^{Check your pulse}

I looked at the slip of paper. The name on it, Dr. Evan Partain, seemed vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn’t place where I'd heard it at before.

"Do I know this man?" I asked the man in the black fedora. I folded the paper and slipped it into my pocket.

"It’s possible that you’ve heard his name on the news, or read about him on the web," he said. "He is the head of a department of research for Synchro Systems that is suspected as being part of their umbrella operation. He’s been interviewed several times, and always has the same story about Synchro and what they’ve been researching, and how their company intends to help people live better lives. He was recently implicated in the involvement of several cases of inappropriately prescribed medications and questionable treatment methods resulting in psychological disorders that were intense, but apparently short-lived, in each of the patient’s cases." He looked at me, waiting for me to ask another question.

"What you’re telling me is interesting, but it’s not really useful to me," I said, becoming frustrated by his calm, almost patronizing answers. "I want to know what Synchro did to my girlfriend, and I need to know how to find her, and where to start looking."

~Larynx.