Machines

Brad stared at the screen, vexed. “Just call IT,” they told him (and that seemed logical enough … but only if you didn’t Know Things). He called Sharon. “It’s back,” Brad whispered to his cell (sneaking off to the restroom away from a likely eavesdropping ethernet). “Will you come?” She said she would “be there in 5” and he relaxed. Sharon was different; she believed in ghosts and had a talent for coaxing them out of the machines. “It’s a gift,” she’d say. “Kind of an amazing-but-not-at-all-lucrative dark gift.”