Aftermath: 42 - The Garland of the War (2027)

Hermann thinks with compassion of Gottfried Leibniz, fallen out of favor in November 1716.

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

Text iteration: Midnight.

Additional notes: None.

2027 (Forty-two – The Garland of the War)

After a rather overwhelming performance by the pair of them at the Mathematics Department trivia night, Hermann suspects they may not be invited back. Between a decade spent traveling the globe and an unfairly doubled knowledge base courtesy of EPIC Rapport—well, it’s difficult for anyone to pose them real competition.

They decide to stay and have dinner at the bar, primarily because David Starr won’t hear of them going home, and Newton is enjoying the opportunity to get emotional about Leibniz in a socially acceptable way.

“I just,” Starr says, his voice cracking, “feel so much for the guy, you know? Isaac Newton was such a dick, but you know who’s worse?” Starr pauses dramatically.

“Voltaire,” the pair of them say simultaneously, clinking glasses.

Hermann rolls his eyes.

“Fuck Voltaire,” Newton declares, finishing off his beer and slamming the empty glass down on the table with undue force. 

“Fuck Candide,” Starr agrees, finishing off his own beer, and doing likewise.

“Just how much do you two gossip about the intellectual landscape of the late seventeenth century?” Hermann delicately sips his own drink, not in his cups, but not out of them, either.

“A lot,” Starr admits. “We’ve been texting.”

“And Voltaire comes into play—how?” Hermann asks.

“Oh. OH. You haven’t heard about this?” Starr slurs. “Newt, what the hell, buddy? This guy is your life partner. You gotta keep him up to speed.”

“Up to speed?” Hermann repeats. “Voltaire has been dead for something like two hundred and fifty years.”

“Voltaire is so mean.” Newton stares morosely at his empty beer glass, his brows furrowed in a manner that Hermann most certainly does not find adorable and never has, thank you very much. 

“So mean,” Starr echoes, motioning to a server, for what Hermann will ensure is their last round of drinks. “You tell him, Newt. You’re better at it.”

“Better at what?” Newton asks. 

“Telling things.”

“Right.” Newton takes this in stride, then turns to Hermann. “Okay. So you know how Voltaire wrote this satire called Candide where, like, there’s this guy—”

“His name’s Candide,” Starr points out.

“Yes. So there’s this guy named Candide, and he has this teacher.” Newton waves a hand absently.

“Tutor,” Starr says.

“Who’s telling this story, man?” Newton asks as the waitress returns with their next round of beer—an amber ale that glows warmly under soft lights.

“You,” Starr says. “Definitely you. Sorry, Newt.”

“Okay,” Newton continues, looking at Hermann with something of his historical verve. “So there’s this guy named Candide and he has this tutor, named Pangloss. And Pangloss is portrayed as an idiot, like, saying, ‘Oh, we live in the best of all possible worlds.’ But then the whole book is about shitty things happening to Candide and proving this tutor wrong in his optimistic worldview. Like, what an idiot this Pangloss guy is, right, thinking anything is even remotely okay ever.”

Starr makes a piteous whine.

Newton pats his shoulder.

“Turns out Pangloss is a caricature of Leibniz. And, like, everyone knew that, Hermann. Everyone. Because Leibniz was super famous and popular. Like Mako.”

“Mako?” Hermann and Starr echo.

“Yeah. Like, if you want to make Mako into a caricature and misrepresent her it’s super obvious who you’re talking about because she’s really distinctive but also it’s a dick move because she’s awesome.”

Hermann shrugs philosophically and exchanges a glance with Starr.

“Hermann would be a better example than Mako,” Starr opines.

“Nope.” Newton holds up a hand, looking away. “Stop right there. I don’t want to hear it. That’s a definite no. I can’t. I have too many feelings about Leibniz for any comparisons with—” Newton trails off, evidently overcome.

“Ohmygod,” Starr says in a rush, clapping Newton on the shoulder. “Sorry. Hey. I get it. I’m a jerk. Definitely more like Mako. Is that better? Never mind. I’ll stop talking now.”

“Whatever. I’m not crying, you’re crying.” Newton wipes his eyes and continues. “So look, his whole position is misrepresented by this Pangloss guy. It’s not that Leibniz said everything was great, that WASN’T what he was saying.”

“No it was not,” Starr mutters into his beer.

“Leibniz, yes, did have kind of a we-live-in-the-best-of-all-possible-worlds shtick, but that didn’t mean he ignored the existence of evil!” 

“Not at all!” Starr adds. “God, why did Voltaire have to get so hostile? Leibniz was just doing his best, man.”

“As are we all,” Hermann agrees, egging them on to a small degree. He’s come to quite like David Starr over the past few years. And Newton—overcome with excessive academic emotion, putting a colloquial spin on a forgotten philosopher in a college-town bar with terrible food and passable beer—well, the effect is extremely endearing.

“See!” Newton steals a fry from Hermann’s plate. “You get it. I get it. It’s an assault on Leibniz. As if the calculus thing with Isaac Newton wasn’t bad enough. Now we’ve gotta work in the whole Western Canon functionally vilifying the guy. Setting him up as a caricature for the rest of time! Ridiculing his optimism, which wasn’t stupid at all by the way. He acknowledged the existence of evil! What’s he supposed to do? How are you ever supposed to win against that? You’ll just—remain misunderstood forever, because—”

Newton starts weeping in earnest. This is shortly followed by Starr joining him.

Hermann is not unsympathetic.

As he waits for them to master themselves, he traces fingertips over years of names and dates engraved into the wood of their table. He contemplates the nature of time, its arrow.

Such a subtle thing, time.

The dull roar of a crowd in its weekend upswing suffuses the air. They are surrounded by students brimming with alcohol and optimism. 

Hermann thinks with compassion of Gottfried Leibniz, fallen out of favor in November 1716. No one will attend your funeral, he thinks, across space and time. They will bury you in a grave that goes unmarked for fifty years. And yet, in the midst of an unfolding apocalypse, one struggling mathematician will be so familiar with your worldview that it writes itself into the mind of a brilliant biologist and a vast alien intelligence. From there, you’ll be chosen as the integrated avatar of a divided alien hive mind, left behind after Breach annihilation. You’ll help it understand understanding. Your optimism will inspire it. With your aid, an unreasoning alien war machine gains so much grace that it acquires mercy, gains so much courage it learns to die well.

“Got you too, huh?” Newton says.

“I—” Hermann clears his throat. He glances at Starr, who will not understand what he is about to say. Not fully. “No I simply realized that in a very real way, Gottfried Leibniz saved your life, Newton.”

“I know,” Newton murmurs. “I know he did.”

“That gets me,” Starr chokes out, clutching a fist to his chest. 

Newton lifts his glass and looks at it as though it contains the secrets of the universe. “To Leibniz, who did his best to fuse the objective and the subjective.”

Starr lifts his glass as well. “To Leibniz, an optimist in a world full of despair.”

Hermann carefully touches his glass to theirs. “To Leibniz. May he rest well.”

They drink. 

“You know what though,” Newton says, leaning forward, looking at Starr. “I bet he’d love your book.”

“Do you really think so?” Starr whispers.

“Yeah,” Newton says. “I do.”

“Candide is just so influential,” Starr moans.

“Don’t I know it,” Newton says in a cracked whisper, fighting a fresh wave of Leibniz-induced emotion. And then, with a look Hermann knows well, has come to both anticipate and dread, he slams his hand, palm down, on the table. It’s loud enough to startle nearby patrons. “I have an idea.” He pulls his phone from his pocket and starts dialing. 

“Oh Gott,” Hermann mutters.

Newton presses the phone to his ear. “Mako!” he says, half shouting over the noise in the bar. “Yeah, sorry, it’s loud in here. This might sound like a weird request but I feel like it’s kind of up your alley. Didn’t you say you had some kind of fancy profile piece coming up? Like for—oh. Well, damn. Sure, yeah, I mean, Rolling Stone is okay if you’re into that kind of thing. Whatever.”

“Is he talking to Mako Mori?” Starr asks in a stage whisper.

Hermann manages to simultaneously nod and roll his eyes.

Newton taps Starr on the shoulder and gives him a significant look. “I’m gonna overnight you a book. Probably tonight is too late. I’ll send it first thing tomorrow. It’s about Leibniz.”

Starr flushes. “My book?” he mouths at Newton.

“Yes, obviously,” Newton mouths, looking impatiently at Starr. “No, sorry Mako. It’s a good read, and as you know I’m obsessed with Leibniz. You were telling me you’re getting bored of these photoshoots. Take the book with you and tell people dramatic stories about Leibniz and how great he was. Like, if it seems fun.”

Newton pauses.

Starr looks like he might expire of apoplexy.

“Yeah. Like, shenanigans. One time he was like, ‘I’m bad at math’ and then taught himself math so hard that he invented calculus and published it before Isaac Newton and then people were so mean to him about it and the whole deal got a title: The Calculus Priority Dispute. Oh yeah. Of course. Of course. Yes. Hermann arguably loves Leibniz more than me. He cried about it. Just now! Yes I’m serious. No, you can’t talk to him; he’ll just deny it. Yeah, read the book and then I’ll tell you five super-secret things about Leibniz. No, I can’t tell you now. You don’t have the foundation to appreciate it yet. Also you can meet Hermann’s Best Math Friend next time you come, because he wrote it. The Leibniz Book, I mean. You should get Captain Sir Saves Everyone to also read it too. Hey, would you guys have any interest in a book club where we read the classics of rationalism?” Newton pauses. “Okay that’s fair, but for the record, how much time have I poured into Blue Planet?”

Hermann grabs the phone.

“Hey!” Newt says.

“I apologize for this,” Hermann says, over the sound of Mako laughing.

“Please don’t. You guys are out? ‘Out’ out? Drinking?”

“Yes,” Hermann says.

“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?” Mako says, dramatically modulating the word. “How did that happen. Who’s your best math friend? Did he do this?”

“He is indeed responsible.” Hermann catches Starr’s eye.

“Can I talk to him?” Mako asks.

“Of course. One moment.” Hermann looks archly at Starr and hands him the phone. “She wants to talk to you.”

Newton bursts out laughing at the expression on Starr’s face.

Starr takes the phone from Hermann as though he’s handling an explosive device. “Hello?” he says tentatively, and then, “David. David Starr.” It’s not long before the man has relaxed enough that his prosody turns normal. Starr describes math trivia night and then touches a bit on his admiration for Leibniz in a much more restrained tone than usual, before returning Newton’s phone.

“Wow. She is just SO cool.” Starr sighs.

“I know, right?” Newton steals another fry.

Hermann motions for the check. 

It’s late, and Starr certainly is in dire need of a ride home.

When they make it into bed, Newton can’t sleep. He lies awake with Doktor Faustus, by Thomas Mann. It’s a bit ambitious for the current state of the man’s German, and he glares determinedly at the book in that charming way he has—all green fire and academic umbrage. The light of the bedside lamp is dim, and Hermann watches him for some time before Newton realizes he’s awake.

Hermann clears his throat.

Newton looks up. “Is this keeping you up?” he asks. “Because I can—”

“I’m in love with you.” Hermann flushes as he says it.

Newton smiles, and Hermann can see he’s wildly happy.

I’ll say it more, Hermann promises in silence. I’ll find a way to explain what I’ve always known, what you’ve never understood. It wouldn’t have taken so much time if life hadn’t been so hard. 

“It was the trivia that inspired this, wasn’t it?” Newton asks. “You’re so predictable.” He shuts his book and sets it on the nightstand. He kisses Hermann gently. “I’m in love with you too, Dr. Gottlieb, but I,” he says, smiling, “was first.”

“Far be it from me to initiate a Prioritätsstreit,” Hermann says.

He could contest the idea, but it seems a pointless exercise. Maybe, one day—