Lulu's apartment smelled faintly of stale coffee, burnt toast, and emotional ruin.
She sat hunched over her kitchen table, wearing a hoodie that had a strangely coloured stain that Lulu couldn't remotely place the source of, sipping on a cup of tea that had gotten ice cold nearly half an hour ago.
Her second phone—what she now dubbed the "Hauntline"—lay face-down beside her, buzzing every thirty seconds like an obnoxious housefly. She'd silenced it after the 113th call.
Across from her, Mindy was pacing.
Well, not pacing. Strategizing. Plotting. Her fuchsia hair was tied up in a messy ponytail that bounced with every determined step, streaks of neon blue and purple catching the sunlight like some kind of techno unicorn.
Fortunately for her, as a freelance programmer who mostly worked from home, she could experiment with her style all she wanted—something she took full advantage of.
"Okay, hear me out," Mindy said, pointing a pen she picked up from somewhere at the Lulu. "We need a site. Something clean. Easy to navigate. Integrated form submission. Intake questions. Digital contracts. I'll make up a rough program that will automatically provide a price based on the complexity of the service being provided. Oh, and a disclaimer checkbox. Very important."
Lulu blinked. "Why are you talking like this is a done deal?"
Mindy ignored her. "And obviously, I'll host the backend myself. Saves money, adds privacy, plus no need for third-party—"
"Wait, what are you doing?" Lulu croaked.
Mindy stopped mid-step. "Building your client portal?"
"Client what now?"
Mindy gave her a look. "Lulu. You're going viral. You have a queue of people begging to throw money at you so that you could neatly tie up any loose ends their too lazy to deal with while alive. While you don't have any competitors, we should jump on this!"
"What competitors…I wish I'd have competitors. Maybe then I could avoid all of the harassment…"
Mindy stared at her disapproving of her lack of business savvy.
'Sigh…maybe I should just tell her the truth.'
"Mindy. I never intended for this to be my career. It's just that when I met Amelia for the first timeless than a week ago, she was very insistent…and also paid me a lot" She mumbled the last part.
"Wow! Only a week to get all of that done, that's impressive!"
"No…Mindy. You are missing the point. I met Amelia less than a week ago…merely 4 days before her funeral. But she died two weeks ago. I took Amelia on as a client after she'd died and I couldn't get her out of my apartment."
Mindy paused and stared into Lulu's soul with her dark brown eyes to see if she was serious. Not liking the answer she got, she walked up to Lulu and placed her hand on her forehead.
"I'm sorry for pushing you too much sweetie, are you sick? This must be overwhelming for you and I'm not making it any better. I know I can be pushy sometimes."
'Of course she doesn't believe me…'
"I'm serious Mindy. I see dead people and Mindy is someone I met only after she'd already died."
"…Have you been hanging around anyone strange lately? Was it Jenny? I told you not to eat anything she gives to you, there's something off with that girl." She grabs Lulu by the wrist and begins to pull her to the door. "Let's go to the hospital and take a drug test."
Lulu quickly yanked her arm back. "No!"
"Don't worry. Lulu! If you were spiked with a drug then that is a crime. You are the victim and won't get in any trouble!"
"No, Mindy! Listen to me! I am not insane. I am not sick. AND. I. AM. NOT. HIGH!"
Lulu went to her laptop and began to tap around. "I will show you PROOF!"
With a long pitying sigh, Mindy walked over to Lulu to see what kind of 'proof' she could come up with.
Lulu pulled up a folder labeled Amelia and clicked open a PDF contract—one of the forged documents she'd used to convince Valentina about her legitimacy.
Mindy leaned over the screen with a skeptical look, scanning the document with the squint of someone trying to find a single pixel out of place.
"Okay... looks solid," she admitted. "You cover all of your legal bases. Did you get a lawyer's help? Embedded metadata timestamp looks..." She paused. Then frowned. Then frowned harder.
"This PDF was generated after her death. Like, a few days ago…"
'I knew she'd immediately be able to see the holes. Now she should believe me…'
"You FORGED IT?!" Mindy screeched. "You forged a legal document. Using a dead woman's name. Post-mortem. That's identity fraud! That's... digital forgery! That's—like—federal! I'm pretty sure that's federal!"
"Mindy—"
"No, Lulu! Don't Mindy me!" She started pacing again, her hands flailing like angry little coding fairies. "You're telling me you impersonated a dead woman, made fake contracts, hacked into her accounts—"
"She gave me the passwords!"
"She's DEAD, LULU!" She said before collapsing a chair, jaw slack. Her expression now hovered somewhere between horror, awe, and the beginnings of a stress migraine.
Lulu held up her hands. "I know! But she was in my apartment, Mindy! For days! She was real. She talked to me, she cried in my bathroom, sat on the very chair you're on right now!"
"WHAT?!" Mindy screamed while immediately hopping back up to pace around again.
Lulu stood up and grabbed her hand to stop the pacing (not to comfort her, but because it was making her dizzy). "Mindy... I didn't plan this. I didn't want it. But Amelia came to me, and she needed help. And the thing is—she wasn't wrong. Her funeral... it really did need to be hijacked. She didn't get justice in life. She didn't get peace."
Mindy said nothing for a long moment. Then, slowly, "You're telling me... a ghost paid you to crash her own her funeral?"
"Pretty much."
"And... you're telling me you can actually see ghosts."
Lulu nodded solemnly.
Mindy blinked, then exhaled through her nose. "Okay. I still think this is probably illegal and definitely unhinged... but I'll be honest."
Lulu tilted her head.
"I've had worse startup pitches."
Lulu let out a half-hysterical laugh. "So... you believe me?"
"No." Mindy stood back up and grabbed her laptop again. "But I do believe that this thing has legs. And if you're going to keep 'talking to ghosts' then I may as well help you monetize it responsibly."
Lulu blinked. "Wait... seriously?"
Mindy gave her a grin. "Spectral Solutions, baby. We'll build it up properly. So one more important question before we get started…"
"What?"
"How much exactly did this… g-ghost pay you?"