Come six-thirty on any given night, I’d wonder whether he was simply working late, or perhaps the trains had been delayed. I’d put plastic wrap over his cooling dinner, send young Varya off to have her shower, and daydream. In my daydreams the doorbell would ring. It would be two police officers, there to tell me that they were very sorry, but my husband had been involved in a terrible accident. Was there anybody who could stay with the children while I came to identify the body?
By seven-thirty, when I’d be packing Varya off to bed with a story and a kiss, I’d surreptitiously check my phone to see if perhaps there had been a city shooting? Stan worked near the family courts, so I imagined perhaps an estranged father had run amok with a sawn-off shotgun, maybe he’d travelled into the city to fight for custody of his children. “No, your Honour, I never beat them with a strap. Except when I’d had a few, but that was the alcohol, and I couldn’t help it. And yes, of course I beat my wife when she was disobedient. But it was only for her own good. And I said sorry afterwards.”
But in this daydream of mine, his pleas had fallen on deaf, unsympathetic ears. Those bastard judges, he would think to himself, always siding with the mothers because the world was against fathers. It had nothing to do with the evidence submitted by their local hospital—of broken bones and testimony that it was the father’s hands that snapped them.
And so, the children were denied a father and the father snapped and roared out of the court with the specific intent of denying passers-by their lives.
And I pictured my poor, poor husband getting caught up within the toxic male rage which emanated from this hypothetical man who was just trying to be the best father he could be—in his own opinion.
I would peer at my phone and frown, waiting for it to ring. Instead, just as I was dimming Varya’s bedroom light and planning how I was going to get through the next twelve months pretending to be surprised and devastated about my widowhood, my phone would illuminate and vibrate with a message from Stan.
“So sorry, lost track of time. So much work on right now. Leaving now. Love you. See you soon.”
And so, it was with great surprise that I woke up one morning to discover my husband cold and stiff in the bed beside me. A heart attack at age fifty-four. So pedestrian, so predictable, so convenient.
We mourned him. I flashed his death certificate at the superannuation company (his retirements savings were not inconsiderable), at the bank (the house was now mine outright) and Varya’s school (to have his name taken off the correspondence that he never bothered to read anyway). And then I slid in between the cool sheets of our marital bed each night and slept, unassailed and deeply.
Like a good widow, I spent nearly a month in that bed before I felt able to return to work. I got up to take Varya to school and then I went back to bed. I got up again in the afternoons to welcome her home.
A few years later, when Varya came home from her not-so-new-anymore job at the Rest Time Corps, rambling something about life spans, I nodded sagely. Her father, rest his soul, would have been fascinated to hear about the scientific basis of this newly discovered innate life force – complete with genetically coded ‘use by’ date – but I didn’t have to work too hard to understand the general gist. I quickly realised that I knew about life spans already. It’s just that a couple of generations back we called it things like ‘fate’ or said, ‘her number had just come up’.
The disturbing thing, and what really made me sit up and listen, was that Varya’s colleague—Reginald, a quiet-mannered, tall weed of a man—thought he could harness this life force. He wanted to bottle it, basically, though I don’t think he ever figured out how. With Varya’s help he did, however, figure out how to transfer it from one animal to another. Immortal mice, can you imagine it?
When the time thefts started people were all up in arms about the Time Chips and them being tampered with. But Time Chips are manmade devices, loaded with poison. That’s all they are. Encrypted, defended, tamper-proof, whatever. They’re no use to anyone else. You can’t ‘transfer time’ from one Chip to another. Why wouldn’t you just hack into and re-program the existing Chip if you wanted to live longer?
And yet, that’s what the news reports all said. The Time Chips of the kids had been tampered with, the hospital scanners said so. They leaked a couple of clips to prove it. Returned with just a few hours left on the clock. The people who stole the children must have done it to steal their time, that was the conclusion everyone jumped to. These were kidnappers who wanted to live forever.
But of course, delaying your lethal injection isn’t going to matter half a damn if your number is up anyway, is it?
I heard Varya and Reginald whispering over their single malt whiskeys one night, after the first few children had been returned. She’d brought him home with her, which I thought strange—she only had eyes for Sebastian by then, you understand—until I realised what they were whispering about, of course.
“It’s the time transfer devices that were stolen, I’m sure of it,” he trembled, his intonation rising and threatening to push up the volume.
“But it’s the Time Chips that have been killing them at precise moments, they’ve clearly calibrated them specifically.” Varya’s voice was soft, comforting, but I heard the slight note of panic, that only I could pick up on.
“But why, Varya, why would they do that? Why would anyone go to the trouble of kidnapping a child, rewinding their Time Chip, and returning them to their parents, just so they can watch them die?”
“A psychopath, a serial killer, maybe? Maybe it has nothing to do with profit.”
“No, there are too many children, too many places. It’s not just a serial killer, this is an organised syndicate. They’re taking the life span, I’m sure of it. They’re just hacking the Time Chips as well to cover it up. It’s all smoke screens and mirrors.”
“You’re being paranoid,” she said, trying to soothe. “There’s no way to be certain that the life spans have been drained.”
“You’re being naïve,” he hissed. “Where do you think the missing time transfer prototypes have gone?”
“Keep your voice down. They were probably confiscated and destroyed. It’s not like we were supposed to have them anyway.”
“Varya, they were stolen. If they’d been confiscated, you and I would have been marched out of that facility and straight into the nearest prison. That project was stopped by someone high up.”
“But… but you said we had approval.”
“We did. It was retracted.”
There was silence for a good while, then. My own hand shook, and I wished I had a tumbler of that single malt to fortify me, too. I feared for my Varya then, for what she’d gotten herself mixed up in. She was a good girl, you must understand. And goodness knows, she’s paid her penance a thousand times over since then.
Then Reginald said this: “I have one left, that I hid apart from the other ones.”
“So, use it. Test your theory.”
I heard the clink of glass against glass then, as he put his down on the table.
“I’m going to.”
He left after that. I listened to the front door close and my Varya go to her bedroom and slam her door. I didn’t hear anything after that, but I did watch my daughter become more withdrawn and fearful. I wanted to put it down to it simply being an extension of the fear everyone was feeling. She worked long, long hours trying to help find a way to ‘fix’ the kids who were returned, before their Time Chips kicked in. But one after another, they dropped dead in front of the nation’s eyes. It was horrifying.
And then, Sebastian and his esteemed colleagues caught the bastards and their technology. The technology was destroyed, the bastards sent to jail for life, and we all set about living our allotted years to the fullest again.
By then Varya had married Sebastian and left me for good, and Kir was already rolling around Varya’s womb, unbeknownst to us all.
I had a few delightful years to myself, after Var
ya moved in with Sebastian and before Kir got sick.
I didn’t particularly want it to come to an end. But at sixty-four years of age the Rest Time Authority thought I’d had enough time for fun. If only they knew about my retirement bonus in here, with Kir. It does get a little boring at times. I look forward to catching up on some Netflix when I get out. But I’m happy to wait for the right moment.
Chapter thirty-three
Marisa
Marisa brought spaghetti bolognese into the Time Lock for dinner that evening. Enough for three this time. She hadn’t had the chance to check what Daniel’s favourite meal was, but she figured she couldn’t go wrong with spaghetti bolognese. She smiled as she watched Daniel mop up the last of his sauce with a chunk of bread and stuff it in his mouth. Kir watched the newcomer in fascination, stooping to take a bite of his own meal from time to time whenever prompted to by Elena.
Elena glanced at Marisa meaningfully and raised an eyebrow. Marisa nodded and flicked her head at the children, raising her own eyebrows.
“Kir, why don’t you show Daniel your game of 3D snakes and ladders?’’
“I’m bored of snakes and ladders. I’ve already played it eleventy billion times,” Kir complained, dropping his head onto the table.
‘’Well maybe it will become even more interesting on the eleventy billion and first time,” said Elena.
Kir bumped his head against his arms again. “No.’’
Daniel tried to stifle a laugh.
“Maybe you’ll be able to beat Daniel,” said Marisa. “He’s probably only played it twenty times. You’re an expert compared to him.”
Kir’s head snapped up as he considered Daniel as a potential new opponent.
Daniel shook his head. “Thirty times, at least. And I’ve won twenty-seven of them, I reckon.”
Kir ran out of the room and down the hallway towards his bedroom, shouting, “I’ve played eleventy billion times! I’m going to win!”
Daniel took another slice of bread from the table and folded it in his hands before following the small boy with an amused smile on his face.
Elena watched Marisa as she stared after the children. “They’re safe for now,” Elena reassured her.
‘’Do you think it’s our fault Kir is still here? Maybe if we’d pushed harder, earlier.”
Elena shook her head and started to collect the dirty dishes from the table. “My Varya cannot be told. She is stubborn, that girl, always has been.” She stood and carried the stack of plates over to the sink and started to fill it. “Our job is to look after the boys and keep them safe while she finds a way to fix them.”
Marisa moved over to the sink and plucked a fresh dishcloth from the second drawer down.
“She’s agreed to turn the lab over to figuring out how to fix Daniel. And any other kids who might be taken and returned.”
Elena nodded and submerged the stack of dishes into the warm soapy water. “And Reginald? Did you ask him?”
“Yes, I did.” Marisa paused, fidgeting with the cloth. “He swears it has nothing to do with him, that he kept the time transfer device locked away. Do you trust him?”
She hesitated for a moment and then nodded. “To be truthful, yes, I do.”
“I’ve asked him to check, anyway. To make sure it’s still there. He says he will, but he can’t get to the location just yet. He won’t tell me where it is.”
Elena smiled. “That’s our Reginald, always trying to protect everyone.”
Marisa took a cleaned dish and wiped in slow circles. “He wants to talk to you.”
“Oh?”
“Something about making plans for the future.”
“Ah, yes. The future.” Elena placed the last plate on the draining board, dried her hands and sat back down at the table.
“He wants me to bring him to you tonight.”
Elena sighed. “Yes, yes. Bring him in. I’ll make sure the children are asleep.”
Marisa gathered the clean plates in her arms and bit her lip. “What plans are you making, Elena?”
Elena waved her away. “Nothing you need to worry about now. Just know that, when the time comes, we won’t forget about you.”
Marisa frowned and opened her mouth to protest but then sighed and closed it again. Elena was every bit as stubborn as her daughter.
“I’ll be back with Reg in three hours, then,” she finally said.
Chapter thirty-four
Daniel
“Nanna, Nanna! I won snakes and ladders! And now I’m ready for my Entiac!” Kir came racing around the corner of the living room and crashed into his grandmother’s knees. He giggled and placed his head in her lap.
Elena sighed and reached behind her for a large brown bottle which sat on top of the piano.
“Has Yappy Dog cleaned his teeth?” she asked.
“Yes!” shouted Kir.
“And has Teresa the Wonder Sheep gone to the toilet?” Elena poked the boy in the side gently. He collapsed on the floor in a puddle of giggles.
“Yes!” he cried, elated.
Elena took a deep breath but then held it and winked at Daniel. Kir sat up and blinked rapidly at her, expectantly.
“Rooster!” she called out. “Rooster, have you chosen a bedtime story?” She cupped her hand around her ear. Kir listened intently as well. Daniel looked around, unsure what was happening. Elena leaned forward, her chin almost touching her knees. “Rooster says he wants to read Goodnight Moon. That okay with you?” she whispered.
Kir nodded and held both hands up to his mouth, as though he could stuff his laughter back in. “Yes,” he whispered, leaning forward, and touching her forehead.
Elena stood up suddenly, bottle in hand. “Then off to bed we go!” To Daniel she said, “I’ll be back in about ten minutes.”
Daniel sat and waited, listening to Kir’s laughter settle down. Elena’s words became progressively softer and then morphed into a lullaby. Eventually, there was silence.
“What’s Entiac?” he asked her when she returned to her chair.
She regarded him as though she’d forgotten he was there, then closed her eyes.
“It stands for Night-Time In A Cup.”
“Oh.”
She opened both eyes again and looked at him curiously. “Do you feel tired?”
“A little,” he admitted. It wasn’t a huge need for sleep, more a weariness born of confusion and stress.
“I’m sorry, then. You will probably feel a little tired until you leave the Time Lock, if that’s how you came in.” She sighed and shut her eyes again. “Entiac is a sleeping draught. Kir came into the Time Lock shortly after he’d woken up from a nap, and about an hour after he’d taken medication which stopped the symptoms of his illness. Especially the pain. The downside, for me, is that it means his energy never runs down.”
“He’s always that bouncy?”
She nodded and sighed softly. “He’s always that bouncy.”
“But you came in tired?”
Elena shook her head. “No, I came in as well rested as a sixty-four-year-old can be. I don’t get particularly tired either. But I do get worn down. I love that little boy like nothing else, but even I can’t answer his incessant questions every minute of every hour for years on end.” She raised her eyebrows at him pointedly. “Perhaps you’d like a rest too?”
“Oh. Yes, I’m sure a rest would be good.” He stood quickly, feeling as though he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t. “I’ll, um, go to my room then.”
Elena nodded her approval. “I’ll let you know when to come out. If you prefer a sleeping draught—some ‘Entiac’ as Kir calls it—let me know.”
He shook his head. He’d had enough of being drugged and losing time these past few days.
“Good night, then,” said Daniel, glancing over Elena’s shoulder at the bright sunlight streaming through the window.
“Good night.”
Sometime later—maybe half an hour, maybe three times that, it was hard
to tell—Daniel thought he smelled something odd, like burning plastic. He removed the headphones he was wearing and listened. He heard nothing and the smell seemed to grow fainter the more he breathed it in. He frowned and put the headphones back on, watching episodes on an old DVD player of a kids’ cartoon from five years ago. It was enough to keep his mind from straying for the moment, but he hoped his mum or Varya could find him some more age-appropriate viewing when they next came to visit. He had no idea how long he would be stranded here, and no idea how much time had passed outside the Time Lock either. He chewed his lip again and turned the volume up, determined not to think about it.
They were all treating him like he might shatter at any moment, as though he’d gone through a traumatic experience. There hadn’t been a spare moment to explain to them that, actually, he didn’t really remember anything. He remembered being at school, hearing the bell ringing but after that it was a blank screen until he showed up at his own front door. At first, when he saw his mother’s panicked face, he thought something had gone wrong at the hospital, another kid had died maybe. His mum always told people she dealt with it just fine, it was part of the job, she was glad she could make their passing a little more comfortable, a little more dignified. But he always knew when the strain was becoming too much. He’d stopped asking, though, when he hadn’t been able to get proper answers from her. In the end, asking only brought more attention down on his own head, as though it could have been him lying in that hospital bed, the life ebbing out of him.
And now… now, it was him.
He didn’t feel any different. Nothing hurt, there was no distress. He supposed he should feel fear at his close scrape with death. But it was such an intangible idea, that he could no longer exist in just a few hours if he stepped outside of the Time Lock.
Stealing Time Page 14