The Far Time Incident Page 6

  A slow and steady plod took me from the stately Mary Anning Hall of Earth Sciences to the oversized Marie Curie Chemistry and Physics Annex to the elegant, glass-dominated Emmy Noether House for Mathematics, during which I (a) alternately removed and donned my jacket and gloves; (b) listened to the latest lab news while waiting for professors and researchers to fill out forms; (c) watched a chemistry demonstration in which a gallium spoon melted into hot water; (d) fielded a thinly veiled, inappropriate comment about my astro-boots from a senior researcher who clearly needed a refresher course in workplace sexual harassment; and (e) failed to find anyone who had seen the didgeridoo from Dr. Mooney’s office. The sun had progressed well along its low arc in the sky when I decided it was time for a lunch break and a fresh supply of forms.

  I returned to the Hypatia of Alexandria House nursing a cut on my finger—a black, glossy specimen that had caught my attention on a Geology Department lab bench had turned out to be unexpectedly sharp. I bought a hot chocolate and a ham sandwich from the kitchenette vending machine, and carried my lunch past the multicultural winter holiday display in the hall and into my office, where I spent a few minutes rummaging around in the window cabinet for a Band-Aid. After the Band-Aid was in place, I unwrapped the ham sandwich, took a warming sip of the hot chocolate, and hit the answering machine button on my desk phone.

  The first message was from Dean Sunder. He was driving to St. Paul to meet with a potential donor who was hinting that she might offer up a significant sum for the school. I jotted down a note to ask him for details when he got back; the dean kept a running tally of donation promises in his head and sometimes forgot to relay them to me. It helped speed matters along if I sent a follow-up letter printed on the finest and thickest university stationary reminding the donor of his or her promised sum.

  The next three messages were from researchers wondering when STEWie would be back online, followed by two from news reporters. I had seen the headlines. Has Science Gone Too Far? Is a Life Worth a Journal Article? The Death Price for a Photo? Perhaps, I thought, replaying the reporters’ messages, Dean Sunder needed to compose a press statement about the adventurous journey that is science, a journey of curiosity and exploration that only occasionally leads to mishaps. I jotted that down on my yellow legal pad, then played the last message, a long, rambling one that filled the rest of the phone machine’s memory. It had been left by an uninformed gentleman who was certain our scientific experiments would destroy the world’s past; this even though the school had gone to great pains to explain to anyone who cared to inquire that changing the past was impossible because History always protected itself.

  The real problem, I thought, hitting the Delete button, was that we now knew more about History, more about its warts and scars and soiled undershirts. Stuff that up until now had been glossed over by the passage of time and the vagaries of the pen, as deeds and accomplishments got exaggerated and the lucky and the successful became valiant and brave—and the unlucky, for whom the inevitable coin toss had landed on the wrong side, sank into oblivion. Much of what used to fill history textbook pages now had an asterisk next to it.

  I shook the thought out of my head. A pensive mood had come over me after Dr. Mooney’s accident. I sent off a bunch of e-mail replies, finished off the sandwich and the now-lukewarm hot chocolate, and headed to the Rosalind Franklin Biology and Genetics Complex, next on my list. Once I was done there, I moved on to the TTE building, briefly chatted with Oscar about roses (the ones in his garden were covered for the season, of course, but the ones in his greenhouse were flourishing, he reported), and then went inside.

  I left my goose-down jacket hanging on the coatrack just inside the building’s front door, having stuffed my hat and gloves inside a sleeve. Unlike the compact, brick Hypatia of Alexandria House, which was as old as the school itself, the one-floor, balloon-roofed cement building that housed Time Travel Engineering was a modern affair, built to house an ambitious chemistry experiment that had never gotten off the ground because of funding difficulties. The main hallway of the building followed the angular bends in the lab walls; from it sprouted the offices of the TTE professors, postdocs, and grad students like petals on one of Oscar’s roses. Intermixed with the offices were two classrooms, the conference room, the printer and office supply room, and the travel apparel closet with its changing area.

  Dr. Rojas was not in his office, the first on the right, but I had expected that. He had been holed up in the TTE lab for the past week, endeavoring to find out what had taken away his longtime colleague and friend, only making an appearance for the memorial service. I turned away from the closed door to his office and went past the first bend in the hallway, raising my hand to type in the lab entry code. Then I changed my mind and turned instead toward the open door of Dr. Mooney’s office across the hall. I could hear the movers joking around as they packed up his things. It sounded like they were dropping them into boxes.

  They were. Books.

  “Please be careful with those,” I called out from the doorway. “Some of them are very valuable.”

  Two young, muscular guys looked up. Their jackets lay on the floor in a heap and they both sported crew cuts, jeans, and white tank tops. “No problem, lady,” the one at Dr. Mooney’s desk said. “We’re always careful with the fragile stuff—we double wrapped the desk lamp.” He tossed one of Dr. Mooney’s books across the room to the other mover, who dropped it into an open box.

  “Never mind the lamps,” I said. The lamps and the rest of the office furniture weren’t supposed to have been packed at all. “The books are probably more valuable than anything else in this room.”

  He shrugged, as if used to dealing with overprotective home owners. “The insurance will cover any damage.” He tossed another book across the room, a bound photographic copy of a Maya codex. Its pages fluttered as I stepped in and caught it. “Someone went to a lot of effort to obtain these.”

  They gave me a blank look.

  “Never mind,” I said, gently lowering the Maya codex into the open box. “Just—well, you are packing away someone’s life’s work, not office paraphernalia that can be easily replaced.”

  “Not to worry, lady.” He made a deliberate show of walking across the room and gingerly handed a stack of lab notebooks to the other mover, who just as gingerly lowered them into the box.

  “Well, that’s all right then, I guess,” I said. As Abigail had mentioned, the room smelled strangely like Thanksgiving—an herby, cinnamon aroma permeated the space around the stacked and open boxes. I decided against asking the movers if they had been the ones to spray air freshener in the room. It seemed unlikely.

  “Did the purple-haired girl find her whatsits?” one of the movers asked as I turned to go. I shook my head and crossed the hallway back to the TTE lab, entered the code, and went in. The double doors closed behind me with their usual creak. Maintenance, after some prompting, had promised to oil the hinges by the end of the week.

  I found Dr. Rojas—hovering is probably the right word—by the aquarium tank that was placed squarely in the middle of STEWie’s basket. The tank looked like it had been put there for the purpose of displaying the single fish that was swimming irritably behind the encrusted glass, not as a vehicle for a time-traveling aquatic. The outside of the tank was wet and water was trickling onto the floor from it, forming small icy patches. The fish was about the length of my arm, elbow to fingertip, yellow, bug-eyed, with vertical blue-black stripes. Dr. Rojas seemed to be feeding it little pieces of broccoli.

  He started when he saw me and said, “Julia.” He added with some embarrassment, “The zebra tilapia was getting hungry, so I thought I’d better give it something to eat. It’s an experimental fish,” he clarified for some reason.

  Not being the caretaker of any pets, I was wondering how one knew when fish needed to be fed, when the zebra tilapia sucked up a mouthful of gravel from the bottom of the tank, charged upward, and spit it out in our direction, managing only t
o shower the aquarium glass facing us. Dr. Rojas hurriedly dropped a handful of broccoli pieces through the small, uncapped opening in the tank lid, and the zebra tilapia snatched them up one by one. After a moment, the fish’s stripes seemed to brighten to a light blue.

  “Did it just change color?” I asked with interest.

  “The color varies according to its mood. It hasn’t been harmed by any of the runs we’ve sent it on, but I have to say, I wish the Genetics Department experimented with more pleasant fish. I’m not quite sure they even want it back. I’ve left repeated phone messages telling them that I’m done with their tilapia.”

  “I suppose a fish with personality makes for interesting research,” I said. I pulled a tissue out of my sweater pocket and bent down to scoop up a trail of tiny gravel pieces that had lodged themselves against the base of the platform. Not gravel, but peppercorns. Perhaps Dr. Rojas had peppered the broccoli for the fish’s enjoyment, I thought. I turned to ask him, but he had set the dish with the broccoli aside and was wiping his palms on his slacks as he headed for one of the computer terminals. His clothes were rumpled and his gray-streaked mop was more disheveled than usual, as if he had spent the night in the lab. Come to think of it, he probably had. I thought about suggesting that he find a change of clothes in the travel apparel closet and take a shower (the emergency eyewash and shower stations that had been built for the never-realized chemistry lab had been converted into a decontamination unit for returning time travelers), but only said, “You’re finished with it then? The fish?”

  “Yes. There’s not a thing wrong with the equipment.”

  “Dr. Rojas, are you sure?” I said, following him over to the computer terminal.

  Now perched on a barstool-like lab chair, he was giving his attention to long screenfuls of incomprehensible (to me, at least) number-symbol sequences. “Hmm? What’s that, Julia?”

  “You’re sure there’s nothing wrong with the equipment?”

  “What? Yes, yes. Absolutely.”

  “The researchers who’ve been deluging me with messages asking if STEWie is back online will be glad to hear that. But, Dr. Rojas—”

  “Hmm?”

  “What went wrong, then? With Xavier Mooney’s run?”

  “The equipment does what we tell it to do, Julia,” he answered a bit testily, as if my presence was distracting him from more pressing matters. “Now, where—”

  It seemed to me that he was hinting that Dr. Mooney had goofed up in programming a run, like Dr. Baumgartner had suggested. I decided not to push him for now, figuring that he would let Dean Sunder and me know as soon as he found anything conclusive. “So we can restart the runs? As I said, a lot of people are eager to—but you already know that. I came by to ask if you’ve seen Dr. Mooney’s didgeridoo—no? Also, I need you to fill out one of these.” I set the blank Supply, Laboratory Space, and Office Space Request form on the table, next to the computer monitor. He glanced over at the form, said, “Oh yes, we need a couple of extra desks in the grad student office for incoming students,” and returned his attention to the computer, muttering, “If I didn’t know better, I’d say someone had—yes—but where—?”

  “Dr. Rojas?”

  “Hmm?”

  “The form?”

  He gave a vague wave without looking away from the screen. “Yes, yes. Just leave it anywhere. I’ll get to it later. There are more pressing matters at the moment—I wasted a week—could it be that simple—?”

  I picked up the form again, deciding that maybe I did need to push him if I wanted to finish my day’s work. “Dr. Rojas, is something wrong? You seem a bit distracted. And where are your students?” I looked around the lab, noticing for the first time that it was studentless. Unlike undergrads, who stuck around during the holidays only if traveling home was too expensive or too hard to arrange, grad students usually stayed on campus to work on their research and dissertations. Abigail had no family to visit, Kamal had been home to Egypt over Thanksgiving, and Jacob’s parents, I’d learned, lived in town. The three of them should have been around.

  “The students went to get something to eat. I took the opportunity to test an idea—” He brought his eyes closer to the monitor and squinted in concentration. “Have I been looking at this all wrong? But that must mean—”

  I moved closer, budget form in hand, until my arm was almost touching his shoulder. Whatever was on the screen meant nothing to me, but his demeanor did. I felt a shiver travel down my spine. I brought my voice down an octave.

  “Gabriel, what is it?”

  His fingers had frozen above the keyboard.

  “Gabriel?”

  “Julia—we need to call Chief Kirkland back.”

  “You’ve found the cause of the accident?”

  “It wasn’t one.”

  “Not an accident? Gabriel, are you saying—you can’t possibly mean—”

  He ran his fingers through his hair, like people sometimes do when they’re fighting disbelief, then turned and locked eyes with me.

  “I hesitate to say this, but no other explanation befitting the facts has presented itself. Julia, we’re looking at foul play.”

  6

  I reached Chief Kirkland in the middle of Sunniva Lake, where he and Officer Van Underberg were dealing with a pair of first-year grad students unaware of the no-snowmobiling-on-campus rule. (The lake was especially off-limits, whether the ice was firm or not.) Some fifteen minutes later, Oscar guided the chief and Officer Van Underberg into the TTE lab. They strode in through the propped-open doors and over to where I waited by Gabriel Rojas’s workstation. I had sent the professor to freshen up and get something to eat. We needed him at his best for what was to come.

  Sabotage.

  I imagined the word spreading by word of mouth and the beep of electronic gadget through the hallways, lab to lab, building to building, all around Sunniva Lake. Only it wasn’t. The chief had instructed me over the phone to keep Dr. Rojas’s finding under wraps for now.

  Chief Kirkland’s eyes swept the lab. Last time, he had taken it in with the curiosity and interest of a first-time visitor to STEWie’s home; this time, it was done slowly and with care, like he was a researcher rolling up his sleeves prior to commencing a particularly tricky experiment whose outcome was uncertain.

  “It’s cold in here. Was last time, too,” he said when he finally turned back to me.

  “It always is. There’s cryogenic equipment under the floor, to prevent STEWie from overheating. Our Minnesota climate helps to keep the building cool—though our electrical bills are quite large in the summer.”

  “I had a feeling that there was more to this case than met the eye,” he went on.

  “I didn’t,” I said quite honestly, wondering if he was just saying that or if he’d really had a feeling all along that this was more than just an accident. Then I remembered how the chief had taken an unobtrusive seat in the back of the conference room the day the professor’s molecules had been spread over time, and listened as the professor’s colleagues talked about him. Well, perhaps he had had a feeling after all.

  As if he could tell what I was thinking, the chief explained, “It’s my job to expect the worst from people. While hoping for the best, of course,” he added as Dr. Rojas hurried back into the lab. He looked like he had splashed water on his face but was still wearing the same set of rumpled and slightly smelly clothes. He had a granola bar in one hand.

  Chief Kirkland, wasting no time, said to the professor, “STEWie and time travel. Tell me more about how it works.”

  Dr. Rojas, looking somewhat taken aback by the security chief’s abruptness, sank onto a lab chair and said, “Where to begin?” He absentmindedly unwrapped the granola bar and took a large bite as if it was the first thing he’d eaten all day (which it probably was), then waved the security chief over to a second lab chair. Chief Kirkland shook his head and indicated to Officer Van Underberg that he should sit. The officer plopped himself down and readied his spiral notepad
and pencil.

  I noticed that Jacob Jacobson had followed the professor in. The ginger-haired youth had taken a seat at a desk by the lab lockers, propping a textbook open in front of him. Jacob’s parents ran the town bookshop/antique store, I’d found out, so he biked home every night. I’d also heard that he was having trouble in some of his classes and had requested extensions to finish all of his projects. I could see his fingers moving behind the textbook, like he was typing something. I wondered how the chief intended to keep the happenings in the lab quiet. I thought I’d better inquire, “Chief Kirkland, do you want me to limit the audience?”

  “What? I mean, I beg your pardon, Ms. Olsen?”

  I indicated Jacob with a nod of my head.

  The chief turned on his heel. “Didn’t see him there in the corner. Yes, let’s get the students out. I’ll get to them later.”

  Jacob, who had heard the exchange, scurried out the door, head down, phone in hand, fingers still moving. I suspected he was in the middle of tweeting something along the lines of, Kicked out of STEWie’s lab, what in the world is going on???

  Dr. Rojas, having finished off the granola bar, sent the wrapper flying into a trash can in a gentle arc. “Time travel. You wanted to know how it works. Hurtling yourself into a time period not your own and then finding a path once you’re there—well, it’s like trying to navigate a tricky maze with high walls.” He seemed to be choosing his words with care, like he was explaining time travel theory to a journalist or a potential donor. “First you need to find a maze entrance—that is, a place to step out of STEWie’s basket.” I couldn’t stop myself from looking in the direction of the basket, but one of the larger mirrors blocked our view of it from this angle. “Popular places to aim for are just inside a forest line at dusk, the outskirts of a city at daybreak, a beach after sunset. Once you arrive, invisible maze walls present themselves, limiting your ability to move with freedom, the reason for which is self-evident.”