The Ghost in the Machine

The office had settled into a familiar rhythm, the sound of rustling paper, the occasional click of a pen against a desk, the hum of a ceiling fan pushing thick, humid air in slow, lazy rotations. Outside, Belize exhaled into the early evening, the air thick with the scent of salt and rain-soaked pavement. From the open window, Jessica could hear vendors calling their last offers before packing up, the distant murmur of an engine struggling against the pothole-ridden street, the slow collapse of day into night.

She sat at her desk, idly flipping through a case file. The edges of the pages had begun to curl from the damp air. A missing persons report—an ordinary one. A runaway, most likely. Ordinary problems. Ordinary work. The kind of thing she had convinced herself she wanted. The kind of thing that didn’t keep her up at night.

Across from her, Leanna scrolled through a news feed on her tablet, absently chewing on the end of a pen. She looked up when Jessica’s laptop chimed. Jessica barely glanced at the screen before her body went still.

Leanna caught the shift immediately. "What?"

Jessica clicked the email open with the slow, deliberate resignation of someone who already knew what it would say. No subject line. No explanation. Just an attachment, a scanned document on old, faded university letterhead. And a single line of text:

Do you still remember who you are?

Jessica exhaled, long and slow. Without hesitation, she moved the cursor to the trash icon and deleted the email.

Leanna, watching from across the desk, arched a brow. "That bad?"

Jessica leaned back in her chair, rubbing a hand over her jaw. "It’s Langford."

That was enough to make Leanna groan. "Jesus. He’s still alive?"

Dr. Elliot Langford was the Ghost of the Genetics Department. A man who had haunted the university like a lingering specter. He was one of those people who was always there but never truly accounted for. He had no office, no official title, but students whispered about him in the corridors. Professors avoided mentioning his name.

He had been working for Vanguard long before any of them knew what Vanguard was. Half the time, he spoke in riddles. The other half, he talked about things no sane person should have known. It was Langford who had once looked Jessica dead in the eye and said: "The key is in the past." It was Langford who had first planted the seed that led them down the path to searching for answers. And now, a decade later, he was still reaching out.

Leanna leaned back in her chair, arms crossed. "What does he want?"

Jessica scoffed. "He's a madman. He just sends me this cryptic bullshit every few months. Probably off his meds in some bunker somewhere."

She said it lightly, dismissively, but Leanna didn’t look convinced. "You ever actually open what he sends?"

Jessica didn’t answer.

Leanna tapped her pen against the desk, thoughtful. "It’s been a year, Jess. A whole year of quiet. And now he reaches out again?"

Jessica forced a smirk. "Coincidence."

Leanna didn’t smile back.

Jessica stood, stretching. "I’m gonna get some air."

She stepped outside, onto the narrow balcony overlooking the street. Below, life moved on as if nothing had changed, shopkeepers flipping their signs to Cerrado, the glow of streetlights washing over cracked pavement, a dog weaving lazily between parked cars.

She told herself it meant nothing. Langford was always sending crazy messages. This wasn’t any different. She wasn’t going back. There was no way she was going back. That was the past, and she was done with it..