Time Is Money

Chapter One

Chapter One

Copyright © 2012 elaineharlington & NancyNoon

Ruby let the tears drop through her fingers. The tears that weren't even real. Just a figment of her imagination willed into being by her too perfect organism. I'm not crying, she reminded herself. It's simulated lacrimation. Before her eyes the tears disappeared on the cement ground in front of her, burning like acid. Which they were. Ruby looked at her wrist, out of habit, which she did every day. The same inane numbers danced tauntingly on the small screen illuminating her life. It all boiled down to those numbers. The numbers that constantly changed, that constantly reminded everyone of who they really were and what could be taken away from them.

And now, her brother's numbers were coming to an end. She remembered that day, only a few months before, when she had woken up to know something was instantly wrong. He was wracked with coughs, a bitter-sounding noise that echoed throughout the small room.

"Rubes, Rubes," Mark had cried, but the tears did nothing to relieve him of his pain. She had held him in her arms, fear coursing through her body. Surely it was just a temporary sickness? Something that would only take a few of his precious minutes. But the minutes turned into days and the days turned into months, and then sickeningly into years.

It was four months since the first sign of his body malfunctioning. Already four years of his life had left him. Ruby knew it would only be a little while until soon he would be nothing but a lifeless body made of nothing but cold metal and human ingenuity.

That was why she was here. To the people she had sworn never to come back to. They weren't really her parents. At least she told herself that. Parents wouldn't ignore their children like they had. To them, Ruby and Mark were simply another job thrust at them, another thing that they were forced to take care of. But Ruby was running out of options. She had tried the black market, forbidden by law, only to find that there was seemingly no cure to Mark's illness. No one had heard of the like. It would mean that she would have to face the humans next. The ones who had given her life and just as easily could take it away.

Ruby straightened up, and brushed at her eyes, knowing as she did so, that none of the strange liquid that supposedly made up their tears would remain. She walked through the cement and metal jungle, the perfectly mowed grass, the brilliantly blue sky, and the crisply fresh air.

The house was normal, like every other house on the block. It was simple on the outside, a smooth white wall that encircled it and wrapped it up in its blandness. The door was wooden, at least it appeared so. But they had learned in school, that in this day and age, everything could be stimulated, even wood. She closed her eyes, immediately shutting out the agonizingly perfect world around her. It was absolute darkness beneath her lids, which Ruby relaxed in, but thoughts of her brother drove her onward. No matter the personal feelings she nurtured toward her 'parents' she would have to overcome them for his sake.

She knocked on the door, her knuckles making a loud tinny noise. There was rustling from behind it, and the door slowly pulled open to reveal her mother exactly how she remembered her. Caroline Linsing looked to be twenty-five still, vital and youthful despite the minutes ticking by of her imminent death to come. Caroline's face showed no emotion at seeing her daughter on her doorstep. If anything her face could be read as boredom.

"Ruby, how have you been?" The question was polite and almost motherly, not as if the last time they had talked Ruby had walked out screaming words of anger and hatred. Emotions, Ruby had not even known she could feel, emotions she had told herself weren't real.

"Fine, mother, but I have a favor to beg of you," Ruby tried to match her mother's unfailingly polite words. It was hard, considering Ruby wanted to rush into the room and break down crying again.