S Hunter - Longevity

They’d found in the records that Maas was a 32 year-old single man who had been raised in a natural family, and prior to dropping into LLE custody yesterday he’d had no criminal record other than a few nonviolent protest-related arrests that had never led to prosecution. Maas’ distressed family told them that he had recently broken up with a long-term girlfriend who had a good job as a high-class receptionist and who had decided to start getting resets every two years, now that she could afford them. Psych Services sent an officer who listened to the history supplied by Maas’ family, observed him interacting with Chris, and remarked that the recent break-up supplied sufficient motivation for Maas to have reacted violently. The officer asked that they give him a call if anything else developed in the case.

After two hours listening to Maas, Chris asked Meg Dalton to give it a try. Livvy didn’t need to ask why Chris turned to her. Meg had decades of experience and she was a lovely woman, about 30 biol, with warm brown eyes and soft brown hair that, as far as Livvy could tell, owed nothing to enhancements. The shooter wasn’t fooled. He stared at Meg with disdain and refused to talk to her other than to tell her that she was a disease and that if she and others like her weren’t stopped she would infect decent families until there were none left. There was a lot more in the same vein before Meg too gave up.

“Thanks for tossing that my way, McGregor,” Dalton said. “I haven’t had a good old-fashioned incoherent theological debate with a looney in a month, and I was missing it. Also, all the colorful vernacular. A real treat. You’d enjoy yours, Hutchins, if Maas even deigned to speak to you. Which he wouldn’t.”

“Ah yes. Abomination,” Livvy said. “I heard that one.” She paused. “While my partner went to search Josephson’s no doubt luxurious mansion, I got to ride to the Clinic in the cozy medivan. All because of a tiny scratch on the arm that had stopped bleeding.”

“I wanted you along in case he said anything,” Chris said.

Livvy opened her mouth.

“Anything useful,” Chris amended quickly.

“Thanks, Dalton. It was worth a try,” he added as Meg smiled and started to walk away.

“Hey McGregor,” Williams called from the other side of the room, “I don’t suppose you could have done us all a favor and put that moron back into the tree and let him drop out again a couple more times? Might have saved us all some trouble.”

“Well, you know Williams, I did think about it,” Chris called back, “but then it occurred to me that as he is now, he’s a candidate for your future brother-in-law.”

Williams grinned and Agnew, who had been the target of a campaign to set him up with Williams’ sister, hooted.

“You’re not buying it, are you?” Livvy asked quietly.

“That he’s from one of the radical groups, with on deeper agenda? That I believe.”

“But he knew where to wait for us,” Livvy said. “And there was something said earlier, something that seemed to connect for you in terms of Maas’ incompetence. You said no one would have paid him ‘unless they had a lot of money to spend.’ What did that mean to you? And there was something I said, too, but I can’t remember what it was.”

“It’s of no consequence. I doubt we’ll find anything to connect Robert Maas to Josephson,” Chris said. He was going through everything in Maas’ record for the third time.

“McGregor, that’s not what I asked you. I need you to catch me up. If you even think there is a connection between Robert Maas, and Josephson, and someone… someone with a lot of money, who do you think that would that be?”

Chris leaned back in his old-fashioned desk chair with his hands locked behind his head. Livvy’s desk faced his, perpetuating an office layout that had reappeared after every attempt to modernize, or realign, or reorganize LLE. He continued to stare at her until she waved at him.

“How’s your arm?” Chris asked.

“Who would that be?” she said, ignoring his question.

Chris pushed off from his desk and still relaxed, with a single push slowly spun his chair through a 360 degree rotation. When he was facing Livvy again, he said quietly, “Not here.

“Let Maas’ family and lawyer wear him down for a while, then we can try him again. I want to go talk to Josephson’s coworkers and get his notes from the clinic,” he said, raising his voice back to normal levels. He stood up and grabbed a memopad.

“Despite an exhausting search, Louie and I couldn’t find anything in his luxurious mansion that appeared to be work-related, and there wasn’t a single clue as to where he could have gone.”

“Your call,” Livvy said, frustrated.

Livvy was determined not to ask again. Her partner, who seemed to be uncommonly comfortable with long, thoughtful silences, hadn’t opened up on the trip over to Josephson’s downtown clinic, either, and after pressing him once at the start of the trip she resolved to wait him out, although she found herself drawing breath and then having to press her lips together to hold back a question at least once a minute.

“Not yet,” was all Chris said at the beginning of the ride, glancing at her face. “One question will just lead to another. Let’s finish with this, first.”

The clinic’s two receptionists were more forthcoming, and Livvy found that she hadn’t misread her sources on Josephson’s unpopularity at work.

“Yeah, if you find him murdered in an alley we’ll all gather after the funeral for the best office party ever,” said one receptionist.

“And if he suffered first, we’ll all chip in for champagne and a cake, with ‘Karma’ printed on it, and sparklers,” added the other.

“That bad, huh?” said Livvy. “What about the other practitioners and researchers?”

“You can try, sweetie,” said the older receptionist, “But the man didn’t like to mix, and I’m not just talking about socially. He didn’t share. Work, I mean.”

It was true, Livvy found. None of them knew anything useful. Livvy believed it. Not only were they required by law to tell her anything pertinent, but everyone’s story was consistent and they seemed to hold him in aversion, which means they should have been happy to share any information that might be detrimental or pertinent to his disappearance. Josephson was a secretive man.

The younger receptionist filled a D-card with the records of Josephson’s recent appointments and his client lists, and then took her to show her Josephson’s suite: his office, laboratory, and clinic spaces. That’s when the trail got especially tortuous.

Chris was also trying to find staff members who might have worked with Josephson most closely, and quickly got the impression that no one had much in the way of useful information. According to the office manager, Josephson rented facilities and utilized the assistance of the clinic’s staff for both research and performing enhancements and resets, but beyond giving simple orders he wasn’t communicative.

“We got rent from him for the facilities, and took percentages for any appointments, but it was pretty much automatic,” the office manager said. “If you want to know about his work, the best one to ask might be Brian,” she added.

This, Chris soon learned, was good advice.

“So the doctor wasn’t big on remedial work? Not much for helping out the common people?” Chris asked shortly into his questioning of the head lab tech, Brian Clifford.

“Are you kidding? He talked like they, or I guess I should say we because I think he would include me, should be rounded up and sent to Antarctica or something, anything to keep them from taking space away from… well, people like him. And as far as people having children, especially people who couldn’t afford to be plugged into Longevity and might have more than one or two… He was like one of those guys from ancient history. You know, the ones who thought people should stick to their own kind or class or whatever you call it, and expose the babies on the hillside as soon as the food supply got low. Have you met his girlfriend yet?” Brian gave him a knowing look. “It s like I half expect her to offer to tip me.”