Chapter 2

Of course, age and potential willingness weren’t the only considerations. People unlikely to cut off all ties with current loved ones and upend the lives they’d built didn’t get approached. Large supportive families that might push to view the body of the “deceased” usually eliminated individuals from consideration. It was too risky. Raw intelligence was a requirement, and while a good education was helpful, it was less important in the long run.

They needed people capable of cross-training to fill a variety of positions over the years—centuries—millennia. In these modern times with social security and identification cards, none of them could keep the same identity for more than fifteen to twenty years—twenty-five max—without their lack of apparent aging becoming problematic. Since many of the specialties they needed to infiltrate networked across the country, one person couldn’t necessarily assume the same position in a different state when they took on a new identity. Fact was, most prospective recruits never made it past the early assessment stages.

“Anything else you can tell me yet?” she asked. Eunice would coordinate the evaluation.

“Only that he’s out walking alone, and he seems depressed.”

“Good…good…”

The average person with functioning empathy would likely back away in horror from someone expressing what appeared to be such an extraordinarily cold-blooded response, but Albert absently bobbed his head, agreeing with Eunice’s assessment. It wasn’t from lack of compassion, though. If the man fit their guidelines for recruitment, he would be offered a chance for…well, not precisely everlasting life, but at least he wouldn’t die quite so soon.

“Current location?” she asked.

He gave her their position and heading, and the sounds changed, indicating her movement. She would join him now, and if she caught up with him before their target arrived at his destination, she could get a preliminary impression before initiating a thorough background check on the man. Her instincts were good, so hopefully she’d make it in time.

The man passed a couple opportunities to get on the subway as he continued his slow walk. The turns he took indicated he had a certain location in mind rather than aimless walking. Albert wouldn’t say the man was enjoyingthe warm spring day so much as that he seemed to be taking it in as if trying to impress the memory of it on his soul.

Albert lost his connection to Eunice while she hopped on the subway, but she called back before the man got where he was going.

When Eunice stepped into place beside him, she got right to the point. “That him in the navy windbreaker?” It was a rhetorical question, considering his appearance relative to the healthy people around them. Everything from the sluggishness of his stroll compared to the hardy strides of the others, to the way he turned up his peaked face to gaze at every blossoming tree they passed, not taking their beauty for granted, gave him away.

At a mere five-hundred-and-change years old, Eunice’s sense of smell wasn’t as fine-tuned as his, so at this distance, and with other people distorting the trail, she probably couldn’t use it to pick him out, but she could read people like a well-worn favorite novel.

They strolled in silence for a few more blocks, then stepped into a coffee shop across from the brownstone the man entered.

Albert bought them a couple coffees—to fit in while they pretended to drink—while Eunice reserved a small table at the front window and kept an eye on the man’s building.

“This’ll be easy,” she said when he rejoined her. “He opened a window, so I can identify precisely which apartment is his.”

“Great. Even better.” The fact the man was in a small building like that had already made the job of identifying him relatively simple. “What was your impression?”

“I like him. Just by his body language, it’s clear he’s disheartened, but that’s to be expected. But he’s a ‘stop and smell the roses’ kind of guy. He’s accepted his fate, doesn’t like it, of course, but he’s trying not to wallow in it. I didn’t detect anyone else in his apartment, and his opening the window as soon as he got home is consistent with the possibility that he lives alone.”

“Okay,” Albert replied. That confirmed his own instinct about the guy, and her observations regarding his living arrangement were—while not definitive—a solid plus. “Get the teams right on it. I don’t want to risk losing him if he’s a good match.” He didn’t have to explain about the risk that the man might decide his quality of life didn’t justify pushing for every possible remaining day and elect to go out on his own terms. They’d lost a number of good potential recruits that way.

“Of course.”

They sat for a few minutes, feigning drinks from their cups, before tossing them in the trash and moving on with their responsibilities.