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For most of us, life is precious
and death comes far too
quickly, but in the Lifemaster Nursing
Home, today is Mrs
Klein's 138th birthday. However, no one is celebrating the special
event as the old lady
is
hooked up to a life support machine, and none of her
family are
there with her. Standing by her bed, wearing masks,
are two insurance company accountants. They are
talking with the old lady's doctor. 'Another
successful year Doctor. We must offer our congratulations. We at the
company very much
appreciate your team's hard work and commitment.
We can assure
you that
we will continue to send all of our clients to your excellent facility.
You have done a first-class job in keeping Mrs. Klien alive and
protecting the company's profits. If she were to die tomorrow, we would
have to pay her family in excess
of four hundred million dollars.'
'Gentleman,' says the doctor, 'with recent advances in medical care,
and improvements in transplant
surgery, it is possible that we can keep
Mrs. Klien alive indefinitely.
She will, of course, never regain
consciousness, but she will never die. We at the nursing
home would
like to thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to a
long and profitable arrangement. Now let's take a look at Mr
Garcia, his 127th birthday is next month and is doing
well. Last
month we replaced his liver.'
The year is 2068 and for some unfortunate people, death is a luxury that they cannot afford. Years ago they took out enormous life insurance policies, and now the insurance companies prevent them from dying in order to save paying out millions of dollars or euros to their families. The families spend long years in and out of law courts trying to persuade judges to order the doctors to switch off the life-support machines that keep the old people alive, but the insurance companies have unlimited resources and their lawyers always win every appeal. With each passing year medical science becomes even more advanced and the families lose all hope. But now the Endmakers have appeared.
John Klein is Mrs Klein's great-great-grandson and a few months ago he learned of a secret group of people who provide death for a fee. For a while their existance was only rumoured but John has spent these last months opening a path to them through the web. They are assassins, but these killers have mercy in their hearts. They design and produce lethal viruses that are guaranteed to kill. It is rumoured that so far, they have ended the lives of over thirty people. Finally, John has made contact with one of their representatives. Using encrypted messages he has arranged for a virus to be designed to kill Mrs Klein. The Endmakers have asked for 5% of the insurance policy payout, which is in excess of twenty million dollars. It is a high price to pay but this is a dangerous job for them. The insurance companies want them dead and have tried to trick them many times with fake contacts and ambushes.
The Lifemaster Nursing Home is built like a fortress with 24-hour armed security guards and a sophisticated surveillance system. Mr Gabriel and Mr Uriel must enter and leave without being seen. They must infect Mrs Klein but leave no trace because if there is any evidence of their visit then her death will be seen as suspicious and the insurance company will refuse to pay the Klein family anything. Mr Gabriel and Mr Uriel are both middle-aged Japanese and spent all their lives training to be masters at what they do: they are professional ninja. Their work for the Endmakers is the ultimate test of their training.
On a moonless night, at exactly 2.39am they jump from a small plane several kilometres from the nursing home. Using wingsuits they glide silently through the night sky before opening their parachutes and landing on the roof of the home at 2.57am. Advanced electronic devices allow them to gain access into the building like high-technology ghosts, and at 3am they are standing at Mrs Klein's bedside. Mr Uriel opens a small pouch and touches the corner of Mrs Klein's eye with a tiny needle. There is no mark, no blood, no sign that she has just been given a deadly virus. The two men leave the building through the sewer system.
By 5am Mrs Klein is dead. The emergency team of doctors failed to revive her, she died so quickly. The medical staff at the nursing home are confused and suspicious but the virus has already left her body and so they reluctantly sign her death certificate. The insurance company executives are furious but are forced to pay the Klein family the full insurance amount of 424 million dollars.
Adjectives
precious:
Valuable and important.
lethal:
Able to cause death.
encrypted:
Changed using a secret code so that only particular people can read it.
fake:
A copy. Not real.
sophisticated:
Here meaning 'advanced and complex'.
suspicious:
Here meaning 'appearing to be not true'.
ultimate:
Here meaning 'the most difficult'..
furious:
Very angry.
Adverbs
indefinitely:
Continuing without stopping.
reluctantly:
Slowly because you do not want to do it.
Verbs
be hooked up to sth.:
To be connected to a machine.
assure:
To tell someone that something will definitely happen (or is definitely
true) so that they become less worried.
regain consciousness:
To wake up after being asleep or very ill.
prevent:
To stop something from happening, or stop someone doing something.
persuade:
To make someone decide something by strongly giving them reasons.
be rumoured:
When people say something is true, but don't know for sure.
trick:
Here meaning 'make someone do something or think something which is not
true so that you gain an advantage'.
infect:
To put something bad into a another thing.
leave no trace:
To leave no sign that you were in a place or doing something.
glide:
To move easily with no effort.
gain access:
To get into a place which is difficult to enter.
revive:
Here meaning 'to bring back to life after being dead'.
Nouns
a Nursing
Home: A place where old people live
and may receive medical care.
commitment:
Here meaning 'the time you use and effort you make because you believe
in what you are doing.
facility:
Here meaning 'a group of buildings where a job is done'.
transplant surgery:
An operation in which a bad part of the body is replaced with a new one.
a life insurance policy:
A contract you make with an insurance company that gives money to your
family when you die.
an appeal:
Here meaning 'a court case where a judge's previous decision is looked
at again'.
an assassin:
A person whose job is to kill people for money.
mercy:
Kindness and forgiveness.
virus:
A very small living thing that gets your body and makes you ill.
a payout:
An amount of money that is paid after a particular event.
an ambush:
A situation in which someone is attacked by surprise because the
attacker(s) were hiding.
a fortess:
A large and strong building used for protection. Another word for 'a
castle'.
a surveillance system:
Videos cameras and microphones put in places so that someone can see
what is happening and keep the place safe.
a ninja: A person who is trained to
secretly enter a building and do something or kill someone.
a wingsuit: A suit that allows you to
fly in whichever direction you want.
a pouch:
A small bag with no handle.
a sewer system:
The pipes under a building that take away dirty water.
a death certificate:
An official piece of paper that records someone's death.
Expressions
in excess of:
More than a particular amount.
a luxury one cannot afford:
Something that someone cannot have, or cannot do, because
their situation. 'a luxury' is an expensive thing.