Believing In Ghosts

CHAPTER ONE

The politician stood on the podium and addressed the nation. Dressed in a dark suit and red tie, he answered all the questions the reporter asked him.

“The people are tired of the same old faces in charge of policy. Policy that has been a disaster, particularly among the young,” said the politician.

“And how are you planning to overturn the course of this nation, Mr. Booker?” asked the reporter.

“We need to take a look at our healthcare options. Currently the system is a disaster. Our young workers are underpaid and overworked, and our elderly, after a whole life of working for this nation, are left abandoned in poverty,” said Booker.

Booker was an experienced politician who came from a long line of famous lawyers and economists. His immaculate presentation, charisma and natural knack for leadership were certainly three of the main reasons why he was the frontrunner on the polls nationwide.

A campaign employee approached him as he left the conference room:

“We just got confirmation of another ghost,” informed Booker’s prime assistant.

“Who?” replied Booker.

“Jared Benjamin.”

Booker paused for a second: “The one that spread those fake sextapes a few months ago?”

“Yes, the one. Our intel team just confirmed that he’s a composite.”

“Any word on who’s the puppet master?”

“No clue yet, the platform he was using for his webseries is very proud of their privacy policy.”

Booker checked if he was already away from the cameras.

“No one is liable for defamation in this country anymore, fucking bullshit,” Booker said.

“We’ll continue to pressure for them to identify the ghost.”

CHAPTER TWO

Rain rolled on her bed and stared at her mobile phone’s screen. Most of her social media feed was auto-generated clickbait articles written by AI. She received job offers received on a professional social network sent by non-existent human resources employees. The effortless creation of content made its supply near endless. This was fine, no moral panic concerning technology has ever produced anything of note. She scrolled through social media and saw an ad for a quack medicine, the man promoting it, bald, with a shirt and green tie talks about all of the benefits this all-natural drug has, he may be an actual person passionate about bullshit medicine, a complete fabrication or something in between.

Rain felt lazy today but she made an effort to be productive. Mr. Booker had emailed her a new scope for security auditing. She did most of her work remotely and this gig at candidate Booker’s campaign wasn’t her only show. Despite that, she had no schedules, which meant that most days were a foggy mess of sleep. In the winter, she regularly woke up to almost dark outside and her diet was mediocre at best. Grocery shopping she felt like an astronaut stepping on a foreign planet.

“Not again,” she thought. The clock on her phone marked 1pm, “I swore I’d wake up at decent hours.”

While heavy work late in the night was more productive to her, the almost flipped schedules compared to a regular person intensified the feeling of alienation to regular people. Now with the dramatic failure of an early get-up plan, the routine was the usual: get out of bed, make something to eat and sit in front of the computer, scroll through work eemail and, of course, procrastinate on social media. After a while, she fired up the