The girl and the boy were standing in front of his apartment block. His question was so vague, she could only hope he'd clarify.

"I meant, what do you think about relationships?" he finally replied.

"What about relationships? It's not like I should be prying on Molly and Aga ..."

"For you. I meant what if it is you? You and the possibility of starting a relationship with someone, right now... How do you feel about something like that?" Iqball laid his question out limb by limb.

Ballqis was taken aback. 

"I don't know. I suppose if it is the right guy and I feel good about it... and confident that I could handle it without ditching studies. But why ask me? Shouldn't you be asking Aga or Molly?" she rambled.

"Why should I? They're not the ones I'd ..." Iqball's sentence was cut short by a noise.

Someone was calling their names.

A girl was running towards them. 

Mirna! They both saw who it was as the figure hurled herself towards them.

"You two! Come with me," she hissed.

***

"So you planted the receipt? Why? What for?" Iqball asked.

Mirna had taken them to the 24-hour convenience shop just next to Ballqis' apartment building. She even bought each of them hot tea.

"Mrs Jogh is taking out some of the specimens soon. I thought you should know. I heard she was going to hire some other mover but thank goodness at the last minute Mrs Jogh picked Aaronmail to transport half of the fish from the lab to an undisclosed location. You guys showed her the receipt? Or she found it? Who cares how. That's the good news. The ploy worked!" she said enthusiastically.

Ballqis and Iqball were still unsure if that was something that they should celebrate.

"I've got bad news, though. The move. It's happening on Monday. We only have this weekend," Mirna quickly added. Her sullen expression seemed genuine.

Ballqis recalled how the red head reacted when they first approached her. Iqball too remembered that Mirna wasn't this thrilled to talk about the fish before.  

"How did you found out?" Ballqis queried. Something just felt odd.

"I know a guy who works for that company. I thought you two wanted to save the fish?" Mirna replied easily.

"An Aaronmail staff? Why would he tell you these things?" Iqball asked.

"Look, I found out about Aaronmail last semester, made friends with one of the workers. I passed by the lab a couple of days ago and saw the green tags. I called the Aaronmail guy to check," Mirna explained.

"Well, we're not sure about anything. It's just that ... if they don't incinerate the fish, then that's good enough, right? It will live on elsewhere ... right?" Ballqis answered.

"You're deluding yourself.
You think they'd be sent to pet lovers, don't you? Exotic fish collectors maybe? Live in castles and rich men homes where aquariums come with corn or wheat buttons? Come on, Aaronmail is a specialised live good mover. The guy I knew transferred out frogs and lizards that came into this country via aeroplanes hiding in passengers' shoes. They put an end to those animals by letting them inhale chemicals," Mirna insisted.

We can't have that for T7, said Iqball to Ballqis, just with a blink of his eyes.

Yeah, that talking fish is too precious to die like that, Ballqis agreed with a teeny nod.

"They are tilapias. Not exactly kois or bettas, you know. They're... well, not pretty?" Mirna argued further.

The younger students looked defeated.

"So how many of them will you be saving?" Mirna asked, hoping to revive their spirits.

"We're not saving any, we can't," Iqball said, not stretching the truth.

Ballqis wasn't sure why but to her Iqball appeared bent on cutting off Mirna's involvement in their little Save T7 Project. Puzzling, because it seemed clear that Mirna could make a wonderful ally.

"First, they are not our property. Secondly, we don't know what kind of growth or any sort of development they'd be experiencing in the future. To simply hide one as a pet, on campus grounds, is very, very risky," Iqball continued.

His words stumped both Ballqis and Mirna. Ballqis got a feeling something was up, Iqball's tone sounded too decisive. 

Iqball sipped his sugarless tea.

"Sorry Mirna, if we gave you the wrong idea... " he added.

Ballqis kept her silence. Mirna looked a little pale.

"Look, I know at least one of the fish is able to ... communicate," Mirna said, after a long silence.

Ballqis nearly burnt her lips sipping her tea.

Iqball was taken aback, but his movement looked a little dramatic to Ballqis. Why are you faking it? Gosh, you're so bad at acting, Iqball.

"What do you mean?" he quickly asked Mirna.

Mirna rubbed her hands as her eyes darted around. There were only a few pairs of students on a date at the surrounding tables outside the convenience store.

"Crap. I'm going to sound like a nutcase," she finally said.

But Mirna seemed desperate.

"Just hear me out, please. Last semester, while I was still lab girl, I bumped into this fish... He could push thoughts into my head. He'd babble, 'No', when I feed him the regular pellets. I switched to corn and boom, a voice would get into my head. It was saying 'yes', I swear," she whispered.

The Balls held their tongue.

"I tried to get it to talk. So I kept talking to it, hoping he'd respond. But he only says things whenever he wants. Once he said, 'Watch out' when I almost ram into an empty tank," Mirna added.

Almost in unison, Ballqis and Iqball both picked up their drink.

"Wait," Mirna suddenly narrowed her eyes.

"You guys ... have you two heard anything? Heard any of the fish 'talking'? Or sending thoughts into your head? Tell me!" she hissed.

"Hey, calm down, Mirna, please," Iqball immediately pleaded. He put down his drink slowly when he saw how agitated the pretty girl was.

"You're sure about this?" Ballqis had to ask Mirna something, the senior looked as if she was ready to explode.

Mirna's fierce glance softened.

"I knew it. I knew I should not have sought for your help. Instead of just two, now I have two more people on campus who'd look at me like I'm deranged."

As Mirna buried her face into her crumpled sweater, the duo exchanged looks.

"Hey, we believe you," Iqball said.

"Tell us everything," Ballqis said.

Mirna's face lit up.

"Towards the end of last semester we received a new batch of young fry. I noticed one tend to swim less than its peers. It liked the music I put on when I have to crunch numbers in the lab itself. It wasn't behaving like the previous batch..." she began.

Mirna spent the next twenty minutes giving them more details.

She had brought her mini TV into the lab and watched soap opera with the little fish. The first time she heard a voice inside her head, she thought a ghost had haunted the lab, but her rational mind persisted. Why would a ghost choose which kind of pellets to eat?

Mirna was often ditched by her lab mate, so she ended up working longer than the required four hours. While feeding and recording their behaviour pattern were part of the regular tasks, back then she also had to key in data regarding weight and size.

"I was doing what those professional lab assistants that you have now were doing. I noticed that one choosy fry was also growing slightly faster than the rest. It also had this stare ... you know, James Earl Jones kinda stare? So one day I got that Coming To America movie playing on my tablet and I said to the fish, 'Hey Babyfish, you sound a lot like this guy in my head.' It laughed! I swear to God it did. And eversince that that day his voice sounded just like James Earl Jones in my head!"

Speechless, Iqball could only nod. At least he was doing a better job than Ballqis. The boho girl was stunned. She remained motionless in her seat.

"Please, guys, say something. Or drink. Just don't label me 'schizo' like Micah did," Mirna whispered. Her voice had withered octaves lover, even though the couple at the next table had been long gone.

"I'm not crazy, ok? I'm not. The others don't respond like that one fish did. They showed no interest in communicating, not even using their behaviour. But that one, that special one, he could even read my thoughts," Mirna went on.

As she spoke her forehead beaded with tiny sweats. She was nervous. Her guts told her Ballqis and Iqball would not have gone through the trouble of seeking her out at the faculty's Bake Off Day had they were not interested in saving the fish. She was positive that the pair had seen or heard something too.

"Please, believe me."

Ballqis took a sip of her drink. "So you call the clever one Babyfish, and it actually replied?" she asked.