Stealing Time

by Rebecca Bowyer

  “Nope, not us.”

  “Mmph.” Mrs Denisovitch sank back and closed her eyes again. With a flick of her wrist, she dismissed Marisa. “Go, then. Come back next week.”

  Marisa grinned and gave a three-finger salute before she turned on her heel and moved onto her next client.

  Three rooms down the hallway, she nodded and smiled faintly while Mr Keats recounted how he had secretly read half of Shakespeare’s complete works in four-hour blocks while under the influence of time tabs.

  “Secretly?”

  Mr Keats tapped the side of his nose and leered towards her.

  “You never know what they’ll hold against you next,” he told her in a stage whisper. “Might ban the bard sometime soon. Literature like that can be terribly inflammatory.”

  “Mmm.” Marisa twisted her mouth and turned back to the screen on the wall, sipping her next cup of coffee.

  “Nine-year-old boy returned to parents dies. Community fears time thieves.”

  Video footage showed Ben Williams’ grief-stricken parents shielded from the media as they were ushered from their home into a waiting police car.

  Mr Keats finally exhausted his point and focussed in on Marisa’s gaze. He swiped at his personal screen until the sound on the wall screen rose.

  “Nine-year-old Ben Williams was taken two days ago from his home in Waterdown. This morning we brought you the good news that he had been reunited with his family.”

  Cue scenes of a stunned boy being hugged by his parents and photographed by dozens.

  “Tragically, this happy family reunion was shattered just hours later when the child’s Rest Time Chip malfunctioned and triggered his death, some fifty-six years early. Police say it’s too early in their investigation to speculate as to what could have caused the malfunction.”

  More video footage, this time of a haggard-looking man peering around his front door.

  “Rest Time Chips don’t malfunction. There’s no precedent. This has to be the time thief gangs again,” he said.

  “Can you tell us why you think that, sir?” A faceless voice demanded as a microphone inched closer to him.

  “Because I’ve seen it before. Ten years ago, I lost my nine-year-old son, too.” His next words were lost to a choked sob. He sniffed and wiped his sleeve across his nose and reddened eyes in one movement. “I’m sorry, I can’t.” He slammed the door and the screen flicked back to the in-studio presenter. Marisa jerked her head around, lips pursed, as the volume went silent. She opened her mouth to speak but Mr Keats shook his head.

  “I’d rather not re-live it, if you don’t mind, love. I don’t have many days left. I just want to use my time tabs to disappear into my bubble of sonnets.” He gave a flourish of his hand, as though the performance was at an end.

  Marisa nodded. “Fair enough. I’ll leave you to it.”

  “Thank you.”

  She stood and paused for a moment, watching the strapline change.

  “Too few similarities to time thief gangs, say police.”

  Marisa snorted softly. A ninety-five per cent match was enough, surely. The fact that they’d left a few hours on the Chip for the family to say goodbye, didn’t change the general pattern of events. Somebody out there had clearly resurrected the technology to transfer time between Rest Time Chips.

  “Close the door on the way out, if you wouldn’t mind, love,” said Mr Keats, sitting up in bed and clutching a thick volume of plays. His outstretched palm held a single blue time tab.

  Marisa held his gaze for a moment then left, gently letting the door click shut after her.

  Chapter fourteen

  Varya

  Much later that night—after she’d spent enough hours sitting in her lab, unable to concentrate—Varya was with her son again. It was always happy where he was, always calm. Nothing could hurt Kir here. She felt enveloped by the same safety as she held him close.

  “Mummy, how many sick kids are there?” he asked with wide eyes.

  Varya pressed her tired cheek against his soft, squishy one.

  “You don’t need to worry about the sick kids, little one.”

  Kir pulled away and looked at her, then cuddled up again, squishing his cheek back against hers. He giggled.

  “But you’ll make them better, won’t you?”

  “It’s Aunty Zoe’s job to make them better. I just try to find the medicine for her.”

  “Did it get lost?”

  Varya let go of Kir and ran the palm of her hand over the blades of grass. The idea of discovering medicine that was simply lost was very appealing. It held the otherwise elusive certainty of hope. That a cure existed out there for every illness.

  “Mummy?” Kir put a tiny hand on each of her cheeks and gently forced her to face him, pressing the tip of his nose against hers.

  “Yes, sweetheart?” she whispered, cupping her hands over the top of his and inhaling his sweet childish breath.

  “Mummy, when will you find the medicine to make me better?”

  Varya let out a sob and roughly pulled his hands away. Kir began to cry. Starting softly, he worked his way up to a siren wail.

  Varya wanted to put her hands over her ears, her hands over her eyes. She wanted to wake up from this nightmare. She felt a hand on her shoulder.

  “I think it might be time for you to go,” her mother told her. Varya nodded.

  In the morning she woke with a gasp, as though someone had been standing on her windpipe. She put her hand to her throat and took desperate, shallow breaths.

  Chapter fifteen

  The state-of-the-art security systems at the Minor Miracles Foundation had been custom-built to keep biohazards in and thieves out. Individual offices, which usually housed simple furniture and password-protected screens, sometimes required a swipe card to enter but were often left unlocked.

  Professor Janet Langford’s former office was different.

  Varya pushed the manual override button and waited, silently crossing her fingers. A keypad slid out just below the palm scanner. She checked the numbers written on a small piece of paper and typed in the code she’d found in her staff locker several hours after Professor Langford’s Rest Time ceremony. Glancing around nervously, she waited for the green light to appear and listened for the quiet click of the lock. She pushed the door and went in, just as she thought she saw a figure in her peripheral vision turn the corner. She quickly shut the door behind her and leant against it, her heart thumping as a drop of sweat tickled at the back of her neck.

  While she waited for footsteps to approach, she ground her teeth at the irritation of needing to slink around like a thief in her own facility.

  “You don’t need to be here on-site, you know,” Langford had pointed out more than once. “You’ve hired some of the best scientists this country has to offer and equipped them with everything they could possibly need to do their job. Why not leave them to it?”

  “What else would I do with my time? I may as well contribute something.” The lack of substance in her statement was laid bare in the silence that Langford allowed to grow. Varya had tried again: “I need to be here. It makes me feel closer to him.”

  Langford would always sigh then, defeated in the face of parental grief.

  “Maybe you need to take a more visibly managerial role, then. It may help give a sense of purpose and place to you. This subterfuge, it can’t be healthy.”

  That had been one of her last suggestions, before her time was up. Langford was right, the subterfuge and creeping around was eating away at Varya. It was directly opposed to what she most wanted, which was to openly declare her credentials and mission to ensure that research into curing rare childhood diseases received the funding it truly deserved. She would do it in the name of her son. She used to believe in the generally accepted communal ideology, right up until it was her own son who was diagnosed with a rare and incurable disease.

  “You think I don’t want to?” Varya had seethed. “You think I don’t want th
e world to know that it’s me who’s behind all this, who has made it happen? Funded and driven research to find cures for six diseases, saving the lives of children.” She swallowed, her eyes burning. “How many families have we helped to avoid the sort of grief you and I have both suffered?”

  “Dozens,” Langford agreed. “But Varya, it’s been nearly ten years since your unit was disbanded. People have moved on. The world has moved on.”

  Her eyes flashed. “They may have moved on, but they haven’t forgotten.”

  “No. I hope we’ll never forget something as heinous as the time thieves, lest history repeat itself.” Langford reached out and placed her hand gently on Varya’s arm. Varya tensed, her flight instinct kicking in. “But I think your track record here will speak for itself. I think it’s time to come out of hiding and reveal yourself. Kir has been gone for five years now, Varya. When are you going to stop hiding and start living?”

  Standing in Langford’s dark, silent office now, Varya wiped at her eyes, which had started to fill at the sensation that, without Langford, she was truly alone again. There was nobody left who knew all the pieces, who could fit them together to see the whole that was Varya.

  “Pull yourself together, woman,” she hissed at herself, and moved forward to retrieve the files she’d come for.

  A click and whoosh of new air and light made her cry out. She turned around and blinked, trying to adjust her eyes to focus on the figure in the office doorway with the bright light at his back.

  “Thought it might be you,” said Connor. Now that Varya was studying him properly, she realised she didn’t even remember hiring him. Was he in the list Langford had sent her for final vetting?

  “What are you doing in here?” he asked—a little too casually, Varya thought. But of course, she reminded herself, he saw her as just another one of the lab staff.

  “Clearing out the professor’s things.” She decided to continue with her self-appointed task despite his intrusion. Sometimes the best way to disguise illicit actions was by putting them on open display. Marisa had taught her that.

  “In the dark?” Connor flicked on the light. Varya blinked rapidly, frowned, and ground her teeth. She glared at him momentarily. He raised his eyebrows.

  Varya slipped her hand into her pocket and pulled out a small, brass key. Deceptively simple, it looked like it might open an old roll-top desk. A perfect circle at one end, a hollow tip and jagged square at the other. Hidden from the sight of the human eye were tiny indentations scratched into the circumference of the barrelled end. She inserted the key into the professor’s cabinet and turned it. The top drawer slid open. Varya reached behind the cabinet and pulled out a flat packed box. She held out the cardboard to Connor.

  “Here. Make yourself useful.”

  While Connor constructed the box, Varya used the time to start pulling out files. She piled a handful on the desk and flicked through a few more. These were confidential research files, containing results from experiments that were too sensitive or too uncertain to place on the digital network yet. Secure as it was, any network was vulnerable to cyberattack. Or surveillance. Varya was keen to ensure they were all safely locked away. But today, she was searching for one in particular.

  “Kir,” it was labelled. She found it tucked away in the bottom drawer, right at the back. Three buff-coloured manila folders bound together by two large elastic bands which had worn away the top lips of the cardboard. Varya ran her fingers over the soft edges before she slipped them into the middle of the growing pile on the desk.

  “There’s more boxes over there, in the corner,” she told Connor.

  He followed the trajectory of her finger and nodded. Varya ripped out a length of tape from a roll she’d brought with her and lashed it to the top of the box to secure it.

  “So, how long have you worked here for?” Connor asked, his voice bright with energy.

  Varya eyed him suspiciously. “Since the institute opened.”

  “You like it?” He watched her, waiting for an answer. Varya stared at him for just a moment too long, until he looked suitably alarmed. Then she nodded.

  He got the message and continued to work, silently.

  Varya sighed. Maybe the task at hand was making her paranoid. Maybe he really was just trying to get to know her. But why?

  “What made you decide to come and work here?” Varya threw him a conversational olive branch.

  “I wanted to be a hero, save a kid or two,” he grinned.

  “Why save a couple of kids with rare diseases here when you could work to save thousands of children from more common ones at the government labs?” she asked, genuinely curious now.

  He shrugged and patted the sides of a newly constructed box, checking its integrity before placing more files in. Varya tensed as she watched him pick up the pile with Kir’s file in and place it carefully in the box.

  “I liked the idea of knowing who I was saving. It’s a self-indulgent thing. I’m not motivated by reducing disease numbers. I’m motivated by helping sick people.”

  “You won’t meet many sick people here in the labs. Maybe you should have been a doctor,” she retorted.

  “I was,” he said quietly.

  She studied his face. Maybe she’d pegged his age wrong, he must have been older if he’d had the time to have a medical career before switching to a research career.

  “I got sick of telling parents their kids were going to die because we couldn’t be bothered to spend the resources on finding a way to save them.”

  That, she understood.

  “So, you need some help getting these somewhere?” Connor unfolded himself and stretched to his full height. His back cracked loudly. He grinned; Varya winced. “Sorry.”

  “They can stay here for now.” As much as she would have loved a hand to get the boxes into her car, she couldn’t think of a story quickly enough to explain why she might be taking Foundation files home.

  He shrugged. “Sure.”

  They both stood, looking around; eyes meeting briefly as they flitted.

  “Do you want to…”

  “You can go back to…”

  They spoke at once, then fell silent.

  “You can go back to work now. I’ll finish this up,” said Varya.

  “You want to go for a drink some time?” Connor asked, leaning against the door frame. Varya only barely restrained herself from rolling her eyes.

  “No. Thank you, but no.”

  Connor didn’t seem surprised or disappointed. He just gave her a small smile. Varya thought his eyes looked a little sad. Was that pity? Feeling flushed, she bent down to pick up a box and stack it on top of another. When she straightened, the doorway was empty.

  Chapter sixteen

  Varya sat at one of the long benches in the kitchen. Designed to encourage collaborative discussions at break times, the lab staff collectively conspired to space themselves as far away from each other as possible and to sit in silence. An empty chair separated each person as they contemplated their lunch. Nobody felt like eating in the days following a Rest Time ceremony. It brought their own limited mortality a little too close for comfort.

  The screen in the corner flashed up news items on a continuous loop. War in the Middle East. Failed trade talks with China. Celebrations of a unified Korea, finally. The fact that most of North Korea was now dust and rubble… well, it was the price you paid for peace, wasn’t it? Rumours were being reported in western news services that Korea was considering following Japan, China, and India with the introduction of compulsory Time Chip technology. Countries with large or ageing populations, or scarce resources, had been the first to follow suit. The United States had introduced a forced roll-out just twelve months after the final phase of implementation in China. India and Singapore followed in the year after that. Many nations offered a voluntary program. The Australian and Chinese governments had made a small fortune selling the technology.

  Varya brought a carrot stick to her mouth and bit do
wn. The crunch was too loud. She looked around her to see if anyone responded. They didn’t. Still, she concentrated on pushing her molars through the stick in her mouth as slowly as possible to avoid the crunch. A familiar scene flashed up on the screen.

  “Ow!” she cried out, as she bit through her cheek instead of the carrot stick.

  The woman two seats away from her looked up, eyebrows raised questioningly. Varya frowned and rubbed her cheek. The woman gave her a sympathetic look and went back to prodding at her own meal. Varya’s eyes snapped back to the communal screen. A ubiquitous brick building, but that tree in the forecourt, the one that was three stories high and dropped all its leaves in the autumn, leaving the kids to crunch along the path to school. That tree belonged to Daniel’s school. She patched her personal screen into the same channel and quickly inserted her earphones.

  “Ben Williams, a nine-year-old student at Ryebald Primary School, was returned to his parents early yesterday morning. Witnesses say he seemed confused and slightly drowsy as he knocked on his own door.”

  The footage cut to a rotund man with glasses, still in his activewear and sweating profusely.

  “He stumbled a little, but I couldn’t see any physical injuries. He just seemed tired and confused.”

  The camera cut again, this time to a stretcher carrying a long, white package out to a black van. No face was visible. Varya clutched the edge of the table and bit down on her lip.

  “Ben’s reunion with his family was brief before devastation followed. He died in hospital just a few short hours after walking back through his own front door.”

  Varya felt the world spinning. Ben. Daniel. It was all too close. She willed her hand to move, to turn off the feed, but she was transfixed. The story would be replayed repeatedly on every media outlet across the country. What was it about horror and tragedy that held their collective imagination so tightly?

  “The sequence of events seems to suggest that the child’s Rest Time initiator was triggered decades earlier than expected. Rest Time Corps, the manufacturer of the initiators, denies the possibility that the unit could have been faulty. Police have confirmed that there have been no other cases of faulty initiators in the past ten years.”