REVELATION: Book One of THE RECARN CHRONICLES by Gregory N. Taylor

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