Allergic To Time (6 page)

Robert raised his eyebrows. “He didn’t exactly seem friendly.”

“That’s just how he is. He’s a good guy, honestly.”

“And what about the other one?” Robert looked worried.
 

“That’s why we have to get you out of here.”

***
 

I stuck my head out into the corridor to make sure it was empty. Glancing back inside at Robert sitting on the bed, dressed in his goddamn purple jumpsuit, I worried if he was going to be able to survive without the oxygen tank. He didn’t stand a chance in the hospital either though, I thought, so we were just going to have to take the risk.
 

Robert looked at his surroundings. “I guess I don’t have anything to bring with me.”

I spun around. “Well, were you carrying anything with you at the time? You know, when… it happened?”

“When I travelled through time you mean?”

I nodded.
 

He sighed, thinking. “Yeah, actually. A red knapsack.”

I stepped back inside the room, reluctant about taking my eyes off the hallway. “Well, I can’t see any bags here.”
 

“Maybe bags don’t travel through time,” he muttered.
 

“Look, regardless, I think we need to leave as soon as possible,” I said, hurrying back over to stick my head out into the hall. “Before anyone else gets here.”

“Where are we going to go?” He stood up shakily.

I suddenly wished I hadn’t travelled there in the man in black’s Rolls Royce. Even though we weren’t that far from either the
 
university or my house, I wasn’t sure Robert’s lungs would be able to survive the 2 km walk. And getting on a bus with him looking like he did wasn’t going to be ideal. Then again, we were in the Sydney’s notorious Inner West, so maybe no one would give him a second glance.
 

“Hello?” Robert asked again when I didn’t answer. “I’ve got nowhere to go - I
think
my lease might have been expired for a while by now.”

“Err, right.” I scratched my head. “We’ll go back to the university first. So that you can speak to Martin, properly. He’ll already be there by now.”

“I’m not speaking to that guy!” He reached out a hand to steady himself, almost falling back down on the bed.
 

“I’m sure, actually, that he’s secretly very sympathetic about your situation. Anyway, he’ll know what to do.” I patted my coat to make sure my laptop was still secure, then fastened the buttons all the way up. “Seriously, we have to go.”

Robert took a deep breath and followed me out into the hall. In the slightly brighter light of the corridor his appearance was even more absurd.
 
His hair was a lot longer than I’d thought: jet black and feathered, a bit like Joan Jett. He had a bluntly cut fringe that hung into his black-rimmed eyes, now that he was standing. And he was tall, really tall — although, that might have had something to do with the ridiculously high platform boots he was wearing.
 

“Nice heels,” he said to me, admiring my own ridiculous footwear.

“Thanks,” I said, raising my eyebrow.
 

“So who are you? Are you this Martin guy’s secretary or something?”

“Secretary?” I almost forgot that we were in a hurry and paused for a moment to take offence. “No, I’m a PhD physics student.”

“Wow,” he said. “A girl scientist?”

I suddenly questioned just what time period this guy was supposed to be
from.
I thought the 70s were supposed to be liberal. He seemed more like he’d travelled from the 1910s.

“Yes, a ‘girl scientist’,” I replied and turned around to keep walking.
 

He followed me. “That’s cool.”

“I suppose it is pretty cool. Come on, we really need to hurry. Can you breathe okay?”

Robert seemed like he was struggling to keep up with me - I assumed because he was having difficulty with the air. But I realised it was actually because he kept stopping to look around. “You know, all of this this doesn’t look all that different from the time where I’m from. Are you guys having just having a joke with me about this time travel thing?”

“Are we having
a joke with you
? I think some of us might hurl that accusation at you.”

Robert looked at me, alarmed. “I thought you said you believed me?”

I sighed, still trying to hurry him along the hallway, worried we were about to be stopped at any second. “I do believe you. It’s just a very unbelievable claim.” I paused. “And as for this hallway, well, they’ve put you here in some godforsaken ward that probably hasn’t been used or updated since the 70s.”

He started walking again, catching up to me. He was surprisingly agile in 6 inch platform heels. “What are we hurrying for anyway?”

“I don’t trust the man who came here with Martin and I this afternoon. The bald one in the black.” I quickened my pace. “I don’t know exactly who he is, but I’m almost sure he does not have good intentions toward you.”

We finally reached the end of the long corridor and rounded the corner, where the staircase leading to the top levels was located. Standing there above us on the top step, perched menacingly, was the man in black. He grinned at us, cocking his eyebrow slowly.

“Where the hell are you two going?”
 

The bastard once again triggered my previously dormant lying skills. “Robert’s hungry. I’m taking him to the cafeteria to get something to eat.” I tried to smile. “Would you like to join us? I am just dying for a vanilla slice.” I turned around to look at Robert, trying to get him to join in with the scheme, but he was frozen, scared stiff.
Jesus Christ
, I thought.
 

The man in black licked his lips slightly. “I’m disappointed in you Anna. This is not what I expected from you at all. I thought you were going to be a little more...helpful.” He slowly reached into the front pocket of his black jacket. When his hand reappeared it was holding a gun.
 

“Oh shit.” I took a step backwards, reaching out behind me to a still-frozen Robert.

The only thing I could do was run. I grabbed Robert’s hand and pulled him back around the corner, down the corridor in the direction we’d come. We needed to get out into the open, in front of other people.
 
The man in black wouldn’t shoot us in front of anyone, I was fairly sure of that. He wouldn’t be able to risk public exposure. As we ran down the corridor, the familiar blue hospital room flying past us on the left, I thought about the staff that worked there. Even if they were in on the conspiracy — which seemed likely – I doubted they would be a conspiracy to murder. We just had to find another person.

The man in black chased after us, but he didn’t shoot. I’d started to think that maybe the gun had been purely for show, a fear tactic, when we rounded the corner at the other end of the hall only to be greeted with an even worse sight. Nurse Bianca, standing there, guarding the stairway that led down to the exit, with a semi-automatic rifle hitched over her shoulder.
 

“Jesus Christ,”
Robert muttered, scrambling backwards.
 

I stopped, frozen. “Bianca, come on, you have to let us past…” I said, in disbelief.

But she didn’t budge. She certainly did not appear remotely sympathetic.
 

“I thought you were a nurse!” I couldn’t help exclaiming, even thought it sounded ridiculous as soon as I’d said it. “And now you want to kill people? I’m appalled, to be quite honest.”
 

“Anna!” Robert said, tugging my arm. He pointed for me to look in the opposite direction, where the man in black was closing in on us, keeping up a slow, steady, menacing
 
pace. I looked up at Robert’s panda eyes and felt overwhelmingly sorry that it was me who had put him in this predicament, and that I didn’t know how to get him out of it. I was the only person in the entire world he had to trust, and I’d put him in the centre of two crazed gun-totting lunatics.
 

I looked back at Bianca. I gave myself a quick harsh talking to.
 

Anna, this is your time remain calm, to think clearly
.
 

I was good at that.
Stay scientific
, I told myself.
Think logically
.
 

Okay, we were dead either way, I thought. So we may as well go for it.
 

I lunged towards Bianca, as hard as I could, and pushed her down the stairs. She looked shocked as she fell down them, her gun tumbling down alongside her. My immediate thought was,
‘Oh crap, I hope I didn’t hurt her’
. Meanwhile, Robert was beside me, clapping and cheering.
 

There was little time for celebration though. “Come on, RUN!” I shouted, grabbing his hand again, as we ran over the top of Bianca’s splayed body, skidding down the stairs and around the corner as fast as we could with our respective high heels on. We sprinted down the hallway at an inhuman speed, with both our sets of lungs struggling to keep up. There was a door within sight with a green “Exit” sign in neon lights above it. I tugged Robert and pulled him toward it, as he huffed and wheezed along after me. All we needed to do was get into a public space, I reminded myself, as the man in black — still right on our heels — chased us from behind. We just had to make it through the door.
 

We finally reached the door after what must have only been a few seconds but felt like a million years, I pushed it open, then pushed Robert through it before me, then ran our after him. We spilled out into the fresh air, into a densely populated back street in Camperdown. Freezing cold icy rain poured down onto us, shocking my face with how cold it was, the force and temperature of the rain making it even more difficult to catch my breathe. Robert was beside me, doubled over, his eyeliner and mascara pouring down his face in the rain.
 

I stopped for a second to make sure he was breathing, terrified that we would need to go back into the hospital for his oxygen tank. But after 20 seconds or so of wheezing he seemed to inhale enough air to be able to stand up straight. He grinned at me. I returned the smile and reached and hugged him. We were okay, for now.
 

Breaking our embrace, I pulled back from him so that I could get a good look at him. Looking straight into his mascara-stained face I told him,
 
“You’re going to have to stay with me.”

Chapter Seven.
 

There was no break in the rain the following morning. Hopping out of bed, I checked my notifications on my phone: it was full of hopeful messages and emails from students (and some faculty), speculating that classes might be cancelled for the day. There were rumours that perhaps some of the lecture buildings on campus had flooded, and that Parramatta River had spilled out over
 
onto the highway, making it impossible for half the students to get to class.
 

I put down my phone and laid back on my bed. It was 6:30am, my usual waking hour, but my bones were usually weary. I couldn’t believe it was only the second day of semester. The previous day had seemed like half a year alone.
 

I glanced over to the other side of the room where Robert was sleeping, his lungs rising and falling with what appeared to be some difficulty. My double room was massive, so even though we were on two separate beds there was enough space between us for my desk, table, couch and computer. I had to look an array of cords and table legs just to see him, and he was still the strangest sight I had ever seen.
 

But something was bugging me about the messages — or rather, the lack of some of them — on my phone. There were a dozen of them from Connie, asking about what had happened to me after class, why I had bailed on our study session, was I going to be on campus for our 8am study date, etc. And there were a couple of angry messages from my flatmate Jennifer, asking if I had taken her umbrella and claiming I had made her late to a dinner with her boyfriend and then when she had finally turned up she looked like a drowned rat. But there were no messages from Martin. Not that he was really in the habit of messaging students, mind. But considering what had happened the day before! Not even a text to make sure I was okay, or to check in on Robert? Or any word from him at all?
 

A thought occurred to me which made me sit upright.
Maybe something had happened to him
. It was so unusual for him to go so quiet — for crying out loud, he usually sent all his students updated memos on reading lists and homework seven times a day — that someone must have
made him quiet.
The man in black, or Bianca, or some other member of the Secret Time Traveller Killers Club or whatever it was that they were running, must have gotten to him the night before, and now he was lying dead in a pool of his own blood in his Glebe flat.
 

I threw my covers off and ran over to the other side of the room to shake Robert awake — a habit I was getting used to.
 
“Robert,” I shouted, shaking him again, this time more vigorously. “Something terrible has happened. I think.”

He woke up with a jolt, looking around my bedroom like he was disoriented. “Jesus, where am I now…”

“My bedroom remember? Anyway something’s happened to Martin. Or at least I think it has. We have to go and check on him right now.” I stood up and pulled on my black trench coat.
 

Robert sat up on his elbows and raised his eyebrows. “We? Man, I’m sleeping.” He laid back down and rolled over, pulling my spare pink doona cover up over his head. I walked over and pulled the donna back off his head.
 
“Oi! I did kind of save your life yesterday, you know. You’re coming with me.”

He pulled a face. “Alight, alright. But I need a shower first.”
 

“Fine.” I walked over to my bedroom door, grabbing a towel on my way, deciding that we could spare time for him to take a 30 second shower before we left. He really did need one.