Mathématique: Chapter 17

“But I’m not dressed for a car-jacking, handsome,” Vala said, faux seduction dripping from her words. “I could use a new shirt.”

Chapter warnings: Stressors of all kinds. Grief. Physical injuries. Mental health challenges. Pain.

Text iteration: Midnight.

Additional notes: None.

Chapter 17

The day faded into the lonely dark of a Rocky Mountain night. Pine-covered slopes stretched above the winding road, their grades sometimes steep, sometimes shallow. The shadows of the trees cut black swaths in a pale ribbon of starlit asphalt.

Young’s fingertips pressed into the groove in the passenger-side door, where the glass of the window would rise, if it weren’t rolled down. He tried to focus on the rush of the air, the sound of the car—on anything besides the weight of the dense, hot pain that twined in and around the steel pins bolting his bones into a workable frame. 

They’d been on the road for hours.

It’d been a questionable call to skirt Denver and continue north and west, to push so far so fast with Vala injured and with his own back seizing up to the point he was effectively useless.

But, god, the LA had to be neck deep in their security infrastructure if they’d breached the base network. A team-up with the Trust was the only thing that made sense. And the Trust knew Earth. Knew American cars and highways and local cop departments. Knew military bases, knew manufacturing practices, had a hand in politics, in finance—

To stop too soon would be to ruin any chance his neighbor had of making it outta this.

Right now, that was the only thing Young cared about.

Young glanced over at the mathematician. Rush was illuminated by the spectral 1960s glow coming from the dashboard. The light reflected off the white of his shirt and glinted in the frames of his glasses. He shifted a hand from the steering wheel to dig his fingers into the base of his neck.

“Headache?” Young asked.

“Craig,” Rush said.

“Head injury?” Young came back with calculated laziness. “My name is Everett, by the way. Feel free to use it anytime.”

Rush sighed. “You’re from Craig.”

“If you’re referring to the Elk-Hunting Capital of the World,” Young replied, keeping his voice low to avoid waking Vala, asleep in the backseat, “then I regretfully inform you that not only are you wrong, but also that Craig is in northwest Colorado. Not Wyoming.”

“Fuck.”

Young snorted. “Pretty sure you got that one from a road sign not ten miles back. No points for style.”

“There are points for style now?” Rush’s words blurred with exhaustion in the dark of the car. “How can there be any kind a’style assessment when I’m guessing? Guessing inherently lacks style.”

“You have a thing against guessing?” Young’s gaze flicked away from the road, caught by the pale gleam of animal eyes in the dark. “How’s that possible?”

“The only thing it’s got goin’ for it is a bare-bones methodology angled at a verifiable outcome, putting it under the rubric of rational as opposed to irrational thought.”

Young smiled faintly and closed his eyes, trying to banish the creeping dread he couldn’t seem to shake. “Must be hard to be you, hotshot.”

“Yes well,” Rush sighed.

Young waited a beat, but nothing came. No dry insults, no barbed questions, just the dull roar of the engine and the sound of tires over asphalt. He studied Rush, trying not to let the guy’s raw nerve, his tack-sharp decisiveness, his physical dynamism, his fuck-you-fuck-everyone independent streak get under his skin.

It would’ve worked, too, if he didn’t also know what the man looked like when he was glaring a berry compote into deliciousness, shoe-free and sporting stolen sunglasses.

God dammit.

He tipped his head back against the seat and sighed. “What’s your story, hotshot?”

“Do y’expect some kind of pat answer?”

“Why math?” Young tried.

“Why not math?” Rush parried.

Young watched the massing black of steep hillsides that surrounded the turning road. “Because,” he said hopelessly, “a guy like you has options. Whole truckfulls of options.”

“‘Truckfulls’.”

“Catering. Running your own Desserts and Insults channel on the Food Network. Teaching math to people who wanna pay to be terrified. Somehow you ended up driving yourself crazy with alien cyphers and on the run from the Lucian Alliance.”

Rush said nothing.

“You’re not bad in a tight spot,” Young said. “Add that one to the list.”

Rush said nothing.

“You’re good with tech. Computers. You really could go to Atlantis.” Young shot him a significant look, which was wasted on the side of the man’s head. “I wasn’t sure before. But you could handle it. You could turn on their devices for them. Figure out what they do. Find all kinds of locks that no one knew to look for. Make your way onto a gate team, eventually. Co-chair a Mensa club on Saturdays with Sheppard.”

“Sheppard.” Rush drummed his fingers over the steering wheel. “What did you say his first name was?”

“John.”

Rush raised an eyebrow at the mountain road, like it was in on a secret.

“Why stay here?” Young asked. “Why let the Lucian Alliance hunt you, just to solve some problem? Some series of problems? Let it go, hotshot. Ship out to Atlantis. Come back in a few years when some of this has died down?”

“No.”

“Yeah, consider me stonewalled. I get it’s a no. What I wanna know is why.”

“Even if I don’t get all the way to a solution,” Rush said, “I’ll cut a decade off the solving time. Maybe more.”

“Doesn’t do you much good if you’re dead.”

“It’s one of the final, unexplored—”

“I don’t need the funding pitch, Rush, I get it’s an important problem. Why are you bashing yourself into it like there’s no tomorrow?”

Night air raked through Young’s hair.

“You must know what it’s like,” Rush said quietly, “to look at a thing and to know it’ll bring you nothing but misery. To know and t’be unable, unwilling to turn away.”

The light is red and diffuse as he speeds over rust-colored rock in a stolen craft. The First City of the First World of the Sixth House glitters in the distance. 

“You must realize that choice is often nominal because there are things, classes of things, that one cannot live with.”

The air is hot. Already it carries the tang of ash. The wind tears through his hair and lifts the leather edges of an unfamiliar uniform. Fine grains of sand hiss against the transparent guard on the front of the craft.

“Yeah.” Young’s fingers dug into the groove for the recessed window. “But in life, Rush. In life. These cyphers—the gate—whatever lies beyond it—” Young trailed off, trying to frame his idea with words that weren’t cooperating. “You said it yourself. Until you unlock this thing, it’s an academic exercise. The math can’t make you face the kinds of choices you’re talking about. It can’t hold you here. It shouldn’t.”

“An’ what do y’imagine you know about it?” Rush made a restive flick of hand-to-mouth that suggested the specter of a cigarette. 

“Walk away.”

“One doesn’t walk away from mathematics.” The road twisted, throwing them into the shadow of an overhanging rock wall that blocked the little moonlight that illuminated the interior of the car. “It’s a vocation.”

Young looked into the dark. “I think you should go to Atlantis.”

They completed the turn, and the road spread out ahead of them, the moon giving the asphalt a silver glow outside the reach of their high beams.

Rush said nothing.

It was just past 0200 when Young decided they’d put enough distance between themselves and the base. It was time to make a call to the SGC. They pulled into a deserted rest stop off the highway, which sported a gas station and a service plaza.

“Why now?” Rush pulled the keys from the ignition and squinted into fluorescent light. “Why here?”

“Because,” Young said grimly, “if things have gone south, we’ll need to steal a car.”

“What?” Rush asked, exhausted.

“Yup.” Young kept the word as matter-of-fact as he could make it. He turned as far as he was able in his seat. “Vala, wake up.”

“Mmgph, wasn’t sleeping, I’ll have you know,” she replied, low and sleep-blurred. “It’s called resting, handsome. Completely different. Look it up.”

Young scanned the sidewalk in front of the gas station. “I’m gonna find a payphone. Stay in the car and out of trouble. Both of you.”

Vala shifted with a pained sound. “But what if a passing talent scout offers us modeling careers? We need a source of income, if we’re to live life on the run.”

Young snorted. “Come up with a car-jacking plan. We might need one.”

“Oh with pleasure. But I’m not dressed for a car-jacking, handsome,” Vala said, faux seduction dripping from her words. “I could use a new shirt.”

Young rolled his eyes and opened the door.

“Maybe one of those adorable blue ones that say ‘I heart Colorado’ on it? Except it’s a literal heart-shape instead of the word heart? Well, I suppose it’s not the shape of a literal heart, but you know what I mean. I’m using your symbolic conventions here. That’d be fabulous. I’ll take pink if they don’t have blue, and I’ll take white if they don’t have pink.”

“Right.” Young began the painful process of easing out of his seat.

“Size small,” Vala added, devious and hopeful.

Young levered himself up with the strength of his arms, trying not to put any weight on his left side before he was stable. He hunched over the car, praying his back would open up enough to let him walk.

“Need a hand?” Vala asked from the dark of her open window.

“Need a leg, is what I need,” Young growled. “I’m good.”

He supported himself along the warm hood of the car, coaxing locked-up muscles into loosening. By the time he reached the bank of pay phones, a cold sweat had broken out on his forehead. He leaned against the scuffed and clouded plastic of the booth, breathing hard, then fished in his pocket for change. Lucky they’d been able to find a payphone. Not too many of these things around anymore. He deposited the coins with the subtle clink of metal on metal.

He hesitated, hoping for the best, preparing for the worst, then punched in a number from memory.

He took a deep breath as he listened to the ring. The connection opened, and—

“Mitchell.” The word had bite.

“Hey,” Young said, guarded.

“Everett?”

“Yeah.”

“Thank god.”

Young cleared his throat. “What’s the situation?”

“It’s ah—” Mitchell tore his sentence a ragged edge before it had a chance to get started. “Could be worse. Foothold’s resolved, but—”

Young grimaced. “Who.”

“Two new guys from SG-19. Lieutenant Thomas. And—” Mitchell’s throat closed.

“Who,” Young said again.

“Sam,” Mitchell barked. “Carter. She’s hanging on.” Young heard a shuddery inhale. “Looks bad.”

“How bad?”

“Real bad,” Mitchell said shortly. “Real real bad. One to the chest. Point blank.”

Young gripped the side of the phone booth and looked up at the plane of the galaxy, trying to imagine defending the planet without Sam Carter.

“Cam,” he rasped. 

“We shouldn’t talk on this line,” Mitchell whispered.

“I know.”

“Do you have her?” Mitchell asked. “Do you have them both? Please just tell me you have her, Everett, because otherwise I swear to god I don’t know what I’m gonna tell Jackson if—”

“Yes,” Young broke in. “Yes. She’s with us.”

“Good,” Mitchell whispered.

“We’re all okay.”

“We shouldn’t talk on this line,” Mitchell said again, dully.

“I know,” Young replied.

“Stay off the grid for another twenty-four hours,” Mitchell whispered. “As soon as you call in your code to dispatch, they’ll have to log it, and then we’ll be worrying about who knows what. Lie low for a day.”

“You’ll let Landry know?”

“Yeah,” Mitchell breathed.

“This isn’t on you, Cam.”

“Yeah.”

“It isn’t on you.”

Mitchell said nothing.

“Cam.”

“I know. Look, I gotta go.”

“Cam—”

The line went dead.

Young didn’t move. He held the phone pressed to his ear and looked up at the sky, wondering how many stars had worlds where the Lucian Alliance held sway. He wondered what’d happened to Carolyn Lam. Or to that astrophysicist. Young couldn’t recall the man’s name. Were they still here, on Earth, or were they halfway-across the galaxy, prisoners of the Alliance?

A dial tone sounded in his ear. The plastic of the phone was warm in his hand.

He limped to the car, fighting the familiar fight against the agony in his back and side. As he approached Jackson’s Dart, he heard Vala speaking low beneath the sound of wind and night insects.

“—and when you run,” she said, “you pick your path based on who’s chasing you. They want you alive, run straight. They want you dead, vary your trajectory. Zig a little. Zag here and there. It’ll slow you down, but predictability’s a death sentence on the other side of any weapon designed for accuracy over long ranges.” Vala broke off as Young opened his car door.

He wrapped his fingers around warm metal and fell into his seat, swallowing a groan at the jolt and ache.

“Are you all right?” Rush asked.

“I’m good,” Young breathed through clenched teeth.

“I take it from the lack of T-shirt that a car-jacking is not required?” Vala made a solid effort, but couldn’t mask the unease in her voice.

“We’re okay,” Young told them. “Foothold’s resolving, but we won’t check in again until tomorrow, just to be on the safe side.”

“Good,” Vala said, still strained. “Glad to hear it. I’d hate to resume my life of crime and give the members of a Certain Flagship Team the satisfaction of—”

“Vala,” Young said, and her name cut off the flow of words so fast and so hard that he knew she’d been waiting for it.

Rush looked over at him, raw and exhausted in the harsh glow of the fluorescent lights.

“Sam Carter was shot.” Young twisted his body toward the back seat as far as he was able. Tight muscles threatened to snap under too much tension. He kept his eyes on the darkness behind the driver’s seat. It was the best he could do.

“That can mean a lot of things,” Vala replied, her voice steady. “It can—”

“She took a round to the chest,” Young continued. “Point blank. It doesn’t look good.”

Rush braced an elbow against the steering wheel and drove the base of his palm into his eye socket.

“What about the rest of the team?” Vala asked. “What about—” she trailed off.

“They’re okay. It was Cam I talked to.” Young released the painful twist he’s put in his spine and looked toward the highway, silent and untrafficked behind a wall of pine trees. Finding a place to stay seemed unreasonably daunting in the small, unfriendly hours of the morning.

Rush repositioned his hand, digging it into the back of his neck.

“Headache?” Young asked.

Rush dragged his finger through the air in a fluid approximation of a checkmark.

“We’ll find somewhere to stay,” Young said. “Check in with dispatch in the morning.”

“Right,” Rush said, the word nearly soundless. 

Out of sight, a hiss of tires against asphalt rose and faded away.

“Well,” Vala said, and through the word started small, it gained momentum as she pulled it out. “Now that we won’t be living out our lives as fugitives, I’m certain Daniel would insist we use his credit card to buy coffee.” She leaned into the space between the driver and passenger seat. “I mean look at this Absolute Vision of Stoic British Woe.” She gestured elegantly to Rush. “Daniel would not let this stand.”

Took Rush a good chunk of seconds to realize she was talking about him. He frowned with bleary, narrow-eyed skepticism.

“I’m not wild about it either.” Young let her wring half a smile out of him. “How do you have his credit card? I thought it was just his keys.”

“Fascinating story, actually,“ Vala braced her good hand against her bad shoulder. “I’ve been watching The X-files—it has some inherent interest for me, being as I am an ‘extra-terrestrial’ to you Earthlings, and let me tell you: this show is a weekly case study of practical lessons for the resident alien wanting to blend in. So when I find myself in a situation—”

“I’ll buy the coffee,” Young said.

“And snacks?” Vala smiled winningly.

“And snacks.”

“A soldier and a gentleman,” Vala said approvingly. 

Despite the pessimistic slant of Young’s thoughts, it took them less than an hour to find a motel and an unappetizing collection of processed food. To Vala’s disappointment, they couldn’t find any “I ‘heart’ Colorado” shirts; to Young’s disappointment, they ended up with decaf iced tea rather than a bottle of Jack Daniels. They retraced their path back to the nearest motel, where they paid in cash for a cheap room with a pair of double beds.

Vala wasted no time in kicking off her boots and settling herself on the bed furthest from the door. She cracked open an iced tea, the bottle braced between her thighs.

Rush went straight for the Tylenol.

Young took a seat at the foot of the unclaimed bed, picked up a package of chips, and tried to remember how his day had started.

“You going to stare at that, or eat it, handsome?”

“Neither.” He set it aside. “You want me to take another look at your shoulder?”

“No.” Vala closed her eyes. “It’s enjoying its alone time right now.”

Rush stepped into the bathroom and shut the door. The faucet went on, turned to max.

“Great.” Young stared at the white-on-white line where the cheap paint of the door met the cheap paint of the wall. He dug a hand into the knotted muscle above his left hip, bracing to stand.

“Don’t,” Vala said, propped against her pillows like a queen. “You’re after him too much as it is.”

He side-eyed her.

She shook her head.

“I don’t think you realize—” Young began.

“What?” She cut him off with a faint smile. “That he’s a sheltered little math professor who’s never been in a firefight?” She pouted theatrically, then straightened up with a swig of iced tea. “He did wonderfully. A little cry in the motel bathroom afterwards is part of it, handsome. He’s not the type to sob into anyone’s shoulder. Give him some space.”

“You know what it’s like to be left alone after a day like we had?”

“Of course I do.” She arched an eyebrow and something about her smile turned inward, a more personal curl. As if she could feel it on her face, she let her hair fall forward in a dark curtain.

“What?” he asked, half-smiling himself.

“Nothing, handsome, nothing. You’re just—you’re as bad as Daniel.”

“Jackson?” Young asked, not sure whether to be offended or complimented.

“You look so scandalized.” The light shone off her hair as she flicked it back over her shoulder. She handed him an iced tea.

Young twisted the cap, cracked the seal. “You’re talking about what?” He took a sip and grimaced at the taste of aspartame. “My objecting to your stealing Jackson’s credit card? Or the fact that I’m not inclined to leave an untrained civilian who just saw people killed, maybe for the first time, to have a solo meltdown in the bathroom of a shitty motel?”

Her smile evened out, took on a practiced cast.

He’d hurt her, somehow. “Vala—”

She shook her head sharply. “He deserves five minutes, don’t you think?” she asked. “He’s made of sterner stuff than you lot give him credit for.”

“Maybe,” Young said.

“As far as the credit card goes, handsome, you’ll have to forgive my less than absolute faith in the long-term viability and solvency of your organization, which, given the events of this afternoon, seems more precarious than ever. I prefer a backup plan.” The words were self-possessed and remote. She held herself stiffly, her injured arm clasped to her chest, her lips compressed.

“You put on a good show,” he said. “Really damn good.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she whispered, her face and body held in total stillness.

“Yeah, you do,” he murmured. “The whole buy-me-a-t-shirt thing. The whole let-me-tell-you-about-the-time-I-defrauded-a-guy-out-of-a-starship thing. The credit cards and the shitty cocktails and the astrology and—”

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry. Crappy cocktails.”

“Don’t knock it ‘til you try it, handsome.” Her tone was light, but her eyes were restive. Wary. She tucked her legs beneath her.

“You like being underestimated.”

Vala said nothing.

“I get it,” Young said. “I do. Big tactical advantage, being underestimated.”

Vala continued to watch him, unnaturally still.

“But it’s not a mistake I’m gonna make,” Young said.

“Oh, that’s what they all say, handsome.” Vala fingered the ends of her hair. “Each in their own way.”

“I don’t trust you,” Young said.

“I approve,” Vala said. “Trust no one.”

“Enough with The X-files, already.” He gave her a faint smile. “I don’t distrust you either.”

“That opinion puts you in line with the entire bureaucracy of the SGC,” she said. “Hence the probationary status.” She gave the edge of her blackened jacket a rueful flick where an insignia patch would be.

He felt a pang of sympathy. “I wanna ask you something.”

“Fire away, handsome.”

“You were a host. To a Goa’uld.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve built empires. You’ve participated in the rise and fall of civilizations.”

“Yes.”

“With all that perspective—I’d like to know what you think. Of us. Of this. What are our chances, with the Ori against us and the Lucian Alliance trying to beat us to unlocking the nine-chevron address?”

Vala looked down at the bedspread, strewn with brightly colored packages of food. She smiled, soft and sad, at an unopened bag of pretzels. “Do you know, no one’s ever asked me that? Not in all the time I’ve been here?”

“Not Jackson?”

“Oh, especially not ‘Jackson’.” Her eyes shone in the lamplight. “You’re overextended and besieged. Your rise to the status of a galactic power has been meteoric. Your fall could follow the same pattern. You risk so much without planetary accord. As individuals, you’re maybe too in love with justice, but when you temper this with humor, it’s very forgivable.” She picked up the package of pretzels. “You make beautiful things. So many of them. And they’re all so different.” She looked up at him. “Someone designed this wrapper.” She ran a finger over the cheap plastic of the bag. “This thing, destined to be trash. It’s colors were carefully chosen. It tells you what’s inside. It’s beautiful. It’s bad for you.”

“Do you think we’ll survive this?” Young asked.

“As you are?” Vala asked, a little wistfully. “No.”

He swallowed.

“When Origen comes, with its easy answers and verifiable miracles, it’ll burn through your world in a matter of days, leaving a boring monoculture in its wake.”

“Great.” He gave her a crooked smile.

“Sorry, handsome,” Vala whispered, “but—you did ask.”

“I did,” Young replied. He gave her a rueful look. “So, why stay here, trying like hell to join SG-1, if that’s what you think?”

“Well, one never knows.” Vala tore the bag of pretzels open with her teeth and gave him a dazzling smile. “It’s bad form to give up before the fight’s over because you think you’ve divined the ending. You’re a resourceful people. Plus, the intergalactic panache of SG-1 is quite notable. There’s got to be a way to capitalize on that, even if your civilization does fail. Maybe some kind of planetary protection fee I can charge for my—”

Young snorted.

“What?”

“Nothing, Don Corleone.”

“I take issue with that comparison,” Vala said primly. “I’m much too charming and attractive for it to work.”

“How are you so good with Earth trivia?” Young asked. “Mitchell says Teal’c still mixes his metaphors. He’s been here for a decade.”

“Well,” Vala said, “it’s all about attitude and interest sets. Speaking of which, where did you come from, handsome?” She crunched on a pretzel. “Hmm? Your ‘wounded soldier’ mystique is off the charts. There must be a good story wrapped inside that dour packaging.”

“Too tired and too sober to get into that.” Young pressed the heel of his hand into his lower back. 

“Let’s be drinking buddies.” Vala leaned back against the pillows. “Tonight, alas, we find ourselves at the mercy of Colorado liquor laws which prohibit the sale of spirits between the hours of midnight and seven AM—but this won’t always be true.”

“You’ll just break my heart.”

“Probably,” Vala agreed, “but that’s pretty typical for me, I find.”

“What I mean is,” Young clarified, “you’ll abandon me as a drinking partner once this whole SG-1 thing becomes official.”

“Oh come now.” Vala smiled faintly. “I’m known for my loyalty.”

“Right.”

The water shut off in the bathroom. The door opened. Rush leaned into the frame and surveyed the room. His dress shirt was rumpled, the left sleeve and the left side of his pants bloodstained from where he’d sliced his subcutaneous transmitter free, his hair was water-styled, and he’d left his shoes and socks in the bathroom.

Young gave him a faint smile.

“And then,” Vala said, flipping a conversational switch, “the man dismissed me. As if the idea of an attractive, independent, sexy female alien was preposterous. Can you believe the nerve?”

“No,” Young said, mystified.

Rush quirked an eyebrow.

“Here gorgeous,” Vala said, “have a pretzel.” She dangled the bag in his direction. “I was just telling your colonel about my meeting with a very important Hollywood exec last week. They’re making Wormhole X-Treme into a feature-length film. Have you seen it? It’s a television show based on SG-1.”

Rush quirked his eyebrow more.

“Good plausible deniability for the Air Force,” Young offered.

“I’ve a bit of a crush on Grell the Robot,” Vala whispered theatrically.

“Oh c’mon,” Young said. “Dr. Levant is everyone’s favorite.”

Vala shook the pretzels at Rush. “Not mine. Dr. Levant is boring and sanctimonious.”

Rush pushed off the doorframe, pulled his iced tea off the dresser, and accepted Vala’s pretzel offer. He sat on the edge of Vala’s bed and pressed the heel of his hand into his right eye. “Whereas, Grell the Robot?”

“Is sexy,” Vala answered without missing a beat. “Strong, quiet, reliable, deeper than anyone gives him credit for.”

“And on that note,” Young said, “I vote we all get some sleep.”

“I insist we share a bed, gorgeous,” Vala said, with a quick catch and release of the cuff of Rush’s dress shirt. “And I insist you tell Daniel.”

Young woke a few hours later, atop the covers of a still-made hotel room bed. His back ached, deep and dull. Images from his uneasy dreams tangled with his waking thoughts.

An obsidian floor.

A woman’s boot, crafted of black leather.

The lights were off, concealing the peeling paint and disintegrating carpet, but doing nothing for the smell of bleach that wafted from the bathroom and mingled unpleasantly with the suggestion of cigarette smoke that’d seeped into every porous surface in the room.

Rush was awake. At the small table next to the window, where the dim light from the parking lot filtered through partially opened blinds, he hunched over a pocket-sized notebook.

Young shut his eyes.

Willed himself to sleep.

Who was he kidding?

He sat slowly, easing and breathing through the muscle spasm trying to kick-start itself in his back and hip. He limped over to the table and dropped onto a hard seat, opposite Rush.

“Hey,” Young whispered, mindful of Vala, asleep in the far bed.

“Hello.” Rush didn’t look up from whatever it was that he was writing.

“It’s five in the morning,” Young said.

“Did y’want anything in particular?” Rush asked, still not looking up.

“You have to be exhausted.”

The flow of the pen over the page paused as Rush lifted his hand in a vaguely dismissive gesture.

Young sighed. “You wanna talk about it?”

“Why?” Rush asked. “Do y’have insights on joint applications of entangling Hamiltonians?”

“I didn’t mean the math. Is that even math?”

“From your perspective? Yes. Is it pure math? No.”

“You were nearly abducted,” Young pointed out. “Again.”

“I’m aware of that,” Rush replied.

“You saw people killed.”

“I’m aware of that too.”

“You found out you’re genetically special, or whatever.”

“Isn’t exactly news to me; I’m Scottish.”

Young exhaled, short and amused. He looked down at the surface of the table, absently dragging a brochure for some nearby attraction out from the shadowed place beneath the curtains where Rush had shoved it. He watched the pale white light that entered obliquely through the window reflect off its surface as he distorted it. He felt Rush watching him. “No one,” Young said without looking at him, “takes this kind of thing like you’re taking it. No one.”

“Evidence would indicate—”

“Unless,” Young said, cutting him off. “Unless there’s something in their life or their past that puts it in perspective. Takes out its teeth.”

Rush said nothing.

Young watched the delicate coordination of the mathematician's left thumb and ring finger as he subtly twisted his wedding band. Once. Twice. Three times.

Rush laid his hand flat against the wood of the table, like he understood he’d given something away.

They locked eyes.

“Yes, well,” Rush whispered, “we all carry our own metrics by which we judge the world.”

“Yup,” Young said quietly.