REVELATION: Book One of THE RECARN CHRONICLES

by Gregory N. Taylor

  “Yes, sir. I mean… you don’t look it, sir.”

  “Thank you. Though I know you’re just blowing smoke up my arse. Thomas, I have a very important task for you.”

  “Sir?”

  “I want you to listen very carefully to what I’m about to say.

  “Of course sir.”

  “Good. Let’s cut to the chase then. I’m eighty-three years old. Reincarnation is a scientific fact but, alas, immortality isn’t. At least not in the sense of occupying the same body, ad infinitum.”

  Thomas was confused. Where was the Pindar going with this conversation?

  “This body will not last forever. One day I will die. As a Recarn, I will obviously come back in another body and, as you know, I have no choice as to what body I’ll return to. One day we anticipate that we will be able to direct our souls from one dead body to a specific new host, but that day has not yet arrived. We’re working on it, but we haven’t managed to find a way to do it yet. Thus, to use the vernacular, where we end up is in the hands of the gods – not that they exist, of course.”

  Some would have been surprised to hear religious imagery coming from Nathan’s mouth, but Thomas knew that they were just words. ‘Soul’ was just a word to define the life-force that was within all of us. It had no deep religious significance nowadays. And ‘hands of the gods’, well, that was simply an idiomatic expression. No more, no less. Such expressions were ingrained in the language and people couldn’t be expected to stop using them overnight.

  “Obviously I won’t come back as a fully-fledged adult. I’m not Doctor Who – more’s the pity - so there will be a gap of twenty years or so when I’ll have to be away from my desk, as it were. That’s where you come in.”

  Thomas was starting to see where this might be heading. He hoped he was correct.

  “I need someone to take care of things until I get back, Thomas. I need you to do this for me. But, let me also say that although I may be old, I’m not foolish. I have taken measures to ensure that my return isn’t compromised.”

  “This is indeed a great honour, sir.”

  “One that I hope you’ll gladly accept, Thomas.”

  “Of course I accept sir, thank you sir.”

  “I’ll prepare you for the handover personally over the next month. Then I’ll self-terminate and you will be in charge until I get back. You may go now. I’ll see you bright and breezy on Monday morning. Goodbye Thomas;”

  Thomas knew that this wasn’t really a request, but a command. In reality, he had no choice. He also knew that the Pindar wasn’t bluffing when he said that steps had been taken to ensure that his return as a twenty-year old would be unhindered. He had no doubt that Nathan had gone through this procedure on numerous occasions and yet was still in command of The Order; as far as he was aware there had never been a successful usurpation in the history of The Illuminati. As he waited outside the building for the valet to return his car, he wondered if he might be the first.

  Chapter 9

  3 p.m. Wednesday, 25th January, 2051

  Two weeks later, Maurice Boone was all but tearing his hair out. He and his wife, Karen, had been ushered into a small ante-room at Central Hospital to discuss the future of their youngest daughter, Caitlin, who had been admitted with acute kidney failure. The National Health Service still existed but was creaking severely under the strain of a century of providing heavily subsidised treatment. It still nominally provided this function but spiralling costs had taken their toll. The Revelation had come at the right time for the NHS senior administrators; with the knowledge that everyone would be reincarnated, the pressure to save lives had been eased. Doctor Brynjar Stefansson was, on the face of it, showing great concern for the plight of the Boone Family, making all the right noises, but behind the sympathetic facade he was a firm advocate of the ONP health policy. Financial resources should now be dispensed sparingly – the NHS could no longer treat every disease or injury with the same priority as before. There just wasn’t the money available to do so; the ONP, funded by the Illuminati, could have saved the NHS but had no desire to do so.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Boone, I do sympathise with your problem, I really do, but the decision isn’t mine to take. NHS funds are at an all-time low and we must all make tough decisions. Your daughter, Caitlin is it?

  “Yes. Caitlin. My beautiful, innocent, six-year-old daughter.”

  “Well, Mr. Boone. She is still young. She has only lived among us for six years. She hasn’t had many experiences that she’ll really remember. It would probably be a blessing for her to start her life over again from scratch, without this kidney problem which – if I may be frank – is already killing her anyway.”

  Maurice was livid.

  “She’s young, yes. But why shouldn’t she have the right to live a full life? And, as for her not having many experiences that she would remember, she’s had six years of life with loving parents and a loving sister.”

  Karen Boone wasn’t one to stand by and say nothing, especially when it involved her daughters. She wasn’t going to stay silent.

  “And we’ve had six years of wonderful life with our beautiful little girl. I don’t want to lose her. I won’t lose her!”

  Tears were streaming down Karen’s face. Maurice couldn’t bear to see his wife crying like this. He, himself, was struggling to hold back his own tears.

  “The guidelines are quite clear Mr. and Mrs. Boone. The rules clearly state that kidney treatment is reserved for those of fourteen years of age and above, and those below sixty-years of age.”

  The reasoning behind these age restrictions was callous. Children who were almost at the point that they could leave school were considered an investment. Their schooling had been geared to creating adults who were useful to society, who would be able to pay back the government through their hard work. Perhaps they wouldn’t earn enough to pay the actual financial debt but even those who didn’t become sought after professionals in their field had a useful place in society. There would always be a need for people to collect rubbish from homes and businesses, for example. Somebody had to do the dirty jobs. These had been automated as much as possible, but manual labour would always be necessary. A seriously ill six-year-old child was too young to be considered an investment. The government could write off the one year’s schooling that he or she had already received, but the incentive to continue educating someone so young, for so many years, without the certainty of a return on the investment was considered unwise. The same reasoning applied to those of pensionable age. The government was grateful for the work that they had done during their years of employment, but it was no longer seen as fiscally prudent to treat them for life-threatening illnesses. Indeed, treatment for any illness when over sixty years old was hard to come by. The line had officially been drawn at sixty for both men and women but unofficially the upper age limit for withdrawal of medical services had been falling for some time; fifty-five year olds were now frequently being refused costly medical treatment. After this age was reached, pensioners were expected to suffer in silence until they died naturally, until their disease finally overcame them and killed them, or until they could take no more and visited one of the many Self Termination Centres, committing assisted suicide, and thus relieving their families of a financial burden and society of an inconvenient embarrassment. The families of those who took this step of self-termination received a tax-free windfall payment to the value of one year of the eldest child’s salary. This caused a lot of friction within families and many an elderly parent was persuaded to go to an early grave because of the greed of their children.

  Of course, this policy only really applied if you weren’t wealthy. Money talks in any language, anywhere in the world. If you were from a wealthy family you could buy the surgery you needed. The world was full of children who had contracted serious life-threatening illnesses at a young age, only to be bailed out by their well-off parents. Those families had never had to face the heartache that the Boone family was now
going through. It was a given that moneyed families would buy their way out of problems – including medical problems – just as they had been doing for centuries.

  And there was no shortage of doctors and surgeons willing to line their own pockets at the expense of others’ misfortunes. Indeed, it was a major reason why the numbers of applications for medical universities were increasing year by year. Doctors knew that they could augment their already substantial incomes by offering private, off-the-record services to those that could afford it. On the streets the Hippocratic Oath had become known as the Hypocritic Oath. Doctors were still obliged to swear the Hippocratic Oath before being allowed to practice medicine, but nowadays this was a mere formality; it was lip-service. Nobody expected to have to adhere to the oath that they had sworn, nor were they expected to do so by the system. Private health plans still existed for those that could pay the monthly instalments but these payments were now so high that medical insurance was well beyond the resources of the average citizen.

  So, many people were forced to sell their prized possessions in order to find the funds to pay these medical expenses. If they had no possessions of any real value to sell, they would be forced to call upon the services of loan companies, many of which were not officially recognised and were certainly not averse to physical brutality if their clients didn’t keep up with repayments. The irony is that many of these unscrupulous companies were set up by small syndicates of doctors and surgeons, who gained on two counts; they lent the money – at a very high interest rate - to pay for medical services that they themselves provided, again at a high cost. It was the perfect income stream.

  The Boone family wasn’t poor, but they weren’t rich either. Maurice, an accountant, didn’t earn enough to pay for private medical insurance, and even with the addition of his wife’s income as a call-centre manager, their joint annual income couldn’t sustain medical insurance as well - not if they wanted to feed and clothe their family.

  Dr. Stefansson closed the door to the ante-room. He made a great play of ensuring that he and Mr. and Mrs. Boone could not be overheard, but it was just an act. Everybody in the hospital was in on the scam. Operations needed operating theatres so hospital administration staff had to be paid off. Surgical staff were required, and they cost money. Except for the surgeon, the anaesthetist was the major expense as he or she literally held the patient’s life in their hands. One miscalculation in dosage (deliberate or not) would end a patient’s life, and the patient’s family knew this. The anaesthetist would be paid handsomely for his or her services, and payment was always required in advance. Once payment had been made, obstacles miraculously fell away and surgery could often be performed within a matter of days.

  “There is an alternative to medical termination, of course. For a sum, we can organise a kidney transplant for your little girl to take place within a matter of days.”

  Maurice looked directly at the doctor. He had been expecting this.

  “What kind of sum are we looking at, doctor?”

  “You may want to sit down, Mr. Boone.”

  “I’ll stay standing thank you very much.”

  “The cost of the surgery would be seven hundred and eighty-three thousand pounds. It’s a fair price considering the risk that I would be taking, defying the government health policy.”

  The risk that Dr. Stefansson would be taking was, in reality, non-existent. Blind eyes were turned all over the world to this corruption. It was accepted both by those who held positions of political power and those in corresponding positions in the medical fraternity. They all ate from the same trough. Maurice almost wished that he had been sitting down to hear the price. Karen slumped back in her chair. They had expected the price to be steep but seven hundred and eighty-three thousand pounds was far more than they could lay their hands on.

  The doctor preferred that families agree to this not-so-clandestine surgery as he would receive a lot more money this way than if compulsory termination was enforced. The obligatory organ harvesting would provide some money, but this had to be split 50/50 with the team who did the actual organ removal; his time was far too valuable to spend it on such a mundane task as removing viable organs from the dead. The organs of this unfortunate child would garner a good price on the black market (children’s organs were always in demand) but this was nothing when compared to the income that was to be earned from performing a kidney transplant.

  “Seven hundred and eighty-three thousand pounds. Seven hundred and eighty-three thousand pounds. Seven hundred and eighty-three thousand pounds.”

  Maurice kept repeating the figure to himself, as if doing so would decrease the price.

  “Where are we going to find seven hundred and eighty-three thousand pounds?”

  Karen’s eyes welled up with tears again. She looked pleadingly at her husband. She knew in her heart that it would be nigh on impossible for them to raise that kind of money. They needed a miracle.

  “I don’t want to lose my little girl,” she wailed. “I can’t lose another one.”

  Two years before the birth of Caitlin, the Boones had suffered another tragedy. Karen had been almost nine months pregnant when she was involved in a traffic accident. The doctors had found no signs of life in her womb and had had to induce labour. She had given birth to a stillborn baby boy and so Caitlin had become even more valuable to the couple when she was born. Maurice looked at his sobbing wife and then at the doctor.

  “How long have we got to decide?”

  “I can give you one week, that’s one working week. Don’t forget that your daughter’s condition could worsen during that time. Today is a Wednesday, so I can give you until 8pm on Tuesday 31st. After that, it’s compulsory termination I’m afraid.”

  Maurice walked over to where Karen was sitting, her shoulders rising and falling rhythmically as she silently sobbed. He took her hand and helped her to her feet.

  “Come on honey. Let’s go home. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

  He turned once more to the doctor.

  “We’ll be in touch. I promise.”

  Chapter 10

  8 p.m. Wednesday, 25th January, 2051

  Maurice and Karen Boone sat facing each other across the kitchen table. Their eldest daughter, Michelle, was staying the night at her friend Sarah’s house. The Boones thought it best to discuss their options without having to worry about being distracted by Michelle. They were both looking at the forty centimeter computer screens projected vertically before them. Maurice was entering figures using a holographic keypad.

  “I don’t know what we’re supposed to do, Karen. The more I look at the spreadsheet the more impossible the situation seems.”

  “What if we cut down on electricity? If we can somehow economise on our energy bills, maybe we can afford the repayments?”

  “Our energy settings are at the lowest possible, Karen. Any savings would be a drop in the ocean. I mean, we’re already doing all we can to keep the bills down. You’re even washing the dishes by hand. The dishwasher is disconnected. Your mother would kill me if she knew I was letting her daughter wash the dishes by hand.”

  “Is there anywhere else we can get a loan?”

  “Remember, we’re trying to get a loan for an illegal act. It’s not as if we can ask for a loan from a bank. They’d be obliged to tell the police and we’d end up in jail. We have to think of Michelle too. I don’t want someone else – or worse – the State raising our child. If we get a loan for this it has to be off the record. And you know as well as I do, that these bloody doctors have a stranglehold on this stuff. They prey on people like you and me to pay for their latest ocean-going yacht, or yet another beautiful house on a tropical beach somewhere. I fucking hate the ONP and their fucking rules. What’s happened to compassion? What’s happened to helping each other out? My parents told me that when they believed that this was the only life we got, rich people were much more inclined to help the less advantaged. There was something called the Bill and Melinda Gate
s Foundation. This was a mega-rich couple who spent billions of dollars trying to reduce world poverty and improve health all over the world. And they weren’t the only ones. There were others. But since The Revelation, the ONP have got their greasy little claws into everywhere and any research is only done to help the rich. The rich hang onto their money in the hope that they can use it in their next life. We regular people, the so-called middle class and the poor can just go fuck ourselves as far as they’re concerned. The NHS was stretched but it did its best to help anybody. Yes, anybody! Now it’s just another way for the rich to get richer – at our expense. In the old days doctors would have done everything possible to save Caitlin. Although cost was still an issue, they would try to find ways to save people. Nowadays they hide behind the rules, with their hands out, expecting people to line their pockets with gold. If you can’t pay, you die. It’s as simple as that. If they had their way they’d give this ultimatum to everybody who is ill or injured. It’s only because society needs healthy workers in order to function that they don’t apply the termination criteria to everyone. Fucking New Perfectibilists. The world was pretty fucked up before The Revelation, but it’s way worse now. No wonder self -terminations have become common-place now. It seems like ST Centres are on every bloody street corner. At least that’s how it seems. My dad told me that in the old days you couldn’t walk two minutes without seeing a beauty salon. Then it was clinics. Now it’s these bloody ST Centres. They don’t even have the guts to put the proper name over the doors. It’s like saying self-termination takes the edge off the reality.”

  Maurice didn’t even feel like adding his usual postscript to emotional monologues such as this. Saying ‘rant over’ would only serve to add a modem of flippancy to his words… and this time he was deadly serious. This wasn’t just a political diatribe, but an outpouring of frustration and anger at a system that held the life of a six-year old girl so cheaply. He could see the look of concern on Karen’s face.