A woman in a pantsuit hovered two yards above the office floor. The way she posed, it looked like someone had strung her up on an invisible meat hook.

Shirley from Data Entry. The whole staff hung in a frozen, ghostly dance above the desks, Ted the overweight supervisor drifting toward the upper balcony...I always knew he was full of hot air.

Every time I see the people floating like that, I clutch my HDR close to my chest, hoping The Hiss doesn't come for me next.

When The Hiss gets you, you end up suspended in midair. Then the orange light appears and you're waving around a gun, shooting at friends.

If you're lucky, Jessie comes by and reduces you to a bloody smear on the concrete. Otherwise, who knows?

I've heard stories of field agents, possessed by The Hiss, being drawn to a darkened hell somewhere deep within The Foundation.

Our devices suppress some of the whispers, but I can still hear most of them. I try to tune them out, but some get stuck there.

I've heard that's how The Hiss gets you.

My stomach rumbled. I'd been putting this excursion off as long as possible, living on vending machine food and whatever we could scrounge up around the office. Some of the vanished employees had left stuff like Campbell's Chunky Soup and Ramen in their desks, but the foray for food could no longer be postponed. Although Jessie had destroyed thousands of Hiss creatures in the Research Division, and demolished the glowing nodes that baited them in, more and more kept coming to replace their numbers, and she couldn't always be present to escort us safely to the cafeteria. (While we're on the subject, not sure how the supplies in the cafeteria kept getting magically restocked).

Jessie had moved some refrigerators up to our level, along with some food, but supplies had run out in her absence.

Five trained soldiers accompanied me down a carpeted hallway, three men and two women, equipped with assault rifles, Kevlar and HDR units. Franklin and McCay, veterans, I trusted more than others, but without Jess...

"This is what we've been reduced to," I sighed. "Taking an armed escort with us every time we want lunch."

"I've seen the Director lift a forklift with her mind. Maybe she can carry a few refrigerators up to our floor?"

I shook my head. "She told me it's too hard to control. Sometimes she tries to set something down and it end up rocketing into a wall at ninety miles an hour."

"Shit, maybe she needs a meditation class!"

I laughed. "Yeah? With who? Yoda? Whoever it is will probably end up getting decapitated."

We descended the wide staircase leading into Central Research, awkwardly lugging food carts over the steps. It would have been nice if we could have taken an elevator to the cafeteria, but the building keeps shifting around, blocking our access with walls and/or mountains of debris. On certain floors, the women's bathroom can only be accessed my means of a rope and a grappling hook.

We didn't even have a wheelchair ramp. It was as if the building itself were saying, `Screw you, handicapped people.'

Below us lay the cafeteria plaza. Like every other location in this forsaken place, form followed function, and function reigned supreme. Not much art to see, just some planters here and there to give the area color (don't know how those things got watered). Had a green trellis looking thing running up the wall between the cafeteria and the restrooms.

Nothing life threatening or dangerous so far, just more office staff people suspended in the air by an unseen force. From time to time, they drop down, becoming mindless bloodthirsty zombies, but presently they only floated in eerie silence.

A swirling black cloud of debris, about the size of a grown man, hovered around the tables, like the Tasmanian Devil cartoon.

Abuse personified. That's what I think they are. A hostile, violent tornado of rage, prompted by something that isn't even your fault, but it comes after you out of a need to release its hate, to vent all its pent up hostilities, and to throw things.

Did I mention throwing things?

"Has anyone ever taken a close look at one of those things?" Franklin asked.

I shrugged. "Jessie has. Briefly. She said she glimpsed a mental institution. That doesn't explain what it is, or why it's here. It might even tell us more about Jessie than it does about the thing."

We'd have to brave that thing, rush past, get our stuff and go. If the thing picked up our carts, well, no food, I guess.

As we brought our items to the lower landing, an off-white rat creature crawled up on the concrete staircase railing.

Its bucktoothed monkey face leered at me as it reclined and ran a paw over the curve of its hindquarters.

Heat rushed to my face as recognition struck me. "No!" I whispered to myself, rubbing my eyes. "I'm not seeing this!"

My bodyguards brought up their assault rifles and aimed at the creature.

"Stop!" I cried. "Don't shoot him!"

Then I caught myself. "W-wait! You can actually see him?"

McCay frowned at me. "Ma'am, what is this thing?"

"My...My childhood imaginary friend, Mister Boogity."

The creature grinned, wiggling his hairless cat ears, and the toes of his enormous feet. His large googly eyes narrowed in a wink. "Hello, Emmy! Long time no see!"

"Ma'am," said Franklin. "What do you want us to do with it?"

I glared at the creature. "Ignore him. We have more important things to concern ourselves with at the moment."

Mister Boogity blew me a kiss.

Hot with shame, I pretended to be looking elsewhere. "C'mon. Let's get going before The Hiss comes back."