“Marisa.”
“Tina.”
“What do you have for us today?”
Marisa pulled her screen out of her pocket, tapped at it, and held it up so Tina could see. In exchange for her success with the soirée set, Marisa had requested five per cent of the profits be diverted to support this women’s shelter. It was a small gesture but one that helped Marisa keep her focus. Her experience of rare childhood diseases was very different to Varya’s. Her son died in a tiny room with bare cupboards and bars on the windows, not dissimilar to the ones laid out above her head now. There was no expensive medicine sent home with him, they had to make do with paracetamol. It provided little comfort in the face of the wracking coughs which shook his tiny frame.
This wasn’t a story Marisa had chosen to share with Varya. In fact, she’d shared no story at all, just a request to do this one thing, plus one-hundred four-hour time tabs to distribute each month to the women who lived here with their children. Marisa hadn’t expected her employer to understand and was glad she’d asked for no explanation.
“Every month?” she’d asked.
Marisa had nodded. “Yes, every month. To be available on the first of the month and to be distributed when I get around to it.”
“Okay.’’ And they’d moved on to the next order. The time tabs had been ready on the first of every month since then, without fail. Varya never mentioned them, just handed them over with the latest order. She never asked where they went. Marisa was never entirely sure whether it was because she was being discreet, or because she simply didn’t care.
Maybe that wasn’t fair. We all had a limited supply of care factor, Marisa knew. Maybe Varya’s quota was fully allocated to the Kir Problem. She could forgive that. If she’d had a chance to save her son, she would have thrown her own care factor quota—plus anyone else’s that she could beg, borrow or steal—at his problem. Marisa’s son’s problem had been simple, though. Not a rare or complicated disease. Just asthma. Exacerbated by poor health, poor food, and a cold apartment when the heat turned off because the money ran out. Rationed medicine because that, too, ran out when the money did, which it seemed to do all too often. The night of his final asthma attack, she’d called the ambulance when his lips turned blue. By the time they came his breath had stopped, his warmth starting to fade in the cold, cold room. And still they sent her a bill for the ambulance.
Marisa knew what life was like for the women in this apartment block. After working twelve-hour days, five days a week, they would come home to feed and care for their child—bathing them, putting them to bed, washing their clothes and preparing for the next day. It was hard to find any time to spend with them that wasn’t overshadowed by complete exhaustion.
The time tabs helped a little. For some it meant being able to have a four-hour nap as soon as they got home and waking up more refreshed and able to actually enjoy spending time with their child. For others it meant four hours of time on the weekend to spend studying for a new qualification, one that would lead to a higher-paying job and allow them to leave the shelter and rent a better home, one far away from the perpetrator who sent them running for shelter in the first place. A home without bars on the windows.
Tina peered over her glasses at the numbers on the screen and picked up a screen from behind the desk to hold it up in front of Marisa’s. It buzzed: transaction completed. Tina nodded towards an empty space over Marisa’s shoulder.
“Rec room’s cleared if you want to use that today. They know you’re coming.”
Marisa put her screen away and headed into the room behind her. The bare walls and bright orange plastic moulded chairs made a stark contrast to her sales platform the day prior. In one corner sat smaller chairs and tables, faded reds and blues with assorted cups full of pencils, worn down inconsistently. Someone had tried to cheer up the room by tacking children’s drawings to the wall. Sunshine and aliens seemed to be the main themes. Marisa smiled and sat down in one of the less cracked adult chairs. They were clean, at least. Shelters like this used to receive government funding, before, when gender equality was a focus. Now everybody assumed gender inequity was a thing of the past. The flavour of the month had moved on. Age equality was the new focus. And yet still it was often the women who kept their child close when relationships broke down, even when violence played no part.
Her customers drifted in one by one. Some brought their son or daughter with them; some left them under the erratically watchful eye of older children upstairs. Marisa mused that ‘customers’ wasn’t quite the right word. No payment was made, though goods were passed over.
Rosa used her time tabs to get some extra sleep after working four extra hours online while her child slept. The money paid for hearing aids for her daughter.
Maggie came with a gurgling baby on her hip. She used her tabs to get a solid four hours of sleep in between night feeds.
Lenny used hers to simply get some time to herself after putting her twins to bed. She told Marisa she’d started reading her way through a full set of Georgette Heyer’s classic romance novels that she’d found at a second-hand shop.
Marisa snorted.
“A girl can dream, can’t she?” laughed Lenny.
“You’ve not been a girl for a good couple of decades, Lenny,” Marisa observed as she handed over the plain matchbox of tabs. “Just as long as you know they’re fiction.”
Lenny took the matchbox and opened it immediately to stare greedily at the smooth, transparent slips. “No chance of me looking for my own real-life version, love. I’ve already got two kids sleeping in bunks in the room next door. I’ve got no desire to share my own room with any breathing body, whether it’s man-shaped or baby-shaped.”
Lenny closed the box and tapped it against her palm twice before she stood up.
“Thank you. Hope to see you again next month. May your time be plentiful.”
A grin creased the corners of Marisa’s mouth. It was her own brand of social sabotage to implant the same phrase here, at the other end of town, when the idle socialites twenty blocks away thought it was their own specially coded greeting.
She smiled warmly at her. “You’re welcome. May your time be plentiful too.”
Her screen buzzed on the table next to her. A message from Varya: “Daniel safely returned and enclosed. Food package for three tonight, please.”
“Oh, good. Wonderful.” Marisa pushed a breath out of her lungs that she seemed to have been holding since Daniel was taken. She peered into her tin box. Only two matchboxes left.
“Nearly done here. Let me know what you need next,” she tapped back.
“Meet me at apartment,” came the swift reply.
Marisa held up her palm in farewell to Tina in reception as she walked the same path she had an hour earlier.
“Hey, before you go, love…” Tina started, leaning forward onto the counter, and looking down the hallway and back to Marisa.
Marisa stopped and lowered her hand.
“I was just wondering whether you knew anything about these time thieves.” The last two words were spoken in a stage whisper.
“Only as much as anyone who watches the news.”
Tina rubbed her thumbnail against the pen she held, making grating noises as she passed the raised brand letters each time.
“It’s just that, I mean, I don’t know if it means anything, but I was thinking.” She stopped and slotted the pen back in its stand so hard that the little strand of silver balls connecting the two rattled against the desk. “Nah, don’t worry. I’m wasting your time on gossip.”
Marisa inched closer to the desk and put her palm down, a single finger reaching out to hold the strand still.
“I’m listening.”
“Well, these past few weeks we’ve had two kids go missing, about four days apart. Violent dads, drug-addicted mothers. A six-year-old girl and an eight-year-old boy. Figured they’d done a runner, or the dad took ‘em. But now, I wonder if it isn’t tied up with this other
stuff that’s been going on.”
Marisa frowned. “You reported it to the police?”
“’Course I did. They didn’t do much, took a statement from me, couldn’t rouse the mums. Not much to go on. Can’t blame them really.”
“And they never came back?”
“Nup. Haven’t seen nor heard from neither of them since.” She paused, expectantly. “So? What do you think?”
Marisa shook her head. “Sounds like what you said—runaways or fathers.”
Tina shrugged and sighed. “Ah well. I hope they’re okay.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
Chapter twenty-eight
“Why Ben?” Marisa stepped into the apartment past Varya and turned to face her.
“Hello to you, too,” said Varya, closing the door gently.
“Why Daniel?”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean?”
“Why would they take older kids who can fend for themselves, from a middle-class district, rather than younger kids with more years on their Chips from poorer neighbourhoods where it’s less likely to make headlines? It doesn’t make sense.”
“I don’t think anyone has ever accused those monsters of being sensible, Marisa. Maybe they’re just not very bright.”
“Or maybe they’re trying to make a point.”
“What point? That dying young is awful?”
Marisa looked away in frustration, annoyed at Varya for not being receptive to the idea and annoyed at herself for not having thought it out more.
Babies and toddlers were the logical children to take to maximise the number of years left to drain from the Chips. But they were harder to snatch, rarely left unattended. They were also harder to return unnoticed. The returning was smart, she’d always thought, in a macabre kind of way. It left no pile of bodies, but everyone was so focused on the trauma of the dying child, they didn’t have a chance to ask for details of the kidnappers. Not that the returned children could have told them much anyway, apart from vague memories of a drugged haze.
Varya waited for Marisa to say something more. When she didn’t, she turned on her heel and returned to the kitchen, not waiting for her employee to follow. Marisa took her time to collect herself. She could hear murmuring in the kitchen and strained to identify the other voice. It wasn’t Zoe’s voice, as she’d expected. Too low. She dared to hope that, after all these years, Varya had finally agreed to ask Sebastian for help.
It was the rational thing to do. Other cures had been pushed through the labs at a satisfactory rate. Kir’s cure was still languishing in the unsolved mysteries bucket after more than four long years. There was no guarantee that Sebastian could provide the breakthrough that Varya needed, but it was the next logical step. Marisa continued listening to the voices, calm and in control, and wondered if Varya had become a little too comfortable with having her son and mother preserved in a living museum. She pushed herself off the wall where she had slumped and trudged up the apartment’s short hallway.
The small, round dining table held a sea of papers and clips which Connor and Varya pushed around, turned, and exchanged at regular intervals. Varya looked up briefly but returned her eyes to the papers before she spoke.
“I shopped for ingredients, they’re in the fridge. Recipes for the week are in the folder.”
Marisa pursed her lips and wriggled her nose. Varya was an easy boss and some-time friend, as long as you didn’t second guess her. Question her judgement and she would shut down, just like this. Marisa resolved to try to keep any further thoughts about the time thefts to herself, focus on stashing away money for her retirement and getting out of here.
She flicked through the recipes Varya had bookmarked. Pizza with tomato sauce and pepperoni but no herbs, just as Kir liked it. Spaghetti with expensive meat sauce, but with added pureed vegetables – enough to provide extra nutrients but not enough so that Kir would notice it. Kir didn’t like vegetables, which was kind of fine when you were only four years old for one year, but not so great when your fussiness was artificially extended beyond the usual age thresholds. And for sweets: freshly baked donuts with jam in the middle. The exact same strawberry and raspberry jam that you could only find at one particular monthly market just outside of the city. The market that Varya made time to go to every single month.
“Have you called Sebastian yet?” Marisa ventured, with more confidence in her tone than she felt.
“No. Why would I need to call Sebastian?” Varya asked in a slightly strained voice, still shuffling and arranging papers. “Do you feel, in any way, in imminent danger?”
Connor stopped his shuffling and looked up, alerted to the tension between the two women. Marisa slapped a wooden board down on the counter and started to assemble the dough in a bowl next to it.
“Oh, you know. I just thought maybe he might know something about that time transfer technology thing you mentioned before. Not that I’d know anything about that, of course, just making conversation.” She measured and poured the water and started to fold in the flour, her back to Varya.
“I’m sure I don’t need his help with that,” Varya retorted stiffly. “If he knew anything about it, he would have already offered it up.”
“Varya!” Marisa was done with being diplomatic. It was never her strong suit.
“What?”
Marisa spun to face her, floury hands still poised over the glass bowl. “Yesterday you finally agreed to let me try to find Sebastian to ask for his help. Then he just waltzes into your apartment, and now you’ve changed your mind?”
Varya avoided Marisa’s glare, staring at the kickboards of the cabinets. She took a breath. Her fingers rubbed at the paper she was holding.
“I don’t need his… advice, as such. I just need his access.”
Marisa frowned. “His access? You mean like passwords or something?” She looked to Connor for help. He shrugged.
“He doesn’t know the time transfer technology still exists. But he does have access to where it was stored.”
“So, tell him to go and get it!” Marisa shouted.
She shook her head sadly. “It’s not that simple.”
“Yes, actually, it is.” Marisa picked up Varya’s phone from the counter and stomped over to hand it to her, shedding flour on her clean pants. “Call him.”
Varya took the phone with her fingertips and laid it down carefully on the table, then started to brush at the flour dust on her lap. “I don’t need to,” she said. “I’ve already arranged to meet him this afternoon.”
The fury drained from Marisa. She leaned against the bench and watched Varya. She felt tired.
“You’re not going to tell him, are you?”
Varya shook her head slightly. “There’s no need to.”
Marisa closed her eyes. “How many more secrets are you going to keep from him?”
“As many as necessary.”
Chapter twenty-nine
Daniel
“And this is Yappy Dog, and this is Teresa the Wonder Sheep, and this is Rooster.” Kir patted each one of his stuffed friends on the head. “Say hello to Daniel!” He turned and grinned.
“That’s not a rooster. It’s a hen.” Daniel pointed to the rotund fluffy ball with a chewed-up bit of orange material hanging from its beak. “It doesn’t have a comb.”
Kir blinked, crestfallen.
“You know, the bit that goes on the rooster’s head?” Daniel planted his hand against the centre of his skull and waggled his fingers in the air, demonstrating. “This one is a girl chicken.”
“Well, her name is still Rooster.” Kir picked up the gender-fluid poultry and wrapped his arms around it defensively. He sat on his bed and watched his new moving friend, still undecided about whether he was happy about his arrival. When he had imagined one of the frozen children coming to life, they had always been far more agreeable than the one that stood in front of him. The frozen children just laughed when he told his joke about the knock knocks and the interrupting ghost.
And they always nodded when he told them things and they stood exactly where he wanted them to stand when they played statues. Daniel was standing a little bit too close for Kir’s liking, hands in pockets and a sad look on his face. Daniel was also very tall.
“Your mum says we used to play together when I was little,” said Daniel.
Kir continued to stare. The tour of his bedroom was now complete, and he didn’t quite know what to say to Daniel that wouldn’t be wrong again. He wasn’t sure if he liked him yet, but he didn’t want to make him leave before he’d decided.
“Do you remember me?” asked Daniel. “From when I was little?” It was becoming clear to him that, although this might be the same boy he’d played Matchbox cars with at age four, they were no longer equal. Kir was still just a little boy. Daniel realised that he was perhaps intimidating the small boy with his height, and sat down, cross-legged on the carpet, in a swift drop-collapse manoeuvre. Kir started to swing his legs, low at first but then higher and then just a little bit higher. He reached out his big toe. It nearly touched Daniel’s nose. He giggled.
“Hey!” said Daniel, catching the boy’s foot in his hand gently.
“Are you staying?”
“For a while, yes, I guess. Not too long.” Daniel thought for a moment. “I have to get back to school. I’ve got a basketball quarter-final next week.”
“Oh,” said Kir. “So not long.”
Daniel shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
Kir sat up straight, excited to have thought of something else to talk about.
“What sickness do you have? I have cancer.”
Daniel laughed. “Oh, I’m not sick.”
Kir frowned. “Then why are you here? My Mum brought me here ‘cause I’m sick and she has to find a cure before I can come out again. Why did your mum bring you here?”
Daniel leaned forward and flicked Rooster’s orange beard. Kir snatched the toy away, out of his reach.
“I guess you could say I’m not sick, but I’ll die real soon if Varya can’t find a cure to fix me.”
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