“Well, I’m sure he can’t have gone far.Maybe he went camping, or just decided to have some time tohimself. I’m sure he’ll be found soon, okay?” Varya scooped up aspoonful of rice and held it between her bowl and mouthpurposefully.
Daniel looked at her, expressionless.
“Sure,” he muttered. He continued eating,sneaking curious glances at Varya from time to time.
It had seemed like the right thing to do,offering to help Zoe care for Daniel. Sometimes Varya wonderedwhether she’d tried too hard over the years, whether hernear-constant presence might make Zoe feel pushed to the side, orwhether Zoe had seen it as a ready excuse to bury herself in work.Caring for other people’s children while Varya cared for hers. Bothwomen worked non-standard hours. Between them, they ensured Danielalways had someone to greet him at home after school.
Zoe had lost her husband to a rareautoimmune disease and needed help to care for Daniel while shecontinued working shifts at the hospital to support them. Varyaneeded to be near someone who understood the grief she suffered atlosing her son. She couldn’t work twenty-four hours a day at thelab, not without raising suspicion. Especially in the eveninghours, time stretched out. She’d felt like she was rattling aroundher own apartment, after her husband had left.
After Kir was gone.
Varya had taken Kir home from the hospitaltowards the end. The known treatments had failed. The experimentalones had been stopped in their early stages. There were no clinicaltrials for Kir to be enrolled in, no final attempts, no long shots.His condition was rare and, as such, the bean counters who held themedical research purse strings had deemed there to be insufficientpublic interest to invest in a cure. The dollars were being spenton furthering stem cell research for more common childhoodcancers.
And so, Kir had come home.
Zoe had watched it all happen. She’d workedon the same ward, but with different patients. She’d spoken in softtones to Varya in the tearoom. She understood the pain of beingtold your loved one didn’t deserve a chance to live. They bondedover their anger at the system’s failure. Before Kir was dischargedfor good, Zoe gave Varya medications to keep him comfortable.Medications which, she told her newfound friend—out of ear shot ofother staff—if Kir became too distressed, could end his painaltogether at the right dosage. Zoe whispered a number in her ear.Varya clenched her fists, fought back tears, and silently notedit.
By then, Kir’s father had left, taken apromotion up at the naval base just outside Canberra. Sebastian andVarya had fallen out over their son’s medical treatments. Themonths of illness had taken their toll on an already strainedmarriage. Kir was not going to live, Sebastian told her, what wasthe point of putting him through the pain and distress of moretreatments when it was fruitless? Sebastian wanted to spend thefinal days with his son as happily as they could, and then move on.Varya was determined to eke out every extra day she possibly couldwith the only son she would ever have. One child per woman, thatwas the law to contain the population and preserve precious anddwindling natural resources.
They had to try, she said.
No, they didn’t, he said.
In the end, he left. He took a week offafter quitting his job in Melbourne and spent his own final dayswith Kir, the way he wanted to.
And then he was gone. Varya hadn’t heardfrom Sebastian since. Not during the dark days when Kir shivered inthe hospital bed at Gillard Memorial with tubes attached, not whenshe held his head through the night at home while he vomited thecontents of his tiny four-year-old stomach onto the mass of towelsshe kept by his bed.
And then Kir was gone, too.
Later that evening, after the dishes werestacked in the dishwasher and Daniel had retired to his room tochat to his friends and shoot things in his online gaming world,Zoe poured herself another glass of wine and sat, staring at thesubway-tiled splashback. One hand rested on her mini screen. Varyagave the bench one final wipe and came to sit next to herfriend.
“I’m sure that kid’ll be alright.”
Zoe turned to her, frowning. “Are you?”
“He’s probably just wandered off. You knowwhat kids are like these days.”
“I do. And usually they leave some sort ofsign before they decide to take off. A note. A packed backpack.They take their screens with them.” Zoe cut herself off and liftedher glass to her lips, taking a large gulp of wine.
“He didn’t take anything with him? Danieltold you that?”
Zoe had spoken to Daniel in his bedroomwhile Varya was cleaning up from dinner. The conversation fragmentsthat drifted into the kitchen had started out fluid and upbeat,then became monosyllabic and sparse. By the time Zoe had returnedto her seat at the bench she was withdrawn and silent.
“No, Daniel didn’t tell me. I read itonline.” Zoe tapped her screen, staring at it but not focusing.
This was not a good sign, thought Varya.
“There hasn’t been a child abduction in overa decade,” said Zoe. “All that stopped, it was supposed to havestopped with the arrests, the destruction of the technology, theimprovements they made to the Rest Time Chips. They’re tamper-proofnow.” She rubbed at her neck as the words rushed out, swirlingtogether in a cloud of anxiety.
Varya frowned and stared at the back ofZoe’s neck, the tiny scar visible now, with her hair swept to theside. She knew her own neck carried a similar light pink nick,where her Time Chip had been inserted. Sixty-five years, that wasthe maximum time allowed to each person in modern-day Australia.Assuming they stayed out of trouble, worked their allotted hours,and had one child—only one—to get the maximum Time Chip extensionsgranted.
But ten years ago, some people had becomegreedy. They’d discovered a way to steal time from other people.And who had more time to be stolen than a young child? For severalmonths, the time thieves had terrorised the eastern seaboard fromMaroochydore to Melbourne. Until Varya had helped to stop them.
She didn’t want to think about those darktimes when children couldn’t be let out of their parent’s sight foreven a second. She shuddered at the memory of children suddenlyreappearing on the
