And the Stars Answered

The Time Collection Agency

Sharon stared at her boss in disbelief. She hoped that she just needed to get her hearing checked. The last time she misheard something, it had been some loose seconds clogging her ears—a common hazard when collecting time.

"I'm sorry, but what the hell happened?" she repeated.

He slammed a manila envelope down on her desk. The cup of pens rattled, and she leaned back, trying to escape his ire. He looked at her and sighed.

"You heard me correctly," he said. "Read the case file yourself. Public time technology is going to be the death of me."

And with that, he left her office, grumbling under his breath the entire way.

Sharon picked up the envelope and opened the file. She began to read. But the more she learned, the more she was horrified.

Usually, her job involved finding and restoring missing seconds or minutes. They weren't always successful—there was a reason people talked about missed connections—but most of the time it could be fixed. But it was more of a hassle and a pain, now that time technology was available to the public.

And now it seemed that some stupid teenagers had lost a whole year.

Sighing, Sharon set the file down on her desk. It was time to get to work. She put on rubber boots—good for rain and wading through seconds—and collected her jacket.

The last thing she retrieved was her hourglass. She usually worked with ones that hold up to an hour, but this was a unique case. This time she needed something more. Picking up the largest one, she made a mental note to send in a work request to make hourglasses that held years.

At least the one she had now could hold up to a month.

Twelve collection trips—honestly, she better get paid extra for this case. At least she didn't have to fix the year hour-by-hour. She shuddered at that thought. It wasn't like the number of trips was the only problem with this case, though.

It was common knowledge that the longer the spans of missing time, the more likely something could go wrong during restoration. Even when done to perfection, weird things still occurred.

She hoped nothing important happened during that year.