Time Passages (Queen or Freddie Mercury Fanfic)

Lab Rats: A Voyeur's Life

It was around ten-thirty that night, while most all of the team, worn down and wiped out from the last extremely strenuous sixteen hours, had put themselves to bed to be rested and ready for another trying sixteen-hour session the next morning, that it happened.

All twenty-one of their approved devices buzzed, beeped, or lit up depending on the volume setting.  They had received a high-priority notification from the lab computers, which, once opened, consisted of an encrypted link and a simple explanatory message.

Thanks to the pink "smart pills," the lab rats were able to keep track of Freddie's basic physical condition for a maximum of twenty-four hours after being ingested.  The information was channeled directly into Dr. Preus's data banks, which, if the news met the criteria of an emergency, then was transmitted to certain members of the team depending on the gravity of the change.

Stuart found the notification first.  He was just pulling a lukewarm chicken pot pie out of the microwave, thinking to himself how Julia was a really wonderful cook and that he wouldn't have to keep eating this stuff if she and the kid would just move in with him already, when his phone let out a single, high-pitched tone.

Before he could look at the notification, however, his phone buzzed again- but this time with a call.  ID revealed the number to be that of Dr. Ling- and Stu didn't know whether to be frustrated or nervous.  Opting for a mixture of both, he answered it, greeting her with a businesslike "Dr. Preus speaking."

"Good evening," she replied.  "I haven't caught you at a bad time, have I?"

"I'm just sitting down to dinner, actually," he said.

"Oh, good.  You're not busy.  Listen.  You are aware of the recent news headlines your runaway subject is currently making, correct?"

Stuart sighed.  "Yes, I'm aware."

"Have you seen the latest chaos he has caused this very evening?  It's all over the Internet-"

"I know, I know, I saw it.  Big headline in all caps.  'QUEEN'S MANAGER CONFIRMS: NO HOAX.'  I'm way ahead of you, Dr.-"

"Siang," she corrected him.  "We are peers after all, so do call me Siang, if you wish."

"Okay.  Fine.  Siang, I'm way ahead of you on that."

"Then you do have a means to deal with the aftermath?  You can't just Crebinate everyone who's seen him after all."

"I know that," he nodded.  "But Siang, the guy's in his mid-eighties.  And even if they don't pass him off as some aging crackpot falling for a too-good impersonator- listen, within three weeks to a month, everyone will have forgotten about this all by their lonesomes.  People will get distracted by some other shiny new thing, and Bucky won't be a memory in their minds any more than we will be in his."

No matter how many times Stuart strove to assuage Dr. Ling's concerns, however, she only seemed to produce more.  And all he could do was listen to her go and let his chicken pie turn cold, forgetting all about the lab notice till much later.

Someone else probably saw it anyway, he reasoned. 

And he wasn't wrong.

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Dr. C was next to investigate, for he was one of the few still up. Ever since he came home, he had been striving to get Julia's housebugs back online. Thanks to a very unfortunate turn of events and Bucky's hot temper, both of the receivers had been knocked offline, and she had yet to pair her new device with them, reestablishing their connection to the Cloud- and therefore, his access to her private life.