Allergic To Time (5 page)

Martin grabbed me by the elbow and led me out of the room.
 

“Wait, I want to make sure he’s okay…”

“Get outside Anna.” His tone was forceful, but not unkind. He seemed genuinely worried. I followed him without any further argument. The man in black remained inside overseeing the situation.
 

“Why don’t they kick him out of the room?” I asked, not confident that I would get any answers from Martin at that point. He certainly hadn’t been very forthcoming so far.
 

He shook his head. “He does whatever he likes.” He paused, lost in thought. “They would never kick him out.”

“I don’t understand why we are down here in the dungeon of the hospital.” I looked around at the dingy surroundings and dim blue lighting. It hardly seemed like the pristine modern environment that they should be keeping patients in.

Martin looked at me like I had taken leave of my senses. “You think they’re just going to keep a guy
claiming to be a time traveller
in a ward with other patients? Seriously Anna, I thought you were supposed to be smart.”
 

I rolled my eyes and purposely did not take offence. But something about what he said didn’t make any sense. “But how did they know he was going to claim to be a time traveller before he even woke up?”

Martin scratched his chin, which I realised was covered with at least a day’s stubble. Up close I could tell that his shirt had not been ironed either. Jesus, it was all really falling apart at the seams for the usually unshakable great Martin Anderson. He sighed. “It was more of an educated guess,” he said, stealing a glance at the man in black. “The symptoms pointed to it.”

I raised my eyebrows. “The symptoms, right.” I found myself getting worked up again. “This wouldn’t be the first time something like this has happened then, would it?” I glared at him.

“What are you talking about?” he said, feigning ignorance. It was offensive, considering all the facts that I had managed to piece together all on my own. I didn’t know everything, sure, but I knew enough to realise that Martin was in on some kind of conspiracy to keep time travel hush hush, and to silence anyone who claimed to have travelled through time. And I knew enough to know that he was lying to me.

“You and him,” I said, pointing inside. “You’re in on some kind of pact to cover up any instances of time travel.” I paused and raised my eyes towards the ceiling, trying to calm myself down. I didn’t want to get emotional, but all I could think about was the impact this would all have on my future career. Martin’s betrayal of our professional relationship hit me hard. “I really didn’t want to believe this was all true, Martin.” I wouldn’t lower my head to return his eye contact, but I could feel him turn to stare at me.

“Anna,” he said, in a much quieter tone than he had been using up till that point of the afternoon. “I didn’t...I didn’t mean for any of this to affect you.”

I shook my head and half turned away from him, leaning my back against the cold blue glass. “My thesis…” I began.

He took a deep sigh. “Your thesis is based on highly questionable scientific theories. If they can even be labelled as theories,” he muttered.
 

“Yeah right,” I said, forcing my voice not to crack. I was determined to remain cool, composed. But my tone was frosty. “You’re invested in time travel being impossible. You’ve written a book, based a career on it. So you were never going to have an unbiased opinion towards my research. You’ve set me up from the start to fail.”

I dared to look over to see his reaction, and I registered the shocked look — almost hurt — that my allegations had caused. “I trusted you,” I said finally, and stood up straight, determined for that to be the final word.
 

Martin didn’t seem to know what to say. He just shook his head. Finally he murmured a simple, “Anna you don’t understand,” but by that point I had completely turned my back on him and was walking along the corridor.

Chapter Five.
 

I sat alone in the hospital’s cafeteria, thinking the entire situation over.

I hadn’t been able to bear the claustrophobic nature of the dungeon levels any longer, so I had made my way up several floors to where there were actual windows facing onto the outside world, although the rain was only getting heavier as the day progressed. So my new location was still not the most joyous of environments. Not to mention the fact that I was still in a hospital.
 

Still, at least there was a view of life outside.
 

I pulled out my laptop from the inside of my coat, suddenly glad I had stowed it in there. Powering it up, I was relieved to find that there was still 25% battery remaining on it, which would last an hour or two at least. I wasn’t planning on leaving the hospital until our new friend downstairs was able to speak to me again.
 

On the laptop, I double clicked the documents folder, quickly glancing behind me first to make sure no one was watching. Maybe it was just the events of the day making me paranoid, but I felt as though my previously benign research had become important, and really shouldn’t fall into the wrong hands. That man in black had a habit of sneaking up silently behind people, as I’d realised. He was the last person I wanted to reading my research.
 

It was quite the collection of articles I had managed to collect over the previous few months. Ever since that first accidental discovery: a very interesting research paper, attributed to a name I did not recognise, but written in syntax I very much did.
 

Martin neither knew nor cared that my original undergraduate degree had also included a major in Linguistics, but I’d actually completed an extensive research project on identifying writers via their particular grammatical quirks, using computer programs to identify authors by searching for grammatical and syntactical similarities between pieces. It would, in theory, be able to provide a sound way to uncover plagiarism — or to uncover the identity of anonymous authors — although it was far from perfect. But over the course of my degree I’d developed a pretty keen eye myself for recognising authors’ words, with or without the help of the software.
 

Given Martin Anderson’s prolific publishing history under his own name — not to mention the fact that I had been forced to read his textbooks, his papers, and his comments on my work over the years – I could recognise a piece of writing by him anywhere. That was why it had been so shocking to come across an article, published under the name “Nick Cooper”, detailing a case study of a man who claimed to have travelled through time. The man’s name was Ryan Samuels, and the 5000 word article described the man’s claims of having travelled 50 years forward in time, and having become a social outcast.

The “Nick Cooper” article was — surprisingly — in
support
of Samuels’ claims, and was written with a sympathetic slant. Of course, this was not published in a scientific journal of any kind. I had found it in a psychology journal after having conducted a discipline-wide search on alleged time travel claims. I’d been both excited and grateful to come across the article during my search, and more than interested to read it. However, several paragraphs in, the writing — phrasing, word choice, sentence construction — began to seem hauntingly familiar. A deep dark suspicion had begun to rise in me as I’d read it. There were certain turns of phrases that I recognised as being distinctly Martin Anderson-esque. Yet I could scarcely bring myself to believe that he could have authored an article
in support of time travel,
given his vehement denial of the possibility of it in all his public and professional capacities.

As soon as I’d finished the article I immediately went back to the library to do another search on this so-called “Nick Cooper”. Given that it was a reasonably common name I’d found almost a dozen individuals who were all published authors with that same name. However, once I’d narrowed the subject down to “time travel”, I’d uncovered another half a dozen similar articles and case studies.
 
All with the same slant — that the time travellers were telling the truth.

Of course, that wasn’t all I’d found...

I had the sudden sensation that someone was right behind me. I snapped my laptop shut, spun around, and saw the man in black standing there.
 
Had he been reading over my shoulder?
 

Without waiting for invitation to join me he walked around to the other side of the table and sat down opposite. “It’s important that you’re here today,” he said flatly, taking his hat off for the first time and setting it down on the table. His head shone like a bald dome, and I looked around to see if any anyone was giving him any strange looks. But most people in the cafeteria seemed lost in their own thoughts.
 

“Who are you?” I asked.

As I’d expected he ignored my question and continued on. “I have wanted
 
to bring you in on this for a while now.”

I felt my face contort with confusion. How the hell did he know who I was — and why did he want me involved?
 

He grinned a little, which only made me feel more uneasy in front of him. I almost longed for Martin’s annoyed look of disapproval, in contrast. At least I trusted ‘annoyed disapproval’. I didn’t trust evil looking grins. “We need someone on our team who is a little more,” he paused to think of the right word. “Sympathetic to the patients.”

I thought back to the Nick Cooper articles. Martin seemed plenty sympathetic towards time travellers to me. He had published half a dozen papers supporting them for crying out loud! Of course, all the articles were written under a pseudonym. Maybe Baldie didn’t even know about them. But then why was Martin his go to guy when he needed a time travel detective brought in? Possibly because they were in the business of covering up time travel cases — if he’d known about Martin’s secret pen name maybe he wouldn’t be fit for the job.
 

The man in black lowered his voice and leant forward closer. “The patient in that room has travelled through time, Anna Black.” I shuddered at him using my full name — he made it sound like it was wrong. “And we need your help to prove it.”

I sat back in my chair, realising I’d been wrong. This guy didn’t want to cover time travel up. He wanted to prove it. I didn’t know what his agenda was but I knew that I didn’t trust him one inch. Something about him made even me want to take the opposite opinion, just to spite him. Me, the girl who had dedicated her whole life to proving time travel was possible.

I stared at him. “Why do all the patients you see here, die?”

“They can’t breathe, of course” he said, looking at me like I should already know that. He was lying though. There were all those case studies by Nick Cooper with living time travel survivors. They’d managed to go on to live healthy lives, breathing the air just fine.

Shit
, I thought, thinking back to Martin’s actions in the hospital room earlier. Were Martin and I maybe on the same side after all? Maybe the only reason that he he’d been so violently opposed to the idea that the patient was telling the truth, was a simple one: maybe he didn’t want to be on the same side as the man in black. And if Martin didn’t then neither did I.

“So no one has ever survived?” I asked, giving him one last chance to tell the truth.

“None of them have ever left this hospital.”

“Why do you need my help to prove he’s a time traveller?”

The grin didn’t leave his face. He titled his head, then simply said. “Well, we need to be completely sure, don’t we?”

All of a sudden I found myself lying, convincingly, for the first time.
 

“Actually, I don’t believe the patient. Martin is right: time travel is impossible.”

Chapter Six.
 

As I made my way back down the dungeon corridor, Martin walked past me without any greeting. “I’m going back to the university,” he snapped at me over his shoulder. “If you have any sense you will join me.”

Well, I wasn’t sure it was a true indication of how much sense I possessed, but I had no intention of leaving until I’d spoken to the patient in the blue room. I had to warn him about something. And I knew I had to do it quickly.
 

I shook my head at Martin and kept walking, hurrying towards the blue room as fast as I could in heels, and as fast as I thought it was reasonable to go without drawing suspicion. When I reached the familiar door down the far end, I pulled it open and made my way in, sighing with relief when I saw there were no medical staff in there. Lying in the far corner on his cot was our infamous time traveller. I was surprised to find him asleep — surely travelling through time would be enough excitement to keep you awake. Then again, waking up in an unfamiliar world, not being able to breathe the air, was probably quite tiring.
 

I rushed over and shook his shoulders, briefly aware that it was probably the wrong thing to do, considering his condition, but ignoring any good judgement I may have had. I needed him awake and alert. When my first shake didn’t rouse him I gave him a second more solid one.
 

His eyes burst open and he gripped my arm. The look of panic in his eyes resided as he saw who it was. “It’s you,” he said, relieved. “Thank god.”

I smiled wanly. “I’m Anna, by the way.”

“Robert,” he offered back. “Robert Smith.”

I leant down. “Look,” I whispered. “I can’t explain exactly why, but I think I have to get you out of here.”

A look of alarm flashed in his eyes. “Why?”

“You’re just going to have to trust me. Honestly, I don’t really know what’s going on, but I don’t think you’re safe in this hospital.”

His blackened, charcoal rimmed eyes searched my face. He nodded. “I do trust you,” he said. “I don’t trust those other two though.”

I glanced up at his oxygen tank, worrying if he would be okay without it. Meanwhile I tried to address his concerns about the other two. “One of them is okay,” I said. “Martin, the one who has hair.”