly, Teina became aware that the fur on the back of her neck was tingling. She looked behind them several times, but saw nothing.
Giona appeared suddenly, and clearly wanted them to follow. They looked at each other.
Jimox raised his eyebrows. “She’s never steered us wrong before.”
Teina shrugged. She was curious, but another feeling, under the surface, was trying to make itself known.
Two blocks later, they came to a tiny park, just a little triangle of weeds where three streets came together at an odd angle. Barely visible among the weeds sat a lone bench, upon which Giona danced.
Jimox smiled. “A one-bench park.”
“Looks like this is where she wanted us to go. Why do I feel . . .”
“What?”
“What’s that phrase they use in comic books? Oh, yeah — impending doom.”
Jimox quickly scanned in all directions. “Nothing visible . . . except . . . uh oh . . .”
“WHAT!”
Jimox still didn’t find his voice, so Teina stepped to his side and looked in
NEBADOR Book Eight: Witness 78
the direction he was facing.
About half a block away, from the street level to about ten stories up, the air was full of ghosts. Most visible in the deepest shadows of the buildings, they had that red tint that Jimox and Teina had seen before.
They both swallowed, linked tails, and slowly turned. Down every other street that converged on the tiny park, they beheld the same sight. As they turned all the way back to the first street, they realized the angry, frustrated spirits were getting closer.
“Guess
what
we’re doing today,” Jimox whispered.
“Good thing we didn’t have any other plans. You didn’t leave cookies baking or anything, did you? This could take a while.”
Jimox chuckled. “I think . . . Giona’s been busy, you know, arranging things.”
“This is lots more than we had at Gibson’s Bay. What, a million?”
“At least. You’re better at this than I am. I’ll be your sand bags.”
“Huh! Forget it, bucko. You’re at my side, helping me talk to them, or we’re running.”
“You can’t run from ghosts!”
Teina grinned at him.
“Okay, okay, I’m thinking.”
“Let’s . . . relax . . .” she began thoughtfully, “sit on the bench . . . let them come to us.”
“I like that. It might help my heart to quit racing.”
“At Gibson’s Bay,” Teina began after a deep cough, “we talked to maybe a thousand ghosts who had gathered from several small cities farther inland.
This was different. Twelve or thirteen million monkey mammals had lived . . .
and died . . . in Westron, or the refugee camps in the desert nearby.” Almost out of breath, she stopped and looked at Jimox.
“And some of them were still there, wanting us to pass judgment . . .”
“The only problem was . . .” Teina said excitedly, but then lost her breath.
“The only problem was,” Jimox took up the thought, “they weren’t all innocent.”
A murmur of surprise rippled through the listeners.
NEBADOR Book Eight: Witness 79
“There were actually two groups of ghosts around us at that tiny little triangular park. The masses of people were angry and frustrated, but also a small group of sickly dull-green ghosts seemed to be . . . prisoners.”
“We have no idea how ghosts can keep other ghosts captive,” Teina added,
“but they did.”
“So we had to figure out how to be lawyers and judges fast! ”
One of the green captives was forced to come forward and grovel before Jimox and Teina.
“Um . . .” Jimox began, sensing it was his turn, “what part did you play in making the plague germs?”
The million or more shimmering spirits fell completely silent and listened.
Eventually a tiny voice was heard. “Laboratory assistant.”
The assembled masses roared for revenge.
Teina raised her hand, and silence returned. “Did you have any say in what was made in that laboratory?”
“No.”
The ghostly audience hissed, but fell silent when Jimox looked at them.
“Do any of you have evidence that this one is lying?”
No one responded.
Teina reached out to touch the dull-green ghost, but felt only cold air.
“You, little one, are innocent.”
NEBADOR Book Eight: Witness 80
The host of angry spirits roared and swirled around the tiny park, but Teina stood up and crossed her arms. “You asked us to judge, and release you from guilt if you were innocent! Now either listen to us, or find someone else!”
Jimox, at her side, hooked his tail with hers, and could feel her trembling.
From somewhere nearby, they thought they heard Giona giggle.
The million grumbled for another minute, but slowly relaxed and pushed another green captive forward.
As they sat back down, Jimox whispered, “There is no one else. They’re stuck with us.”
Teina nodded and looked at the new captive. “What part did you play at the secret laboratory in the Gosa Desert?”
The groveling spirit twisted this way and that, but said nothing.
“If you don’t answer us, then we’ll have to leave you with them,” Jimox warned.
The ghost turned almost black before whispering, “Director of Research.”
Teina frowned, but decided to ask the question anyway. “Could you have stopped what happened?”
The spirit became even darker, and said nothing.
Millions of watchers buzzed with anger.
Jimox took a deep breath. “I don’t think there’s any way we can find this one innocent.”
“But . . . how do you punish a ghost?” Teina wondered, just loud enough for Jimox to hear. “We can’t put it in jail, or sentence it to death.”
Jimox snickered for a moment, then his eyes lit up with an idea. “How
NEBADOR Book Eight: Witness 81
about . . . community service?”
Teina’s face twisted in thought. “Ghost-style community service, whatever that might be.”
The red and orange million swirled and roared for revenge.
“Shut up so we can think!” Teina yelled.
Silence instantly fell throughout the entire city. Jimox was absolutely sure that not even an insect dared buzz.
“Your call,” she prodded.
Jimox closed his eyes for a moment, then realized he had to do two things
— punish the guilty, and satisfy the crowd. “Um . . . these thousands and thousands of innocent spirits will be moving on to . . . a better place . . . just as soon as all this business is finished. You will not . . .”
The guilty ghost twisted with torment.
The listeners sighed and turned a soft yellow color.
“I think you’re on the right track,” Teina whispered.
Jimox’ mind raced. “You will stay here and help other ghosts, who are stuck for any reason, to move on. If you do this well for . . .” He looked at Teina. “What do you think, a thousand years?”
“That seems harsh.”
“Hundred?”
She
nodded.
“If you do it well for a hundred years, then you will be released.”
The crowd started buzzing.
Jimox raised his voice. “If you do it poorly, or fail to learn your lesson, then it will automatically become a thousand years.”
The million assembled spirits relaxed and seemed satisfied.
Thirty-seven more dull-green prisoners were pushed forward, and the pair of monkey mammals dispensed justice quickly, now that they knew what they were doing. Most were innocent, just doing their jobs and having no say in the project goals and no idea what the consequences would be. Five more were sentenced to a hundred years of ghostly community service, a thousand if they screwed up.
Finally, the time came for Jimox and Teina to give all the innocent spirits
NEBADOR Book Eight: Witness 82
their blessing to move on to whatever awaited them. The collective sigh of relief nearly shook the buildings of downtown Westron as most of them floated upward into the sky.
The pair of monkey mammals looked around. The process had taken so long that evening had descended upon the city, the sky was rapidly darkening, and the million ghosts were no longer present to cast their eerie half-light.
A few spirits remained, perhaps a hundred, none of them red with anger or yellow with frustration. They filtered away into nearby buildings where they seemed to have attachments.
Giona was still present, dancing on the back of the bench, shimmering a proud golden color.
Jimox and Teina suddenly felt completely exhausted and ravenously hungry. They fished in their day packs and drained little bottles of juice.
Jimox tried his flashlight. “Batteries are dead. They were good this morning!”
“Mine too,” Teina moaned. Then she looked at Giona. “You got us into this. I hope you’ll guide us home.”
“Weeee!” Giona squeaked and danced away up the street.
Three times on the way back to the train station, dogs threatened the pair as they followed their ghostly guide through the darkness, hands and tails linked for courage. All three times, several dull-green ghosts descended upon the wild canines and sent them away, yelping for their lives.
