Stealing Time

Daniel, whetherher dependence on them for emotional contact had delayed theachievement of her goal by soaking up precious time. Perhapsfocusing on another child had dulled her sense of urgency. As herfingertip traced the edge of the screen once more, she pressedgently just after the curve. The screen went black as she pushedherself off the bar stool. Her feet felt heavy as she found her wayaround the back of the couch and sat down next to this child thatwasn’t hers but was hers to care for right now. She gently pulledhim into her, resting his head on her chest.
“I hope so, too,” she whispered into hishair.

Chapter nine
Varya’s car lurched forward as it prepared to swinginto the kerb in front of Daniel’s school finally, after waitingnearly fifteen minutes in a queue that backed up all the way to theend of the narrow street. Traffic was stopped up at the main roadthanks to worried parents all insisting on dropping their kidsright at the school gate.
The music on the car radio faded as theypulled to a stop. The announcer calmly informed them that,“Police still have no leads in the case of the disappearance ofnine-year-old Ben Williams. Relatives and friends have all beenquestioned but evidence is pointing towards an abduction. Aspokesperson for Rest Time Corps has dismissed rumours that thetime thieves may be active again and has asked for patience fromthe public in what they’re calling an ‘isolated incident.’ A searchof the bushland surrounding his house commenced at sunrise today,with dozens of volunteers...”
Varya pushed a button to silence the woman’svoice. She scanned the road before unlocking the car doors andnodding to Daniel. Daniel didn’t move. He sat, gazing out thewindow, both hands on the schoolbag at his feet. A car hornsounded behind them.
“Hey, Dan. Come on, kid. Time to go,” shesaid gently.
Daniel took an enormously long breath in andblew it slowly and noisily out of his flared nostrils. He nodded.Without looking at Varya he pushed the car door so hard it swungout and bounced back slightly.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, eyes still cast to thefloor.
“It’s okay.”
But it wasn’t okay, thought Varya, as shewatched him walk through the school gate to safety, before drivingaway. Ben Williams was out there somewhere. With someone. They wereall just stumbling about in the fog, trying to make sense of thisnew world until everything returned to normal.
If, she chastisedherself. If everything returned to normal.
“Send message to Zoe. Daniel safe at school.End message.” She spoke clearly and confidently to her car.
“Message sent,” it replied serenely.
Varya had a sudden urge to swing the cararound, call to Daniel and tell him to get back in, and to drive asfast and as far away as possible. But when she looked in therear-view mirror another car had already taken her place.
Varya swallowed her foreboding and joinedthe stream of vehicles heading away from the school and towardsworkplaces. She needed to focus on finding cures, to keep otherchildren safe. Potential kidnappers were not the only threat to achild’s safety. And besides, she admitted to herself, she found itwas far easier to think of many, faceless, needy children than onefamiliar, vulnerable child.


Chapter ten
Zoe
Ben Williams walked into Gillard Memorial Hospital at9.43 a.m. that same day. News items would later describe how hismother walked by his side, her hand at his back, her face pale. Hisfather walked behind him, bringing up the rear, as though he couldshut the gate after the horse had bolted. Ben walked like a robot,almost gliding along the floor.
Dr Zoe Parker would tell reporters that shedidn’t see them come in, but she heard the commotion outside. She’dbeen doing her rounds, checking up on Annie, a six-year-old girlsuffering from a rare form of brain cancer. She always left Annieuntil last. A year ago, the diagnosis would have been terminal. Zoewould have been prescribing anti-seizure drugs and pain relief.Palliative care only. Rare forms of cancer didn’t warrant researchinvestment from the government.
Annie was lucky, Zoe would tell thejournalist who later wrote a twelve-hundred-word feature article onthe incident. The Minor Miracles Foundation facility had beenworking on a cure for years. And they’d found one, just in time forAnnie to receive it.
Zoe had smiled at the young girl just beforeBen walked down that corridor, the article would begin: “Anotherweek and we’ll have to send you home, Annie.”
Annie’s mother had beamed. “Really?”
Dr Parker heard a muffled roar of noise fromthe corridor. She left Annie’s room in time to see the ward doorsburst open and Ben Williams appear, flanked by his parents and ateam of medical staff.
“I recognised him from the news articles. Hegoes to my son’s school, but I’d never met him,” said DrParker.
Mrs Williams howled in grief as the doorsswung closed behind them, muffling the noise of the media, shuttingout the bright lights of their cameras.
A colleague of Dr Parker’s pushed themforward gently.
“We need to get him to the scanner, to checkhis date,” Dr Martin told her.
A hush fell over the group then, Dr Parkerremembers. That was the point at which she believed the authoritiesshed the pretence that they thought the abduction had no connectionto the horrific time thefts the country endured a decade ago.
Dr Martin opened the door to the treatmentroom and ushered Ben and his parents in, closing the door to allowthem some privacy. Dr Parker described the procedure:
“Dr Martin would have taken the scanner outfrom its cupboard and plugged it in to charge it a little. It’s sorarely used these days, since... He would have asked Ben to sitsideways on the chair, to present the back of his neck to him.There would have been a soft beep as he held the scanner aboveBen’s Rest Time Chip.”
Dr Parker confirmed she had not heard thebeep from outside the room, but everyone standing in the corridorthat day heard Ms William’s cry of anguish as Dr Martin explainedto her that her son would be dead before nightfall.
With tears streaming down her face, DrParker described how her own legs buckled temporarily. She then randown three flights of stairs to the car park, found her car, anddrove to her son’s school. She