The doctor was serious: he had really just asked me to kill him.

“Right here.” Jorgen said, tapping the centre of his forehead. “Don’t miss now, Erasmus. You are not particularly a good shot when you are drunk.”

How could he know my name, yet not realise who he was speaking to? It was just 10 in the morning, and my drinking habit was rarely brought up by any of my subordinates; the last time someone had spoken to me this way, he had been riddled with bullets. Speaking of which, my Colt was tucked into the back of trousers, quite well concealed by my overcoat. I could believe that a doctor easily could easily determine my state of inebriation, but unless he was familiar with the gangs of Surren, he shouldn’t be able to tell if I was armed.

“Who the hell are you?” I demanded, expecting an answer beyond his name and profession. The clinic was situated in a seedy part of town (I had my apprehensions about this recommended location) and this scruffy-looking man in his mid-40’s was not helping the case for his business.

“Jorgen Solvic, your new doctor,” he replied matter-of-factly.

“A suicidal doctor? How unusual.”

“In your line of work, are you really surprised?” That was clearly a reference to my last doctor who had jumped off a bridge, and probably to the one before him, who had been killed by a rival gang. I mourned them both; but this guy was certainly not going to get the same sentiment if he just so happened to meet a similar end.

“I came here hoping that we could help each other; but I don’t deal with the deranged,” I said, and turned to leave.

“So you still don’t believe me?” asked Jorgen with a disappointed shake of his head.

“Believe that you are immortal?” I decided that leaving the clinic merely to forget this lunatic was less interesting than to stay and humour him, so I walked back to his desk and sat on the chair opposite him. 

“No. Is that a failing on my part, you think?” I said to the man whose first words to me after I entered his office were: “Good Morning Erasmus, I’ll be your new immortal advisor.” At the time, my only reaction had been to ask him whether I could test his assertion by putting a bullet through his head, to which he instantly agreed.

Jorgen scratched his unkempt, prematurely grey hair. “Hmm. What to do? What to do?”

I began to wish I had not finished my bottle of Scotch before entering this building. Clearly this guy was a quack, and a whacko to boot; I began to feel quite uneasy. Even though I had a dozen men scattered throughout this seemingly empty clinic I wasn’t comfortable about leaving this alleged doctor to walk free.

Jorgen stood up and strode up to the door of his office. Seeing him fully for the first time, I realised he was dressed in shorts and sandals – an attire I would have fully approved of had he been anybody but a doctor: if he was going to be working with me, I couldn’t have him attracting the attention of the medical regulatory bodies.

Jorgen reached into his pocket and removed a crumpled pack of cigarettes.

“Follow me,” he said, as he moved out of his office. He ignored my surprised look and fished out a lighter from his other pocket, while he had a cigarette in his mouth.

“You can’t smoke in here,” I declared as I followed him out of the room. Smoking inside a doctor’s clinic had been banned long before the law prohibiting smoking indoors.

“Of course I can. Is there anything to stop me?”

I actually didn’t see any ‘No Smoking’ signs, which was surprising, because no clinic would normally be allowed to operate without basic health and safety signage. In fact, forget the signages, where were my men? As far as I was aware, at least two of them were supposed to have been on guard outside the doctor’s office.

“You asked your men to leave us,” Jorgen smiled, reading my confusion, as he puffed out a long column of smoke.

I did no such thing! By that point, I had had enough of his games. I grabbed the doctor and slammed him against the wall. He did not look fazed in the least, even after he clearly saw me reaching to pull out my weapon. He simply pointed above me.

And that's when I saw it:

The name ‘Jorgen Solvic’ written in white text, was hovering a small distance above Jorgen’s head. Below the name was a metre-long white bar with rounded edges. The name was on the left side and a ‘Lv. 72’ was on the right; both above the white bar.

I let go of the doctor and took a few steps back. The details of this construction were static, and they did not emanate a shadow. I wanted to touch them to see if this was some holographic trick, like in those popular space movies. But before I could, like magic, it all faded away.

I let go of the revolver I had previously held in my grip. The two of us stood there in silence for a moment.

“You’re not a doctor, are you?”

“Here, I am.” He answered with a smirk.

“Where are you from?” This guy could not have been from Surren. This behaviour would not go unpunished, even by people more 'constitutional' than my syndicate.

“The United States.” He handed over a rectangular piece of cardboard to me with his name and what appeared to be a location: “Mount Vernon, Illinois, USA”.

“Never heard of it,” I said, trying to make sense of the square patterns below the text on the card. They were of different sizes, some hollow and others opaque.

“You see, breaking laws is easy for an immortal like me. That’s also the case for people like Sinha.” Jorgen was referring to the man who had recommended this clinic to me.

“Is he an ‘Immortal’ as well?”

“Immortal? Not quite.” Jorgen let out another puff of smoke. “Nonetheless, I don’t think we are going to be very compatible! For a gangster, you are too… how should I put this… on edge.”

Again, a comment worthy of immediate execution.

“Come along,” Jorgen said as he continued to walk down the hallway. “I need to show you what your purpose is.”

At this point I began to suspect I may have got myself into something deep. “Do I have a choice?” I asked, growing nauseous at the events that had just taken place.

Jorgen giggled as if I had said something amusing, “More than I do.”