Years before, he had attended a séance at the Group’s headquarters. It was an exercise to contact any surviving spirit of the ancients. Artifacts had been positioned around the table and Arni, the synesthete, had served as a very effective medium. Though the effort had failed in terms of opening a useful pathway, everyone felt a shift in the character of the room. There was a weight, a slight pressure of energy like shallow water. It was as if someone—or several someones—had been present who wasn’t present before. Flora, ever the one for empirical proof, declared it a form of group hypnosis and that was that. Mikel had not been convinced. For him, the sensation had remained in the room for days after. Now he knew the truth: she had been wrong. The previous “recording” offered up by the tiles had shown living people. This one showed a soul, a ghost, a poltergeist, whatever label one wanted to attach to it. This man and his colleagues believed in souls, Mikel told himself. They tried to bond them, to unify, to rise to some other plane.
