Charlie was perusing his new fan art when the message from Li arrived, the sharp beep of his phone notifying him that his spouse had texted him. He finished ranking the submissions from DUBIOUS to DAMMMN using his inbuild internet connection, todays DAMMMMN going to a charmingly weird abstract piece by Souce_Boi_42069.

People were as ever sceptical of the realism of the whole thing, but the quirky intro video had managed to get the tag "Bitey the dragon" trending for a while, and frankly an oil painting of himself and Bitey ballroom dancing through the houses of parliament was to die for.

They posted the winner up on twitter, and work done for the day, began to pace the room. It had been nice to have a bit of a distraction and the second he stopped working his mind rushed back to the governmental duo who had been stalking the street of late – Lord and Dame. Li had let him know that they had turned up at the house earlier, and he feared that it was only a matter of time before the creepy duo tracked him down.

He tapped his foot impatiently, that was why he was here after all, Sai had a plan, but that same Sai was still getting ready after almost an hour, they really were taking their damn time. A little bored, he moseyed over and examined the contraption strapped to the coffee table nearby - a series of cracked magnifying glasses carefully arrayed over the dense text of the paper beneath. The document itself seemed to have been highlighted in blue by Sai and stacks of dense legal textbooks surrounded it. Charlie scanned the titles, nothing he recognised, but there was a folder labelled "counter-sue".

He flipped it open idly. As far as Charlie was concerned, Sai had invited them to their house and left them unattended in a room whilst they got ready so whatever was in that room was fair game. Though, for all the legal terminology and weirdness it may as well have been enciphered, even after he pried the original document loose to compare the two. Idly he snapped a photo with a thought. Sai was near guaranteed to lose it, and they might well appreciate a copy later, and if not, well he could always delete it – His internal storage seemed limitless as far as high-fidelity video was concerned so he doubted a photo or two would cause issues.

Charlie paused as his phone rang for a half a second before cutting off mid ring, he grimaced and pulled out the phone, a badly beaten Nokia more than a decade old, absentmindedly folding the pilfered document into his back pocket of his shorts to free his hands as the grungy device lit up. He smiled at it and thought of Li’s stern expression when ey had handed it to them – No amount of explanation of his new cybernetic abilities was enough to put off eir stern spouse’s demand.

In the end he had agreed, it was unnecessary – but there was something comforting about having the historic bit of tech resting heavy in his short pockets. Still smiling at the thought, he spotted the earlier message and shook his head. It seemed his spouse had overreached again and needed eir chair dropping off.

Somewhat happy for the excuse he clapped his hands together and yelled up at Sai.

“Oi, get your ass down here Sai, we need ta go via my house ta pick up Li’s chair. So we ain’t got time for you to try every fuck’in outfit.”

The sounds of chaos upstairs intensified and a few moments later Sai stumbled down the stairs in a blur of colours. They just barely caught themselves at the bottom, straightened up the more egregious parts of their outfit and posed dramatically.

“How do I look!”

Charlie considered the hideous amalgamation of colours and multilayers for a moment.

“It’s very.. you?”

Sai grinned and gestured at the door, their luminescent green overcoat billowing around them as they moved into the street outside without hesitation. Startled Charlie rushed after his friend as they plunged through the doorway, the annotated document forgotten in their pocket as the door slammed shut behind them.

As they strolled down the street Charlie attempted to follow the convoluted explanation of Sai’s legal scheme before eventually giving up and letting the words wash over him as they walked. While they walked Charlie looked around, taking in the sights as he looked for his front door amongst the myriad walls of the street.

Because of this, or perhaps in spite of it, Charlie was the one who spotted a glow of pale blue light shining out of the graveyard. He pointed and Sai stopped their explanation, neither needed to ask the other – there was no way they were going to ignore such an obvious call to adventure.

Near blinded by the bluish glow the duo rushed through the endless ranks of graves towards the glowing beam of energy, past row after row of unreadable headstones until they finally reached the source of the light.

As they approached, the glow paled and solidified into a luminescent figure. As they watched, the bluish spirit looked down at her spectral hands and laughed, the hollow empty sound chilling Charlie to the bone. For a moment, the figure paused, hanging motionless in the air feet barely touching the ground, and then she screamed into the sky above her.

“Suck it, TERFS – EVEN DEAD I’M STILL A FUCKING WOMAN.”

Her mouth yawned open, stretching far beyond its boundaries as she grinned and danced with glee, semi-transparent feet twirling three meters off the ground.

Sai stared at the floating figure before them and turned to Charlie.

“You know, I’m starting to think Al is right. This is bullshit. Now we have fucking ghosts?”

The ghost in question spun round to them with an affronted look, but Sai just shrugged at the apparition. Charlie for his part examined the figure for a second, sizing her up before he answered Sai.

“Ya know, I see what ya mean. But your being a bit unfair to the lass, we knew bout these already no? I’m fairly sure Jacks been going on bout necromancy for a bit now right?”

The ghost shook her head and drifted in front of Charlie’s face.

“Excuse me? You, the asshole with the Scottish accent.”

The ghost waved her hand in front of the distracted Scotsman.

“Yes you, care to explain why you and your fancy magic resurrected me?”

Charlie opened his mouth to respond only to be interrupted by the sharp trill of his beaten-up Nokia, which he answered as his brain struggled with the twin confusions of working phone signal and the ghost’s nonsensical accusation.

It was Biz, and Charlie paused for a moment as the distressed scientist spoke in a rambling panic of intersecting sentences. As he listened his pale face sought a lighter shade of grey as the information hit home. Stunned and horrified, he turned to the Sai, fear in his eyes for the first time in the day.

“Li - ey have been in an accident.”

He turned to the scowling spectral woman with a look of desperation as the words tumbled loose.

“I’m beggin’ ya tell me you’re a doctor – Li, my spouse, needs one an’ we don ‘ave one an’ your prob’ly our only hope.”

The transparent women frowned and nodded, a strange calm writ into the shadowy flesh of her features.

“As it so happens, I am – I am Doctor Penelope Barker to be precise.”

Her smile softened and became more natural as Penelope spoke her name, as though a great weight of uncertainty had been lifted from her shoulders.

“It’s hard being like this you know, so many rules to follow, so little of me remaining, it’s all so new.”

She looked into Charlie’s eyes and shuddered slightly.

“But you have no time for that, I can see you are filled with so much desperation, and you think we have so little time. What I do know is I am bound to the dirt of my burial mound, but if you take some with you, I would be more than happy to help.”

She gestured towards the headstone laden plot of grass beneath her, the swirling cipher of text now resolved into readable words. - Doctor Penelope Barker July 15th 1964 to May 14th 2002.

Charlie brushed aside any objections Sai could have and clawed a handful of dirt from the loose mound. He paused for a second, gestured from the spirit to follow him and took off through the graves back towards the street. A small part of him knew it was far too convenient, suspiciously well timed, and perfectly placed to find them in their time of need. But Charlie didn’t care, their spouse was in trouble, and he’d be damned if he let any amount of hesitation stop them saving Li.

He ran through the street, navigating by his gut and occasional glances at the shadowy outlines above as the drift tripped and buckled against him. For a while every step seemed to take him further from the lab where their spouse lay, the shifting street forming a maze around his footsteps as the fluctuating gravity of the street tossed him two and fro with each step.

But he persevered, each tumbling step taking him closer to their destination as Penelope floated statuesque half a meter behind his left shoulder and after almost thirty minutes of battering drift it stopped abruptly, and Charlie found himself outside Biz’s laboratory.

He burst in without a second thought, the ghost rushed past him as he moved, manipulating Li’s body with tendrils of blueish energy as eir body flexed and shuddered under the shadowy outline of her own.

Charlie watched intently, his foot tapping impatiently against smooth tiles of the lab as he watched the spectral nurse tend to Li’s injuries with well-practiced skill. Had he not been so distracted, he might have noticed the faint scent of burning from his pocket. Had he been more alert to his own body and less concerned with his spouse, perhaps maybe he would have noticed the line of heat where the document within his pocket glowed with energy. Had he looked, they might even have noticed the fresh line of text written in scorched black between the lines of the contract.

But Charlie did none of these things, and he was glad of it. His focus was where it needed to be, and somewhere hidden far away on the street Lord and Dame agreed. Not from a sense of love or compassion as Charlie did, but from the quiet glee of a plan gone unnoticed.

Of a line of smoking text written unseen into a contract.

Healthcare Package Accepted – Tan family Doctor: Ms Penelope Barker