Mathématique: Chapter 33

“‘Jacksonesque’?” Young repeated. “He’s gonna love that one. So much.”

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

Text iteration: Midnight.

Additional notes: None.

Chapter 33

The whir of the small craft becomes a whine as thickening ash chokes the engine. The motor struggles hard, like there’s a valiant heart trapped beneath all that System Lord gold. The controls turn sluggish.

The forces of the Sixth House begin to fire.

“Where’s your Tel’tak?” Kiva asks, as if she’s merely curious, as if nothing crucial rides upon his answer.

“Nearby,” he says.

Kiva smiles, but her eyes are haunted.

Young jerked awake.

He fought his way free of dream images: flaking ash, red sky, Goa’uld flight controls.

He’d fallen asleep on his couch.

He looked at his phone.

Saturday.

0700.

Someone was pounding like hell on his door.

God, he hoped the world wasn’t ending.

He sat, heart hammering, palms damp. The adrenalin muted the ache in his back and hip. He scanned through everything Jackson had told him, everything Cam had hinted at, that Vala had let slip about the tactical positions of the Ori in the Milky Way. The religion was spreading like wildfire. The memory of last year’s Alien Plague, thinly disguised, threatening the cover of the SGC, ran high and hard in his thoughts. 

He stood, not bothering to track down his cane, limped to the door, and threw it open.

Nick Rush stood in the frame.

Young took a breath. Recalibrated.

His neighbor’s eyes were red-rimmed. He was barefoot and wearing the same clothes from the previous day. He looked like a walking public service announcement about the dangers of sleep debt.

“Thought we were doing brunch,” Young said, settling himself.

“This is a bad time.” Rush brought a hand to his temple and studied Young like he was an out-of-focus picture. “You were sleeping.”

Young swung the door a little wider. “Come in.”

“I don’t need to come in,” Rush informed him. “I need a piano.”

He needed a piano? Last Young had checked, the man had been sporting a hatred for music. Not even a particular kind of music, but music as a cultural practice. Or something. But he knew better than to let the man hijack their conversation before Young had him out of the damned hallway.

“Inside, hotshot.” With one hand on Rush’s shoulder, Young ushered him into the room. “You look like hell.”

“Do I?” Rush squinted disapprovingly at Young’s couch—the slept-in bedding, the muted TV.

“Yes,” Young said.

“I’m fine,” Rush replied, as if he expected Young to take him seriously. “I need a piano.”

“Yeah,” Young said, “I got that much.” He tried to will himself into alertness, but it wasn’t working. He tried to think of a way he could drink coffee without giving any of it to Rush, but that wasn’t working either. “Hotshot,” Young began.

Rush waved a dismissive hand and crossed the room to close the slats of the venetian blinds. The lack of linguistic skewer-work set Young’s nerves on edge.

“Why do you need a piano?” he asked.

Rush didn’t reply.

“Why do you need a piano?” Young repeated.

“Not for my own amusement, I assure you.”

The streak of attitude in Rush’s tone was encouraging. “You need it for the cypher set?”

“Obviously.” Rush stared at a blank patch of Young’s wall. 

Young didn’t like the look of the guy. At all. Pale, distracted, strung out. He wasn’t coping well, post-Altera. He wasn’t coping well, full stop. 

Young pulled his cane away from the wall next to the couch. “You wanna make me breakfast, and we’ll talk about it?”

“All right.” Rush sounded defeated. He ran a hand through his hair, found it more of a mess than usual, and made a second pass. “I’m in no particular hurry.” He started for the kitchen.

Young limped after him, leaning into his cane. “You were banging down my door at 0700 like the world was about to end.” He pressed the heel of his hand into his aching lower back. “Since when are you not in a hurry? You get annoyed waiting at red lights.”

Rush opened the fridge.

“You get annoyed waiting for elevators.”

Rush shut the fridge.

“You get annoyed waiting for things to bake.”

Rush opened a cabinet.

“You get annoyed when people talk too slowly, which is everyone, all the time.”

Rush shut the cabinet.

Young stopped talking.

Rush said nothing. He braced his hands against Young’s counter.

“Damn it, Hotshot,” Young said quietly.

“Eight,” Rush said.

Young said nothing.

“I have eight.”

“Eight what?”

He couldn’t mean eight cyphers. Not yet.

Rush stared at Young’s counter, at the space between his hands. “You said not to disclose, so I haven’t. But I’m disclosing now. To you.”

Shit. Eight cyphers was exactly what he meant. “Okay.” Young tried to keep his composure.

“The sixth was done last week. The seventh this week. The eighth Perry cracked after I rendered it for her.”

“Okay,” Young said again.

“Nine and ten are more difficult.” Rush braced himself, then drummed his fingertips over Young’s countertop with eerie precision. “The eight I have, I’ll turn over to Carter.”

When word of this got to the LA, which it would, their incentive to make a move on Rush would be astronomical.

“You sure you don’t wanna hold those back until you get nine and ten?” Young asked.

Rush smiled faintly, but didn’t look at Young. “I just disclosed their existence to the acting head of the Icarus Project.”

“Yeah, but you could undisclose them for the low price of a killer omelette.”

“Command by whim and fiat,” Rush said, deliberately provocative. “What would Dr. Jackson think?”

“Jackson would tell you to sit on this,” Young said, not taking the bait.

Rush shrugged. Again, he drummed his fingers on the countertop. “I may not crack cypher nine. Take the eight.”

Young looked away, across his dining room, past the slow slide of morning light over wood floors and pale walls, past the parking lot, and toward the mountains. They were visible in the distance through the one window Rush had left unblinded.

They weren’t burning yet.

He wished he were like Jackson, clear of sight and mind. He wished he could see things the way Jackson did; he wished he could identify what was necessary, what was correct. He wished he could get it done, smoothing the hard edges of the swath he cut with the right words, the right books, the right tea. With knowledge, with coffee, with sympathy, and with so much understanding that even the Ancients, who wouldn’t interfere to save a galaxy or themselves from a fate of mindless worship, couldn’t bear to let him die.

If he were like Jackson, maybe he’d know what to do with his neighbor, who didn’t belong in Colorado, who couldn’t handle the budget house arrest the SGC had put him on, who couldn’t stop himself from pursuing a problem that was killing him, who couldn’t control his status as an intellectual resource, and who couldn’t have any idea of the expectations and pressures pinned upon him by Unnamed Committee #4.

“How long has it been since you were out of this building?” Young leaned into his cane, studying the mathematician. “How long since you’ve been anywhere but the base?”

“Don’t see what that has t’do with anything.” Rush stared into the air, as if reading invisible text.

“You need a vacation day,” Young decided.

Rush looked at him. “Hmm,” he said, with a gloss of amusement, “is this concern for my mental state? Or a front for an abduction attempt?”

“I’m liking the paranoia, hotshot,” Young said, “but you need to get the hell out of your apartment.  Make some culinary art while I shower and cut through red tape, yeah?”

Rush gave him an unimpressed quirk of an eyebrow, then opened the fridge.

Young limped through the apartment in search of his phone. He spotted it on the floor near the couch and dropped gingerly to one knee to retrieve it.

The first call he placed was to SGC dispatch.

If he’d been lucky enough to get Harriman, he might’ve been able to give himself clearance to spring Rush from his apartment for the day. Unfortunately, he got someone he didn’t know, with way less pull than Harriman.

He was shut down without ceremony.

He couldn’t blame dispatch. A day trip for the civilian at the top of the LA’s wish list was gonna be a hard no from any officer with common sense.

There was only one person with the clout to make a difference and the heart to give it a try. Young flipped on his shower, shut the bathroom door behind him, and, from the relative privacy granted by rushing water, called Jackson.

“Mgphwhat?” Jackson snarled on the sixth ring. “I’m not running a marathon with you; go away.”

“Jackson?” Young did a quick visual inspection of his phone to be sure he’d called the right person.

A soft, distressed sound was the only answer he got.

“Jackson, you okay?”

“No,” Jackson groaned. “What time is it?”

“0700.”

“Earth surrounded by’n alien armada?”

“Uh, no,” Young admitted.

“S’there a plague?” Jackson slurred.

“Nope.”

“Are space, time, and space-time behaving normally?”

“As far as I can tell,” Young said.

“Then WHY. Would you CALL ME. At SEVEN AM?”

“You’re not a morning person, are you?”

Mitchell had a habit of bitching good-naturedly about Jackson’s eternal struggle to make it vertical and sentient by 0900.

“Never made a secret out of it.” Jackson grumbled. There was a short pause, and then, like he was guessing, he said, “Everett?”

“Yeah,” Young said. “Don’t you have caller ID?”

“An excitable mathematician shattered the faceplate of my phone. Makes it hard to read in the absence of glasses. Or coffee. I can’t read without coffee. Thought you were Vala.”

“Not Vala,” Young said.

“Myeah,” Jackson replied.

“Jackson, I need a favor.”

“And you definitely need it right now?”

“Yup. I need to get my neighbor out of this damn building for the day.”

“Why?” Jackson asked.

“Because he’s going a little stir crazy.”

“He looks bad?” Jackson asked, sharpening up.

“He looks very bad,” Young confirmed.

“Who’s on dispatch today?” Jackson asked.

“Not Harriman.”

“Okay,” Jackson said, “I’ll call Jack.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“Sorry I woke you,” Young said.

“No,” Jackson yawned, “don’t be. Sleep is for the boring.”

“Whatever, Jackson.”

“It’s Daniel. If dispatch hasn’t called in an hour, call me back.”

“Will do.”

“And let me know how it goes,” Jackson said.

“Yup,” Young confirmed. “Talk to you soon.”

Young shucked off his pajamas and stepped into the shower, avoiding his mirror. As he worked shampoo through his curls, he tried to come up with a workable game plan.

He was under no illusions that getting Rush out of his apartment for a day was gonna solve anything. The guy was in a shitty position and stuck that way, unless the LA gated themselves to the nine chevron address with that missing astrophysicist.

Seemed unlikely that anyone but his neighbor would be capable of cyphering that address open.

Young sighed.

A day trip might file down some of the mathematician’s growing edge. Give Young a chance to figure out what was bothering him. How he might help.

He finished his shower, found himself a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and returned to his kitchen.

The room was warm, full of indirect sun and the smell of Jackson’s high-end coffee. A bowl of beaten eggs and a pile of thin-sliced cremini mushrooms sat ready, as did a row of washed and gleaming chives, partially sliced, with uncut ends aligned on the cutting board. Rush, a block of cheese in hand, was grating with a graceful precision that didn’t match his haunted expression.

“I have chives?” Young indicated the greenery with his gaze, trying to conceal a spike of sympathy for the math professor next door.

“Y’can identify chives?” Rush replied. “I’m astonished.”

“Pretty sure I didn’t buy those.”

“Vala bought them.” Rush finished grating and set the cheese aside. “I understand you’ve made her your personal shopper?”

“Yeah,” Young admitted, “because never in a million years am I gonna go to the supermarket and think to buy chives.”

“Surely you jest.”

“But turns out,” Young continued, undeterred, “I don’t mind being a guy who has chives hanging around.” He boosted himself onto the counter. “My question is: how does Vala know about chives?”

“The same way she knows about internal combustion engines, halter tops, mathematical notation, romance novels, the rules of chess, and the Gobi Desert.”

“Cosmo,” Young said.

“Yes, I hear they recently ran a feature on internal combustion,” Rush said sagely.

Young grinned. “Was that an off-color remark?”

“Perish the thought.” Rush turned on the stove, carved a pat of butter off the block, and flicked it into the pan.

Young wished he’d thought to grab a cup of coffee before boosting himself onto the counter. “Don’t suppose you’d want to—” he trailed off, looking meaningfully at Rush’s coffee.

Rush glanced at him, grabbed a second mug, filled it with coffee, and passed it to Young.

Young eased it from his grip, trying not to burn anyone. “Thanks.” He picked out floral notes and citrus notes in the roast. Strange how such things had always been there, even before he’d learned to appreciate them.

Rush poured half the egg mixture into the heated pan. He studied it as it solidified at its edges. Expertly, he shook the pan, then added cheese and chive and mushroom.

“Nice technique,” Young said.

“As if you’ve any idea.” Rush eased a rubber spatula beneath an edge and folded the omelette into a half moon.

“Hey,” Young protested, “I’ve been watching the Food Network.”

“Why?”

“Context.”

“Hmm.” Rush fought down a smile, slid Young’s omelette onto a plate, and passed it to him.

“I know how to give myself an education. You could have a show. Cooking With An Erudite Asshole. Weeknights at eleven.”

Rush quirked a disdainful eyebrow at Young.

“What? I’d watch it.”

Rush didn’t dignify that with a reply, just turned his attention to his own omelette. While it was cooking, he sliced a few more chives, economical and sure, then deposited half of them atop Young’s omelette.

“Fancy,” Young said.

“It’s not.” Rush plated his own omelette and turned off the stove.

Young opened a drawer next to his thigh, pulled out two forks, flipped one, and handed it to Rush.

The eggs glistened on the plate, pale yellow with no browning, just a buttery sheen. He forked off a piece, revealing the ooze of melted cheese, the earthy texture of the mushroom, and a pop of fresh green chive. He took a bite, and found the egg and cheese creamy and soft, complementing the savory mushroom and the bright, herbal cut of the greenery.

“Oh god,” Young breathed.

Rush forked off a bite of egg, inspected it, tasted it, and shrugged with an expression that seemed to indicate he’d rate himself at a six outta ten.

“Get outta here.” Young gestured at the door with his fork. “Get. Out. This is incredible.”

Rush sighed, forked off another bite of culinary artwork, and shoveled it down like it was a USAF-issued MRE.

“What’s bothering you, hotshot?” Young asked.

“Nothing.” Rush put down his plate.

“Eat,” Young said.

Rush skewered him with a look.

“Eat, and tell me about this piano thing.”

“I need one,” Rush said. “That’s all.”

“Explain to me how a piano is gonna help with cypher nine.”

“It’s tonal.” Rush put down his fork. “It’s a tonal cypher.”

“How can you tell which cyphers are which before you actually crack them?”

Rush quirked an eyebrow. “Key-length detection, block-size guessing, entropy analysis, symbol distribution analysis, plaintext parsing, computational resource analytics, timing side-channels, error propagation, known Ancient energetic signatures, mathematical properties of key exchange, dialing protocol metadata.”

“Um, okay. I’m gonna take your word for it.” Young took another bite of eggs, buttery and smooth, creamy and nutty, rich and sharp.

A tonal cypher would go a ways toward explaining why Rush looked like he’d been hit by a truck. “Once you have the piano, how long do you think it might take?”

“No idea.” Rush looked down at his plate. “I might solve it in a day. I might never solve it.”

Young watched Rush watch his eggs.

“Pretty sure you’re gonna solve it, hotshot,” Young said.

“Don’t call me ‘hotshot’.”

“What’s wrong with ‘hotshot’?” Young asked. “Lotta fighter pilots would kill for a callsign like that.”

Rush gave him a dark look. “It’s clearly ironic.” He took a bite of his eggs.

“It’s not,” Young said.

It was, a little bit.

“It’s definitely not,” Young continued. “I have it on good authority that you’re the most hotshot of all math hotshots.”

“Was that a sentence?” Rush asked coolly. “It didn’t sound like one.”

“Go take a nap,” Young shot back.

“Go buy a crutch.” Rush speared another forkful of egg.

Young’s phone rang, piercing in the quiet kitchen.

Rush flinched.

Young silenced the ringer and answered. “This is Young.”

“Colonel, this is Airman Dunning from weekend dispatch coverage.” Young didn’t recognize the name, but rotations through weekend dispatch were common enough for new recruits.

“Go ahead,” Young said.

“We received word from General O’Neill that you’re clear to proceed with your request, pending check-in by phone every two hours.”

“Understood,” he replied.

“The security station in the basement of your building has been notified of your plans.”

“Thanks,” Young said.

“You’re welcome, sir,” Dunning said. “Have a nice day.”

Young ended the call.

“Go get your shoes and my shades, hotshot. We’re outta here.”

Rush looked down at his own feet, as though needing visual confirmation that he wasn’t wearing shoes. “Hmm,” he said disapprovingly, and finished the last bite of his omelette. 

“Daylight’s burning,” Young said.

“Let it,” Rush replied, listless and exhausted. “I despise daylight.”

“Shoes and shades.” Young pointed toward the doorway.

A few hours later, they sat on the hood of Young’s car in the middle of Pike National Forest, at the same unnamed scenic overlook where they’d bandaged Vala’s shoulder weeks before. Sunlight filtered irregularly through branches, but the spot was shaded from the bright morning light. Ahead and below, a wooded valley opened, obscured by trees. Beneath the whisper of the breeze through dry needles, Young heard a small river.

Rush, hunched on the hood of the car, looked like a case of textbook misery.

Young sipped the Coke he’d picked up at the service station miles back.

Rush ignored his iced coffee.

Young tried to think of something to say.

Is your wife dead? It was what he wanted to know, but he couldn’t get the words out.

“Stop spending so much time with Jackson,” Rush snarled.

Young smiled faintly. “I like Jackson.”

“He’s a terrible influence.”

“How so?”

“Look at yourself,” Rush said, his eyes invisible behind his shades, distress in every line of his body. “This is fair fuckin’ Jacksonesque, y’realize. Driving me to a mountain? Then just fuckin’ sitting here?” Sullenly, aggressively, the mathematician sipped his coffee. “It’s not even original. It comes right out of the spiritual traditions of dozens of dead, space-faring civilizations, I’m sure.”

“‘Jacksonesque’?” Young repeated. “He’s gonna love that one. So much.”

“I forbid y’to tell him I said it.”

“I don’t have to. I’ll tell Vala. She’ll iron it on a T-shirt.”

Rush huffed.

“Besides. You already live in the mountains. You gotta change biomes for spiritual effect.”

Rush said nothing, but Young was pretty sure he was getting a glare from behind his own sunglasses.

“You’ve been cooped up in your apartment for a long time, hotshot. That’s all this is. I’m not trying to Jackson you.”

Rush hooked a hand over his shoulder and dug his fingers into the base of his neck.

A breeze rustled through the pines.

“Seems like lately it’s been harder for you than usual,” Young offered.

Rush shrugged. “Of course it gets harder. It always gets harder.”

Young rubbed his jaw. “You talking about the cyphers?”

Rush tipped his head back, but kept grinding his fingers into the base of his neck. “If it were you, and y’had nine to get through, and the Air Force was sending all kinds of reassuring messages about your likely tenure on your home planet…” Rush trailed off.

“I’d go for the easier ones first, I guess,” Young said.

“Yes. Of course y’would. Anyone would.”

“But hotshot,” Young said, “if you’ve got eight of nine—”

“No one listens to me. I think there are ten. I think y’get all nine, and there’ll be one more. For ordinal locking.”

“Yeah, okay. Sorry. If you’ve got eight of ten, are the last two really gonna be so bad?”

Rush smiled, a quick and humorless flash of teeth.

Young backed up. Regrouped. “So this ninth one—when did you realize it was gonna be musical?”

“Early,” Rush said, skewered, skewering, and Young felt he’d finally begun to beat around the right bush.

“When?” Young asked.

“A few days before y’met me.”

“You figured out it was musical and you put it at the end of the line,” Young said. 

“Correct,” Rush replied. “I queued it behind cyphers I hadn’t yet identified, that I’d no idea how to solve. I put it behind the quantum cypher, which required a trip offworld. I—” he broke off, looking away.

“It’s because it’s tonal,” Young said. “Isn’t it? That’s why you’re having such a shit time.”

“Yes,” Rush admitted.

“Give it to someone else,” Young shot back, surprised by the edge in his own voice. “Leave it. Give it to Carter or Perry. Give it to McKay. Hell, give it to Shep. Give it to whomever.”

Rush shook his head once. “If I can do it, I’ll be faster. If I can’t—it’ll go t’them anyway.”

Young sipped his Coke.

The wind whispered through the dry forest. Any day now, a spark or a strike of lightning would set the whole mountain ablaze.

“Why do you hate music so much?” Young asked.

“Because,” Rush said, “I miss it.”

“You miss it?”

“Yes.” Rush dropped his hand from his shoulder and shook his hair back.

Young said nothing.

Rush said nothing.

Young studied what he could see of the valley that opened beneath the overlook point.

“My wife,” Rush said finally, “was a violinist.”

Young nodded.

“She’s dead.” The words came cool and flat and wielded like a blade against their speaker. “She died in April.”

It was August. No time at all.

“I’m sorry,” Young offered.

Rush shrugged. Sipped his coffee. His eyes were invisible behind Young’s shades.

Young looked away. Took a swig of his Coke. Looked back.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t expected this. He had. He’d suspected almost immediately, and he’d been positive, for weeks now, that Rush’s wife was dead.

“How’d it happen?” Young asked.

“Cancer.”

Telford must have known when he’d recruited the man. Jackson, too, had known.

Young nodded. He shifted his weight to ease the pain in his back and rested a hand on the sun-warmed hood of his Charger. He’d brought Rush here to get the man out of his apartment, out of his cage of math. And he’d done that. But there was nothing more that Young could do. There was nothing here that he could fix.

He knew that.

He’d probably always known it, but that didn’t make it any easier to sit here, doing nothing. It didn’t make it any easier to watch Rush work himself into the ground or out of his mind because it was simpler than letting in the grief.

This was just another shit day in a long line of shit days. For both of them.

“What was her name?” Young asked.

The wind hissed through the dry bones of the forest.

“Gloria,” Rush said.

“That’s a nice name,” Young said.

“I know it is,” Rush whispered.