Stealing Time by Rebecca Bowyer (acx book reading .txt) 📕

selected a stack of papers for Zoeto start reading through, along with a four-hour time tab to buythem extra time.

Chapter thirty-two

Elena

For a significant portion of my married life, Iwished my husband dead. He wasn’t a terrible man, you mustunderstand. I didn’t even dislike him. Not very much, anyway. It’sjust that there came a point when living with him became moredifficult than the prospect of living without him.

I’d thought about his death at great length.It wouldn’t be painful. It would be entirely accidental and I wouldbe utterly devastated, but staunch, in my grief. I would hold ittogether for the children. We would speak of their father fondlyand keep photographs of him around the house and celebrate hismemory.

There was no need for me to activelyintervene. I knew, in my bones, that he wouldn’t live a long life.Call it a premonition, second sight or just plain wishfulthinking.

Stan Galanos, that was his name. He was asolicitor who worked in a city office drafting corporate documentsand finding loopholes in contracts. Not exactly dangerous work. Hewas normally home by six o’clock but from time to time his hourswould unexpectedly extend.

Come six-thirty on any given night, I’dwonder whether he was simply working late, or perhaps the trainshad been delayed. I’d put plastic wrap over his cooling dinner,send young Varya off to have her shower, and daydream. In mydaydreams the doorbell would ring. It would be two police officers,there to tell me that they were very sorry, but my husband had beeninvolved in a terrible accident. Was there anybody who could staywith the children while I came to identify the body?

By seven-thirty, when I’d be packing Varyaoff to bed with a story and a kiss, I’d surreptitiously check myphone to see if perhaps there had been a city shooting? Stan workednear the family courts, so I imagined perhaps an estranged fatherhad run amok with a sawn-off shotgun, maybe he’d travelled into thecity to fight for custody of his children. “No, your Honour, Inever beat them with a strap. Except when I’d had a few, but thatwas the alcohol, and I couldn’t help it. And yes, of course I beatmy 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 hadfallen on deaf, unsympathetic ears. Those bastard judges, he wouldthink to himself, always siding with the mothers because the worldwas against fathers. It had nothing to do with the evidencesubmitted by their local hospital—of broken bones and testimonythat it was the father’s hands that snapped them.

And so, the children were denied a fatherand the father snapped and roared out of the court with thespecific intent of denying passers-by their lives.

And I pictured my poor, poor husband gettingcaught up within the toxic male rage which emanated from thishypothetical man who was just trying to be the best father he couldbe—in his own opinion.

I would peer at my phone and frown, waitingfor it to ring. Instead, just as I was dimming Varya’s bedroomlight and planning how I was going to get through the next twelvemonths pretending to be surprised and devastated about mywidowhood, my phone would illuminate and vibrate with a messagefrom Stan.

“So sorry, lost track of time. So muchwork on right now. Leaving now. Love you. See you soon.”

And so, it was with great surprise that Iwoke up one morning to discover my husband cold and stiff in thebed beside me. A heart attack at age fifty-four. So pedestrian, sopredictable, so convenient.

We mourned him. I flashed his deathcertificate at the superannuation company (his retirements savingswere not inconsiderable), at the bank (the house was now mineoutright) and Varya’s school (to have his name taken off thecorrespondence that he never bothered to read anyway). And then Islid in between the cool sheets of our marital bed each night andslept, unassailed and deeply.

Like a good widow, I spent nearly a month inthat bed before I felt able to return to work. I got up to takeVarya to school and then I went back to bed. I got up again in theafternoons to welcome her home.

A few years later, when Varya came home fromher not-so-new-anymore job at the Rest Time Corps, ramblingsomething about life spans, I nodded sagely. Her father, rest hissoul, would have been fascinated to hear about the scientific basisof this newly discovered innate life force – complete withgenetically coded ‘use by’ date – but I didn’t have to work toohard to understand the general gist. I quickly realised that I knewabout life spans already. It’s just that a couple of generationsback we called it things like ‘fate’ or said, ‘her number had justcome up’.

The disturbing thing, and what really mademe sit up and listen, was that Varya’s colleague—Reginald, aquiet-mannered, tall weed of a man—thought he could harness thislife force. He wanted to bottle it, basically, though I don’t thinkhe ever figured out how. With Varya’s help he did, however, figureout how to transfer it from one animal to another. Immortal mice,can you imagine it?

When the time thefts started people were allup in arms about the Time Chips and them being tampered with. ButTime Chips are manmade devices, loaded with poison. That’s all theyare. Encrypted, defended, tamper-proof, whatever. They’re no use toanyone else. You can’t ‘transfer time’ from one Chip to another.Why wouldn’t you just hack into and re-program the existing Chip ifyou wanted to live longer?

And yet, that’s what the news reports allsaid. The Time Chips of the kids had been tampered with, thehospital scanners said so. They leaked a couple of clips to proveit. Returned with just a few hours left on the clock. The peoplewho stole the children must have done it to steal their time, thatwas the conclusion everyone jumped to. These were kidnappers whowanted to live forever.

But of course, delaying your lethalinjection isn’t going to matter half a damn if your number is upanyway, is it?

I heard Varya and Reginald whispering overtheir single malt whiskeys one night, after the first few childrenhad been returned. She’d brought him home with