The Children Who Time Lost Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Corinthians Publishing

  Essex, United Kingdom

  Copyright © 2013 Marvin Amazon

  For more information about this book, visit www.marvinamazon.com

  Edition ISBNs:

  Paperback 978-0-9576244-3-6

  Hardback 978-0-9576244-2-9

  e-Book 978-0-9576244-5-0

  Book Design by Morgana Gallaway

  Cover Illustration by Daniel Yeager

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording and information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

  I dedicate this to my amazing parents, Edwin and Mabel.

  I owe everything I am to both of you.

  Table of Contents

  Part One: The Lotto

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Part Two: Dylan

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Part Three: Rogue Travelers

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Part Four: The Orchestrator

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter One

  “Are you sure you want it this short, honey?” Suzanna asked me.

  I scowled at her. “Are we gonna do this again? I’ve told you a million times. I want a whole new me. I’ve never had my hair like this before.”

  She sniggered and continued trimming the edges with her scissors. I studied my red hair in the mirror. It was just past my shoulders. I thought it suited me, but Suzanna and my other best friend, Jenny, always said that my slim face belonged with longer locks. They also didn’t like that I had decided to get rid of my blond hair. But I didn’t want to reach my thirty-fifth birthday, which was a month away, having had the same color hair all my life.

  Suzanna dropped the scissors onto the floating, legless table and stood in front of me. Her dark shoulder-length hair had the same salon shine it always did. She knelt and studied my face, moving my hair in all directions. “It’s quite nice,” she said.

  “You sound surprised.”

  “It’s just … It’s just weird seeing you not blond.”

  “Well, Kevin likes the sound of me going red.”

  She took her hands from my face and stared at me. “So how is Kevin? Things better between you two?”

  I sniffed and looked at the floor.

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

  I met her gaze again. “That’s okay. I guess I feel the same as he does. But I won’t allow myself to cry every night.”

  She put her arms around me. “There was nothing you could do, Rachel. It was an accident.”

  “It’s been a year,” I said, tears forming in my eyes. I hated talking about my daughter. “She would have been nine today.”

  “I know. But you must know that she’s in a better place right now, if such a place does exist. I wish I could have a child, but I know it’ll never happen. You should count yourself lucky that you and Kevin were able to have one of the same flesh and blood. That’s more than any other woman can.”

  My eyes narrowed. “I heard a woman in Singapore gave birth.” I picked my cream handbag up from a stool floating four feet in the air. It was the diameter of a dinner plate and, like the table in front of me, had no legs. I rummaged through it for a few seconds. “It was in yesterday’s news.” I pulled out a thin five-inch computer tablet. I scrolled right with my fingers until I reached a First Post news report dated August 17, 2043. I handed the tablet to Suzanna.

  She looked at it for a few seconds before reading out loud:

  Singapore’s Prime Minister, Jun Toh, announced yesterday that the country has reported the world’s first pregnancy in ten years. Mursalina Chua, a thirty-five-year-old social worker, had been part of the Reborn program for the last fifteen years. But like everyone else in the program, she wasn’t able to conceive, even after trying numerous pregnancy drugs. Miraculously, however, it was discovered that she was pregnant two nights ago.

  Apart from Rachel Harris, Mursalina will be the first woman to give birth in twenty-seven years. Scientists around the world have been summoned to Singapore, where they will carry out tests on the child when he or she is born.

  Rachel Harris, meanwhile—the last woman to conceive, ten years ago—was released from her contract with the government last month, exactly a year after her daughter died in a tragic accident. It was feared that with her returning to normal life, it would be nearly impossible to discover the reason she had been able to give birth when no one else had in over seventeen years. But with the unexpected pregnancy of Mursalina, the world appears to have fresh hope.

  Suzanna put the paper down and stared at me. “So it’s true. She is pregnant.”

  “I told you.”

  “But you didn’t say they mentioned your name, honey. Are you okay?”

  I shrugged and stood up. “There’s nothing I can do about that. I just hope they don’t drive this poor woman crazy like they did me.”

  Suzanna caressed my shoulder. “I’m so sorry, honey. I wish there was something I could do for you. Why don’t we all go out? You, Kevin, Jake and I. We can go to that restaurant by the river.”

  I looked at her and smiled. But deep down, I just wished my friends would stop treating me as if a stiff wind would blow me over. “Sure, I’d like that a lot.”

  “Yay.” She smiled and sat me back down before continuing with my hair.

  I rushed out of the salon at three-thirty, with only half an hour to get to my appointment across town. The rain lashed down with force. I reached into my handbag for the umbrella. It was the size of a pencil, but the longer I exposed it to the rain, the longer it became. Twenty seconds later, a full-blown umbrella was in my right hand, completely shielding me from the droplets in the sky. I walked up the street, past a number of people huddled together under their umbrellas. Cars hovered in the air above me, some flying lower than the legal restrictions allowed. I had not driven in the city for almost three years. I didn’t see the need, with public transportation providing so much comfort and space.

  I walked
up to a taxi stand and found that there was a short line. Two middle-aged men in suits and a young woman stood ahead of me. I glanced left and right. The streets of downtown L.A. were quite empty. Most people had run into nearby stores or were huddled around floating shelters, about ten feet in the air and with diameters wide enough to cover twenty people.

  I moved ahead after the woman in front entered her taxi. I moved my umbrella to my left hand and brought out a sheet of paper with my right. I laid it against the glossy silver tray beneath the panel and typed the address into the touch screen as carefully as I could. My hands trembled. My doctor had told me it was a withdrawal symptom from coming off the drugs I had been taking for the last eight years. Drugs used as part of the experiments carried out on me after my unexpected and shocking pregnancy.

  I pressed “enter” when I was finished and stood back. No more than ten seconds later, I heard the familiar rumbling sound directly above me, like that of an air vacuum. I took a step back, and then another, and bumped into a burly man. I waved my hand at him in apology. He smiled and nodded. Then I returned my focus to the vehicle in the sky. The bottom had come into full view, as had its bumper. It was bright red, like all taxis in downtown L.A., contrasting sharply with the yellow still used in places like New York and other cities around the United States.

  It stopped three feet in the air and the back doors opened. I peered into the driver’s seat like I always did. The sight of matte-black, metallic arms holding on to the steering wheel filled me with the same sense of awe I always felt upon seeing such progress in technology. The glossy black head of the Lypso spun right and looked at me but didn’t utter a word. I climbed in and the door shut. The robot then faced the road and revved the engine. Seconds later, the car rose into the air.

  I looked at my watch. It was almost 3:50 p.m. and it didn’t look like I’d make my appointment. But I wasn’t really worried about that. They needed me more than I needed them. They had to know everything about me and what made me so fortunate as to have given birth at a time when others couldn’t. I’d actually considered not going back there after my contract with them ended, but the headaches, the trembling hands and the nausea made me their prisoner. I needed the drugs they gave me to remain sane and to salvage what was left of my marriage.

  I could sense the rain falling harder and harder. We had reached the legal limit in the air, about a hundred feet above ground. The taxi stayed in the rightmost lane and followed its air marshal, who led us and fifty other cars—both in front and behind us—for the entire trip. Our traffic enforcer was also a Lypso, but a fourth-generation model. The one that drove my taxi was a third-generation but almost light-years behind its counterpart.

  The traffic enforcer’s computer was linked to the worldwide database, with traffic information updated to its core processor every two hundred milliseconds. They drove cars similar to law-enforcement cars of the late twentieth century, with the flashing blue lights on top.

  I reached South Grand Avenue at 3:25. The Lypso driving my taxi gave me a salute after I pressed my thumb against the reader behind the headboard of its seat. The journey cost twenty-five dollars. Kevin always frowned on my using the credit-card account. I had considered using my index finger, which was linked to our standard account, but with the hefty amount we were still paying the research facility for its efforts to find out what was wrong with me, I opted against it.

  I walked into the two hundred-story building and stood by the door. Humans and robots filled the foyer. A woman walked past me holding on to a young girl who couldn’t have been more than three years old. I stared at the woman’s face to see if I recognized her, but she wasn’t immediately familiar. I had missed quite a few of the Worldwide Lotto one-on-one interviews, where the winners spoke of their joy at being parents while parading their children to the world like they were trophies.

  I had always hated that such a program existed, but Kevin kept begging me to enter. He had a point, though. It was virtually the same as adopting. But it was also so cruel. Some people I knew had been entering it every weekend for almost fifteen years, each time getting their hopes up only to have them dashed.

  “Hi, Mrs. Harris,” a woman said.

  I turned and saw a dark-haired woman walking toward me with a robot beside her. Its eyes were blue, which didn’t really go with its gleaming silver body. It looked as if it had just come off the production line—it was as polished as I had ever seen a second-generation Kyso, domesticated robots that never left the confines of their buildings. After a double take, I recognized the woman. Her slightly crooked nose somewhat marred what would otherwise have been a perfect face. I wasn’t complaining, though. It made normal, average women like me feel less self-conscious.

  “Hi, Cassandra,” I said. “Is Jarrod upstairs?”

  “Upstairs and waiting.” She stopped a few yards from me and pointed at her watch twice, smiling. The Kyso also stopped and stared at me. I glanced nervously at it. They could read people’s minds within seconds and discover any kind of evil within their thoughts. I always worried what they would find lurking inside my head. My mind was a labyrinth of pain and suffering, and I feared it could be misinterpreted as sinister.

  I smiled and nodded. The Kyso then moved even closer to me. “Please follow me, madam,” it said in a mechanical voice and walked toward a row of three revolving doors. Cassandra gave me another smile and walked toward a large desk where a host of people had congregated.

  I stayed about four feet from the Kyso. I glanced toward the top of the building. Every floor was visible from the ground floor. I even caught a tiny glimpse of the scientists working on the 150th floor, where I was headed. The flashing red lights that ran along the stair railing, all the way from the bottom to the top, looked like twinkling stars.

  The Kyso stopped near the foot of the stairs, with a line of ten elevators farther to the right. I saw yet more women walking with children in their grasps; some looked younger than six months. The parents had obviously been some of the more recent winners. I had read that there had been nearly a hundred global winners in July alone.

  I smiled at a young boy beside a tall attractive blond-haired man. The boy smiled back. I looked up to see the man staring at me with what seemed to be allure. I shifted my head in the opposite direction and chewed on my fingernails. That can’t be right. I used to be very comfortable with who I was before my body became riddled with experimental drugs.

  Before my pregnancy, Kevin always paid me compliments. We always went out to nice places and I could always fit into my favorite dresses. But ever since the world’s scientists took an interest in me, my weight had yo-yoed. I felt bloated nearly every day and lost all confidence. I also found it difficult to sleep.

  Soon after, I stopped going out with my husband and stayed home, looking after our daughter. He started having mood swings after a while and lost his temper with me on a few occasions. He even brought up the fact that I hadn’t taken his surname after we got married. I started to wonder whether it was out of pity that Kevin stayed with me at all. I didn’t see the passion in his eyes anymore. Instead, I saw pity. Love might have been there, too, but I hadn’t felt attractive in seven years—until now, with this strapping, ruggedly handsome man staring at me like he actually wanted to know me. I just hoped he wasn’t doing so because he had recognized me from the television or something. But regardless, having a child meant he must have also had a wife or a girlfriend. The first rule of the Lotto was that only couples could enter.

  I shifted nervously before taking my hand from my mouth. I faced him again. He caressed his son’s hair and cast brief glances at me but took his eyes away whenever they met mine. Four of the elevators arrived at the same time. The Kyso looked at me. “Would you like to take the stairs or the elevator, madam?”

  I looked at it as if it were mad. It asked the same question every time I visited. One would think that a multimillion-dollar robot would have had some level of common sense. I noticed the attractive m
an smiling at me as I responded. “I’ll take the elevator,” I said.

  I cast a backward glance at the man as I stepped off the elevator. He looked at me in a manner that suggested he hadn’t taken his eyes off me the entire time. I had felt his gaze boring through me the moment the elevator started rising.

  “Please follow me, madam,” the Kyso said.

  I smiled at the man and he smiled back. I immediately turned around and swallowed. What was I doing? I was a married woman shamelessly flirting with a stranger who probably had a partner, too.

  There’s no harm in looking. Besides, what’s wrong with a handsome man admiring me?

  I followed the Kyso toward a room in the corner, a smile lingering on my face.

  A woman sat in the waiting room. Red surrounded her pupils, and she twitched like a junkie. She reminded me of how I’d been when I was on the pregnancy program, immediately after the birth of my daughter. I waved at the receptionist, Liz Simpson. Her dark red dress looked like a carpet, but her fashion sense wasn’t her best quality. I did see new pearl earrings on her that looked nice. Her blond hair was also shorter than I remembered.

  She stood and smiled at me. “Hi, Rachel. Do you need anything?”

  I shook my head. “No, Liz, thanks. I’ll just wait for Jarrod.” I sat and noticed the woman’s eyes on me.

  She opened her mouth to speak. Her lips trembled. She slurred her words. “Are you new here?”

  “Only nine years,” I half-laughed.

  She blinked rapidly. “Good God. Why …” She paused and studied me further. “You’re her. You’re that person. Rachel Harris. The last person …” She stopped and chewed on her bottom lip.

  I smiled at her and nodded. “It’s okay. I get that a lot.”

  “How was it?” she asked.

  I looked at her dumbfounded.

  “Childbirth, I mean.”

  “Oh.” I smiled. “Well, it wasn’t the most pleasant experience in the world, but I didn’t really care. Madeline was probably the best thing that ever happened to me.” I swallowed and turned toward the wall. The smallest of tears fell from my eyes. “She was the perfect daughter, too,” I blurted.