The Relic Keeper Read Free Page A

nothing to suggest that if we install another set of organs that these will take.” All three adults looked at the boy lying by the monitors and machinery that had accompanied him every second of his life for the past two years.
    “So what happens now?” asked Bethany. She sounded like a frightened child.
    “Well, we can keep George alive with the failure of most of his organs, although not if they are all rejected and fail in a relatively short period of time. If organs from another child of the same size should become available, providing they are acceptable of course, then we may be able to transplant some or all of those. But you must remember that the chances of a suitable heart, lungs, liver and kidneys all coming onto the market at a reasonable price in the near future are highly unlikely. And even if that happens we will still have to prove that we can keep George stable and that he would be the most suitable recipient of the organs, which would be down to the guardians of the donor, their medical advisors and the clinic fund-holding committee. I think you should prepare yourself for the eventuality that George might not be able to recover, and that a rapid downturn might occur in the next few weeks.”
    Adrian and Bethany looked straight into Rei’s eyes for several seconds, their hands interlocked as their faces lost the last remnants of expression. Neither cried, or shrieked, or hurled abuse; they just stood, then nodded politely and walked back into the room. Rei turned and walked back up the corridor with no real sense of where she was headed. She turned the corner and slipped through the door to the old staircase, knowing that it was never used anymore. Here she quietly placed her medipac on the floor, put her back against the ancient concrete and gently bumped her head against the wall until she could feel reality again. “Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it, fuck it,” she whispered. At times she hated her job more than anything in the world.

4
    Although technically still on field duty, Deon had been asked to check some details on three of the inmates the day following the overheard conversation. These three had arrived at Unit the previous week and had supplied the compulsory list of family names and possible ancestry. But it seemed that they had subsequently mentioned to Wendy, who shared their dormitory, that they had been related by marriage as well as blood. Deon hated tracing relatives through these means and could never fathom why people didn’t have a better idea of who they were related to and what that relationship was. Travis and Michelle were married, and Travis’ cousin Daniel had accompanied them to Unit. From the information that Deon had, it seemed that Daniel's paternal great-grandmother was married to someone who shared a name with Michelle’s maternal great-great-grandfather. It was quite possible that this was the same person, but they weren’t sure if it meant that some of the intermediate lineage were unaccounted for, and that meant that there were people, possibly even still alive, that Unit had not recorded. Still, Deon thought, it meant that he escaped one day of field duties, and a slightly convoluted report on the situation might be not be the worst thing he could experience today.
    As he ran through the lists of names and places that appeared on the screen he decided to run a quick contemporary scan on Aaron, just to find out where he’d been sent. The scan produced two unexpected results: firstly, Aaron was on Sark in the Channel Islands, which seemed too far away to ensure a quick return; and secondly, Aaron appeared to have a sister who lived in Cheltenham. This was not so strange, except that she had never been brought into the confines and secrets of Unit, or even, as far as Deon could ascertain, ever contacted about the Divine Temple of Jesus. Although he of all people understood that bad blood could exist between members of a family, he also could not condone the way this