Aftermath: 38 - The Garland of the War (2027)

“Oooh Demonic Hold. Sounds like a really fun thing to do to a library book.”

Chapter warnings: Realistic depictions of neurological, physical, and bureaucratic trauma. War. Grief. Death. Mental illness. Regular illness.

Text iteration: Witching hour.

Additional notes: None.

2027 (Thirty-eight – The Garland of the War)

On a very pleasant June morning, Hermann sits in his office, reviewing a mediocre paper for Nature: Quantum Topography, when his phone rings. It’s Newton’s departmental chair. Hermann doesn’t  recognize the voice at first, but when he does, he feels a spike of dread that is entirely at odds with the summer sun, the flowers, the quiet of a campus lacking undergraduates.

“Hermann, hi. It’s Sam Gordon.” Already, Hermann is half out of his chair, certain something must be wrong, but Dr. Gordon continues, with a friendly interrogative that Hermann doesn’t catch.

“What?” Hermann demands.

“I said, um, how are you?” Dr. Gordon sounds tentative.

“Fine,” Hermann says.

“You have a few minutes?” Dr. Gordon asks. “I’m walking back from a cross-campus meeting. I thought I might swing by.”

“Er, I suppose I do,” Hermann replies. 

“Great,” Dr. Gordon says. “Be there in a few.”

Hermann spends approximately thirty seconds in unreasoning terror before he realizes he’s being an idiot. He calls Newton.

“Well hi there,” Newton answers immediately. He’s fine. Hermann can tell by his voice he’s fine.

“Newton,” Hermann says in relief.

“Last time I checked,” the other man replies, dry. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Hermann replies.

“Nothing?” Newton repeats, overly skeptical. 

“Nothing,” Hermann confirms. 

“Identity confusion? Epistaxis. The hunting thing? Someone probably offered you coffee. The nerve of some people, honestly. You didn’t ask for that coffee. Is it Starr? Tell him you believe Robert Hooke was the greatest scientific mind to grace the mid to late sixteen-hundreds. That’ll show him. He’ll cry about Leibniz all day.”

Hermann draws a slow breath.

“Seriously, Hermann. You okay?” Newton is beginning to sound concerned.

“No no, I’m quite all right. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

“Everything is fine,” Newton says, his tone softening dramatically. “Better than fine, actually. Jake found out he got a talk at the Neuroscience Keystone Meeting. It’s in Taos this year. New Mexico. He’s psyched. This is good. You wanna go to New Mexico?”

“Maybe,” Hermann says.

“Yeah, I’m also a maybe. Taos isn’t that great if you’re not a skier. I mean, it’s fine. I’ve got nothing against Taos. We can talk about it later. Right now I think I’m gonna take these kids to lunch. This is a good week. Jake got the talk, Charu bagged that grant, I’m almost sure of it. She scored a twelve. A twelve! I couldn’t freaking believe it. If that doesn’t get funded, nothing will.”

“It sounds like they deserve a lab outing,” Hermann says, smiling in spite of himself. 

“You going to tell me what’s bothering you?”

“Newton, it really is nothing. I was just thinking.”

“Well, there’s your mistake right there. Don’t think,” Newton advises him.

“Thank you,” Hermann says dryly. “I won’t keep you.”

“Okay,” Newton says, pulling out the word. “But don’t think I’m fooled. I know you. You need aggressive cuddling in front of Voyager. Aggressive.”

“Ridiculous man,” Hermann mutters.

“I love you so hard,” Newton replies, and hangs up.

So. He’s fine. He’s better than fine. 

It doesn’t matter.

Hermann cannot shake the dread that accompanies Sam Gordon’s call. It simply changes form. Perhaps the PPDC has been making enquiries. Perhaps Newton is behaving badly in departmental meetings. Perhaps—

There is a knock on his door. 

“Come,” Hermann says.

Dr. Gordon enters—athletic build, graying hair, more dynamic in his speech and stance than most at the top of the academic ladder. Hermann has been favorably inclined toward the man; he has an engaging quality that emerges no matter the subject of conversation. Hermann’s own department chair seems to like Gordon, which is—unusual. The head of the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department is quite discerning.

Hermann stands to shake Dr. Gordon’s hand, gestures for him to have a seat, offers him tea, which the man accepts. They exchange a truly maddening number of pleasantries while the tea steeps. Hermann finds out the man’s youngest daughter just graduated from Princeton.

He could not care less. 

Biologists. 

Honestly. 

Finally, Hermann, unable to take it anymore, makes the first move.

“You, I assume, wish to discuss something involving Newton?” Hermann asks at the first available conversational opportunity. He hopes it does not sound too brusque. 

“Yes.” Dr. Gordon shifts, uncomfortable. “I debated—well, this is a strange conversation to have, but—” He contemplates his tea. 

“You’re firing him,” Hermann guesses.

“What?” Dr. Gordon astonished, stares at Hermann with a nakedly shocked expression, eyes wide. “Why would I—no. No.”

Well. That was vehement. 

Hermann raises his eyebrows. 

“Sorry,” Dr. Gordon says. “I’m just—trying to gear up here.”

“I suggest you be direct,” Hermann says. 

“Direct. Okay. Yup.” Dr. Gordon sips his tea. “I’m trying to figure out how to phrase this so I sound like a reasonable human being, but—I can’t. He’s incredible.”

Hermann looks at the man, nonplussed. “I’m—so glad you think so?”

“I can tell you this now but—he was kind of a pity hire. I did it for Nick Rush, because he wanted you so badly. We were steering students away from him. He wouldn’t give a job talk? He didn’t show up for work half the time? In a little over a year he’s gone from that to—I don’t even know. I can’t describe it.” 

“Ah,” Hermann says neutrally, leaning back in his chair, sipping his tea. Given it appears Newton isn’t about to be fired, nor has the PPDC been making inquiries, he allows himself to relax. Well, that’s perhaps optimistic. He begins to entertain the possibility of eventual relaxation.

Dr. Gordon continues to stumble over what he wishes to say. “A part of this is—why I wanted to talk to you is—do you have a sense of how—he’s just—like this? This is just—what he’s like?”

“To be honest,” Hermann says. “He’s not coming home and recounting his academic exploits in detail. So you’ll have to specify further if you want me to comment on whether or not his current behavior is typical or not.”

“It’s been a wild ride,” Dr. Gordon says. “In the fall of 2025, when Jake joined his lab—Newt wasn’t consistently showing up for work. Jake accomplished literally zero during his rotation. Absolutely no science. Not even a failed experiment. No experiments. There was a meeting of the mentorship committee. We nearly denied permission for Jake to affiliate. But that kid argued hard, and something was happening, because early in the spring semester he shot to the top of every class on his schedule. When his mentorship committee met with him in late spring, he had some data to show. Not much, but enough that we didn’t pull him.”

Hermann nods, not overly surprised. 

“And then, one day, out of the blue, early May, I think it was. Newt shows up to the Friday afternoon Research in Progress talks. He sat in the back, with Jake, looking nervous as hell, but everyone noticed. And that day, the first day he came, he asked a question at the end. Scared the hell out of the speaker, too. But it was great. Totally normal. He gave her a good suggestion. Later, she found him, and said thank you. She came away with about six more things to try. One of them worked. I know, because she was in my lab.”

Hermann smiles faintly, gives the man an encouraging look. He continues.

“He started coming more often, until it was every time. He struck up a friendship with the electrophysiologists, who are, to a person, the most awkward subsection of the department. Or they were. They now have a certain cachet. But everyone was curious, and people would seek him out, stop by his office, drag him to the faculty meetings. Slowly, he started to mix more with the department. Students approached him with problems. He didn’t turn anyone away. Word spread. By the time the new crop of graduate students arrived in the fall, every single one wanted to rotate with him.”

“Did they,” Hermann murmurs, smiling faintly. He hadn’t known that.

“It was a disaster!” Dr. Gordon says, grinning. “And he only had the funding to take one! ONE. Nightmare. You could not have set up a more bitter inter-class competition had you tried. We had no idea what to do. So we asked him. After we explained the problem, he sat there, looking anxious as hell for about two minutes, arms crossed, staring at the floor, but thinking. And then he looks up and says, ‘They all take Seminars in Neurobiology, right?’ and I say yup, and he says, ‘let me teach one of the classes.’ So we said fine. He picked a class in week two. Membrane gradients. The regular instructors were there, one of which was me. We wanted to be there for continuity but also to step in, just in case he couldn’t handle it. Because he still—he gave off that aura of maybe being about half a step away from—well, not handling things.”

“And how did it go?”

“How did it go? Oh my god. I’ve never seen a class of kids try so hard. Twenty minutes in, it becomes clear that they know the papers he assigned, backwards, forwards, left, right. He drills down into the supplemental material, sure he’ll get somewhere. But they’re nailing it. I’m looking at my co-instructor, and we’re thinking, first of all, what the hell, where’s this kind of respect when we’re teaching? Second, we’re thinking: what’s he gonna do now? The class is supposed to be ninety minutes, and he’s played his whole hand after thirty. He’s barely said three sentences in a row. Both papers. Done. He sits there, and he looks at them, and he just sort of—smirks. Just a little bit. And he says, ‘OK, that was pretty good,’ or something like that. And then he points at the sharpest of them, learns her name, sends her to the board to abstract the first paper into a model. Sends another one after her to do the same. They nail it. He points at another kid, learns a third name, sends him to the board, asks him to alter the first model in a way consistent with X. Again, fourth kid, fourth name. Second model gets altered consistent with Y. Great job. And then he just sits there and waits. I have no idea where he’s going with this. Nobody does.”

Hermann hopes this man will never stop talking.

“He waits so long. SO long. It gets awkward, but he owns it. He dominates that silence, obviously waiting for something. Then, back of the class, this tiny, shy girl, makes a sound, quiet, just a little intake of breath. He looks at her, and he says, ‘What do you see’? Ugh.” 

Dr. Gordon presses his hand to his chest, evidently overcome.

“He was so nice to her, no pointing. He just said, ‘come on up, use the pink chalk.’ And she takes the pink chalk, and she goes to model one, and she traces over what the other kids had drawn. Not the whole thing. Just parts. And then she goes to model two, and she traces parts of that one. And because of the ways he’d had them change it, you can see what he was driving at—the common element in the two papers. And then he smiles at her and he says, ‘What’s your name’?”

“Charu?” Hermann guesses. 

“Yup,” Dr. Gordon says. “But the crazy thing is, the class still has a good half hour left. And that’s when he gets up and brings the rest of us up to speed, explains why he chose those papers, how he thinks about signal transduction, I mean, conceptually. Almost philosophically. And, holy shit, is he amazing. I thought he’d be terrible. He was so anxious. He’d refused to speak to the department on so many occasions—but he stands up there, starts out a little rocky, but after about twenty seconds a switch flips and he is on. Fire. He’s a spectacular speaker. Spectacular. He came out of nowhere. Well, not nowhere, obviously, but it seemed like it. My expectations weren’t high. I’m sorry, none of this is news to you; it might even seem insulting.”

“I could not be enjoying this more.” Hermann leans back in his chair. Please continue. I believe we’re now in summer of 2026?”

“Yes! Okay, good. I’ve needed to get this off my chest for a while now. So, anyway, that class solved zero of my problems, because they all still want to rotate with him, even more than before, but at least he can tell me who he likes. We work it out, he agrees to take six rotators, tells me he’s almost done with drafting an R01. Surprising. He asks me if I wouldn’t mind taking a look at it; he’s not really a neuroscience guy. And I’m like, ‘oh yeah, he’s not a neuroscientist by training.’ He worked in tissue regeneration? What the hell! I forgot that somehow? Why does he have so many PhDs? It’s confusing.”

Hermann raises a you-certainly-don’t-have-to-tell-me eyebrow. 

“So, okay. I read it. The R01. I mean, at this point, I was, wrongly, thinking of him as a membrane guy? Because of the class. But the grant is all circuitry and cognitive architecture mapping. Anyway, that was when I started thinking to myself that he’s gonna be a big fucking deal. Er, more than he already was. Which, to be clear, I wasn’t ignoring. The things he did during the war. But a big name in our world specifically. Neuroscience. So anyway, I told him, ‘I love your grant,’ gave him a few more papers to cite to make reviewers happy, and told him that the department would fund one grad student, he funds another, so he can take two of the rotators.”

“Mmm,” Hermann says, nodding. “I recall.”

“So yeah. All of a sudden, fall semester of 2026, he’s everywhere. Has his hand, somehow, in everything. After I pressure him for three weeks running, he agrees to teach one of the upper level colloquia, starting in January, cap of six students. We keep it on the down low, but of course as soon as the second semester course catalog comes out there’s practically a riot. Jake is guaranteed a spot, which means only five. We do a lottery. Everyone’s unhappy, so much so that he relents and opens four more slots, even though he doesn’t really want to. It’s, like the semester of Geiszler. He gets his R01, first round! Sails right on through. Unbelievable. That doesn’t happen.”

“He expresses himself rather well,” Hermann says. 

“I’ll say. So, all of a sudden, he’s the hottest thing in the department. The students love him rabidly and most of the faculty do too. But when winter comes, there’s some trouble. He goes out of commission three times for seizures. But it’s different this time, it’s weird—it’s like everyone realizes he’s a human, and just in the nick of time too, because he might have been on his way to making some real enemies given he was turning into such a fucking star. Sorry. Such a rockstar. Seminars get cancelled left and right, when he’s there he looks awful for about twelve weeks, but he’s only around half the time. Everyone’s talking about it. But then, come March, he evens out again. He makes up the class time he missed. Early summer comes around and he takes Charu and Amy. He writes another R01. Jake’s project takes off. Now it’s not just students coming to him, it’s faculty. Our applicant pool for the graduate school doubles. That brings us to now.”

“So it does,” Hermann says, smiling faintly.

“So.” Dr. Gordon says. “Here I am, to ask your opinion about something. Because I feel like I’ve been pushing him some, and I—I have the intense desire to push him more, but I’m not sure—I don’t want to go too far.”

“Ah,” Hermann says.

“First of all, I feel really guilty about the tenure situation. We need to rectify that. We’re just going to put him up for full professor—I’ve convinced everyone who needs convincing that his prior body of work and his during-war funding track record should count, even though they’re not neuroscience-specific. Once I’ve got the committee on board I’ll just hand him the packet of paperwork and he can fill it out at his leisure.”

“I was under the impression that only work in the neurosciences—” Hermann begins.

“Believe it or not, every so often academia bends the knee to common sense.” Gordon shoots Hermann a wry look. “With the tenure pressure off, I’m hoping we can push more on the teaching front. I want to move him to the lower-level courses, which are more work, but also have a higher head-count. He is so good in the classroom. I want to give him my slot in Seminars in Neurology, and I want to put him into the undergrad Intro to Neuro course, give him maybe five lectures or so. But I’m not sure it’s a good idea. He has yet to give a department-wide talk, I don’t know that he ever will. I don’t want to overwhelm him, you know? I’m sensitive to the fact that he’s had a hard time.”

“Quite,” Hermann murmurs.

“So I thought to myself: I should talk to Hermann about this. He’ll know, or at least have a sense of what seems reasonable. Newt is so great that I just have the urge to dump everything on him he can take. I won’t do that, but the urge exists. So—do you have any insight into—” Dr. Gordon waves a hand. “Don’t tell me anything you don’t want to tell me. Tell me what you can though, because I want to help him.”

Hermann sips his tea contemplatively. After a time, he says. “You have entirely won me over with your passionate account.”

Dr. Gordon blinks at him, surprised.

“And so,” Hermann says quietly, “I will tell you—” he closes his eyes. “I will tell you some things that are known to only a select few. Please understand I expect absolute discretion.”

Dr. Gordon nods, his expression appropriately grave.

“I also expect,” Hermann says, setting his tea on the desk, “that should the need arise, you would, in coordination with my departmental chair, and to the best of your ability, protect Dr. Geiszler from being re-appropriated by the Pan Pacific Defense Corps.”

“That was already the deal,” Sam Gordon says, “but, to be clear, they’ll take him out of here over my cold corpse.” 

Hermann smiles faintly, and then, slowly, in bits and pieces, tells Dr. Gordon the true history of Newton Geiszler, PhD, leaving very little out. He covers the man’s parents, his uncle, MIT, those six degrees, JET Force, the way he almost died in Manila, Newton’s recruitment to the PPDC, his rescue of Mako Mori from a half-destroyed Jaeger, the years of work, his relationship with Caitlin Lightcap, the dwindling funding, the hopelessness that came with it, the man’s ridiculous, terrible, terrifying idea of Drifting with the kaiju. The information it yielded. The collapsing of the breach. All that happened after. Their flight from Hong Kong. Hermann’s stipulations regarding his own employment. Newton’s terrible difficulty in 2025; PTSD, anxiety, depression, sleeplessness, epistaxis. The seizures this past winter. How terribly important Jacob was in helping Newton find and keep his footing. It takes the better part of an hour. 

When he’s finished, he feels a strange sense of release. Dr. Gordon sits across from him, leaning back in his chair, arms crossed, shaking his head.

“And so your question, how much is too much, well,” Hermann opens a hand. “It varies.”

“Can I just point out that his story is absolutely insane?” Dr. Gordon says. “I believe every word.”

Hermann nods.

“Okay, so this is helpful. I feel like I have a better sense of what his pressure points are likely to be. The undergrads? Not worth it. It will raise the profile of the department, but it’ll torture him. The grad students—well, you might have guessed we warn them not to ask him questions about the war—and they don’t, for the most part. The undergrads? There’s no controlling them. But giving him Seminars in Neuroscience seems like a good idea, as long as he has a partner who can pick up the slack if necessary, someone who doesn’t mind—” He drums his fingers against the arm of his chair. “I won’t give him my slot. I’ll promote/demote my co-instructor to the undergrads. Technically it’s more prestigious, so he’ll like that. I’ll give Seminars in Neuroscience to Newt, but I’ll be there to step in if he needs to be out for a chunk of time.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Hermann says. 

“I think—” Dr. Gordon says, looking regretful, “that should probably be all for now.”

“Wise, I think” Hermann says.

“If he wanted to, he could run this department in a few years,” Dr. Gordon tells Hermann.

“I’m sure he wants no such thing,” Hermann replies. “Please—just, continue as you have been—please don’t lose sight of how hard he is trying; how incredibly difficult all of this has been for him. I am somewhat surprised that he has done as well as he has; I mean in no way to undercut him, but if you push him too hard, especially in a public forum, it may not go well. I remain very worried about him.” Hermann stops there, swallowing against the lump in his throat. “Talented as he is—”

“I think I get it,” Dr. Gordon says, when it becomes clear Hermann will not be completing his sentence. 

Hermann nods.

“I’m glad we talked,” Dr. Gordon says, finishing his tea. “You let me know—if it’s too much, you let me know.”

“I will.”

Hermann arrives at Newton’s lab at ten minutes past five. He nods politely to Jacob as he passes through the benches, then knocks on the door to Newton’s office. He opens it to find Charu standing behind the man’s shoulder, pointing to some feature of a heatmap displayed on Newton’s screen.

“Are you sure?” Newton aks. “And this is unstimulated?”

“Yes.” Charu looks up. “Hello, Dr. Gottlieb.”

Newton motions him forward absently, and then says, “Can we look at this tomorrow and can you cluster the heatmap by pathway? We’ve got three master regulators here, so just group by what’s downstream of each one.”

“No problem.” Charu nods decisively. “When do you want to meet?”

“Ten?” Newton asks. 

“Sure,” Charu replies. “Should I—” 

“Yeah get out of here. Go get drunk with Jake. Or not.” He looks guiltily at Hermann. “I’m responsible.”

She leaves, closing the door behind her. 

“Terribly responsible,” Hermann agrees. He comes around the desk, sits on its edge, and looks down at Newton.

“What’s that look?” the man asks.

“You’re a remarkable person,” Hermann tells him.

“Hmm,” Newton says, smirking. “True. You just noticed today?”

Hermann reaches out, tips his chin up, and then bends down to kiss him.

“Hermann,” Newton says, smiling, mock scandalized, faux German accent on full display, “mein Gott, man, not in the lab. Plus, we gotta get out of here. It’s your department’s happy hour trivia night, which I know because Starr texted me eight crying emojis trying to get me to get you to come.”

“No,” Hermann says. “Absolutely not.”

“Yeah,” Newton replies, closing his laptop authoritatively. “This is happening Hermann, I’m sorry, you get no say.” He haphazardly coils a power cord around his hand, gives up halfway through, and shoves it in his bag. “I realize that’s unfair, but this is not a democracy. This is a theocracy, but instead of god, we worship math. Math says we need to go to this thing. Math says that, Hermann. The Arithmeritocracy. Arithmetic and Merit as a form of governance.” Newton hastily aligns a stack of papers before wedging them next to his laptop. “It’s perfect for you. You basically invented it. You can’t undermine your own social order, Dr. Gottlieb, that’s just not on.” Newton finishes his monologue in a faux British accent.

“As an argument, that was extremely weak,” Hermann informs him. “A house of cards built of non sequiturs.”

“And that,” Newton whispers, stepping in, as though sharing a secret, “is why your department really needs you. So badly. Because if you don’t come, they’ll all fall in line with whatever I say and adopt my new social order in your absence.”

“You may not be wrong about that,” Hermann admits. “You seem to exert some kind of demonic hold over at least half of them.”

“Oooh Demonic Hold. Sounds like a really fun thing to do to a library book. Is this a yes? Are you actually a yes for Math Department trivia night?” Newton smiles, clearly pleased.

“Someone has to protect the world from your ill-considered intellectual impulses.”

“Don’t I know it,” Newton replies.