The deliveries were made on Friday mornings. Every morning, a delivery truck would pull up outside and drop off four separate boxes. At the same time at nine other locations in the country, the same delivery would be taking place. In each of the boxes were around a hundred zip disks. The disks would be broken down into ten stacks of ten and then each of those stacks would be delivered to one of us. Our official designation is Dictation and Secretarial Staff. However, we tend to be known as something else, in these corridors and the corridors of the Ministry. There, they call us the Valkyries.
Only I'm fairly certain there weren't any male valkyries, and none of them ever typed as much as we do.
It's all very simple, when it comes down to it. I remember reading the article that started it off in fact. There was a jokey newspaper article, complete with still from Casper, explaining that mobile phones were drowning out ghosts. Ghosts, it explained, were widely regarded as being electromagnetic phenomena of some form -- and with the onset of mobile phones, they were no longer possible to detect. The article even finished with a quote from some boffin, explaining that it might be possible to modify mobile phones so we could talk to them.
We can. We do. We have been for the last year.
The technology behind it is very simple. One out of every ten mobile phones produced is never sold, but rather is delivered to the central facility and is hooked up to a MP3 player and recorder. Once installed, it dials every number in the country, with a couple of exceptions. Dead numbers, office numbers, home phones, mobiles, everything.
Ever had one of those phonecalls where you pick up the phone, and on the other end there's office noise, or the sound of a train or something like that? Or you're walking past a phonebox and it rings although no one's there? Some of the time, that's just a wrong number.
The rest of the time, that's us.
There's more too. Every single one of those players has the following questions attached to it, which repeat on a speed and volume so low no human can hear.
1-WHO ARE YOU?
2-HOW DID YOU DIE?
3-WHERE ARE YOU NOW?
4-WHO ELSE IS THERE?
5-IS THERE AN AFTERLIFE?
Millions of phone numbers being rung over and over again. And at the end of the week, the MP3s are downloaded to ZIP disks and delivered to us. We listen to every recording, note the results of the questions and file it. Every result is also transferred to a map of England, where it's flagged depending on questions and time received. We're building a map of England's ghosts. Or we were.
You see, we've discovered something on this last batch. The same message was repeated on every single disk, at a speed and volume designed for humans to hear.
1-WHO ARE YOU?
2-WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO LIVE?
3-WHERE ARE YOU NOW?
4-WHO ELSE IS THERE?
5-HOW SAFE DO YOU FEEL?
We've heard rumours too, rumours of voices appearing on mobile phones, voices that laugh and cry and swear. Other rumours too, of headless women wandering Hampton Court, and Black Dogs on the moors. It seems that the afterlife does not appreciate having its privacy invaded. The thing is, despite the implications of this, despite what it might mean for everyone, I can only think of one thing. It's dull, it's mundane but I can't get it out of my head.
How are they recording their results?
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Written in 23 minutes.