“This is about the lab ghost? You have to be joking.”
“No, no,” said Benson as she and her superior walked down the hallway. “It isn’t about a ghost!” She waved her hands as if to wipe away the idea entirely. “I mean, some people call it that, but-”
“Dr. Benson, you work for NASA,” said Mr. Kite. He wasn’t a scientist himself, but an administrator.
“I was saying,” continued Benson, undeterred, “some of us are calling it that, but whatever it is, it’s a measurable, recurring phenomenon, and we haven’t been able to figure out what’s causing it yet. It isn’t random noise. It seems to mostly be localized to the labs, but Marie and Dileep were able to follow it all the way outside with the mobile thermal camera.”
“You’re supposed to be using that to make sure our shielding compounds are up to par.”
He cut her off with a heavy sigh and pushed open the lab door. “The next thing you’ll be asking is if you could send the lab ghost to space.”
“You’d send me to space?” exclaimed a young voice.
Benson twisted her head around just in time to see a glowing boy in some kind of hazmat suit slide into visibility out of thin air.
“Eep,” she said. Mr. Kite collapsed.
“Oops,” said the boy, raising his hand to his mouth. “Um. Hi?”