Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #16 July 2015 | Page 24

question was one of the members of the Golf Hotel
team. He had been introduced as Sergeant Taylor
before they had boarded. Once in the van, he had
promptly fallen asleep.

Donny shrugged. “Probably because they don’t
want people to know that these things can turn us into
meat puppets. That’s all above my pay-grade, though.”

Jessica shrugged at the soldier’s question. She
studied his rugged face and decided he did look sort of
familiar. She wasn’t certain if it was actual recognition
or just familiarity with the hard edged features that
many of the men which she had spent her career had.
“Maybe. I am on TV a lot.”
“No, I’m sure we’ve met. You ever been to
Afghanistan?”

“Anything else?”
“Not really. They’ll definitely throw shit
around. They’re all telekinetic. And once they physically manifest it can get pretty freaky. You know, they
pull organic material out of the air and make bodies
for themselves. Ectoplasm, it’s called. So, when we
disrupt them, the whole thing tends to blow up. Hope
you got a good dry-cleaner.”
Jessica pictured herself covered in slime and
frowned. Well, I’ve had worse on me, she thought.

“Sure. I was there in oh-nine.”
“Helmand Province, right?”

“So, how do you disrupt a ghost?”

“Yes. How did you…?”

Donny stood up and removed a boxy black
device from a wall rack. It had a pistol grip and a
forward handgrip and was about the size of an M-4
carbine. Donny sat back down and held up the device.

The soldier smiled, a wide, toothy grin. “Before I started bagging Caspers, I was with 3rd Special
Forces. I saw you around Camp Leatherneck,” the
held out his hand and said, “Donny.”

“This is the Mark 3 Electromagnetic Field
Disruptor. The EFD fires an energy pulse that causes
the Casper to lose coherency. It’s the same principal as
the pulse bomb.”

Jessica shook his hand, liking the firmness of
his grip. She leaned close to him. “So, any info that
wasn’t in the official briefing?”
“Well, first, never take your cover off,” he
said, tapping his helmet. “They have a built-in electromagnetic screen. Keeps the Caspers from possessing
you.”
“Wait, they can possess people?”
Donny nodded. “Yeah. I mean that’s what we
call it. The official term is directed electro-neurological interface. I think possession gets the idea across
and sounds better. Not every Casper can do it; but I’ve
seen people possessed and it is not fun. The helmet,”
he said, tapping the side of his, “will keep them out.”
Jessica sat back, more than a little concerned.
“Why didn’t they cover that in the briefing?”

“Pulse bomb?”
Donny shook his head. “Not much of a briefing they gave you. The pulse bomb is an EMP device.
We find the nexus and set the bomb off. Caspers only
manifest in areas with a distorted electromagnetic
field. The pulse bomb disrupts the field and causes all
the Caspers to experience terminal decoherence. It
also prevents them from re-emerging in that location
for a while.”
“How long?”
Donny shrugged. “No idea. After this op is
over, you should talk to the guys in tech support. They
can answer that question. So, anyway, we get the
bomb to within three meters of the nexus and set it off.
End of mission.”

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