3rd (lack of) sleep note. Audio at three am but left on the network as always.

[11calls]

[Alex doesn't sleep. It's a problem. So, when she doesn't sleep, she reads the network. That's probably a problem too. But for now, she's focusing on one thing. It's a thing that she probably shouldn't focus on, and that Strand would shake his head at, and it's three in the morning but Alex's chipper, canadian ready for radio voice comes out anyway.]

You know what I love? Ghost stories. It's so weird how there's ghost stories that seem almost universal. Well, [You can hear the smile in her voice here.] Earth-versal I guess? But things like the hitchhiker in the dress that you pick up and then drop off somewhere or she disappears and it turns out that she'd been dead for years and it couldn't have happened. Or the ghosts of children who move cars from where they were tragically killed.

Or dark ladies or monks or banshees that warn of impending doom. Or ghost battles that happen hundreds of years after blood was first spilled on the soil.

[A beat.]

And let's not forget about vengeful ghosts who are going to get you for something you've done wrong in life. There's too many of those to even talk about.

But what I want to know what ghost stories are like in your worlds. You can even tell me your favorite fictional ghost story. Mine is Hamlet. It used to be "A Turn of the Screw" but a friend ruined that by calling it "the best case for apophenia in fiction." So it's not fun anymore.

[And then she laughs.]

Don't worry, I promise not to call anything you've experienced here apophenia. We've all seen way too much for that.

And just in case you don't know, I'm Alex. Alex Reagan.

Comments

[11calls]

So they're not at all up to debate there. Cool. Everything's up for debate in my world.

[At least with one person, anyway.]

How did they help save the world.

[Can't tell a reporter that part of the story without telling her the rest!]

[rapsheet]

To make a long story short, the thing that was planning on eating my world was fully planning on making their part of it a side dish. Normally the ones who aren't content to stay dead get a one way ticket to the Eternal Stockade... call it ghost Alcatraz... and it's my responsibility to make sure they stay there.

[ A beat. ]

In exchange for an agreement to use their ability to combine into a giant golem of spirit energy on something more productive than trying to throw me around, I... gave them some time off for good behavior.

[11calls]

Wow. That must be so much responsibility, if ghosts are anything like they are in the stories back home.

[rapsheet]

It's a job.

[ Though the sigh, such is life air of the words betrays the fact that he's fully aware it's more work than that. He's been doing it a good thousand or so years, after all. ]

What are they like in your stories?

[11calls]

Honestly? It kind of depends on the story. Sometimes they're just sad and lonely, but more often they're malevolent and out for revenge or whatever.

[rapsheet]

Seems typical of them... Given half a chance they'll waste it on revenge. What do you do with them?

[11calls]

We don't really do anything to them. People move out of houses I guess, but scientifically we don't have proof that they exist never mind some actual ghostbusters to come and help out.

Mediums and things like that claim to help but again, no proof.

[rapsheet]

... I was about to ask if it changes anything for you to know that they exist, but come to think of it, I don't know if they do here.

[ Huh. That's... an interesting thought. ]

[11calls]

They do. Or at least they did. Right before I got here. But they were ghosts from people's past and things like that.

I haven't seen any since, but the locals would know better than me. I haven't seen anything here.

[rapsheet]

The holograms?

[ Excuse him if his hackles are slightly up at the mention of those. ]

Yes, I... heard about those. From what I know they were more creations of some idiot with too much time and funding than actual ghosts.

[11calls]

Nope, this was back in, appropriately enough, October apparently.

[rapsheet]

... Seems this place makes a habit of throwing people's pasts in their faces.

[ Sigh. ]

In any case, I hope you find the kind of thing you're looking for.

[11calls]

Yeah, it definitely does that. People want to escape their worlds, but they can't escape entirely, I guess.

[Alex just sighs.] Not me, but other people.

And right now, I'm not looking for ghosts. Just stories until I can get home.

[rapsheet]

Why? What's different about being there?

[ He's mostly just curious as to why anyone would want to hear stories about what they're interested in instead of going out and finding it. Given that it actually exists and all. ]

[11calls]

It's.... complicated.

[Understatement of the year.]