Amortals

by Matt Forbeck

  Ben cleared his throat, and his voice tapped into the band's sound system. Despite his years, his words rang out strong and clear.

  "Ladies and gentlemen! I am pleased to present to you the man whose rebirth we have gathered to celebrate here tonight: the infamous Ronan Dooley!"

  The crowd burst into a round of enthusiastic applause. I fixed my best sheepish grin on my face and snapped off a jaunty wave. Over a century of extremely public service had taught me to be on my best behavior whenever the spotlight turned my way, no matter how hot it might feel.

  Half the people here were likely recording this moment straight through their optic implants to their onboard nanoservers. Most of them would stream it to the web as soon as they left the White House and were out from under the mandatory media blackout the place labored beneath at all times, press conferences excepted. I knew better than to grouse in front of them.

  "Speech," a man I recognized as a recently reborn thrid star said. He'd gone straight to the cosmetic surgeon from the Amortals Project and had himself sculpted into his version of the trendiest look in the land. At the moment, that meant skin that swam with epidermal nanobots that subtly shifted color on the fly to make him look more handsome in any light. That included absolute darkness, in which his skin could swirl and glow.

  Others took up his chant, and it spread like a weaponized virus. They were liquored up, bored, and ready for anything to break up the monotony of their night.

  "Speech! Speech!"

  A note from Ben flashed into the center of my vision: "Not until POTUS arrives. ETA: < 5 minutes."

  I wasn't about to upstage the big boss. I'd hoped to arrive after her to cut down on the chit-chat, but it seemed I hadn't dragged my feet hard enough. I swallowed my instinct to get this over with as fast as possible, and I let the chant build for a half a minute before I motioned the crowd to silence.

  "Thank you all for coming. I appreciate all the good wishes and warm thoughts that have been flooding my inbox all day long."

  I paused for a moment before I lowered the boom and told them they'd have to wait just a bit. Before I could say another word, though, Querer stepped forward and spoke.

  "As you might imagine, Mr Dooley has had a very busy day." She flashed me a winning smile. "I'll be happy to release him to say a few words soon, but first we need to get some food in him – and maybe a drink!"

  The crowd cheered at that, and the servants burst into action, distributing fresh glasses of champagne for the traditional toast they knew would be coming soon. Patrón stepped forward to shake my hand and drag me into the crowd, making me a part of it rather than the object of its attention, at least for a moment.

  "Well done," he said to me. "What's she doing here?"

  I glanced at Querer, who did not flinch at the director's bluntness. "She's my plus one."

  "The invitations didn't mention anything about guests," Patrón said with the kind of smile alligators flashed when they were hungry. "If they had, my wife would have insisted on coming along too."

  "Whose party is this again?"

  Patrón nodded. "Fair enough." He finally turned to Querer. "Keep helping him out of trouble like that, and I might think about making this partnership more permanent."

  Before I could even stifle a groan, I heard Ben clear his throat again. Along with the rest of the crowd, I turned toward him. With a smile on his face, he said, "Ladies and gentlemen. Please join me in welcoming the First Gentleman and the President of the United States."

  The band struck up a jazzy "Hail to the Chief," and the crowd gathered together a polite round of applause as President Gina Oberon proceeded into the room with her husband by her side. She showed all her perfect white teeth as her hand bobbled atop her wrist in a homecoming queen's wave. Her not-quite-too-handsome husband stood by her proudly, his wide brown eyes only for her as he played the model of the doting spouse.

  The first thing about this President that always struck me the few times I'd met her before this was how tall she was. The thrids always shot every President from a low angle, emphasizing their power, no matter what their height might be. In person, though, President Oberon's presence filled the place in a way no thrid could capture. I could actually feel the tenor of the East Room change the moment she walked into it.

  She had been a reporter in a previous life – one of the best – and that had brought her the kind of riches that she needed to attain amortality. Couple that with a wealthy husband with political ambitions of his own, and they made an unbeatable team. Rumor had it that he would run to replace her when her current term expired.

  He certainly had the experience for it. Despite his apparent age, he was nearly as old as me. He'd held one of the Louisiana senate seats for over eighty years before resigning to help the President run her campaign.

  The music ended, along with the applause, and the President launched into her speech.

  "Friends and fellow Americans, we gather here today not to mourn the passage of an old hero but to welcome him back into the next stage of his life."

  She paused to smile at me as Querer pushed me forward to stand on the other side of the President from her husband. The crowd applauded again.

  "Ronan Dooley is a true American patriot. It was Nathan Hale, America's first secret agent, who said, 'I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.' Mr Dooley has given his life for America a total of eight times, proving his bravery, his selflessness, and his loyalty each and every time."

  The President held out her hand, and Ben stepped forward to fill it with a flute of champagne. Other servants scurried about, making sure that everyone else in the room had a glass of the bubbly too. A white grape sat at the bottom of each drink.

  The President held her glass high and spoke.

  "Please join me in a toast to Mr Dooley. No matter how many times he may come back to us, he could never be replaced."

  "Hear, hear," said Patrón.

  We each tossed back the champagne in a single gulp. The grape in the bottom of my glass tumbled into my mouth, where I caught it, ate it, and spit the seeds back into the flute, as was the tradition. The seeds represented the rebirth of one life as the current grape's life came to an end.

  Silence held the room for a moment as everyone else joined in.

  "Let's hear it for Ronan Dooley," the President said. "America could use more of his kind of hero."

  A real cheer went up from the crowd, and I have to admit I blushed. As a Secret Service agent, I don't seek the spotlight. I'm used to blending into the background and protecting my charges while they soak up the glory. Being the focus of so much attention makes me feel like I have a target painted on my forehead.

  The President shook my hand, and a message tagged POTUS flashed across my vision: "Say a few words."

  I forced a smile onto my face and waited for the noise to die down. I gazed out at the faces in the crowd and saw every eye in the room on me, both mortal and amortal alike. A hush fell across the place.

  "Thank you," I said. "Thank you all for coming here and – with the able assistance of the staff of the Amortals Project – helping an old man feel younger than he has in years."

  The crowd laughed and clapped for me again. Then the President stepped in front of me to shake my hand once more, signaling that the ceremonial portion of the party was over. The staff burst back into their well-oiled team action, and the guests returned to their drinks and their conversations.

  "Well done, Dooley," the President said to me. "It's almost like you've been through all this before."

  "More than several times, I'm afraid, Madame President."

  She smiled at me. "And I'm afraid I have to leave the festivities early. Duty calls. But I want you to remain here and enjoy yourself for as long as you like. You're to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom tonight."

  This was something new. Since I came back the first time, the sitting President had always done something to mark my return, but this was my first invitation to
spend the night in the White House as a guest instead of an employee.

  "I don't want to put you out, Madame President."

  "Say 'thank you,' Dooley. But don't think that this is entirely altruistic on my part."

  "Of course not," I said. "You're a politician after all."

  Her lips parted in a real smile at that. They hesitated at first, as if they had almost forgotten how to manage it.

  "Director Patrón tells me that DC's CSI technicians are analyzing your place tonight for clues to your murder. I want to give them all the time they need to make sure they gather all the evidence they can. Then I want this case solved yesterday."

  I narrowed my eyes at her. "I'm touched by the concern, Madame President. I have every confidence we'll be able to wrap the case up soon."

  "That's good, Dooley, because the media spin on this is already tumbling out of control. The most popular position is that your death makes for the worst case of mortal-on-amortal violence in history, and it's conjured up all kinds of vivid revenge fantasies of the sort I cannot have stewing in the public consciousness. I want that meme crushed before any other psychopaths decide to pick up on it."

  She leaned in as if to speak confidentially, but her volume made it clear that she wanted other people in the room to hear her. "Find this killer, and wipe out every last trace of his DNA. By this time next week, I don't want people to even remember that they forgot about him."

  I raised an eyebrow at this. A vindictive smirk curled the corner of the President's deep red lips.

  "And yes," she said. "That is an order."

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Querer came by the next morning to pick me up and haul me back out to the New Daly Building. Kingsman escorted me from the Lincoln Bedroom straight to her waiting hovercar.

  "For someone who had so much fun last night, you look like you're feeling fine," Querer said as I slipped into the seat opposite her.

  "One of the many benefits of youth," I said. "Last week, having that much to drink would have put me down for the entire next morning."

  "And today?"

  I allowed myself a wide smile. "I feel fine."

  She gave her head a wry shake. "Must be nice."

  As we rose into the air, I peered down at the crowd of protesters massed outside of the White House gates. Protesters always drove me nuts when I was on protection detail. I respected their right to voice an opinion, but putting angry, passionate people that close to the White House forever made me nervous.

  "It's such a beautiful summer day," I said as I stared down at them. "What could they be mad about today?"

  "Not 'what?', 'Who?'"

  "All right," I said, confused. "I'll bite. Who?"

  Querer sighed. "You, of course."

  "What?"

  I leaned closer to the window to get a better look at the slogan-wavers as we moved away. The thrid displays they toted about – looping images on transparent plastic strung between plastic rods spread over their shoulders – showed a short thrid of me being blown away. It played over and over again. As the life bled out of me, gleaming text flicked onto the screen.

  Every one of the signs seemed to have a different slogan. They included:

  "ONE LIFE TO LIVE!"

  "COPY != ORIGINAL"

  "AMORTALS = AMORAL"

  "GOD HATES COPYCATS"

  "NO MORE RONANS!"

  And my favorite:

  "ABOUT. DAMN. TIME."

  Querer shook her head in sympathy for me. "Don't let it bother you, Dooley. Next week, there will be a whole new crop of lunatics marching out there against something else."

  I scoffed at that. "I used to think that. But then I hadn't just been murdered at the time."

  "You think your killing was a political statement?"

  "Either that or something close enough to be turned into one."

  I gestured for the hovercar to take a quick spin around the block. The airspace over the White House and every other important political building in the city was restricted, which meant it was empty but for an occasional congressional or staff vehicle zipping through. Compared to the way the skies over the rest of the DC were clogged with traffic that often blotted out the sun, it made the White House seem like an island of sanity amid all the chaos.

  I concentrated on the main group of protesters and blinked. My eyesight zoomed in on the leaders, including a Roman Catholic priest dressed in the traditional black suit and notched white collar. He was an old man, clean shaven with a shock of white hair. My ID layer tagged him as Father Luke Gustavo, a militant papist with a dumpfile of priors ranging from protesting without a permit to resisting arrest.

  "Father G," I said. "We meet again."

  "You know their leader?"

  I looked at Querer. "I was raised Catholic."

  She scanned me up and down. "You don't seem much that way any more."

  "As they say, I'm a recovering Catholic. I have my first century pin, and I'm going for my second. Not that they would have me back anyhow, even if I wanted to return to the fold."

  Querer squinted at me for an instant, than realized what I meant. "They don't consider you to be you. Aren't all amortals automatically excommunicated? Or do they go straight for the exorcism these days?"

  Ruefulness welled up in me. "They don't excommunicate us. They believe we're scientific abominations, but they don't blame us – just the scientists at the Amortals Project."

  "Hate the sinner, not the sin."

  I pressed my nose against the inside of the hovercar's window and stared down at the flock of protesters. The way they clustered together reminded me of a virus in a Petri dish.

  "Something like that. Some amortals return to the church after every rebirth to be baptized again and to receive their first communion. As if they hadn't signed revivification orders. As if they were brand-new people who just happen to have the body and mind of someone else."

  "And you're not?"

  I shrugged. "It sure doesn't feel that way."

  I made another gesture, and the hovercar zipped into the buzzing traffic, becoming part of the chaos once more.

  When we reached the Metropolitan Police Department Headquarters, we took the elevator straight down to the forensics lab. It was a large, cold room buried deep in the basement levels, lit by scattered pools of dazzling fluorescents that mimicked daylight. Technicians stood hunched over monitors, microscanners, and more, trying to tease clues out of every scrap of data they could collect.

  The head CSI technician was Paul Winding, a balding, middle-aged man with a beer belly he'd earned by making a determined effort to drown out what he saw at work every day, like a sack of kittens tossed in the Potomac. I'd never seen him smile. He nodded at us as we came in.

  "You made a real mess of yourself this time, Dooley," he said. "I don't know who you pissed off, but you drove him to push the boundaries of homicidal excellence."

  "What do you mean by that?" asked Querer.

  Paul glanced at her. I could see him scanning her ID to figure out who she was. Satisfied, he answered.

  "In my forty years in this lab, I've never seen such a clean crime scene. The killer knew his business inside out. We have nearly zero clues."

  I pursed my lips into a doubting shape. "That's what Adamson said yesterday, but I figured you were just feeding her a line to make your eventual triumphs seem that much more impressive."

  "I'm not above that," said Paul. "You know that. But that's not the case here."

  "Run down the list for us."

  "The only fingerprints in the room are yours."

  "The killer was wearing a clean suit," said Querer.

  Paul speared her with a murderous glare that warned her to not interrupt him to tell him how to do his job. He was being didactic and thorough, but that was how he'd come to run the entire department: by not missing a thing. Querer shut her mouth.

  "The only blood in the room is yours. In fact, the only decent DNA in the room is yours. We vacuumed the place cle
an and there was nothing in it but bits of you."

  Paul seemed to think back on this, then shrugged. "Some far larger than others."

  He continued, "We were unable to unscramble your assailant's voice. However, jacking the audio way up past eleven and then refining it allowed us to determine where the crime had been committed. That's how we located the crime scene and recovered your body."

  "The killer didn't just tag the thrid?" I asked.

  Paul snorted. "All we had to go on was the thrideo, which was released to the public with the geographic information stripped. At first, we wondered if the entire event had been one large hoax. It's easy enough to mock up a show like that using consumer rigs these days. My grandkids could do it. But we were able to isolate very faint background noises and compare them against communications traffic flowing through the city during the same period of time."