Syndicate Files: The Doctor - Part 1

((Co-written by Ciarente))

I'd just settled behind my desk when the message came in. It was a job - missing person.


You see a lot of those in Syndicate. It's the kinda place that has a lot of reasons to be missing: both the voluntary, and the involuntary, kind. Bad debts, short-tempered bookies, too close a call with the law ....


This looked like the kind of missing person who'd chosen to be hard to find. A doctor who'd lit out from the Republic, leaving a good job without a word to her boss or to the husband who was so keen to find her.


I looked at the record he'd sent. Not a bad-looking woman, not worth 500 syns a day, plus expenses, either. I ran her through the usual databases and got two hits right away: the passenger manifest that had brought her here, and the criminal record that'd dog her the rest of her days in the more lawabiding parts of the Cluster.

She wasn't listed on any residents' roster on the station, but that didn't mean anything. You could buy a fake ID, good enough for land lords who just wanted to be paid and keep the paperwork in order, on any corner.

Well, it was none of my business if her husband wanted her back, drug convictions and all. Missing persons are the meat - or at least the freeze dried protein - of my business, the jobs that pay the rent and keep me in scotch and coffee. And the poor stupid bastard who'd married her had sent a thousand syn advance, for an easy job that'd take a day at most.


No refunds. It says so, right on the advert.

((Part 2))