“It ain’t true what they say, is it? You ain’t sitting there conjuring devils, is you?”
The voice was like nails on a chalkboard to the old woman, who peered out at the darkness.
“You ain’t got no need for devils, though. Not with all the spirits around you all the time. People don’t believe in ghosts no more. Even if a poltergeist tearing up the living room…”
“Poltergeist,” the old woman repeated like the word tasted bad in her mouth. “Where you get that from, Lynnette? Your fancy books? Ain’t never seen no poltergeist around here.”
Lynnette ascended the stairs of the porch where the old woman sat. Even though they were less than a couple feet from one another, they were both dark forms in the warm night.
“You must be mixing up Ellerson with one of them fancy European cities you left us for.”
Lynnette stopped on the stairs and crossed her arms like a defiant silhouette.
“You know us simple folks on the outskirts of town don’t mess with fancy words like poltergeist. Ain’t ever heard nobody say that word in real life unless they talking about that movie. You gotta go into downtown Ellerson for that.”
“I’m older than you,” Lynnette admitted, “and I ain’t never heard it around here. But that’s what you call them ghosts shaking the leaves in the woods in town. They full of rumble-ghosts.”
“If it is,” the old woman said, anger steeling her voice that was calm but cracked by old age, “you put them there. Just like all the rest of the ghosts in this place.”
Lynnette sat on the porch and rested her feet on the stairs. She looked out at the darkness surrounding the house, at the rocky path she had taken where her car was parked.
“Everything we did here was for the advancement of humanity,” Lynnette said to the darkness. “Thanks to Ellerson, mankind isn’t a single-planet species anymore. We finally conquered the cosmos.”
“Did we, now?” the old woman asked skeptically but with no real enthusiasm in her voice, as though the two of them had this conversation before.
“I just got back to Earth, I was on a planet called Wiis. The people out there look just like us, but they got red skin. And the women in charge.”
“You just got back and you came here?” The old woman asked.
“It’s the only place on Earth that feels familiar. I’m staying in the projects…”
“They ain’t been the projects for half a century now. But you know that.”
Lynnette nodded silently.
“What you come out here for?” the old woman asked eventually.
“The town is so busy, Ellerson is the capital of Earth it seem like. Everybody wants to see the place where we made first contact, so it’s always filled with people from all over the world. I recognize it, even with all the improvements, that fancy downtown and the five-star hotel they turned the projects into, but it don’t feel the same. Except out here. This won’t ever change.”
“After everything we been through, it’s unbelievable to hear you talking all sweet, like you was born in the backyard. Like you didn’t come here and put all them bodies in that dump out there. Like you ain’t manipulated me and my family and the people here. You think we friends, Lynnette? You think ’cause I ain’t ripped your throat out, I forgave all that?”
“You the closest thing to it, the only real thing I got left.” Lynnette’s voice was soft. “You still don’t think it was all worth it?”
“Do you? You sitting here with somebody who hate every bone in your body because ain’t no where else in the universe you can go to be with somebody who really know you. This what you worked so hard to live so long for?”
“I worked hard to give black people a place in the future. What we did here showed the world what they was happy to ignore for too long, that black people matter. It’s sad aliens understood before our own species, but first contact in the ghetto changed all that. And I made that happen. Now, the majority of humans in space are black and brown, and the aliens living on Earth seek out our communities. We’re not outsiders anymore. I figured out how to end racism. I should get something for that.”
“You got a whole lot, depending how you looking at it. And maybe you did end racism, maybe you shifted the paradigm, but you sold your soul to do it. And the soul is our energy. Yours is black, but not in a good way. It’s a void in the shape of you, waiting for a spark. I see you, how empty you really is. And I would feel bad for you if you wasn’t my nemesis. It’s the fate you deserve. Only a monster takes advantage of children and other vulnerable people, and you conjured pure, uncut evil in Ellerson in the name of prosperity. It was nice once, my kids had a simple, happy life that you took from them like a rat dropping poison in unsuspecting places. You hollow, Ms. Jones, because you gave all your energy to something that used you for your light. To that Consortium.”
Lynnette sighed.
“You right, and guess what? I’d do it all over again. One day I’m gone make you understand that my sacrifice was worth it. You should come into town with me, the construction in downtown Ellerson is finally done and it looks just like the city of Trukaz on the planet Druont. There are Druinte emissaries visiting and celebrations all weekend. We should go enjoy it.”
The old woman laughed. “I might be younger than you, but my body ain’t altered like yours. My fun is making it to this here rocking chair from my bed on the second floor. Go on, enjoy what you made.”
“I’ll leave,” Lynnette said. “But I did come here for a reason. I came to tell you that I found out what happened to Kevin. He left all them years ago and I know you been sitting here waiting to see him one last time before you leave that body. I did some digging in the Consortium records while I was at the Interstellar Panel space station, the Ellerson file is extensive and I was able to piece some things together. We weren’t aware of Kevin’s ability until after he left, so we didn’t have any tracking devices on him, but Kevin is a person of interest and they’ve been hoping to find him for some time. They’ve pieced together news articles and sightings…”
“Vita told me my son is dead, and I believe my daughter. I sit here hoping his soul will come to me like his daddy’s do, but that ain’t really none of your business.”
“He ain’t dead,” Lynnette said. She prepared herself to stand, grabbing the bannister of the porch with one hand. “I know why she think that, and Kevin is a hard man to find with them powers he got, but he ain’t dead. You and Vita can see him again.”
Before she could stand to leave the old woman asked, “How you know he alive? You seen him?”
“No, but he been using his powers to save people since he was a kid, and I know he still doing it.”
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