REVELATION: Book One of THE RECARN CHRONICLES (15 page)

To the outside world, Maurice was now Richard
Saunders but underneath he was still the same Maurice Boone. A new
name didn’t change who he was or what he had done. He had grown a
beard and was letting his hair grow longer but anybody who had
known him previously would still have been able to recognise him.
He had a gardening job and somewhere to stay; he rented a small
flat on the outskirts of town. It was comfortably furnished and had
what were considered all mod cons with TV, DVR, washing machine
etc. It even had central heating and double-glazing, but it wasn’t
home. The mod cons were antiquated and everything had to be done
manually. At home, he had been used to the refrigerator
automatically rotating stock as food came close to its expiration
date and then automatically ordering more food and drink as it
became necessary. Maurice and Karen didn’t have to lift a
finger.

This flat had no such luxury; if you wanted
food you had to go out and buy it from a supermarket, you had to
physically leave your home, travel to the supermarket, and dictate
your order to one of the many workers whose job it was to enter
your requirements into a computer and then within ten minutes you
were normally loading your food purchases into your car, before
driving home. Like many of the middle class of the mid twenty-first
century, Maurice had taken the automated ordering and delivery
system that he had at his real house, his real home, for granted.
Only now did he realise just how much he had been relying upon
technology for the last few years.

He was in the reception of the supermarket,
waiting for his food order to be brought to him, evaluating his
life. The police didn’t seem to be actively seeking him, quite
possibly because there wasn’t anything to physically connect him to
the murder of the footballer, Christian Marks, but he couldn’t hide
what he had done from himself and his conscience was struggling to
make sense of the whole situation. He had killed another human
being, and his wife and children were probably in a better
financial situation than they had been before he had ‘died in the
car crash’. There was nothing to be gained – other than the selfish
desire to be with his family – if he returned. If he gave himself
up to the police it would only serve to make their crime solution
statistics look a little better. He would be terminated by the
judicial system. He felt he deserved termination by the State, but
he couldn’t inflict upon Karen and the girls the stigma that would
be hurled at them if the truth were to come out.

He stood up from the padded bench that he had
been sitting on and walked determinedly out of the store, turning
right onto the main road. He didn’t even bother to take his car; it
wasn’t really worth it, he’d only be walking about a mile, and he
had no intention of making a return journey. A supermarket employee
called out to him, holding a shopping basket of groceries up in the
air, but Maurice ignored him. He had made up his mind.

“Mr. Saunders! Mr. Saunders! You’ve forgotten
your shopping!”

Ten minutes later he could see his
destination in the distance and his pace quickened. He continued to
stride purposely until he reached the door of Paignton’s
Self-Termination Centre, a large brick and glass building set in
beautifully landscaped gardens. The doors slid open with a discreet
whoosh as he approached them. Doors were almost superfluous as the
centre never actually closed; it was open 24/7, 365 days a year.
The necessity and desire to leave this world didn’t adhere to a
declared schedule. The STC had to be available any time of the day
or night.

Maurice crossed the large communal reception
area and approached one of the registration computers. Its screen
flickered into life as he came to within a metre of it. A soothing
voice spoke.

“Good afternoon. Please speak slowly and
clearly and give me your full name and identification number.”

“My name is Richard Saunders, ID number
612/21646/5.”

“Thank you Richard Saunders 612/21646/5. Have
you entered this building of your own free will?”

“Yes. I have.”

“Thank you Richard Saunders 612/21646/5. Are
you aware of the purpose of this facility?”

“Yes, I am. Thank you.”

Maurice had no idea why he was thanking a
computer program. He put it down to force of habit. He’d always
been a polite man.

“Thank you Richard Saunders 612/21646/5.
Please place your thumb over the optical reader for identification
purposes.”

Maurice did as he was told.

“I’m sorry Richard Saunders 612/21646/5.
There seems to be a problem with your identification process.
Please try again.”

Maurice suddenly realised that the machine
was expecting to extract details from the thumbprint of Richard
Saunders and not Maurice Boone. He reached into his pocket and
retrieved a small pad of thumbprints that he had been given as part
of the relocation kit supplied by the Businessman. He placed the
transparency containing Richard Saunders’s thumb ID onto the
optical reader.

““Thank you Richard Saunders 612/21646/5.
Please proceed through the blue door to your left.”

This time Maurice managed to resist the urge
to thank the computer, as he walked through the blue door and found
himself in a preparation suite.

He looked around and was surprised to see
several naked people sitting on sofas dotted around the room. An
elderly couple were seated side by side, holding hands and looking
into each other’s eyes. Maurice assumed that they were coming to
the end of their lives and didn’t want to be left alone in the
world without the partner that they had loved for decades.

A very attractive woman of about 40 years of
age was standing facing a full-length mirror. Her eyes scanned the
reflection of her body from head to toe. She really was beautiful,
naturally beautiful, even without make-up. Her body was so perfect.
Maurice had never seen a more beautiful, more perfect body in his
life although he had to concede that the number of naked woman he
had seen in his life was pretty low; so low that he could count the
number on the fingers of one hand. But the woman, beautiful and
perfect as she was, could only see fat thighs and rolls of unwanted
fat around her belly. Maurice wanted to ask her why she was there
but at the same time he didn’t want to engage in conversation with
anyone else other than the termination centre staff. He didn’t want
anyone to attempt to talk him out of the decision that he had
arrived at after a month of sleepless and tormented nights.

A slightly overweight and pleasantly jovial
woman, dressed in a white overall and with the STC logo on her
breast pocket, came into the room and beamed at Maurice.

“Hello Mr. Saunders. Welcome to Paignton’s
premier Temple of Departure.”

It didn’t matter how the authorities tried to
dress up the facility with euphemisms and sweet smelling flowers,
nothing could hide the fact that this was a suicide centre. It felt
strange to think that this was probably the last human that he’d
ever see in this life. The last real person that he’d interact
with. He began to wonder who he would be in his next life. Would he
be a girl or a boy? Would he be rich or poor? In what country would
he be born? The pleasant, jovial woman cleared her throat to get
his attention. Maurice returned to the real world.

“Sorry. My mind was elsewhere. Thank
you.”

“Now then my dear, my name is Leanne and I’ll
be your attendant for this next part of your journey.”

Leanne made it sound like he was taking a
flight to a holiday destination instead of killing himself. She was
definitely too full of the joys of spring for this job.

“If you’d like to take your clothes off
please?”

“My what? My clothes?”

“Yes, your clothes. There’s no point in being
embarrassed my dear. We need the clothes to pass on to the needy
and, even though they shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth,
they don’t like the idea of wearing clothes that other people have
passed away in.”

“All my clothes?”

“Look around you, my dear. Even Mr. and Mrs.
Johnson, that dear old couple making eyes at each other are naked
as the day that they were born. And April – the goddess, who thinks
she’s a fat bitch – she’s naked too. She must be crazy. She’s
gorgeous. Why would a beautiful creature like her want to top
herself? Go on love. Get your kit off. You won’t be alone.”

Everybody who made the journey to these
government facilities was told the same story. The clothes would go
to a needy person. The reality was rather different. The reason why
clients were asked to strip naked was to prevent them from changing
their minds and leaving the facility. Their bodies would be
cremated providing a valuable source of energy for the living.
Since the Revelation, burials had been prohibited and cremations
made compulsory, as the energy produced from cremations became a
valuable commodity. Maurice reluctantly removed his clothes, folded
them neatly and handed them to Leanne. She beamed at him again.

“There you go my dear. That wasn’t so
difficult was it?”

Maurice had been expecting some kind of
counselling, somebody to at least try to talk him out of his
decision to end his life. He certainly didn’t expect the process to
be as swift and clinical as it appeared to be. His thought process
was broken by Leanne’s cheerful voice again.

“Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. Room number 1. April.
Room number 2. Mr. Saunders. Room number 3. Chop, chop. We don’t
have all day, you know.”

The occupants of the preparation room
shuffled into their respective rooms, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson still
holding hands. Maurice had cupped his hands and was doing his best
to protect his genitals from view as he walked awkwardly to his
assigned room.

He found himself in a sparsely
furnished room, containing nothing but an armchair, a sofa and a
portable piece of electrical equipment that sat upon a steel
trolley. He stood in the middle of the room, like a lost child, as
he had no idea what he was supposed to do now. The
room
wasn’t at all welcoming and he certainly didn't
feel any inclination to sit down and relax. What a way to spend
your last few minutes on Earth. He thought that these
Self-Termination Centres might at least try to make the death
experience as pleasant as such a thing could be, that there might
at least be tasteful decor and soothing music, but this place was
devoid of all atmosphere. People might just as well breathe their
last breath in a storage container. If people outside had known how
soulless these facilities were, there would certainly have been
many complaints and something might have been done to improve the
conditions, but the paradox was that nobody came out alive once
they'd passed the registration procedure and so nobody else knew
except the staff, who were just grateful to be employed.

A very officious young woman entered the
room. She had a white blouse with the top three buttons undone, a
black pencil skirt, and high heel shoes. She seemed far too well
dressed for assisting suicides and was oblivious to Maurice's
nakedness.

"Right. Let's get this over with. I haven't
got all day."

Maurice found himself missing Leanne. He
didn’t like that yet another woman was seeing his naked body. And
this one sounded quite aggressive. No, he didn’t like this one at
all. At least Leanne tried to be nice. He felt really
uncomfortable.

“Where’s Leanne?”

“Her shift’s ended. I’m in charge now. I’m
Monica. In my opinion you don’t really need to know that, but the
manual says I have to tell you my name.”

Maurice was beginning to have second
thoughts.

“Excuse me, miss.”

“What?”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

“No you haven’t.”

“Yes. I have. I’ve changed my mind.”

“Too late, mate.”

No. Really. Can I have my clothes back
please?”

“Nobody changes their mind. Your clothes will
be in an incinerator by now.”

“What do you mean, in an incinerator?”

“What I said.”

“But Leanne said that they would be put aside
and given to the poor.”

“Yeah. She tells clients that to make them
feel better about themselves. I don’t know why she bothers.”

“But I don’t want to die now.”

“You should have thought of that before you
registered, Mr. Saunders.”

But I’m not Mr. Saunders. I’m Maurice
Boone.”

“Your registration says your name is
Saunders. The machine recognised your fingerprints as Richard
Saunders. You can call yourself the Queen of Sheba for all I care.
You’re registered. You’re in here. You’re going to die. That’s the
rules.”

She gestured towards the sparse
furniture.

"Sit down. Sofa or armchair. It doesn't
bother me which."

Maurice shuffled over to the armchair, all
the way trying to keep his manhood hidden from sight. The young
woman looked him in the eye.

"There's no point in trying to hide that
thing from me. I'll see it in glorious Technicolor when we're done
here. I'll have to tape it to your thigh when you're dead so it
doesn't flap about and get the porters agitated on the way to the
incinerator.”

Maurice was disturbed to feel his penis
starting to engorge inside his cupped hands. That couldn’t be
right. This woman was being a callous bitch to him and he was
finding it a turn on? What the hell was wrong with him?

The woman looked at where Maurice’s penis was
straining to peep through his fingers and then she looked him in
the eyes.

“Getting a hard on, are we? You like being
controlled by somebody else do you?”

Maurice couldn’t understand why his body was
reacting like this. He was definitely not into sadomasochism. He
and Karen had had a very fulfilling sex life, but there was no
bondage or dominatrix stuff. The woman unbuttoned her blouse
completely, allowing Maurice to see her exposed breasts.