Authors: S. J. Hunter
"What happens when it rains?"
"Usually not a problem, but if absolutely necessary, there are panels that come out of the roof and constrict over the opening like a pupil."
They settled in on a bench that was surrounded by a family of topiary geese. A topiary fox nearby looked ready to spring, and a larger goose faced him with spread wings and an outstretched neck. Meg said, "I've always loved this bench. The work of a landscaper with a less-than-subtle sense of allegory, I know, but I still love it."
She brought her gaze back to Livvy, and cocked her head again. "I'm curious. You weren't expected. Not only do you transfer in out of the blue, but you get partnered with McGregor, who hasn't had a partner in, well, decades, really."
Livvy decided she was going to have to be honest about this one. The Chief knew the truth, and it was probably obvious to every one else on the squad that she had used some leverage to get her assignment.
"It's a little embarrassing. My family has strings, I guess you'd call them, and one of them connects to the Commissioner. But McGregor hasn't really accepted me yet. He said we'd give it a week, and I respect that."
"Well, just so you know. McGregor seldom gives up on someone once he takes them on," Meg said. "Which is one reason he doesn't take partners to begin with, I think." She looked down, leaving Livvy to wonder about the history between LLE's two most veteran detectives.
Meg took a deep breath. "But the Chief asked me to give you the history on Josephson." For someone who seemed so articulate, she was taking a long time to find a place to begin.
"There are quite a few practitioners and researchers who honestly disagree with the Laws," Meg said finally. "They're scientists, not ethicists, after all. And to be fair, even those who are mainly doing it for the money... I think most of them have their ethics gradually peeled away without noticing how insidious it is until it's too late. Not this guy. Not this bastard Josephson."
"You dislike him," Livvy said mildly.
"A slight prejudice. I admit it."
"It was your case? What did he do?"
"It was mine and Chris'," Meg said. "In 2052, everyone was an LLE rookie, although Chris had been in Enforcement for twenty years and in LLE for one. Karen and the baby had been killed less than a year earlier...
"I met her once, when she came to the Academy to lecture on the Laws, and of course I'd listened to her at some of the peace rallies during the Riots. Karen DeVoe was... amazing. Passionate, eloquent. Brilliant, really. And ultimately optimistic, which we badly needed at the time. A huge loss.
"But back to Josephson, who is a totally different animal." Meg paused and then laughed and took a sip of coffee. It had grown cold, and she set the mug down on the bench. "All these years and it's still difficult to talk about it. Sara Ann Torkelson. Sound familiar?"
"Vaguely," Livvy said.
"Try this. The Right of Maturity Law."
"Hell and damnation," Livvy said after a moment. "That was Sara?"
"Yes. We worked it as diligently as we could, trying to find an angle, but in the end, the sick bastard walked away with nary a black mark on his name to match the gaping hole in his soul."
"Tell me."
People, moving at every speed between a stroll and a jog, passed within three meters of their bench. A few entered and left the stream at the bank of els, and some diverted into the hall.
"Sara's parent's had lost two children already. Sara was their third, which of course meant they had given up any chance of resets after the age of fifty. I suppose one has to be able to imagine what that was like, and to be fair, I think losing the children was a huge grief compared to losing the years.
"A son in his late teens drowned in a boating accident about 10 years earlier. Then their daughter was hit by a malfunctioning car while she was walking to work and died instantly. The Torkelsons had the resources to have resets for life, but they had chosen to have a family and accept the minimal allotment. In 2052 they were 50 chrono and 35 biol. Sara was 11 chrono. And 4 biol."
Livvy swallowed. "How could they? Living with her day to day, watching her achieve awareness of what they were doing. And what doctor steps into a situation like that and doesn't consider the moral implications of what they've asked him to do?"
"One who's mining a strong vein of egoism, I imagine. I think he was considering it an interesting experiment. Longevity wasn't a process meant to be used on children, so there were lots of ...kinks... to work out."
"I understand they may have had some compulsion to keep her safe, but..." Livvy shook her head slowly.
"They'd already lost the two, and there was a complication with Sara's birth. They couldn't have any more children."
"So they tried to keep Sara a child forever."
"No, not forever. I can still remember sitting there while Sara's mother, Julie, I think her name was, earnestly showed McGregor the timeline they had worked out.
"'See,'" she told him. "'When we were fifty we couldn't get any more resets, so we started aging naturally. Biologically we're still 35 years old. Sara will be 4 and can stay there until we are 45, and we can let her grow and go to school. We'll have a natural family from then on, just like people used to have. We'll live to see our grandchildren.' She expected us to understand. It was pathological, her need to keep Sara a child that she could keep at home and sheltered."
"It had to be more than just kinks. Sara was supposed to be growing, not aging. Even I - and molebiol is largely Cantonese to me - even I know that it's a whole other thing. Whatever happened to her?" Livvy asked.
"At the time I first met her, she was excessively quiet, and... sickly, I think we could say. I'm not sure that didn't suit her mother's plans for her, because they had no notion of enrolling her in school with other children. Once Family Welfare got her away from Josephson and several of his hormonal manipulations were reversed, she started to age normally. I followed her progress for a while. Physically, she seemed okay. I think psychologically it was more difficult, until she had a child of her own, and then she could understand a little more. When I last met her, she wasn't doing resets."
"I don't understand. Josephson is a doctor. Setting aside what it says about his moral compass, how did he get away with it?"
"He's not only an M.D., but also a PhD with a molebiol license. His lawyer, and the Torkelson's lawyer, both argued that Sara was ill and Josephson was trying to help her. He had some medical records to back it up. Molebiol Forensics never could get a handle on it, and Chris' interview with the Torkelsons wasn't enough to support prosecution. I suspect their lawyer could have argued for insanity as well."
"That poor baby. At least the law was created," Livvy said. "No resets before 21. I've always thought that was a little young to start, but I suppose they had to pick an age."
"Yes. Something you'd think we'd take for granted, wouldn't you? When the Laws were originally written, no one even thought of that one." For a moment she seemed lost in pensive memories. "Not even Karen DeVoe, who did a good job thinking of everything else."
She shook it off and said finally, "I really hate to say this because of what it implies about how well we're doing with the Laws, but I think Josephson... I think he just likes to tinker with people. He's been out there still doing research and clinical work for decades, and until now we haven't had a lead on anything irregular in his work. Maybe he's been clean, or maybe we just haven't had a whiff because he's learned more discretion."
Meg stood up. "We'd better get back. You'll want to meet McGregor in the motor pool so you can go from there."
As they were walking back, Meg was still looking thoughtful. "Look, there are things about LLE work the Chief can't actually tell you and McGregor won't. If you do have questions, feel free to come to me."
"I appreciate that. I'm not complaining, but my new partner... not a training officer."
Meg smiled briefly. "You know, he's never been a training officer."
"Been said."
Chp. 5 Engagement (Tuesday)
"Hey, McGregor!"
Chris spun around. He'd just gotten off the Paceway coming from the clinic and was heading for the LLE swift-el. It was Livvy leaning against a car door, and when he spotted her and started to walk over, she tossed a ball straight up, grabbed it out of the air, and then threw it into the depths of an underground corridor.
Louie, who'd been sitting at her feet, intensely focused on the ball, gave her a brief "That's all you've got?" look and bounded after it.
"What's this?" Chris asked.
"He needs exercise," she said. "I think we're going to find that chasing a ball is a bit simplistic for him, but there must be some canine Olympics or something."
"No good. They'd test him. No, I mean why are you here waiting for me?"
"Saving time. We have a missing doctor. The Chief told me how to find you, and I've already arranged an interview with the girlfriend."
"Fill me in while you drive. Louie!" Chris said.
The tennis ball came bouncing back towards them, with Louie in full pursuit. He made an exaggerated leap and caught it out of the air just as it reached the car.
"Good boy," Livvy said as he climbed into the backseat. "You see, I think he's going to be a wiz at this stuff. I'll bet he's a shark with a Frisbee."
"A what?"
"Now you're joking, right?" Livvy looked at him across the top of the car.
Chris ducked to slide into the passenger seat, so she couldn't catch his expression, although she thought she'd heard some amusement in his voice.
"732 MacPherson Circle, Potomac Falls. Normal speed," Livvy said.
"Okay. Give me the long version," Chris said.
Livvy cleared her throat. "The missing man, Dr. Milo Josephson, was last seen entering his home last Thursday evening at about 8 pm. The neighbor who saw him says this was typically the time he got home, although he frequently spent the night at his girlfriend's."
She'd expected some initial reaction at the name, but there wasn't any that she could see, and she wondered if Chris could have forgotten. Fifty-five years was a long time.
"He called his clinic Friday morning to ask that his appointments for the day be cancelled. Then he didn't show up again on Monday, and one of his clients came in for an appointment for an enhancement and got upset because he wasn't there. Absolutely heartwarming, how the staff missed him. Apparently he's quite the charmer."
Chris was staring straight ahead, looking thoughtful. In the lengthening silence in the car, Livvy found herself wishing she could turn off the automatic drive just to have something to do.
"Josephson," Chris said finally. "I've always wondered when he'd bob back to the surface."
"Meg Dalton filled me in on the history."
"So we have a doctor who is brilliant, in a sick way, and he has all of the skills needed to do both Longevity and other molebiol procedures. And he's apparently missing," Chris said.
"Someone with the moral laxity to prove useful in someone else's perverse plan," Livvy said. "You don't think he was actually kidnapped?"
"That's doubtful. His history... if Meg filled you in, you know already that he'd be willing enough to co-operate in just about anything. This is sloppy, though. If he'd given an appropriate warning at work, or even a reasonable excuse at work and taken care of his appointments, we wouldn't be involved."
"Autodrive zone ending. Left turn in 500 meters," said the car.
"He always did have a disregard for anything and anyone not directly useful in his experiments. I suppose someone could have kidnapped him out of revenge, or spite. But I doubt it. He's working for someone, and they called him out on something urgent."
Livvy took the wheel and held it tightly.
"Destination on left," said the car.
"And this is the girlfriend. I'll bet she's a real sweetheart, too. I've always considered it one of the highlights of the Laws, that they actually discourage some people from reproducing," Livvy said through clenched teeth as the car jerked to a stop.
For someone who had put effort into making her face look anything but fierce, Livvy managed to create an expression with an impressively feral quality.
• • •
"My, my, my," Isabella said in a husky drawl, "you two should have children together."
The girlfriend, it turned out, was Isabella Meadows, the actress. Chris remembered the name from her career as an ingenue when he was young, which meant that she was close to his age but had probably started getting resets as soon as they were available, settling her biological age at around 28. His memory was of someone fresh-faced. A fragile blonde. In the years since, like Livvy, Isabella had had a lot of work done on top of good material, and the coloration was now superbly smoky-eyed and platinum, but the effect was magnificently statuesque rather than lovely. Although her eyes sparkled suggestively, not much else in her face moved.
They had been ushered into her presence by a straight-backed and graying woman in a black dress and starched white apron, through a stately late 19
th
century home that had also had a lot of work done to add all the modern conveniences of voice-op doors and lights, while still hanging onto all its marble and mahogany. The entryway alone could have encompassed Chris' efficiency, with enough overhead space remaining to still contain a/assive diamond and crystal chandelier. In the reception room, as Chris found himself calling it, Isabella was sitting in a cream brocade-covered Empire-style armchair that allowed her to create an impressive display of her crossed legs.
Neither Chris nor Livvy reacted to Isabella's suggestion, and Isabella laughed.
"You must forgive me. Guessing people's chronos when I meet them is a hobby of mine, and your reactions, or lack of them, help.
"Let me see," she went on. Her eyes had quickly flicked over Livvy, assessing her in the way one woman checked out another when she was both dismissing her and admiring her style, but she took her time with Chris, surveying him from head to toe.
"A natural," she said, then looked more carefully. "No, of course, your position with the city entitles you to resets, and you are a dedicated man. You have chosen to avoid enhancements - how fortunate for you that you have so little need, and how rare. Where have you been all these years? But as I said, you are dedicated, so I'm going to guess you started getting resets when you could, which would put your chrono at close to 100. Marvelous. A contemporary."
She leaned forward as though talking to Livvy alone, in confidence, although she kept her eyes on Chris. "You must keep an eye on this one, my dear. He has no idea, which makes him that much more attractive. What we used to call ruggedly handsome."
Isabella leaned back again and took a cigarette out of a silver case shaped like a seashell, then lit it with a companion silver lighter shaped like a different type of shell.
"As for you, my dear, there is still a subtle enthusiasm that cannot be feigned, but you also have experience to give you confidence and poise, even when I make a suggestion that would bring a blush to most women accompanied by such a handsome man. Therefore, perhaps 50?" she asked, looking up at Livvy through her lashes and a fine veil of smoke.
Chris didn't notice Livvy react to that either - her magnificent turquoise eyes had, in fact, seemed to have lost the need to blink - but Isabella responded with satisfaction. "Ah, I thought so. I'm an actress. I read people, and I am seldom wrong.
"But how delicious. Detectives."
The serving woman delivered an ornate silver tray with some iced water and tea, and hot coffee, all in silver urns. There were tiny cookies on a gold-rimmed plate. Isabella herself poured for them, displaying a languid fluency that nevertheless did not achieve elegance, and Chris glanced at Livvy to find her looking at him with lifted eyebrows. It was quite a performance.
"But allow me to stop wasting your time. You're here to talk to me about Milo. I have no idea where he is. I wasn't expecting him and he never called, so I didn't even realize he was missing until your office called."
"So the last time you saw him was when...? Thursday?" Chris asked.
"Let me think," Isabella said. She lifted a beautifully manicured hand, placed her index finger against her lips and tapped them twice. "Yes, Thursday. No, no. Wednesday. He came by after work, had dinner with me, and stayed the night. He does that, or we go out, several times a week. We've known each other almost 60 years."
"And was there anything he said or did during his visit on Wednesday that was at all unusual?"
"No," she said.
"And he hasn't mentioned any travel plans lately?" Chris asked, and waited while Isabella seemed to mull over her options.
Chris noticed a small change in her breathing. "Isabella?"
"You're a dear." She drew and exhaled twice and stubbed out her cigarette in a crystal ashtray before answering. "In the end, audiences wanted new young faces, or aging faces, and I had to make a choice. So I gave it up. Do you think they will still want me when I'm 200 years old and my allotment is gone and and I have to start aging? Enhancements and surgery..." here she shuddered, "can only do so much." She looked from Chris to Livvy and back again.
"Never mind, how can anyone know. It's all still so unsettling.
"You saw me act, didn't you, when we were both young?" she asked Chris.
It seemed to be a hobby with her, Chris thought, to try to catch people off guard. "Yes. I probably even had a crush on you," he said, playing her game.
"How sweet of you to say so. Forgive me if I doubt you. Men like you never have a crush on women like me." She turned to look at Livvy. "They don't, you know. They may want to protect us, but they don't want to make love to us.
"Don't get huffy, my dear. By us, I don't mean you and me, Detective Hutchins. I mean me and women like me. Vulnerability, it was called. I wonder what they call it in a bicentenarian."
Chris looked at Livvy. As far as he could see, she had neither moved nor changed expression. If anything, he would say she was projecting a hard-held tolerance. It was probably driving Isabella wild at some level.
"You're right, there was a little something. We've been planning a trip to England and Scotland together and he said we might need to postpone it." She turned to Livvy at this point to speak directly to her. "There are so few places one can travel safely anymore. He did mention something about some special project. I never listen when he talks about work, unless he's found something new he thinks would suit me.
"That's all, really."
"Some special project at his clinic or some special project outside of the clinic?" Livvy asked.
"You didn't pay attention, my dear. I said I don't listen when he talks about work."
"When had you planned on leaving? On your trip?" Chris asked.
"In two weeks, on Monday. You would be more than welcome to take his place," Isabella said. "Either one of you." She threw another smoky glance Livvy's way and laughed.
"And how long would you have been gone?"
"Three weeks," Isabella said. She seemed to have gotten suddenly bored.
"One final question, please. Was it meant to be strictly a pleasure trip?"
"Of course," Isabella said, faintly amused once more. "Or I would have never agreed to go."
"If you think of anything else..." Chris said.
"Naturally. I hope you find him. Margaret will show you out."
• • •
"Did you believer her?" Livvy said when they got back outside and were walking slowly back to the car. She turned around for an instant and walked backwards for several steps as she surveyed Isabella's mansion one more time. "I doubt if it's a love match, but she was an actress, and if she knows he's gotten into something questionable... she'd want to deny knowing anything to protect herself. I suspect she's her own biggest fan."
"I believed her when she said she doesn't listen..."
The first silenced shot came from the side and slightly behind them and went so close to Chris' head that he felt the wind of its passing ruffle his hair. It hit the car fifteen meters ahead of them and ricocheted off the bullet-proof shell. The second shot grazed Livvy's left upper arm. By then they were already sprinting for the car and yelling instructions.
Livvy's shout of "Open doors" clashed with Chris' "Louie down."
Louie, who had been sitting in the back with both of the side windows open, didn't need to be told twice. He went to the floor and disappeared from view.
The car obeyed as well, and as the third shot sounded Livvy was diving inside and simultaneously shouting "Close driver front." The door slid shut and Livvy at least was inside a bulletproof shell.
Chris yelled "Close doors and windows" and took a shortcut to the passenger side, leaping onto the car and letting his momentum carry him across the smooth surface and onto the road on the other side. The fourth shot spit road surface three meters beyond the car. Chris did some quick vector imagining. The houses were on hillocks, but with that angle the shooter
had
to be on a roof.
"McGregor, get your ass in here! Now." It was Livvy, projecting with a volume that he wouldn't have believed she could manage and now looking quite spectacularly feral. For one hyper-amused moment Chris realized that, unlike him, his new partner most definitely had been a training officer at some point, and the instincts and skills had stuck.
For opponents within 30 meters, they had their Stingers, which were excellent for instantly dropping any opponent with a drugged, barbed dart that sliced through all clothing, even most armored tunics. Since there had been no one within view for at least 50 meters when they left the house, Chris figured Stingers weren't going to be useful. For longer distances, all of their equipment was in the trunk. He decided the angle was adequate for an attempt.
He was her senior in every way, and even if they got to the armor and weapons in the trunk by going through the interior panel they would then be in the car and unable to use them unless they got out again. He was delighted with her good sense - she was right where he wanted her, but he had no intention of joining her. Instead, crouching and staying close, he moved towards the back of the car.
"Open trunk," he said. The trunk slid open and Chris remembered with nostalgia the old lift hoods that might have supplied a little more cover. He cautiously reached over into the well only to have one of the small dart rifles thrust into his hand and an armored tunic and gloves dropped over the panel onto the road beside him.
The fifth and sixth shots hit the midline of the road a meter behind the car.
"Aarrrgh. Will you put those on, please!" Livvy's voice came from the trunk.
Chris grabbed the armor and shifted over to the better cover near the center of the car. It was still awkward, staying behind the shield created by the car body while getting into the armor. He had barely finished when Livvy's voice emerged from the back seat of the car, immediately behind him.
"Move out of the way. Please."
He barely began shifting back towards the front of the car when the right rear door opened and Livvy, tunic and gloves already on and gripping a dart rifle, basically tumbled out of the car onto the road beside him.
The seventh shot hit the roof of the car and ricocheted off into the neighborhood just as Chris reached out, got a firm grip on her tunic, and pulled, successfully moving her back and drawing her up so that she was leaning against the car frame at his side, well within the cover offered by the car.
"Your arm?" Chris asked.
"It's fine. A scratch. I'd clock you, you know, but I may need you to provide a diversion," she said. "Just make sure the Chief knows I was prepared to huddle safely in the car, call for back-up, and scan for a sign of the shooter. Just like standard Enforcement procedures dictate. I'm going to get stomped on for this, aren't I?"
"Not by me. But that was a good plan. I wish you had stuck with it."
"But LLE handles this sort of thing differently, I suppose," she added more calmly. "Proactively."
"I want to try to flush him out before backup scares him away," Chris said.