1986-

  Mark Hadron examined the specifications on the prints in front of him. He thought

  he had the right mapping on the circuitry. Once he had everything the way he wanted

  it, he could build a lantern. It would run on local psychic energy if he was right.

  It might be a clean power source if he could build a lantern big enough to act as a

  battery for a city. It would run on people power which should be great inside a city.

  If he could get the first step in motion, he could work out how to power lanterns in

  the country.

  All it would take is enough psychic energy to be turned into electricity.

  “What you got there, boy?” Milton Kearn stepped into the shop, adjusting his battered

  cowboy hat. He looked like he stepped out of some John Wayne movie, with his jeans

  and shirt with vest worn over it. All he needed was a gun and a lasso to go along with

  his long mustaches.

  “You’re only three years older than me.” Mark rolled his eyes. “Don’t you have an

  exam to study for right now?”

  “Already took it.” Kearn examined the schematics. “I don’t understand this thing

  here.”

  “I devised a way to trap mental energy.” Mark spread the papers out for him to look

  at so he could point out the flaws. “I’m hoping to turn it into a clean source of

  energy.”

  “Never happen.” Milton shook his head. “You could maybe absorb psychic energy

  as you call it, but it won’t turn into electricity. It’ll sit in this thing until it’s used up,

  or released back in the environment.”

  “So this new type of energy is possible, but using it for electricity is not?” Mark sat

  back in his chair. “I haven’t built a prototype, much less tested things. How would

  you know that?”

  “I just know things when I see them.” Kearn stroked the end of his mustache. “You

  could set one of these up and use it to clear the air, but not much more than that.”

  “You don’t think I can do anything else with this?” Mark looked at his design. He

  was sure he was on the edge of a great discovery. He didn’t believe his friend was

  wrong. He hoped he was.

  “You could probably kill ghosts with it, boy.” Kearn shrugged. “I don’t know how

  much call there is for that.”

  “You’re kidding me.” Mark rubbed his eyes. “What do you mean kill ghosts?”

  “If Professor Jenkins is right, ghosts are made up of emotion that uses this pseudo

  energy you are trying to harness as fuel.” Kearn pushed his hat back so he could

  scratch his head. “If this thing works like you want it, it should stop that from

  happening.”

  “That’s great.” Mark stood, stretching his back. “Who would pay for something to do

  that?”

  “Anybody who didn’t like ghosts.” Kearn shook his head. “If you could prove they

  had a ghost problem, and that you could get rid of it, you could write your own ticket

  and get your dissertation done.”

  “That’s a crazy way to do things.” Mark paused as he considered the rarity of ghosts

  that needed to be murdered. “How would I even advertise something like that?”

  “You have to get this built first.” Kearn waved at the prints. “Dyson can help with

  some of this. He’s taking that metal working class.”

  “So we go down and ask Dyson to help us with the basic shape.” Mark began

  stacking the prints together. “Then we can start building the circuitry to get things

  done.”

  “I don’t see the problem with that.” Kearn smiled. “We can ask Harry for parts if we

  need them.”

  “He’s still working at that new electronics place, right?” Mark would give his

  eyeteeth to work in a job where he could snatch parts as he went about his job.

  “Yeah,” said Kearn. “We’ll have to pay him for the parts. We can’t ask him to give

  up his job for some harebrained scheme.”

  “I guess you’re right.” Mark gathered his drawings and his keys. “Let’s go down and

  talk to Dyson. He’ll be able to give us some idea on how big we can make these

  lanterns.”

  “He can probably make a small one as a test.” Kearn straightened his hat. “Then we

  can scale up into something we can use to get rid of any bad influence in the city.”

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “No one will pay for that.” Mark waited at the door for his classmate. “It has to be

  something we can paint as a threat.”

  “Trust me.” Kearn waved for him to go ahead. “If we can make this crazy lamp work,

  I know some people across campus who will write us some advertisements and help

  us out.”

  “You know people who will do that?” Mark blinked. He had gone from planning an

  experiment to setting up a business to kill ghosts. He wasn’t sure how that had

  happened.

  “Some of the kids.” Kearn smiled. “They need some experience in copy writing and

  basic layout. They might give us a good advertising if we hurry over and don’t act

  like jerks.”

  “That sounds good to me.” Mark put the advertisement idea to the back of his brain.

  If he needed it, he would do research and then help it out.

  He didn’t see any possibility of his idea being anything more than something to give

  free lighting. Kearn talked folksy, but he knew a lot about exotic control systems and

  how to use them. If Kearn said there was no way to convert the gathered psychic

  energy to real electricity with what they had, he was inclined to believe his classmate.

  If anyone could reconfigure the diagrams and circuitry into doing something more

  than glowing in the dark, that person was Milton Kearn.

  Mark followed his fellow student across campus to the Arts area. Students worked to

  put on plays, figured out advertisements, ran the campus radio station. They entered

  a shop area where the students put together props for their productions when they

  couldn’t find them at yard sales and online.

  They found Dyson Baker shaping a rod into something that looked like it had a snake

  wrapped around a tree. He cooled it in some water, then inspected it with dark eyes.

  He nodded as he set it on a rack nearby.

  “It’s the Trouble Twins.” Dyson smiled at his visitors. “You guys going haunted

  house probing? I made out big the last time.”

  “How did you do that?” Mark remembered that Dyson had come along with two

  cheerleaders from another school. “You didn’t.”

  “Remember all that moaning.” Kearn shook his head. “Thanks for ruining the field

  trip.”

  “What.” Mark considered the pieces for a brief second. “You didn’t. Not at the

  Lovejoy House. I warned you about the curse.”

  “What curse?” Dyson smiled. “The only curse I got was stopped by Gatorade, if you

  know what I mean.”

  “The Lovejoy House Curse is a real thing, Dyson.” Mark shook his head. “People die

  from it.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Dyson looked at the two of them with disbelief. “Anybody

  who has sex, there dies?”

  “It takes a while.” Kearn pulled out a tin flask. He twisted off the lid and took a sip

  of the contents. He sealed the can and put it back in his pocket. “You won’t drop dead

  tomorrow, and we need your metal working skills.”

  “For what?” Dyson crossed his arms. “First the scare tactic, then the favor. Is that

  how things work?”

  “Nope.” Kearn smiled. “Look at this. Show him the prints, boy.”

  Mark picked a clean table and spread the sheets of paper out. He picked pieces of

  metal to hold the corners down. He stepped back.

  “We need this in a cylinder of metal with a cut out for a glass window.” Kearn

  pointed to a diagram. “We’re going to put some wiring in to create the effect we

  need.”

  “It looks like a lamp.” Dyson scratched his chin. “Two by one by three should be all

  right from what you got down here.”

  “So you can do it?” Mark frowned. Things seemed better when it was just him

  working on this idea. Now he had Kearn and Baker in on the act.

  “Sure.” Dyson nodded. “I have pieces I can use for part of it right now.”

  “We’re going to have to get the guts ready to go.” Kearn pointed at the circuitry

  diagram. “We’re going to need a space of a couple of inches to slide things into place

  between an inner and outer wall.”

  “Should be a snap.” Dyson smiled. “I’ll set a shim in place to keep things separate

  until you can plug everything in place.”

  “How long do you think the casing will take?” Mark didn’t think it would be done

  sooner than two days.

  “Give me a day to get everything together, then a day to work on it.” Dyson gestured

  at the snake stick. “I’ll have to do it after I get done with this caduceus.”

  “We’re in no hurry.” Kearn waved him off to get back to his work. “We don’t even

  know if this thing will work.”

  “It’ll work.” Mark didn’t fight the annoyance in his voice. “Once we put it

  somewhere to gather up the ambient energy, this thing will light up like a spotlight.”

  “He’s right.” Kearn nodded. “It’ll do something.”

  “I can get the shell together for you in a few days, maybe a week.” Dyson smiled.

  “Then we’ll see how things go.”

  “We’ll check in with you in a couple of days.” Kearn adjusted his hat. “Stay out of

  trouble.”

  “Don’t I always.” Dyson waved at them before reaching for safety goggles on his

  forehead. He pulled them down over his eyes and picked up the snake sculpture. He

  started heating it again so he could bang it into the shape he wanted.

  “He’s as good as dead.” Mark kept his voice low. “The Lovejoy House Curse always

  kills people who have sex in that house.”

  “Hopefully it won’t kill him before we get our prototype.” Kearn took another sip

  from his flask as they walked out of the building. “I’m not going to do it.”

  “If the lamp works, it might stop the curse.” Mark held the door open so they could

  step outside. “We might be able to sell that as a positive feature.”

  “You’re saying that curses work through this ambient energy, and we can stop them

  cold if the lamp sucks enough of it out of the air to prevent crap from happening.”

  Kearn rubbed his chin as he thought about the implication. “It could promote self help

  people trying to use the energy to skip exercise and a good diet.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Mark smiled. “But we could keep a lamp around

  Dyson just in case it can do something. It might stop the curse.”

  “That sounds reasonable for a just in case type thing.” Kearn nodded. “And it lets us

  test the effects without letting Dyson know we’re using him as a guinea pig.”

  “If we can kill a curse, we might have a business as debuggers.” Mark nodded. “We

  can run anyone cursing people with harm out of business. We could stop the effects

  as soon as we know they’re activated.”

  “And it could be a business on its own if we get it to launch.” Kearn nodded. “We’ll

  be rich.”