Timed Out

I watched my office go up in flames. The Time keepers melted my shipping container into a pile of slag.

Ava placed an arm on my shoulder. “You can’t go back to your apartment, it’s too risky. They are bound to know who you are by now.”

We watched from the shelter of a crumbling building, hidden from view in deep shadows.

“Neither can you. They’ll soon have you and Naz identified from street cameras. We are all outcasts now.”

Naz gazed anxiously at his wrist. “I had no idea what we were doing was so dangerous. Will they track our com signals and come for us first? Or just ‘Down Time’ us?” He looked up with pleading eyes, as if he expected me to do something. “I don’t want to die.”

They wouldn’t want to make an example of us, because that would alert others to the existence of Steem. “They’ll ‘Down Time’ us.” Cold, heartless, efficient execution, for the good of society. I looked at my own wrist - nothing yet, but it wouldn’t be long. Death and taxes, it is said, are the only certainties in life – in this case they would come together: we would be taxed to death.

Naz clutched my arm. “What if we surrender. Sure they’ll send us to jail, but we’ll still be alive. Isn’t that better than Timing down?”

Ava grabbed my wrist. “Your Time. Look!”

The numbers on my wrist scrolled slowly backwards. Then they picked up speed. Shit. I had only minutes to live.

Naz let out a sob and held up his wrist. “Mine too. Even if I made it back to them, those bastard Time Keepers wouldn’t stop the clock, would they. All they really care about is the integrity of their precious Time.”

I felt a lump swell in my throat. I hadn’t known Naz that long, but I liked the lad. “Sorry, Naz, I don’t think you would even make it back to them.” Given the amount of time left to us, the distance across to the Time Keepers, milling around the remains of my office, looked impossible. We might as well have been looking in on another world.

Ava squeezed me in a hug. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I had no idea… No sooner do I find someone I like, than they’re taken from me.”

Much as I appreciated AvA’s embrace, I had to push her aside, because Naz had produced a knife from is pocket and was eyeing up the Time wallet in his wrist. I grabbed his hand.

“Let go of me. I’ve gotta get this thing out.”

I held on tight. “You can’t do this, Naz, I’ve seen people try before. Your Time wallet is linked into your nervous system - so tearing it out will kill you anyway.” The same was true of our coms systems, the other way Time Keepers could track us.

Naz sank to the floor, tears in his eyes. “I don’t want to die.”

I had only ever seen one person survive a ‘Down Time’, but he became a half-whit after he electrocuted himself on a mains power line. Still, even a slim chance of life is better than nothing.

Desperately, I searched for a power outlet or power cable. Nothing.

Then I remembered the back-pack I had scooped up on my way out the office - now the sum total of my worldly goods. I shrugged it off my back and delved inside.

A groan from Ava alerted me to the start of her Time down. I remembered she didn’t have a lot in the first place. Anything I tried, if we were all to survive, would have to start with her.

“I’m sorry,” Ava mouthed. Suddenly, her lips were pressed against mine: firm, cool, frantic, delicious.

I returned the kiss, passion heightened by the imminence of death, and let the back-pack slide off my hand. I was holding the object I had retrieved from within.

I jabbed the taser against Ava’s com, in her neck, and squeezed the trigger. Ava screamed and tried to fight me off. Then she slumped into my arms and I grabbed her wrist. When the taser fried her Time wallet the numbers were almost down to zero.

Naz had seen my action. He scrambled to his feet and thrust his wrist at me as I let Ava slide into the dirt. “Me next. Please.”

“I’ve got to wait for it to power up again.”

“Well hurry up! I’m nearly out of Time.”

The power bars on the taser crept up slowly from zero to five…

Six…

Seven. Then Naz snatched the taser from my hand. “I’m out.” He tasered his wrist, then collapsed, silently.

My own Time was running out fast too. I scooped up the fallen taser and watched the power creep back up to six. I would wait for full power, to give me the best chance, to make sure. The numbers in the wallet whirled down.

Eight...

I remembered filling a car with gasoline when I was young, watching the numbers on the pump spin towards six gallons. I tried it many times, over the years, but never once did I get those numbers to stop at six point, zero, zero. Normally, I was just a fraction over. No leeway here though - leave it too long and I was dead.

Nine… It was going to be close.

Too many zeros: time up. I thrust the taser into my wrist.

I don’t remember pulling the trigger, but agonizing pain shot up through my arm and into my chest. Pain is good, it means I’m still alive. Someone screamed in the distance and I saw double. Just before darkness descended, I pulled the taser out of my wrist and jammed it into my neck.

Aaaarrgggh…