Refraction | Part 1 | Darwin's Steroids

27) The Dutiful Mr. Saurez

Excerpted from the journal of Dr. Melissa Jorgenthal:

Had the meet today. It was all a bit too reminiscent of the divorce for my taste. Its not as if you choose who you love, and Freddy was a buffoon (what 40 year old man calls himself Freddy?) Still, sitting across from the compact little Hispanic man who had so calmly provided me with the proof that destroyed my marriage was sort of a shit picnic. We met in the same booth, at the same bloody run-down restaurant. I wonder if he meets all his clients there. Maybe my Private Investigator is a part-time restaurateur. All business this Mr. Suarez. Sitting and eating until it gets dark, then sneaking out into the night to snap photos of cheating arseholes. All the while taking his cut of the slices of pie and cups of coffee that are purchased by suffering wives and nauseated husbands. Maybe they keep re-using the same sad piece of pie. Trusting it will return to the kitchen, hesitated over, but never eaten.

Bird-walking. Suarez didn’t have much to offer. His demeanor was a bit odd, he seemed more rushed than I remembered him, as if my presence made him nervous. He had nothing more about this Hanso Fook character, only an old passport style photo. What a terribly unattractive bloke! He looked like a jaundiced ferret, poor fellow.

Mr. Suarez told me that with the coup d’etat, and the following years of war and terror, so many files were lost or destroyed as to make the period almost impossible to research properly. He told me some rather disturbing rumours about the Nano-Defense Division. Conspiracy theory nonsense if you ask me. Secret super soldiers, orbiting research labs, that sort of paranoid claptrap. Next he’ll be telling me they’re in with the alt-uni crowd. I would drop the whole thing altogether, I’ve really too much on my plate right now as it is, still, there was something in Mr. Suarez’ manner that intrigued me. He said that he didn’t think it was worth my money to pursue the subject any further, but when he said it he came over all funny. Like he was holding something back.

Headed to the east coast next week for the Epi conference, should really be getting back to work…

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