S Hunter - Longevity

“Do you feel nothing for Jesse, your grandson?”

Bedford’s gaze flickered, but he said only, “He’s my creation, too. He won’t even know what he’s missed.”

Chris stared at the young-old face for a while. It was like staring at a mask.

“You haven’t been living all these years, Bedford. You’ve been dying. You’re already in your own private little hell, aren’t you?” Chris asked, and smiled.

By 4 pm Livvy’s fifth call to Chris had gone unanswered. She took a break from kicking around her dead-end leads, had something to eat, and tried to concentrate. Without Chris to help her toss ideas around, she was going to have to think it through on her own, but she had reached the point where she was ready to stop worrying about what she could prove – an impasse – and start going with what she knew.

She knew that if Bedford had taken Chris, rather than killed him outright – a prospect that made her clench her hands in frustration – then he had done so to find out what Chris knew and what useful evidence they had. His first attempt at this, when he tried to steal Chris’ private notes and Louie mauled his agent, had failed. At that point, Bedford would have been pleased enough to have had them both killed on the train. Now, it looked like he had decided to go straight to the source, or at least she hoped so, because that meant that Chris was probably still alive, somewhere.

At any rate, she didn’t dare wait another night. At this point trying to find her partner was her top priority. It was only incidental that it was probably the most productive thing she could do in terms of progressing on her case.

Ever since the Chief had ordered her to keep the case confidential she had been mulling over the possibility he had concerns beyond media leaks. Both Chris and the Chief had suggested it: it was possible that someone in LLE was talking to Bedford, someone other than the person or persons in archives who were destroying and altering records. For now, she was going to pretend she knew this absolutely.

She looked around the room. Williams was in high spirits, tossing a stylus at the back of Best’s head, then hooting when he swatted at it. She caught Agnew looking at her. He quickly glanced at his partner and looked away. She was accustomed to men looking at her. This was different.

Meg Dalton came by on her way to the coffee corner and Livvy made a decision. She made and held eye contact aggressively and tilted her head in the direction of the Atrium, then waited a long few minutes before getting up and walking out of the room. She found Meg at the bench with the geese and the predatory fox.

This time they stood, Meg looking back down the hall, leaning back with her elbows on the rail, and Livvy looking out over the Atrium.

“You’re looking a little frazzled in there. When was the last time you heard from McGregor?”

“Yesterday afternoon. I’m aware that he’s neither a training officer nor accustomed to having a partner but…”

“But this is a little extreme,” Meg supplied. “What happened to Louie?”

“He had… an altercation with someone at McGregor’s apartment.”

“Hmm. LLE tends to be unpopular with a whole bunch of the people we’re trying to protect, but you three seem to be getting more than your share of hostility,” Meg said.

“An unlucky streak,” Livvy said.

“Uh huh,” Meg said, and waited.

Chris had seemed to trust Dalton, and certainly Livvy had no reason not to. But orders were orders. She couldn’t say anything. Instead, she asked a question.

“How much do you know about this case McGregor and I are working?”

Meg continued to watch the hall as she replied. “Josephson’s disappearance? Besides the background I gave you Tuesday, a little more that I can guess, but probably not nearly as much as you do. I suspect that Josephson is with someone who has a lot of money and who is paying for Josephson’s special skills. I suspect the Chief has McGregor’s notes by now and with time I could piece the rest together. But unless you two are… out of the picture for some reason, I won’t be taking an active role.

“It all goes to how LLE…”

“… handles things differently,” Livvy interrupted with asperity. “So I gather. Look, I appreciate all of the advice you’ve been giving me, all the mentoring,” here she gave Meg a small nod, “but this still seems wrong. Any other unit, if a member is missing under somewhat suspicious circumstances, they mobilize heaven and earth. It’s the way it’s always been. And now you’re telling me you know something about this case, and the Chief…”

“The Chief wants you to do exactly what you’re doing. Work the case as thoroughly as you can. McGregor must have given you a full background Wednesday night…”

“How did you know that?” Livvy asked sharply.

Meg looked at her calmly. “Because it’s what I’d do.”

“I’m sorry,” Livvy said. “Sorry. I’m just on edge.”

“It all fits with what I’ve been trying to tell you, Livvy. We keep these cases under wraps because it’s ruinous to allow the anti-Longevity zealots to use them as propaganda. Secrecy and deniability are crucial. You’ll never work anywhere with more autonomy, but it comes with a price. The brutal truth is, often LLE would prefer not to take cases to court. That means that to a certain extent we trim our consciences in terms of proper, legal, stand-up-in court police procedures. If that seems wrong to you… I can’t help you make that choice, but perhaps you should rethink this career shift you maneuvered. As I said, the Chief can’t tell you to do it, and McGregor won’t. It’s a choice we all have had to make for ourselves,” Meg said. “And that is probably more than I should have said on the subject.”

“In other words,” Livvy said, “among other things, deniability is another LLE priority. Another reason for the secrecy. The Chief wants to hold you in reserve in case we fail, and he wants to be able to deny knowledge in case we succeed in averting an LLE disaster but our efforts bring down the wrath of the judicial system if someone in power with some good attorneys takes exception to our methods. We can be the rogue LLE detectives who created a mess independently of the rest of the unit. Tell me, Meg, is there some thought, too, that LLE can better afford to lose me than you?”

Meg turned to look at her and smiled. “Not from my perspective, no, and I doubt from the Chief’s. And McGregor would be a huge loss.

“Are you ready for this?” she asked suddenly. “Still want to give it a full week?”

“In terms of my career in Enforcement, I’m starting to feel the truth of what Chris said. But I’m not Alice and I haven’t traveled through a wormhole lately,” Livvy mused. “I don’t care about any of that. He also said that we were initiating a ‘private little war.’ I need to engage.”

Meg smiled but remained silent.

“And the first thing I need is some intel. I asked you to come out here so I could ask a specific question,” Livvy said. “I had hints from both McGregor and the Chief that there is someone in LLE that I can’t trust. I’m not talking about Archives or Forensics, but someone in the detective squad.”

Meg continued facing away from the Atrium and looking back down the hall. Then after a moment she looked down at the floor, put a hand on her forehead and closed her eyes. When she took her hand away, she said, “Let me offer you some practical advice. In LLE, unlike any other unit, the two most important pieces of information you can have about a suspect are their chrono and their allotment. That’s true as well for understanding where the derelicts who work in the LLE brain trust are coming from.”