Age of Heroes by James Lovegrove

Author:James Lovegrove
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Rebellion Publishing Ltd

OUTSIDE ON THE landing there was an elderly fridge-sized ice dispenser which served the entire floor. It buzzed and churned constantly but never seemed able to fulfil the purpose for which it had been built. Roy took out his frustration on it, pummelling the front of the machine with his fists until it was deeply dented and his knuckles were bleeding.

Then he phoned the Gesundheitsklinik and asked to be put through to Dr Aeschbacher. She hesitantly confirmed that Josie had been absent from the clinic since yesterday morning.

“Do you have some idea of her whereabouts then, Mr Young? Is that why you called?”

“No.”

“Then who told you she was gone?”

“I... learned about it from a third party.”

“Who?”

“None of your business. I also know that a member of your staff, Benedikt Frankel, is absent too. What I’d like to know is why I wasn’t notified about any of this immediately.”

“The management did not wish to alarm you unduly and, as the case may be, unnecessarily,” said Dr Aeschbacher. “Often in these instances, when patients abscond, they come back within twenty-four hours, forty-eight at most. The standard procedure is not to classify them as ‘missing’” – Roy could almost see her doing air quotes – “until at least three days have elapsed.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Mr Young, patients at the Gesundheitsklinik are not inmates at a sanatorium, they are voluntary participants in a programme of wraparound, holistic therapy, and if one of them wishes to take a break from that at any time, unannounced or otherwise, we have no legal right to stop him or her.”

“Legal right? What about moral duty?”

“They are not prisoners. We are not their jailers.”

“But Josie’s a fifteen-year-old girl, for fuck’s sake.”

“There is no call for bad language. And Josie turned sixteen last month, actually. That seems to have escaped your notice.”

It had. Roy cursed himself. He had been preoccupied. Idiot!

“In some Swiss cantons,” Dr Aeschbacher said, “that makes her of age to vote in elections.”

“All the same, she’s only a kid.”

“And we are only a private mental health institution. We are not a school. We are not, as I have said, a prison. We provide a paid-for service which clients are free to opt out of whenever they wish.”

“I’ve heard some mealy-mouthed bollocks in my time...”

“We are concerned about Josie’s welfare, Mr Young,” Dr Aeschbacher said, silkily, professionally. “But since Mr Frankel disappeared at the same time as she did, our concern is mitigated.”

“It should be heightened, surely.”

“You think he and she have... eloped, is that the word? Unlikely, given Mr Frankel’s sexual orientation. I believe this is, if it is anything, a kind of Platonic folie à deux that they have concocted between them. In which case, if that is so, then rest assured we will be implementing the appropriate disciplinary sanctions against Mr Frankel when he and Josie return. We will –”

Roy cut the connection. He couldn’t listen to Dr Aeschbacher trowel on this crap a moment longer. Fuck her, the smooth-talking corporate drone. Doling out bullshit on a spoon like it was honey, covering the clinic’s arse.

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