Free The Far Time Incident by Neve Maslakovic

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 to 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