Every time Robert spoke I kept thinking I detected a slight trace of a British accent. I’d thought maybe it was just a 70s accent, but his pronunciation of ‘asthma’ caused me to turn around and ask, “Are you originally from England?”
Robert nodded and sat back in the horrible brown couch. “Yeah, I grew up there. We immigrated to Australia when I was 15.”
“How old are you now?”
“31.”
I thought about this for a moment. “In what...year where you 31?”
“1974.”
I quickly did the maths. “So you’d be 69 now.”
“Oh lord,” Martin said, rolling his eyes. “He would not. If he’s 31 now, that means he was born in 1983.” He looked pointedly at Robert, who turned to me indignant.
“I told you he didn’t believe me!”
I turned to Martin confused, “What - are you saying you still don’t believe that Robert travelled through time?”
“Of course I don’t.” Martin furrowed his brow. “You were there yesterday. I’m not sure how much clearer I could have been.”
“But I thought...I thought you just didn’t want to help the man in black. So you were pretending to disagree with him?”
Martin stared at me as though I was stupid. But then he relented slightly and nodded, glancing up at the ceiling. “Well, you’re right about that part. I’ve never wanted to help him.” His scornful gaze returned to his face. “But that doesn’t mean that I believe this idiot travelled through time.”
“Oh.” I sat back in my seat.
Martin switched his gaze back to Robert. “What happened yesterday after I left the hospital? Why aren’t you still in the ward?”
I cut in. “He tried to kill us,” I said bluntly.
“Who?” Martin switched back to me.
“The man in black of course.” I leant forward and crossed my arms, daring Martin to let that little fact sink in, to comprehend just how much danger we had been in the day before, after he’d abandoned us to go teach a class. “For your information, that’s why we came here: I was worried that he’d come after you as well-”
Martin stood up abruptly, and started to remove his dressing gown. Luckily he was clothed underneath. But I looked up at him in surprise. “What’s the matter?”
“We have to get the university,” he replied, a grave look on his face. “Right now.”
Chapter Eight.
The first thing I saw was Connie Hung staring angrily at me from the physics department student lounge.
“Ah crap,” I muttered, realising it was 8am and I had inadvertently turned up on time for our ‘study date’ (her term, not mine) without even meaning to. I felt the weight of my phone tucked in my pocket, containing a dozen texts from her that I hadn’t replied to. Maybe I could pretend that my appearance in the lounge was on purpose, for her benefit. Whereas usually, on a Tuesday morning before class, I could be found sunning myself in a cafe, not in the prehistoric cave they called the physics building. Not that there was much sun today.
“Connie!” I called out, in a fake cheery tone I barely recognised as my own voice. “So great to see you...”
“Why haven’t you replied to any of my messages?” Connie was dressed in a blue sports hoodie with “University of Sydney” emblazoned across the front. I found the design both obnoxious and hideous. Connie didn’t share my passion for on-campus style however: as she constantly reminded me ‘this is a lecture theatre, not a fashion show.’
“I had other things on my mind,” I said, glancing around behind my back to make sure Martin and Robert were still outside. Robert had made us stop for cigarettes on the way over and Martin was chaperoning him while he had a smoke. I had been supposed to come inside and make sure the coast was clear — which, at 8am on a Tuesday it usually would be. But of course Connie was ruining that.
“Like what?” she said suspiciously, looking up at me over the rim of her glasses. She was probably hoping I had some good gossip for her. As strained as our friendship could be, I was one of the only social outlets she had. “Did something exciting happen?”
“You could say that.” I looked back down at Connie and thought for a moment. Connie was a scientist, after all: she might be able to be of help to the situation. Not that she knew anything about time travel: her PhD thesis was on the physics of ice cream or something equally as stupid. I’d never really bothered to ask her. She might at least have an opinion though. I wasn’t sure how much I could trust her.
“Well?” she said. “Sit down then! We’ve got a bunch of stuff to get through.” Right, the bloody study date. She rearranged a bunch of papers on her desk which appeared to be notes taken from the previous day’s lecture. “You ran out of class so fast I didn’t even have time to discuss any of these issues with you.”
As if there could have seriously been any issues after the introductory lecture, I thought, but I gingerly took a seat on the edge of the chair, still glancing around for Robert and Martin. I adjusted the black beret on my head, which I was still determined not to remove, even indoors. Couldn’t be seen with hat hair, even that early in the morning. I glanced at myself in the reflection of the window opposite us, to make sure I at least looked passably presentable. Locks of my jet black hair were making their way free from under the beret’s rim, and I noticed that my eyes looked almost as dark and smudgy as Robert’s. I sighed.
“Where are your books?” Connie asked, looking around me.
“I don’t need any.”
“Well, then what was the point of us meeting up!” she snapped, slamming a pen down on the table.
I sighed again. “I’m sure you will manage to take down enough notes for the both of us.” I couldn’t help the anxious tone that was creeping into my voice.
Connie paused. She took on a gentler tone and asked if I was okay. I looked over at her, surprised that she’d managed to pick up on any social cues, which wasn’t usually her strong suit.
“Actually, no, I’m not.”
She sat up straighter, adjusting her hoodie. She was probably thrilled at this little titbit, to hear that I was not doing okay. I could only imagine what horrible circumstances she was hoping had befallen me. “Is this about your thesis?” she asked, trying to conceal the glint of delight that crept into her eyes anyway.
I gave her a long, slow look. “No, it is not about my thesis.” Well, I supposed it was, tangentially, but I wasn’t about to give Connie the satisfaction. She prided herself on being Martin Anderson’s little pet student, when in reality I suspected he probably found her dull and only favoured her because her thesis was not going to ‘tarnish his reputation’ the way mine apparently was. My thesis, “Towards A Working Theory Of Time Travel”, posited that time travel could be possible with the simple use of a computer code. Of course, no one in the faculty took it seriously, and Martin seemed embarrassed to even discuss it with the other members of staff.
“Oh,” she said, sitting back disappointed. She seemed lost for any other guesses. “What is it then?” I wondered over the fact that Connie couldn’t even imagine a problem that wasn’t academically related. I could have been having relationship problems, suffering from a broken heart, for all she knew! Then again, that was a fairly unlikely scenario.
I didn’t know how to even begin answering her question. ‘Oh, well, you know, there’s this guy who claims to have travelled 40 years forward in time and now there are people trying to kill us. And also, your beloved supervisor Martin Anderson? Is a lying hypocrite who is in on some kind of conspiracy to keep this all quiet.’
Instead I went with a more ambiguous answer. “I, erm, met this guy last night.”
Connie’s eyes widened. “Did you sleep with him?”
Jesus Connie, get straight to the point why don’t you. “He did...spend the night in my room,” I replied.
“So that’s why you didn’t reply to any of my messages.” Connie looked vaguely annoyed over the fact that I would put men before something acad
emic. But I just nodded slightly, since it was basically the truth.
“Where is he now?” Connie asked.
“Err, funny you should ask that...” I began. As I said it I turned around at the noise of the door behind us opening, and in strode Martin and Robert, with the former decked out in his usual professor-chic style of suit pants and brown jacket, and the later in 70s glam rock attire. Robert walked out in front, leading the way in all his ridiculous glory. “This is him, actually.”
Connie’s mouth was open as wide as I had ever seen it. “So you brought him to school with you?”
“What else was I supposed to do with him?”
Connie suddenly noticed that Martin was walking behind Robert and she looked even more horrified and confused. For his part, Martin stopped in his tracks when he reached her and stumbled to say hello. “Oh, Connie. How are you today?” She just stared at the three of us without answering.
I stood up. “Well, I think we’ve covered everything,” I said to Connie. “We really need to get going.” I pulled Robert by the arm, in the direction of Martin’s office and Martin reluctantly followed along behind us, looking self-conscious about how this scene must have looked to Connie but unsure of what else to do. Connie stood up and ran till she was beside me.
“What is going on Anna?” she hissed at me as the rest of us made our way toward the door. I turned around and shot her an apologetic look, the first one I had ever given to Connie Hung.
***
Martin quickly shut his office door behind us. “What the hell were you talking to Connie about?”
“I was just telling her about how Robert stayed at my place last night...” I looked around for any reaction to that. “But that’s it.”
Martin ran his hand through his hair. “We can’t get her involved in this as well.”
Robert was staring, transfixed, at the computer on Martin’s desk. It was such an ancient machine I was surprised that it hadn’t been around in 1974. Then again, I supposed even technology from 1998 would have looked positively futuristic to Robert. Martin also noticed Robert’s fascination with the machine and rolled his eyes.
God, I thought, he can’t still think that Robert was faking it?
Martin pushed his way to his desk. Given the amount of clutter in his office — chairs and tables everywhere, tea cups abandoned on every surface, piles of books on the floor everywhere — this was a bit of a task. It was a reasonably roomy office, but with three people as well as the hoards of junk in there, it was becoming quite cramped. He switched on his computer screen and took a seat.
“What the hell is that?” Robert asked.
“A desktop computer,” I explained.
“…Trippy.”
Martin looked, glaring at him. “Are you really going to continue on with this charade?”
“What charade!”
Martin shook his head and looked back down at his screen. I didn’t want the two of them to fight — we needed to all be on the same side — so I changed the subject by asking why we’d needed to come here so urgently at 8am in the morning.
“Because,” Martin said, tapping away on his keyboard. “This is where all my files are.”
“Files on what exactly?” I asked suspiciously.
Ha, I thought, he was finally going to have to admit to me that he was a super secret time travel spy. I waited.
He paused, reluctant to answer. Finally realising that it was inevitable, he slowly gave me his reply.
“On you, Anna.”
Chapter Nine.
“What, like, my academic files?” I asked, confused. For one, I wasn’t sure why Martin Anderson would even have full access to my academic files. There was a failed unit in the second year of my undergraduate degree that I really didn’t want him knowing about. I always thought those kinds of things were off limits to individual members of staff.
And secondly, why on earth would my academic files be of any use to us in this situation?
But Martin shook his head. “No, not academic files.”
I took a slight step back towards the door, glancing at Robert, who also seemed troubled. “Then what the hell do you mean, files on me?”
Martin didn’t reply, just kept typing away, clicking on his computer mouse, lost in concentration. He was clearly searching for something. I wished the door behind us wasn’t closed. I felt trapped, claustrophobic. “Excuse me?” I asked again. “What files on me are you talking about?”
Still ignoring me, he sat up straight, He quickly double clicked on something with his mouse and his eyes began scrolling across something — I could see the screen’s reflection in his reading glasses. It appeared to be a dense document, barely any line breaks, probably dozens of pages long. I took a deep breath and braced myself for an answer, wondering what the hell was going on. What was he reading that was so engrossing?
There was a knock on the door and the anxious tension in the room broke as we all turned to look towards it. “It’s probably Connie,” I muttered.
“Can you get her to leave please?” Martin said. “She can’t know about any of this.”
I reluctantly took my orders and opened the doorway a peep, just wide enough to see Connie’s face on the other side. She looked angry. She waved for me to come out into the corridor. I squeezed my way through so that she couldn’t get a good look in the door.
“Why on Earth have you brought your boyfriend to Martin’s office? What are you three doing in there?” she demanded to know.
“Connie this is really none of your business-”
“It is so!” Connie hated me getting more one-on-one time with Martin than she did. I could never tell if her jealousy was professional, or personally motivated.
“No, it really isn’t. Can you leave us be, please?” I turned to go back into the room.
“Anna! What are the three of you doing in there?”
“Oh lord,” I said, then realised that term would probably be prickly to her. Connie was a Christian and my using the lord’s name in vain always caused a look of disapproval to run across her face. “I don’t have to explain myself to you!”
“We are study partners, and peers,” Connie said, crossing her arms. “Not to mention friends.”
I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t exactly sure what her definition of ‘friends’ was. People who were forced to work together despite having nothing else in common, probably.
“I need to speak to Martin, anyway,” she said, trying to open his office door. “About some teaching issues I’m having.”
Bullshit she did, I thought, standing firmly in front of the door, blocking her way.
“Oh, so now I’m not even allowed in his office?”
“Connie! Stop shouting.” I looked around, then dragged her down the hall away from the office door, down to where we wouldn’t be overheard. “Fine. Do you really want to know what is going on? I mean, REALLY want to know?”
Connie hesitated, but she nodded unsurely.
“You better be pretty freaking clear, that you really want to know.” My tone was so grave that it gave Connie reason to pause for a second. She stepped away from me slightly and gazed down the hall at Martin’s closed door.
“Are you three doing something weird in there?”
I scrunched my nose thinking about what Connie’s definition of ‘something weird’ could be. What could she possibly think we were up to? Sometimes she really had terrible instincts. Then again, she couldn’t possibly have guessed what we were actually doing. I was almost as much in the dark as she was. I mean, what the hell had Martin meant when he said he had files on me, that he needed to check?
I was beginning to think I barely knew him at all. All those years, thinking that I could trust him, thinking I understood what he was all about, and then it turned out he was a gun-collecting conspirator that published bizarre articles about time travel under pen names.
I stared back at Connie. She probably had the same unwavering faith in Martin that I’d once had. Th
at all of his loyal students had. Didn’t I have a responsibility, as a scientist, as her ‘friend’, to tell her the truth? Or should I shield her from this, as Martin had commanded. After all, getting involved in all of this had almost cost me my life the day before. Maybe it was better I warn her.
I took a deep breath. “Connie, there’s something you should know about Martin.”
Connie’s face was worried. “What?” she asked, quietly, clearly worried about what I might be about to reveal.
“He’s not who he claims to be,” I began. “Well, not entirely, anyway.”
“What on Earth do you mean?”
I snuck a worried glance up the hall. I suddenly felt guilt about revealing anything to Connie about Martin. Like I was being unfaithful to him, which was absurd. Considering how much he had kept from me, how much he had lied to me.
Still, I continued on.
With my voice as low as possible I whispered to her. “He searches for time travellers.”
Connie burst out laughing. She stepped back, breaking the intimacy between us. “What?” she asked, barely able to get the words out between laughing fits. “Anna, are you insane?”
I shook my head. “This isn’t a joke.” I shushed her. “Stop laughing. I don’t want him to know I am telling you this. We could both be in big trouble.”
Now it was Connie’s turn to roll her eyes. “Okay, fine, you don’t want me to tell me what’s really going on in there, I get it. But come on, you could have come up with a more believable lie.”
I was indignant. “Connie, I am telling you this for your own good! You don’t understand. I think he is involved with something dangerous.”
She stopped laughing for a second. “Dangerous? How?”
I shook my head. “He’s mixed up with some secret government organisation or something. There’s people out to kill him.”
“Martin?” she asked. “Martin Anderson?”
I nodded. “He has a secret life.”
Allergic To Time Page 6