Stealing Time

around; eyesmeeting 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 finishthis up,” said Varya.
“You want to go for a drink some time?”Connor asked, leaning against the door frame. Varya only barelyrestrained herself from rolling her eyes.
“No. Thank you, but no.”
Connor didn’t seem surprised ordisappointed. He just gave her a small smile. Varya thought hiseyes looked a little sad. Was that pity? Feeling flushed, she bentdown to pick up a box and stack it on top of another. When shestraightened, 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, thelab staff collectively conspired to space themselves as far awayfrom each other as possible and to sit in silence. An empty chairseparated each person as they contemplated their lunch. Nobody feltlike eating in the days following a Rest Time ceremony. It broughttheir own limited mortality a little too close for comfort.
The screen in the corner flashed up newsitems on a continuous loop. War in the Middle East. Failed tradetalks with China. Celebrations of a unified Korea, finally. Thefact that most of North Korea was now dust and rubble… well, it wasthe price you paid for peace, wasn’t it? Rumours were beingreported in western news services that Korea was consideringfollowing Japan, China, and India with the introduction ofcompulsory Time Chip technology. Countries with large or ageingpopulations, or scarce resources, had been the first to followsuit. The United States had introduced a forced roll-out justtwelve months after the final phase of implementation in China.India and Singapore followed in the year after that. Many nationsoffered a voluntary program. The Australian and Chinese governmentshad made a small fortune selling the technology.
Varya brought a carrot stick to her mouthand bit down. The crunch was too loud. She looked around her to seeif anyone responded. They didn’t. Still, she concentrated onpushing her molars through the stick in her mouth as slowly aspossible to avoid the crunch. A familiar scene flashed up on thescreen.
“Ow!” she cried out, as she bit through hercheek 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 ather own meal. Varya’s eyes snapped back to the communal screen. Aubiquitous brick building, but that tree in the forecourt, the onethat was three stories high and dropped all its leaves in theautumn, leaving the kids to crunch along the path to school. Thattree belonged to Daniel’s school. She patched her personal screeninto the same channel and quickly inserted her earphones.
“Ben Williams, a nine-year-old student atRyebald Primary School, was returned to his parents early yesterdaymorning. Witnesses say he seemed confused and slightly drowsy as heknocked on his own door.”
The footage cut to a rotund man withglasses, still in his activewear and sweating profusely.
“He stumbled a little, but I couldn’t seeany physical injuries. He just seemed tired and confused.”
The camera cut again, this time to astretcher carrying a long, white package out to a black van. Noface was visible. Varya clutched the edge of the table and bit downon her lip.
“Ben’s reunion with his family was briefbefore devastation followed. He died in hospital just a few shorthours 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 thefeed, but she was transfixed. The story would be replayedrepeatedly on every media outlet across the country. What was itabout horror and tragedy that held their collective imagination sotightly?
“The sequence of events seems to suggestthat the child’s Rest Time initiator was triggered decades earlierthan expected. Rest Time Corps, the manufacturer of the initiators,denies the possibility that the unit could have been faulty. Policehave confirmed that there have been no other cases of faultyinitiators in the past ten years.”
It wasn’t supposed to be possible. Theinitiator units were buried deep into the spinal cord and could notbe removed or tampered with. Each person received their Rest Timedate at insertion, which couldn’t be altered without killing thehost. Varya knew, she had helped design the technology. Beforeshe’d left Rest Time Corps forever.
The Chief Commissioner was beinginterviewed; multiple microphones were held in front of her like abunch of pushy tech flowers.
“It’s early days and we will, of course,be fully investigating this horrendous crime. But I can now revealthat, based on certain marks discovered at the back of the victim’sneck…” A photograph of the back of Ben’s neck seemed to showseveral small burn marks arranged in a neat circle. “...we dobelieve his initiator unit may have been tampered with.”
“Shit,” muttered Varya. “Shit, shit,shit.”
The lab tech looked up at her again inconcern. Varya considered reassuring her that she was okay.
“I have to go.” Varya stood, leaving herunfinished meal on the table. Pacing out the door and into theempty hallway, she pushed a button on her personal screen to callZoe. Zoe picked up immediately.
“Zoe?” For a long minute Varya wondered ifthe line had connected at all. She was met with only silence.
“Zoe, are you there?”
Varya waited, getting ready to hang up andtry again.
“I’m here,” whispered Zoe.
“Are you… okay?”
“Daniel’s gone.”
Varya fell against the wall, just managingto keep her legs from collapsing beneath her.
“What?”
“Daniel. The school called. The police areon their way here now. He’s not there. They don’t know where he is.I’m at home. We had journalists calling the hospital all morningabout Ben, so I left. I came home. I’m home now.” Zoe wasbabbling.
“I’m so sorry. Could he have just… Maybehe…”
“The journalist I talked to… he said thepolice said the people who took Ben are probably the same timethieves that have taken Daniel. It’s on the news. That’s what thedoctors thought yesterday… that it was time thieves, when Ben camein. They called the Rest Time Authority. But they said thetechnology simply doesn’t exist anymore. They said it couldn’t betime thieves. They promised. I don’t understand.”
Varya pressed her fingernails