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"It looks like you've been smoking practically your entire life. That's why you have all these medical expenses." Even over the phone I could hear the woman's sneer. I pulled the bill in question out of a puddle of maple syrup and sponged off the corner. She was still talking, "You need to make some attempt to take care of this. We cannot be responsible for the reimbursement of expenses that you should be able to stop yourself from having incurred."

"What?"

"Please hold for one minute."

The phone switched over to a ska style love ballad that I assumed had been chosen from some automatic analysis of my taste. It had, in fact, been my favorite song. Until my husband had broken up with me to it five years before.

Just after I was diagnosed with lung cancer. I was tempted to click my phone shut, and maybe throw it across the room, but then I'd just have to call back and sit through two rounds of computerised triage. The woman came back on. "You need to see a specialist. Here's the address. Don't feel you need to call back if the procedure works."

The guy behind the desk had wildly curling black hair and a jade earring that went with his eyes and not with the button down shirt, the tie and the Ulston Technologies badge.

"Sheila Marie Jones." I said, leaning on the counter and smiling at him. "My insurance company said I had to come here, but I've no idea why. Maybe you could give me some company pens and a Band-Aid, and we'll call it a day."

He lifted an eyebrow. "Sure. We've got retro Band-Aids this week. Young or fat Elvis?" He messed with his screen. "Lung cancer, huh?"

"Yeah, but I'm cured. A two inch scar and one hundred thousand dollars. Which they are supposed to pay."

"Naw. They aren't going to pay for that. That's why you're here." He swung the screen over so I could see the chart. It had a wavering line labelled with my name and birth through forty along the bottom.

"Here's where you started smoking." He pointed to a place on the graph where it changed from green to orange. It had my age listed right there where anyone could see it. Nine. "Kinda young weren't you?"

"I was bored and shy. And my mum was a three cigarette breakfast cook."

"Yeah. There wasn't much chance of you either not starting or stopping in that environment. But your cancer didn't start till here." He pointed at another point on the graph, 24. "So this will be our target point." He moved his finger a little to the left, "Second year of college.

New environment, some non smoking friends. We'll send you back, you get yourself to stop smoking, no cancer, no medical expenses, and bonus health in the bargain. The only caveat: you need to sign here: privacy agreement. This is still limited. We don't want everyone and their uncle trashing their health and thinking they'll fix it all later."

I hadn't even realised that time travel technology had progressed to the point of actually sending people back.

I took a pen and the paper but couldn't quite bring myself to sign. I scribbled in the margin, ostensibly checking the ink. The doodle looked like a penguin with a cigarette. "You're sure this is a good idea?"

He shrugged. "It works more than 50% of the time. Your other alternatives are paying the money and making use of a good lawyer. Do you have one?"

It was my turn to shrug.