Ghost of a Chance

“So you set the clock to remind you,” Alex said, nodding with understanding. He looked around the lab at the almost two dozen tables and their glassware and burners. “Do you have to do that with all of them?”

Jessica laughed, or rather giggled. The sound was girlish and held none of her usual, sultry tone. She covered her mouth as if she were embarrassed, but Alex knew she was smiling behind her hand.

“Of course I do,” she said. “That’s what I do here, make sure the major potions are done right.”

She put down the clipboard and moved to the next table. This one didn’t have a light hanging above it, so she moved back into the light of the previous table with the new clipboard.

“Why is it so dark in here?” Alex asked. Most of the room’s lights had shades and hung directly over their tables. “Magelights are relatively cheap.”

“Some potions are sensitive to light,” she explained, putting the clipboard down and bringing a sealed can and a ring of measuring spoons from the dark table. She carefully measured out some brown powder from the can, then added it to a jar of liquid bubbling away in the dark.

“You’re stalling,” she said, moving on to the next table. “You’re supposed to be telling me about how you got shot, and why you think that’s a good excuse for missing our appointment.”

Alex signed and began relating the story of his looking into Andrew Barton’s stolen motor and how he’d been shot in an alley outside the Lightning Lord’s factory.

“Is he handsome?” Jessica asked with her half-smile in place.

“Who?” Alex asked, surprised by the question.

“Barton,” Jessica said, as if the answer were self-evident.

“I suppose he’s handsome enough,” he said. “He’s worth over a million, and most people find that more than attractive enough.”

Jessica smirked at that.

“Indeed most people would,” she said, setting another alarm clock. “So did you find the Lightning Lord’s motor?”

“Not yet,” Alex said.

He started explaining the kidnapping of Leroy Cunningham and how the man that shot him was involved. She listened attentively, asking the occasional question as she worked her way along the tables to the far back of the room.

“Done?” Alex asked as she hung up the clipboard on the final table.

“Not quite,” she said, nodding to a heavy door set in the wall. It had a large, new-looking brass lock above the handle.

Alex hadn’t seen inside this room, but it was next to Jessica’s room, so it was likely to be the same general size.

“What’s this?” he asked as she pulled out a small key ring.

For a brief moment a frown crossed her lips, but she replaced it almost instantly with her sardonic smile.

“This is the reason I’m here,” she said, inserting a key in the lock. She turned it and pushed the door open. “Don’t touch the handle,” she said, reaching inside to switch on a magelight. “It’s got a needle coated in a nasty contact poison hidden inside it.”

Alex raised an eyebrow at her, but she just shrugged.

“What?” she said. “Don’t you have security measures around your valuables?”

Alex thought about his vault. The contents of it were probably worth several Gs but it wasn’t like anyone could break in and steal it. Still, storing his gear in an extra-dimensional room was pretty extreme as security measures went.

“I suppose I do,” he said, being careful not to get near the door as he entered.

Inside the room was another table and what looked like an alcohol distillery. A complex series of burners, beakers, tubes, evaporators, and valves filled the table, and Alex could see several different colored solutions at the various stages. A rack of various jars, cans, and stoppered bottles was mounted on one wall along with a clipboard and a thick notebook. There was another alarm clock on the table, and Jessica carried it outside to check it against the big clock on the wall.

“You still haven’t said what this is,” Alex said when she returned.

“My best friend is named Linda Kellin,” Jessica said.

“Any relation to the Doc?”

Jessica nodded.

“Her daughter.” She took a deep breath as if steadying herself. “Linda has polio,” she said.

Alex felt a knot in his stomach. Not everyone died from polio, but it could leave people crippled or worse.

“So you’re trying to develop a cure,” Alex guessed.

“Yes,” Jessica said. “It’s why I came to work with Dr. Kellin.”

“So, how is it going?”

“Linda… she’s in an iron lung upstate,” Jessica said, fighting to control her emotions. “We think we’re making progress, but it’s really just trial and error at this point.”

She turned her head away and wiped her eyes furiously with the back of her hand. Alex wanted to reach out and hold her, tell her it was going to be all right, but he had no idea if that was true. At best it would have been a comforting lie.

“Is that why Dr. Kellin took you on as her protégé?” he asked, desperate to fill up the sudden-yet-terrible silence. “I thought alchemists usually only passed on their knowledge to family.”