He saw things and heard voices, and only the pills let him lead anything like a normal life.

Thrown together by fate, held together by repeated success, the three of them made a good team and did good work. And because they worked so well together, they got all the most difficult, dangerous, and demanding cases. Happy was always threatening to quit but never did. Partly because he enjoyed the company, mostly because he enjoyed the free medical benefits. JC made no secret of the fact that he was still looking for some solid proof on the fate of human consciousness after death. And Melody stayed because the Institute gave her access to the very latest tech, and because she couldn’t hope to do nearly as much damage anywhere else.

She moved happily back and forth in front of her assorted computers, scanners, and certain arcane assemblies of her own design, arranged on a collapsible frame. Her fingers flashed across keyboards, adjusted dials, and administered the occasional warning slap to any piece of equipment that didn’t do what it was supposed to do fast enough to suit her. Lights flared and flickered, monitor screens blazed, and information came flooding in from every direction at once. JC kept a watchful eye on it all, from a safe distance.

“Picking up anything interesting?” he ventured casually after a while.

“You wouldn’t understand if I told you,” said Melody, not looking round. “Everything’s operating as it should, all the motion detectors and temperature tests are fine, and there’s not a single energy spike across the board. Rest assured that if anything ectoplasmic should deign to show its face in what’s left of tonight, I am ready and waiting to analyse it in any number of interesting ways. A ghost mouse couldn’t fart around here without me knowing.”