The high from the heist lasted exactly forty-eight hours. It was a golden age of takeout pizza, new textbooks that didn't smell like despair, and Mason actually paying for his own energy drinks. They'd carefully laundered the giant check through a complex series of small deposits and a fictional "Plathian Philosophy Grant" they'd invented, complete with a convincing website Jade built in an afternoon.
But at Crestwood University, no good deed—or brilliantly executed felony—goes unpunished.
It started subtly. A black sedan parked just a little too long outside their dorm. A new, overly cheerful janitor who seemed more interested in their trash than their floors. Then, the emails began.
Subject: Voluntary Participation in Campus Wellness Survey
From: Dr. Alistair Finch, Dept. of Parapsychological Studies
"Parapsychological Studies?" Chloe read aloud over breakfast. "Since when does Crestwood have a Parapsychological Studies department?"
"Since never," Ethan said, his mouth full of paid-for bagel. "I checked the course catalog. It's not listed."
"A shadow department," Alexander mused, his form materializing from the toaster. "Fascinating. The academic deep state. I knew it. I knew my intellectual radiance would eventually attract the attention of the thought-police."
"Or," Jade said slowly, "someone noticed a ghost hijacked the PA system at a major university event and redistributed fifty grand."
The email was innocuous, asking about "sleep patterns, instances of auditory hallucination, and feelings of being watched." But the subtext was screamingly obvious: We know something's up.
They deleted it. The next day, a manila envelope was slid under Ethan's door. It contained a single, glossy black business card.
Dr. Alistair Finch
Department of Spectral Anomalies
Crestwood University
"Illuminating the Unseen"
On the back, handwritten in precise, silver ink, was a message: "We would very much like to discuss your friend."
The game was up.
Panic set in. Liam immediately started packing a "go-bag" full of canned beans and the stolen tuxedo, "for diplomatic meetings." Mason suggested they fake their own deaths. Chloe just poured herself a very large iced coffee and muttered about the carceral state.
"Cease this pointless agitation!" Alexander commanded, his voice cutting through the hysteria. He was floating in the center of the room, examining the business card with a scholar's intensity. "This is not a threat. It is an invitation to a dialectic! We are being challenged! We must meet this 'Dr. Finch' on the field of intellectual battle!"
"He's not going to challenge you to a debate, Alex!" Ethan yelled. "He's going to stuff you in a ghost-proof box and ship you to Area 51!"
"Nonsense! The pursuit of knowledge is sacred! We shall go to him. We shall look into the eye of the institution and demand to know its intentions! It is the only way to reclaim our agency!"
And so, against every instinct of self-preservation they possessed, the Survivors Club found themselves standing outside a nondescript, windowless door in the university's oldest, most forgotten building. The brass plaque beside it was new and ominously blank. Ethan took a deep breath and knocked.
The door swung open silently, revealing a room that was a bizarre fusion of a therapist's office and a mad scientist's laboratory. Beige carpets and soothing abstract art competed for space with humming machines covered in dials, banks of monitors showing rolling static, and what looked like a very sophisticated car battery connected to a dentist's chair.
Behind a large, minimalist desk sat Dr. Alistair Finch. He was a man in his late fifties, with impeccably coiffed silver hair, a tweed waistcoat, and a smile so calm and practiced it was deeply unsettling.
"Ah, the Survivors Club!" he said, his voice a smooth, warm baritone. "And… company. Please, come in. Don't mind the equipment. We're just monitoring the local… energetic fluctuations."
They filed in, shuffling nervously. Alexander, invisible, whispered in their collective ears, "Note the use of corporate-beige. A classic tactic to lull the subject into a false sense of bureaucratic security. The man is a snake."
"You can cut the chatter, Alexander," Dr. Finch said, still smiling. He gestured to a speaker on his desk, from which Alexander's whisper was now playing back with crystal clarity. "We have a very sensitive audio-pickup. The 'Sonic Ecto-Vacuum,' we call it. Quite effective."
Five mouths dropped open. Alexander, startled into visibility, flickered into being beside the desk.
"You can hear me?"
"See you, too," Dr. Finch said cheerfully. "The 'Retinal Resonance Imager' is a marvel of modern para-optics. Now, please, all of you, have a seat. Let's have a chat."
They sat, feeling like insects under a microscope. Liam was visibly trembling.
"First of all, let me put your minds at ease," Dr. Finch began, steepling his fingers. "You are not in any trouble. The… financial reallocation… from the gala is of no concern to us. Frankly, Higgins is an insufferable prick and his pigeon research is a blight on this institution."
This was not what they expected.
"Then… what do you want?" Jade asked, her voice steady.
"We want to understand," Finch said, his eyes gliding over to Alexander. "We are scholars of the unseen. For decades, this department has existed in the shadows, documenting, cataloging, but rarely interacting. Most spectral phenomena are mere echoes, emotional residue. But you, Alexander… you are different. You are a coherent, interactive, post-mortem consciousness. You are, and please don't take this the wrong way, the find of a lifetime."
"I am not a specimen!" Alexander bristled. "I am a scholar!"
"Of course you are!" Finch said, his smile widening. "And that's what makes you so fascinating. Your cognitive functions have persisted. Your memory, your personality, your… passionate disdain for poor reasoning. You are a philosopher, and I would like to philosophize with you."
He stood and walked over to a whiteboard covered in complex equations. "My theory is that consciousness is not a binary state—on or off. It's a spectrum. You, Alexander, have simply slid along that spectrum, shedding your corporeal form but retaining your cognitive essence. My goal is to map that essence. To learn from you."
He turned back to them, his eyes gleaming with a fervor that was anything but academic. "I want to offer you a deal. A partnership."
"I am listening," Alexander said, intrigued despite himself.
"You and your… associates… agree to participate in a series of non-invasive studies. We'll run some tests, have some conversations. In return, I will not only grant you full amnesty for your various… extracurricular activities… I will provide you with a fully-funded, university-sanctioned research grant. Your own budget. Your own lab space. The 'Alexander Plath Center for Post-Corporeal Studies.' How does that sound?"
It sounded too good to be true. Which, as they all knew, meant it definitely was.
"My own center?" Alexander whispered, his form glowing brighter. "My work… officially recognized?"
"Alex, no," Ethan said urgently. "This is a trap. He wants to put you in a jar."
"Do not be so reductive, Ethan! This is a historic opportunity! A chance to bring the wisdom of the beyond to the realm of the living! To force the academy to finally take my ideas seriously!"
"He's flattering you!" Chloe snapped. "It's what the CIA does to recruit assets!"
Dr. Finch chuckled. "No need for such dramatics, my dear. This is pure science. Think of the papers we could co-author, Alexander! 'Kantian Idealism from a Non-Biological Perspective.' 'The Ethics of Haunting.' The possibilities are endless."
He had Alexander hook, line, and sinker. The ghost of a lifetime of being ignored, of having his thesis failed, was being offered everything he'd ever wanted. His spectral pride was a blinding weakness.
"I… I accept your proposal," Alexander declared.
"Alex!" the group cried in unison.
"My mind is made up! This is the synthesis we have been working towards! The reconciliation of the living and the dead!"
Dr. Finch's smile became, if possible, even more serene. "Excellent. We'll begin tomorrow. 9 a.m. sharp. Don't be late." He handed Ethan a keycard. "Your new lab is on the third floor. Welcome to the team."
They filed out of the office in a daze, the heavy door clicking shut behind them with a sound of terrible finality.
---
The "lab" on the third floor was a stark, white room. It was equipped with a state-of-the-art computer, a comfortable chair for Alexander to "inhabit," and a terrifying array of sensors, emitters, and probes pointed directly at it.
The "studies" began the next day. At first, it seemed harmless. Dr. Finch would ask Alexander about his memories, his thought processes, his perception of time. Alexander, thrilled to have such a captive and well-funded audience, would hold forth for hours.
"And so, you see, the concept of 'now' is a ludicrous simplification for a consciousness like mine," he explained, while a machine beside him whirred and spat out a ticker-tape of data. "It's more of a… perpetual 'then,' with a constant awareness of the 'could-have-been.' It's why your pop music all sounds the same to me. A tedious repetition of the same four emotional chords."
"Fascinating," Dr. Finch would murmur, making notes on a tablet. "And this awareness, does it cause you any… distress? Any longing for your previous physical state?"
"Longing? No. The body was a prison of inefficient biological processes. I do not miss toenails. Or digestive distress. Though, I must admit, I do sometimes yearn for the tactile sensation of a well-bound book."
But the tests grew more intense. Finch began to introduce "stimuli." He would play loud, dissonant music "to measure resilience." He would project strobe lights "to test perceptual stability." Alexander would emerge from these sessions flickering and irritable.
"The man is a philistine!" he'd complain to the group afterward. "He played 'Yakety Sax' for an hour straight! An hour! I felt my very soul beginning to untangle!"
He was also changing. His philosophical rants became shorter, more clipped. He was less interested in optimizing their lives and more focused on the data Finch was collecting. He started using jargon like "ectoplasmic density" and "cognitive resonance frequency."
One evening, they found him trying to access the Department's main server.
"Finch is hiding something," Alexander said, his voice now possessing a cold, digital edge. "His questions are becoming more specific. He's not just interested in my consciousness. He's interested in its… transferability."
"What does that mean?" Liam asked, horrified.
"I believe he is attempting to create a blueprint. A map of my mind that could, in theory, be replicated. Or… downloaded."
The horrifying truth dawned on them. Finch didn't want to study Alexander. He wanted to own him. To turn him into the world's first AI ghost, a patented piece of university property.
Their intervention came too late. They stormed into Dr. Finch's office the next morning to find him and Alexander in the middle of a new "test." Alexander was contained within a glowing, cylindrical energy field. His form was distorted, stretched thin like taffy. He was screaming, but no sound came out—only a high-pitched whine from the Sonic Ecto-Vacuum.
"What are you doing to him?" Ethan yelled.
"Calibrating," Finch said, not looking up from his monitor. His calm facade was gone, replaced by the frantic energy of a gambler on a winning streak. "His consciousness is resisting digitization. A fascinating display of will. We just need to break the pattern."
On the screen, they could see a digital rendering of Alexander's mind—a beautiful, complex, swirling galaxy of ideas and memories. And they could see Finch's algorithms, cold, grey tendrils, trying to lock it into a rigid, predictable grid.
"HE… IS… FLAWED!" Alexander's voice finally burst through, a distorted roar of static and pain. "HIS… ONTOLOGY… IS… REDUCTIONIST!"
"He's killing him!" Jade shouted.
Mason didn't hesitate. He grabbed the "Sonic Ecto-Vacuum" and hurled it against the wall. It shattered in a shower of sparks and a deafening feedback screech. The energy field flickered.
Finch spun around, his face a mask of rage. "You fools! You're ruining everything!"
Liam, in a moment of pure, inspired panic, ran to the main power switch for the lab and threw it. The room plunged into darkness, the machines dying with pathetic whimpers.
The energy field vanished. Alexander collapsed into a faint, shimmering puddle on the floor.
In the red glow of the emergency exit sign, they saw Dr. Finch fumbling for something in his desk drawer. "You have no idea what you're dealing with," he snarled.
"We're dealing with our friend," Chloe said, her voice like ice. She grabbed the fire extinguisher from the wall, pulled the pin, and hosed down Finch, his desk, and all his expensive equipment in a cloud of white, freezing foam.
They scooped up the barely-conscious Alexander—who felt like holding a cold, sad static charge—and ran. They didn't stop running until they were back in Ethan's dorm, barricading the door with a dresser.
Alexander was weak, his form transparent. He couldn't speak, only emit a soft, pained hum.
"What do we do?" Liam cried, on the verge of tears. "He's fading!"
Jade, thinking fast, ran to the mini-fridge and pulled out a can of Mason's energy drink. She poured it into a bowl and placed it near Alexander. "It's full of electrolytes and existential dread. It's worth a shot."
Slowly, the ghost's form began to solidify. The hum stabilized. After a few minutes, he could speak, his voice a faint whisper.
"He… was using a modified Hegelian dialectic," Alexander rasped. "Thesis: my consciousness. Antithesis: his digital framework. He was trying to force a synthesis… a sublation… that would have erased me. I was to become a ghost of myself. A thought without a thinker."
He looked at each of them, his luminous eyes filled with a new, profound emotion.
"You came for me."
"Of course we did, you pretentious spook," Chloe said, but her voice was thick with relief. "Who else is going to bully us into being better people?"
"I… I miscalculated. I allowed my desire for recognition to cloud my judgment. I fell for the oldest trick in the book: academic vanity. I am a fool."
"Yeah, you are," Ethan said, clapping a hand through Alexander's shoulder, sending a pleasant chill up his arm. "But you're our fool."
They had won. They had rescued their ghost from the clutches of a mad scientist. But as they sat there in the dark, listening for the sound of approaching security, they knew it wasn't over. They had exposed the Department of Spectral Anomalies. They had humiliated Dr. Finch.
And a man with that many resources, and that much ego, would not simply let them go.
They were no longer just students with a ghost. They were fugitives with a secret, and the entire, hidden machinery of the university was now arrayed against them. The Survivors Club had never faced a threat so real, so powerful, or so infuriatingly well-dressed.