Stealing Time

By Lisa Timpf

Colors flickered along the ad wall beside me as a female voice extolled the benefits of a visit to the Olympus Mons spa. You can’t be talking to me.

“Kytt Windthorn!” The AI must have sensed my disinterest, swapping its sultry tone for a knife-edge. “Don’t you want to go to Mars?”

Okay, it was talking to me. But why?

It’s not as if I wouldn’t want to go. The lush greenery, the cerulean skies—

A life of petty thievery doesn’t lend to vast reserves of cash.

But it could, couldn’t it?

I squared my shoulders. I deserved a vacation. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to pick up a job on the dark web, just this once.

***

I sat in the waiting room in my stealth suit, invisible to others. Special lenses in my glasses enabled me to see my quarry—time. All the glittering moments and seconds—an aura, waiting for us to move through it. Like so many beautiful things—the planet, for example, before we pretty much ruined it—we failed to appreciate it.

Or rather, most of us failed to appreciate it. I, on the other hand, was deeply grateful for the opportunity all these dancing motes of time represented. The small, hand-powered timevac I’d fabbed up purred as quietly as a quantum cat when I clicked the switch on the handle, sucking those precious moments through a flexible hose and into a large bottle. Any number of container styles would have worked, but this one was a tribute to my nana, who’d always been a big Jim Croce fan.

I’d scoured the dark web for a job that wouldn’t compromise my morals. Dev, an old guy who’d run out of longevity treatment options and still wasn’t ready to meet his maker, had offered an obscene amount of money in exchange for time.

I could’ve harvested my first batch hours ago. Time was everywhere, and all I had to do was collect it. Well, okay, steal it. But I blunted the edge of that harsh reality by crafting my own set of rules. No snatching time away from anyone who looked to be older than sixty. No shortening someone’s celebration party, or barging into something they were enjoying. Instead, I stole a few minutes here, a few minutes there, from folks who were anxious for it to go. Commuters waiting for buses or turbotrains. Kids in school, eager for class to be over so they could goof off at recess. Those kinds of people.

This was a win-win. Or rather, win-win-win. Time appeared to speed along more quickly for those who wanted it to, my client got an extension on life, and I collected money for my Mars vacay.

I checked the bottle. Full.

Time to make a delivery.

***

I continued collecting time for a few weeks, expanding my gathering zone so I didn’t hit the same place too often. My client received each time vial with gratitude and paid right away. I almost felt like an honest laborer. I could get used to this.

But there were only so many places to gather time under the constraints I’d set for myself without spending money on transit, which would eat into profits. So one day, I found myself back in the same waiting room in the same doctor’s office I’d hit up the first day.

I was doing my thing when a woman in her thirties and her daughter walked into the waiting room from the exam spaces behind. I’d noticed the dark-haired lady with deep worry lines across her face during my first visit.  The girl had shadowed eyes and a willowy frame that reminded me of my own waif-like physique as a kid. Only, judging from the mother’s watery eyes and the fact that we were at the doctor’s, I suspected a different underlying cause than hunger.

The suction unit dangled in my hand as I considered this. I idled the timevac, allowing the hose to retract into the backpack that housed the working unit. I remembered now. The medical building housed specialists in a number of fields. Including—a quick glance at the sign above the reception desk confirmed it—a doctor of oncology.

My shoulders slumped. Maybe stealing time was not, as I’d told myself, a victimless crime. Time was likely precious to everyone in this waiting room.

I thought of Dev, waiting for his next delivery. Dev, who’d already lived far longer than most citizens could dream of.

I thought about my own dream of watching the Mars beasts fly in the light of the twin moons, just like a children’s book Dad had read to me.

And I thought about the mother and child walking out of the office, their spirits sagging under the burden of difficult news.

I don’t consider myself evil. I’m just someone who was forced into an unconventional career. And so, I followed the mother and daughter to their house. I didn’t usually sneak into people’s private dwellings unless I was working a heist, but this time, a different motive propelled me through the door.

The girl retreated to her room, tired, perhaps from the visit or the treatment or—

Don’t think about that.

When the child’s rhythmic breathing confirmed she’d fallen asleep, I let all the time I’d gathered since my last delivery seep out of the bottle. Soon, the room filled with tiny golden motes, dancing and swirling.

Before leaving, I took one last look back. What I’d done wasn’t a cure. I knew that.

But it would buy the girl some extra moments with her mom.

As for me, there might be another way to watch the Mars beasts fly. Rumor had it the Marsflight tourist base was hiring. I could get a foot in the door, and if honest labor didn’t pan out—well, I had skills to fall back on.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lisa Timpf is a retired HR and communications professional who lives in Simcoe, Ontario, Canada. Her speculative fiction has appeared in a variety of venues, including NewMyths, Third Flatiron, and Acceptance: Stories at the Centre of Us. Lisa’s speculative haibun collection, In Days to Come, is available from Hiraeth Publishing.

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