So yesterday I had my first interview with Gilpatrick Matos, the Agent of Karma. That afternoon I got a call from Noah Perez, AKA Achilles, asking me to interview him as well. I suddenly understood the old phrase 'it never rains, but it pours'.

Last night I spent in the cheapest motel I'd ever stayed at. I'm not saying 'inexpensive', even though it more or less was, I said cheap and I meant cheap. Everything seemed just a little beat up, from the television mounted on the wall to the duvet over the bed. On the other hand, it smelled clean. Really, the cleaning product smell pervaded everything so much I almost couldn't get to sleep, but I think I'd rather smell bleach on the sheets instead of whatever they'd bleached out of them.

Then again, it might have been the noise rather than the smell. I'd gotten a ground floor room, and got serenaded with thumps and occasional intimate prayers until around three AM. Okay, I fell asleep before midnight, I think, but when I got up to take a piss at three AM the noises had mostly stopped.

For what it's worth, the bed wasn't bad, just worn out. The plumbing worked, even if the chrome had long since worn off the fixtures, and the ceramic on the tub had eroded away in places. When I went to get a shower after light filtering in through the worn blackout curtains woke me, the water stayed hot long enough for me to get clean. All in all, I guess I got my money's worth from the place, especially given the discount I'd gotten for paying for a week in advance.

By the time I'd gotten myself cleaned up and ready for the day, the cheap clock on the bedside table read nine AM. I pulled out my phone and entered the number Gilpatrick had given me. It rang twice before he picked up. "Agent of Karma speaking. Who needs me happening to them?"

"Good morning, Mr. Matos. It's Nelson Samuels. I'm calling to find out if you're available to continue our interview today?"

I heard the distinct sound of a zipper, followed by a throaty chuckle. "Absolutely, Nelson. May I call you Nelson, by the way?"

"Certainly, Mister Matos."

Cloth rustled, and he replied, "just give me time to get cleaned up and meet me... do you mind Denny's?"

"Sounds good. I assume there's one here in town?"

"Yep. See you there at, shall we call it eleven?"

I nodded, then felt stupid because I knew he couldn't see me. "Sure. I'll see you there then!" He hung up as soon as I'd answered him. That gave me two hours to kill, although I'd have to find the place and make it there, but while Vineland was spread out for a small town, traffic rarely got congested this far into the sticks. I pulled up the GPS app on my phone, brought up the meeting place, and had it start navigating. While it barked at me about getting back to the route, I gathered my laptop, my notepad, my tablet, and my recorder, then carried them all out to my car.

Fifteen minutes later I made it to the restaurant parking lot. With an hour to kill, I decided to explore a little. I recognized Landis Ave, the main drag of the town, from yesterday's cafe lunch. I drove down the street, amused when nobody honked at me for going five miles an hour slower than the twenty five mile an hour limit. Driving down the road seemed almost like driving back in time; at one end it started with modern fast food places and grocery stores, then as I drove further into town those were replaced by classic local mom and pop boutique stores. Maybe a few more divorce attorneys than yesteryear, and maybe a few more Thai restaurants as well, but the buildings themselves could have dropped into the fifties without a splash. The biggest throwback was the little park where the main drag crossed the railroad that ran through town. Four separate little monuments to those lost in foreign wars reminded me of Gilpatrick and how he'd talked so casually about war, like he'd been there, done that, and remembered the time fondly, if not regretting leaving it behind.

I passed through the end of the little town, drove through some old woods with a library ensconced under it, then pulled into a parking lot to turn myself around and head back. By the time I'd returned to the meeting place, I'd managed to kill maybe half an hour. At this point I figured I'd might as well wait. I got out my notes and started sorting out what I wanted to talk about today. Something told me that no matter what I planned, we'd talk about whatever Gilpatrick felt like talking about, but I figured I might as well play the part of the professional I was trying to become. I took a few more notes about the images he'd sent me, jotted down a few questions on my tablet, then copied them to the top page of my notepad just in case. At that point I leaned back and threw on a playlist I'd put together a few years back specifically for killing time, hit shuffle, hit play, and made sure it wasn't set to loop.

When it closed down, I opened my eyes, pulled my stuff together, and went into the restaurant. The place was pretty empty, and the waitress who saw me come in asked, "just one?"

I shook my head, "I'm waiting for someone. But if you could set me up with a table near a window while I wait, I'd appreciate it."

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"You got it. follow me." She guided me to a booth next to a window, where I could easily see the entrance to the parking lot. I asked for a coffee, then got to work setting up my stuff so I'd be ready to work when Gilpatrick arrived. That done, I doctored my coffee and settled in to wait.

At ten minutes of eleven, I heard him coming before I saw him. The air seemed to rumble with the sound of a big touring bike revving its engine, and when I turned around I saw Gilpatrick riding into the lot on a Harley Davidson motorcycle big enough to seat two. Three if they were real cozy. He pulled into the spot beside my car, turned off his engine, and dismounted. I didn't think he'd be able to see me through the glass, but he waved anyhow before heading for the door. Just about then I realized he wasn't wearing anything except his jeans and a simple white tee shirt. No leathers or helmet to protect him in case of a crash. Hell, not even gloves or a jacket.

I watched in a kind of horrified awe as he strode into the place like he owned it, flirted with the waitress who'd seated me, then put his fingers in his pants pockets and strode back to my booth. "Nelson! How's the morning treating you?"

I stood and held out a hand to shake. He looked a little startled, but clasped my palm with a firm but far from crushing grip. "Okay, I guess. I've been thinking about what you said. About how immortality is a weird word."

"Not weird," he said as he let go of my hand and slid into the booth to sit across from me. "I said it's meaningless."

I tapped my recorder to start it, then repeated, "So the word immortality isn't weird, it's meaningless?"

He smiled at me as if to acknowledge that he had no problem with being recorded. "That's what I just said, yeah."

"Excellent. Just for the record, this is Nelson Samuels, recording my second interview with Gilpatrick Matos, also known as Agent of Karma."

He cut in with, "technically it's 'The Agent of Karma'. Not that I'm the kind of douche who would go after somebody for lack of an article, but I've known folks who would try."

I chuckled, "I'm guessing you wouldn't want to go on record naming names?"

"Not while being recorded I wouldn't. Outing the litigious is just asking for a lawsuit, and those are a huge waste of my valuable time."

"And being interviewed by a student isn't?"

He shrugged and flashed that thousand watt smile. "Nah. This..." he rapped the table with a knuckle. "This is for posterity. A thousand years from now, when your children's children have long since stopped pushing up daisies, some other young guy looking to see who we've been and maybe get an idea of who we've become? They'll find your research and think they've stumbled onto the biggest treasure trove of their life."

"You make it sound like you've seen that happen. Or like you're going to be there to see it?"

He laughed, the sound filling the space, the other diners glancing up, then going back to their meals and conversations, mostly grinning at the affably gorgeous man sitting in the middle of the restaurant. "Never know who might be around then, but it won't be my kids. Well, not that I'm aware of." He sighed, for once his general cheerfulness masked by melancholy.

"I'm sorry, did I say something wrong?"

He shook his head. "Nah. Nah, nothing you said. I've just lived a long while, and parts of my life weren't always this happy. I... I had kids. Lost them. My wife. My whole family, really."

"Oh, god, I'm so sorry."

He shook his head, forcing a smile. "Nah, not your fault. Just. They got sick. They died. I got sick and didn't. It's rough."

"I've heard survivor's guilt is like that."

He nodded. "Yeah, I've been told that's what it's called. Didn't really know that then. Just knew I'd been kinda wandering through life, not really going anywhere, and then life took itself away from me. I... I don't remember a lot of details from back then. Went on walkabout. Got recruited to fight in some stupid wars. Did some stuff I'd rather not talk about right now. Tried not to make the same mistake again."

"Taking life for granted?"

He shook his head. "Nah. I mean, yeah, I know now that was my mistake, but for a long time I thought my mistake had been having a family, people I cared about. I deliberately refused to put down roots, stayed fancy free and all that good shit. Worked for a long time, too."

"The way you say that makes it sound like it stopped working for you?"

He smiled at me, the thousand watt smile gearing back up. "You're young. You look around and see the world as it is. But I look around? And I see how much it's changed, and how much for the better."

I shook my head. "We've got fascists and bigots popping off all over the place. How can you say it's better?"

He snorted. "Fascists. Bigots. Royals. Self-made demigods. Humanity's always had those, Nelson. You know what they haven't had?"

I shook my head. "Modern medicine?"

He grabbed at his heart like I'd struck him, but his face kept his grin. "Ouch, you got me with that one. Yeah, medicine, plumbing, electricity, all cool stuff. But, c'mon, man, you're thinking small. A hundred years ago? There was no internet. No television. Radio was just barely starting up, really. Same with movies. Hell, there's so much entertainment media being produced now you could start reading, do nothing else for your entire life, and never run out of books. Almost the same with movies, or music, or, hell, you name it, it's out there."

"You're not worried that we're on the brink of losing it all, that some Super won't nuke us all back to the stone age?"

He shrugged. "My whole life people have been saying the world's gonna end soon. If I'm ever in the right place at the right time to stop it, you know I'll do my best to keep everything keeping on. But until then? I'm gonna enjoy it while it lasts."

I nodded along with him, suddenly realizing that we'd gone completely off the rails, interview-wise. I looked down at my notepad and then back up at Gilpatrick, who watched me with an anticipatory grin on his face. "So, Immortality is barely a word."

"Yep."

"Then what would you call someone living forever?"

He tilted his head down, almost like he was looking over imaginary glasses, then moved his hand to complete the image, his index finger moving like he'd pulled those glasses down. "Well now, I'd call that a really good question."