Time Passages (Queen or Freddie Mercury Fanfic)

Lab Rats: What's Going On

K swept a restless finger back and forth across his tablet.  He wasn't looking for anything, it was just an excuse to keep his hands moving, to give himself something idle to do that wasn't twiddling his thumbs.  It was a habit of his, one he was seriously attempting to break, for he felt he looked even more like a geriatric whenever he did that.

He studied the round table where the entire team sat patiently.  Every chair was filled, every member was present- which made K wonder why they still hadn't gotten started.

They were all gathered in the secret meeting room, the second largest area within Preus Hall's underground compound, after Stuart's laboratory, of course.  In the center of this enormous table was a huge, spherical, 360-degree projector designed by one of George's international colleagues specifically for Stuart.  It projected three-dimensional, full-color, interactive holograms which could be manipulated by multiple people at once, which made it perfect for use here in the "War Room," as K liked to call it. 

Although this hall did bear a striking resemblance to the War Room in Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, that's not why he called it that.  This meeting room was truly basically a bunker.  It was situated the furthest underground, equipped with its own generator, and entirely self-contained.  The walls were insulated, soundproofed, and under twenty-four hour surveillance.  On the rare occasion meetings were held down here, every person present had walk through a TSA-style full body scanner, and unauthorized electronics such as personal phones were checked and subsequently erased- something poor Madelyn had learned the hard way. 

All we need is a Defcon System, and we're set, K thought to himself, half-smiling.  He glanced at his watch.  8:28 in the morning.  In another thirty minutes or so, K would have to think up a good excuse for leaving the meeting early- and pray to high heaven that no one followed him. 

"Who are we waiting on?" he whispered to Stuart, who was sitting at his left.  At first, Dr. Preus did not seem to have heard him- understandable, since the room, having fantastic acoustics, scattered everyone's voice in all directions, drowning out K's weaker tones. 

But then he held up his finger at K, kept his nose stuck in the worn-out paperback he had been reading on and off since he sat down.  A few seconds later, he snickered, pulled out a red pen, and laid the book flat in front of him while he underlined an entire paragraph.

"What's so funny?" K asked.

"Nothing's funny," Stuart replied, dog-earing the wrinkled and already quite ink-riddled page for later.  "I just love useful research, that's all."

K blinked.  "Researching what?"

Stuart slid the book toward him.  K turned it over, and felt his heart sink inside him as he saw the picture of Freddie on the front- but the other man holding the cat, he didn't recognize right off.

"I picked that up at the used bookstore yesterday," Stuart said.  "Dollar ninety-nine.  I'm only twenty pages in but I feel I've gotten more than my money's worth already."

"Mercury and Me, by Jim Hutton," K droned.  "I guess that's Jim then.  Who is he?"

"Bucky's apparent boyfriend from the eighties."

K swallowed, thoughts flying to Julia.  "Oh." 

Good Lord. I should have known.

C reached out his hand.  "Now, this, I gotta see.  Pass it over, would you, Steve?  Oh, that actually reminds me," he added while K pushed the book his way.  "Dr. Preus, you must be aware by now of all the postings on the socials, right?  Concerning #Freddiestwin?- oh, wow.  Yep.  There they are.  Woof woof."