Bleak History by John Shirley

him, a surging cacophony of half-formed thoughts, ideas, possibilities. It was always there, usually unheard.
    He felt the presence of countless other beings, in this new medium—and something else, the potential for beings who weren't quite there yet. He saw spirits loom up, like ethereal otters in an etheric sea, felt them looking him over. He knew, somehow, that these visitors were kept back from ?' him by an emanation generated by his own body—generated without his having to try. His just being alive and conscious here was enough to keep them back. For these beings, anyway. Certain others, more powerful and brutish, might overwhelm that protective emanation, if they came upon him. Might engulf him, devour him.
    But one being in particular spoke to him; an entity emanating no threat.
    “Reach out, “ said the voice. A voice with sheer trustworthiness innate in its timbre.
    He remembered Connor. “I'm hearing things,” Gabriel said. “This is hallucination stuff. Hearing voices.”
    “Some hear voices generated from their own faulty thinking matter, “ said the voice from the charged air about him. “Most who suppose they hear the unseen only hear themselves. But you are not
    like the others. You've always known that. You can feel that I am trustworthy. You have the taste for things that are true. So listen to me. Reach out with your other hands...your inner hands. “
    It came to Gabriel naturally, like a baby's first attempt to pick things up with its fingers— clumsily at first. Still, he reached into the luminous surging of the Hidden and felt it respond, something like clay in his fingers, but more malleable, less definable; he extended the energy field he was giving off, used it to manipulate the field, to extend himself telekinetically, enfolding the object nearest to hand: a pitchfork, leaning on the cobwebby wall beside him.
    And made the pitchfork lift up into the air. It hung there quivering, its tines thrumming like a tuning fork...then dropped with a clang.
    “The energy of the Hidden is condensable, “ said the voice. “Make a ladder, like Jacob, and rise up!”
    He compressed the energy field in front of him—and stepped up onto the energy compression.
    To find that he was standing in the air, hovering two feet over the ground.
    He was dumbfounded and yet, on some level, not surprised. This was what he'd always unconsciously known was there; this was the missing part of himself. This was the real world, to him.
    “It is always there, but your connection to it has been locked away, muted. The device that has hidden it from humanity is weakening, and those with the gift can feel the living radiance rise.”
    “Who's talking to me?” Gabriel demanded, as he hovered there. “Who are you!”
    As if in reply, the shape of a man formed before him, naked but sexless; the body, Gabriel knew instinctively, was a formality. It could have taken the shape of an octopus or a giant rabbit named Harvey or a Coca-Cola bottle. But just now it was solidifying, shaping to resemble a medium-size man, the body molded of the shining medium that swirled around him. The entity's “head” seemed detached, floating over the neck. There was no definite face, just an impression of eyes, gazing back at him. “It's long since I've been here,” said the spirit. That familiar, gentle voice. Gabriel thought of it as the Talking Light. “There are others who want to speak to you, where the spirits of the dead linger. The Hidden is their world.”
    The dead wanted to speak to him? Gabriel's mouth went dry at the thought. Who? His grandmother? His brother? “I don't think...I'm ready to talk to them. Just tell me—do you have a name? Who are you? Are you one of the dead?”
    “T have never been subject to death. As for a name, some in your world have called me Mikha 'el.”
    Mikha 'el? “I'll call you...Mike. Light Mike.”
    “All right. You cannot sustain this contact long.... It is too new to you. If you remain,