[ WP ] Immortality has been achieved , but overpopulation is a problem . To solve this , society has created a new job field : `` Angels of Death '' , people who 's job it is to simulate a natural death rate by killing a certain quota of random people a day . You are one of these `` Angels '' .

# Part one 
 Generally speaking, Justin liked to spend his mornings people watching. He'd been an Angel for just over three years now, and he loved his job. He could n't tell people just how much he enjoyed it of course; doing so would make him a pariah. Most of his friends and family thought that he was a CPA, one that specialized in forensic auditing. Sometimes he felt some version of remorse for his dishonesty, but he'd come up with the justification that CPA could technically be an acronym for Certified Professional Assassin. 
 
 Eighty years ago, when Justin was actually working for an accounting firm, Mark Elios had shocked the world with his out of the blue announcement that he'd solved telomere decay. A relatively low cost inoculation permanently stopped DNA from breaking down, and since then average lifespan had shot into triple digits. Time, once humanity's greatest enemy, was now trivial. If you ate well, exercised, and avoided dangerous situations there was nothing stopping you from living forever. Justin had received his aging vaccine on his 42^nd birthday. The vaccine could n't reverse the decay that had already taken place so he appeared a bit older than the majority of the population, but the bit of grey was n't as extreme of as some of the first generation immortals who had been in their 90's. Elios had been promising a reversal process for decades, but had n't yet delivered. 
 
 Society had seen the benefits of an ageless workforce almost immediately. Researchers no longer needed to retire after a few short decades. Cancer, viral infections, and even climate change had been conquered by immortal scientists. Utopian society was still a pipe dream however. With medical advances removing the vast majority of life ending events, populations worldwide had skyrocketed. The governments of the world had tried everything from parent licensing and offspring lotteries, to artificially creating international conflicts. China, the largest population before immortality, had been the first to get desperate. Twenty years after their multi-billion person population had become immortal, a nuclear `` accident'' had wiped Shanghai off the map. That incident had actually caused a short war, helping delay the overpopulation crisis by a few years, but the ever rising creep of the world population could n't be stopped. Energy, food, and living space had become the most coveted resources on the planet. Every day there were millions of people dying to exposure and starvation, but at the same time millions more babies were born. There was a dire need for balance. 
 
 When the United States population hit it's 11th digit ten years ago, there had been a panicked flurry of meetings between the president and his advisers. If nothing was done, he was told, the United States would be in jeopardy of societal collapse within a decade. It was during one of these meeting that General James Conrad had made an off handed remark that sparked the creation of a new government program. Under the direction of the United States Special Operation Command, the Reaper Project had covertly recruited what they called `` Angels of Death'' to help release the building pressure of a continually growing population. At first, Angels were only chosen from the most elite military forces. Delta, Seals, Force Recon, and CIA operatives were given a small device, much like an archaic beeper. Every day at 9AM that device would display a number. This was an Angel's individual quota. Within 24 hours, an Angel was expected to `` reap'' that many people without breaking the three main directives. 
 
 1: Do n't get caught. 
 
 2: Do n't make a scene. 
 
 3: Never reap anyone on the whitelist 
 
 The program was an immediate success. The quota was initially generated based on the previous day's birth statistics, balanced against the organically occurring accidental deaths. Population growth was balanced, and the doomsayers within the cabinet were placated for the time being. 
 
 Five years later, however, the population started growing again. Local governments had begun solving problems like homelessness, gang violence, and starvation. Without natural selection, the Angels of Death just could n't keep up. Instead of devoting the entire US Special Forces, the Reaper Project started contracting outside help. They experimented with quietly releasing serial killers, tainting food supplies, and inciting violence in larger population centers but these methods created too much noise. The US had an international reputation to uphold after all. 
 
 So it came about that another directive was passed down to the Angels. Scout and vet recruits in your area of operation. Possible candidates must meet certain requirements, but you are ultimately free to initiate anyone you deem qualified. 
 
 Three years ago, Justin had been following his morning routine. Sitting outside the local cafe with his latte and a cigar, and making a show of casually reading the news on his tablet. In reality, he came to this cafe every morning to observe the people. He'd watch how they interacted with the baristas and where they parked their transportation. He tracked everyone he observed with an expensive cybernetic enhancement that could automatically identify individuals through an illegal port he'd opened in the citizen registry. Every person he'd met in the last 10 years was filed away in a tiny wireless drive in his coat pocket. Each person had a'notes' section that he diligently updated each time he encountered that individual. He did n't know why he did it, but he'd developed the `` hobby'' out of boredom. 
 
 Many years ago, he'd been able to snag several thousand shares of a pharmaceutical company that had been working on a promising antiviral drug that was touted to be the end-all cure for HIV. It had been a bad investment, the drug caused damage to human DNA and their trial had n't passed FDA muster. Telopharm sat in his portfolio for years, a grim reminder to avoid gambling on an unknown. That red 20,000 at the top of his investment list had demotivated his inclination to try day trading. A few weeks before his 42^nd birthday, Justin had been at work making his daily rounds on the internet. There were stories about some man named Elios who had `` cured death'' and `` found the fountain of youth'' plastered all over every site he visited. Figuring it was bullshit, Jason continued his browsing. When he ran out of bookmarks to click through, he decided he still was n't ready to actually buckle down and get to work so he opened up his bookmark folder scanning the links he rarely used. Out of desperation, he opened his brokerage account page, figuring he'd check on his long term investments and reinvest any dividends he'd received since the last time he'd checked three or four months ago. 
 
 There, at the top of his portfolio, where it had been every time since he opened this account was Telopharm. He froze in disbelief when his eyes scanned across the market value. 2.4 million dollars. The stock had shot from under a dollar a share to over $ 120 a share overnight. The headline `` Mark Elios cures aging, FDA confirms'' was there in the sidebar containing news stories related to his portfolio. Mark Elios was the head researcher and CEO of Telopharm. Elios had modified the same anti-viral drug that had failed so miserably years prior and used it to create his aging cure. Over the next few years, the stock climbed meteorically, split multiple times, and started paying dividends. Justin was now a very, very wealthy man. With his newfound wealth he traveled the world, crossed everything off his bucket list, and picked up and subsequently dropped countless hobbies. One of the only ones that had stuck was people watching, and he'd been doing it for decades. 
 

