Free Allergic To Time by Crystal Gables

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 academic. 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,