Chapter 5

"Mornin' Walt."

Walt was sitting in a booth at the IHoP off Georgia Avenue, reading a book by Christopher Moore. "John, Mack, good morning." He greeted. "I imagine the others'll be here shortly. Have a seat."

We did, and sure enough, it wasn't long before we were joined by the rest of the team. Almost as soon as she sat down, next to me as it turns out, T'ing told me she was buying me breakfast.

"You can pay me back later." she smiled. A raised eyebrow from Ashley and Charlie's comment the night before made me wonder just how T'ing was expecting me to pay her back. How long after you died was it okay to start dating again?

"So, do we always meet in restaurants like this?" I asked.

"Mostly." Walt answered. "It's the most convenient place to meet. I think it's traditional too. Way I hear it teams all over meet in places like this to get their assignments."

Which turned out to be a nice segue into handing said assignments out. Mack looked at his post it and looked intrigued.

"Your guy gonna wind up on the news?" Vince asked.

"Well they all end up in the news in some form." Mack said philosophically. "But yes I believe this one might cause a bit of a stir."

"Cool." Ashley giggled. "Those are the most fun." She looked at her own post it and whistled.

T'ing sighed at her job. "Oh that's all the way over in PG." She pulled a blackberry out of her purse, and did some checking. "Oh thank goodness it's metro accessible. Gas prices are really hurting."

Vince was already on his cell. "Yeah I'll be there, no problem. Gotta lunch date though so I'll have to duck out for an hour or two. No, different girl."

And lo and behold, I had a post it of my very own. I looked at the address. "I don't know where this is."

"Lemme see." Ashley leaned over T'ing and snatched my post it from my hand. "Ooh! We've got a double header! We're both going clubbing tonight John. You'll have to get some clothes while you're out with Walt today."

"We're going shopping?"

"Apparently." Walt smirked. "Mostly we're getting you you're new identity though."

That part actually kind of appealed to me. It made me feel like a secret agent. "Cool."

Ah the DMV. I once heard someone joke that if James Bond had had to come here for his license to kill, he'd have used it before he ever got out of the building. I wasn't sure who he'd kill though. The apathetic clerks who's only joy in life probably comes in sticking it to the poor schmucks standing in line? Or the poor schmucks who lose all sense of humanity in the crushing monotony of standing in line?

"I should have brought a book." I decided. "If I had any. Seriously Walt, what are we supposed to do for money? Do we need to eat?"

"Well we don't need to. But I personally dislike not eating. You won't die but it's really no fun. You'll either have to get a job, or scrounge."

I frowned. I was dead and I still had to deal with all the headaches of being alive. "What do you do?"

"Pardon?" Walt had been distracted by a young mother trying to control her rambunctious child.

"For money, what do you do?"

"A little of this, I little of that. I've been around long enough that I've managed to sock away a few bucks."

"Next!" The line moved forward, inching slowly, inexorably to us being in front.

"So, eventually I'm gonna have to do this again aren't I."

"Probably, yeah."

"How many, uh, identities have you had?"

Walt's eyes got a little distant as he thought back. "Fffour. Every couple of decades you have to make another one. It's more complicated now, what with computers and everything. When I was starting out all you had to do was get transferred or something and say you were someone else."

"How long have you been a Reaper?"

"A long time."

"What's the longest anyone's been around?"

Walt looked surprised at the question. "Oh jeeze, uh, oldest confirmed I think was just over a hundred years. But I've heard rumors about Reapers being around for centuries. That's probably just an old wives tale though."

"Next!"

"That's you Colombo." Walt shoved me forward.

This was, aside from being dead and never getting to see my loved ones again, very, very cool. I had a completely new set of papers. "Aw crap I have to memorize a different social security number now. That's gonna fuck me up."

"Hey just don't forget what your new name is." Ashley grinned. "That's what fucked me up.

I looked at my new driver's license. "This is how I look to people now?"

"That's you." she nodded. She was looking critically at my ensemble.

"What?"

"Eh, it'll do. Soon as you get a job or something you do need to get better 'going out' clothes."

"I've never aspired to be a fashion maven."

"What's your name?" she suddenly quizzed me.

"Oh, uh," I had to look. "James Adams." Well that shouldn't be too hard to remember. Now that I'd refreshed my memory, I remembered briefly thinking when I saw my new license that my new name was John Adams.

It's not till we're standing in line to get into the club that it occurs to me to ask a very important question. "Okay so, how the hell do I find this one person in this place?"

"Well you look for danger signs. Eventually finding them will become almost instinctive. But you kind of have to be a detective. We talk to people and find out their names."

I froze, looking at her in horror. "I have to talk to people?"

To Be Continued...