Time Snatchers by Richard Ungar

some tea?” he asks, tucking the sword back under his belt and sitting down across from me.
    He claps his hands twice, and Nassim appears with two teacups, pots, utensils and what looks like a wooden box with slats on top. He gently places the box down on the table, carefully arranges all the tea things on top of the box and then pours water into the cups, each of his movements slow and graceful.
    My eyes flick to the aquarium. The big thing is a black turtle. No, not one. Two turtles. Swimming lazily near each other.
    I glance back in time to see Nassim snag one of the cups with a pair of tongs and pour the water from it into a large ceramic container. He does the same with the other cup and then scoops tea leaves into yet another container. After that, he lifts the first container up high, tilting it until the water cascades into the container holding the tea leaves.
    If this is what it takes to make a cup of tea, next time I’m ordering coffee.
    As Nassim hands Uncle his cup, I sneak another look at the aquarium. The turtles are snapping at each other. And not little love bites, either. They’re really going at it.
    “Did you know, Caleb, that the Chinese have been enjoying making tea in this way for thousands of years?” says Uncle.
    “That’s a long time,” I say.
    “We can learn a lot from the Chinese, you know,” he continues. “Wouldn’t you agree that the Great Friendship is the single greatest historical event of this century?”
    I nod and sip my tea. Personally, I’d rank the Great Friendship in second place behind McDonald’s first hamburger sale on the moon, but I’m not about to openly disagree with Uncle. I glance behind me. Nassim has left the office. It’s just me and Uncle now. He’s leading up to something, I’m sure of it. I try hard not to stare at a particularly long vein in his forehead that twitches slightly every time he speaks.
    “Do you know how it is that the Great Friendship came about?” Uncle asks, and there goes that vein again.
    “Umm. Not really,” I say. It’s true. World politics is not my strong suit. I don’t listen to the news much, and the only news I ever read online is the sports section.
    “I will tell you, then,” he says. “It came about as a result of the two greatest powers in the world realizing they had a need that only the other could satisfy.”
    “I see, Uncle,” I say, but the only thing I really see is the smackdown going on in the aquarium.
    “Think about this,” he says. “There is one universal need, one common longing of all people, that neither of the two greatest powers can satisfy. It is society’s endless appetite for nostalgia. The need for a small piece of the past to claim as one’s own.
    “That is where Timeless Treasures comes in,” Uncle continues. “We alone can satisfy that need. But that is not all. With the success of the Great Friendship, the potential market for our services hasexpanded exponentially. There are five billion people living in China, Caleb. If only one percent of one percent of all of those people decided to avail themselves of our services, that would translate into half a million new customers!”
    Half a million. That’s a big number. Even if Abbie and I and the other time snatchers quadrupled the number of missions we’re doing each week, there’s still no way we’d be able to keep up with that kind of demand.
    “We must seize the moment. With change comes great opportunity! The time is ripe for the growth and expansion of Timeless Treasures! The time is ripe to increase the number of time snatchers from five to one hundred!”
    Uncle’s eyes are gleaming. He really believes what he’s saying. My mouth goes dry. I don’t like the sound of this. More time snatchers means more collections like the one Frank invited me to go on, more innocent children being kidnapped.
    “A project this large cannot be accomplished by one man alone, Caleb,” he says, his forehead vein twitching like crazy.