Aftermath: 47 - Chimes at Midnight (2015)

“Were you thinking about math?” Newton breathes suggestively.

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

Text iteration: Midnight.

Additional notes: None.

2015 (Forty-seven – Chimes at Midnight)

As the year closes, Hermann becomes increasingly skilled at suppressing thoughts of Dr. Newton Geiszler. The rate of Breach transit increases. Everyone is overworked. He shuts down all distractions. He loses touch with his sister, his mother, old friends. He stops imagining alternate futures for himself. He devotes himself to the math. The rest? It can wait for what comes after.

He brings a single-minded focus to his days. He tries.

The nights? They are beyond his control. 

He dreams them far away from Alaska, far away from Caitlin Lightcap. Particularly bad is Berlin on summer days, Newton speaking flawless German, stray cats following him home, a garden that explodes with life, Hermann’s mother in the kitchen, watching Hermann cook, pinching Newton’s cheek at every opportunity she gets. Newton indulges her, flirting shamelessly, mixing her a cocktail, becoming, in the span of a single visit, the most favored of her in-laws. Hermann has never seen him turn on quite so much domestic charisma. After dinner, as Newton makes tea, Hermann’s mother turns to him and whispers, What a charmer. 

He dreams them in America, in Boston, drinking coffee, wandering the farmer’s market, running into students. Newton struggles fetchingly through quantum mechanical insights as he distractedly selects vegetables. Hermann in the kitchen, Newton sitting at the counter, chewing on a pen, chattering endlessly about chromatin remodeling on the level of the quantum foam. A leisurely dinner in a kitchen lit by candlelight. A bottle of expensive wine slowly poured out over hours. Newton does only half the dishes before Hermann pulls him away. I’ll get you wet, Newton says, his voice rising in mock warning, his hands slick with water and soap up to the elbows. He holds them away from his body, and Hermann is reminded of another time, another life when the man would sterilize his hands before dissecting—what? It doesn’t matter. Don’t you dare, Hermann tells him. You stay just like that. Newton, laughing, keeps his hands held up, palms toward his face, sudsy water dripping from his elbows as Hermann pins him to the sink.

UNACCEPTABLE.

He buries them, to a one, as deep as he can.

The days? Sometimes they’re just as bad.

Hermann threads his way through the crowded conference room at one of Lightcap’s joint briefings. While not late, he isn’t early, and so finds himself with little choice regarding seating. He chooses the best of limited options.

Newton, on his phone, looks up as Hermann drops into the seat next to him. Before the man can get a word in edgewise, Hermann says, “Reading That Rag again, I presume?”

“Hermann.” Newton drags his name obscenely. “What a pleasure.” The words are dry, but he does look pleased. “Done any spiritual communing with the quantum foam lately?”

“Unfortunately, I find myself constantly interrupted by the mandate to attend briefings that don’t pertain to me. The quantum foam will have to wait.”

“Well, I’m sure it thinks you’re worth waiting for,” Newton says, deliberately lascivious.

Hermann rolls his eyes. “Touché. I find myself wounded by the rapier-like wit of a nine-year-old.”

Newton smirks. “I was a year into my first PhD at nine, so I choose not to be offended by that.”

Hermann snorts, the briefing starts, but he’s distracted.

Nine? Really?

Of course, really. He hasn’t back-calculated the man’s academic degrees since he was first trying to estimate his age. What had the first one been? Was it chemistry? He tries to picture Newton at eight. It’s not hard. Undersized, glasses, winsome to the point of lethality, preternaturally dexterous even then. No wonder he’s so obnoxious. No wonder he’s not quite attuned to polite social norms. No wonder he has no native respect for authority, propriety, decorum. Who leaves a child that young at MIT, no matter how precocious? Terrible. 

Lightcap drones on about organizational objectives.

No one in their right mind could dig anything substantive out of her technical legalese. 

Hermann reflects on his most recent encounter with Newton on the roof of the Shatterdome. That evening light, the brisk wind dies away, and—

“I’m sorry.” Dr. Geiszler leans against the metal superstructure, arms crossed. He doesn’t explain himself further. His expression is serious. His eyes expressive.

“For what?” Hermann asks him.

“I’m no good at this,” the man says, rueful. “But, please understand, I haven’t been socialized in the way most people have. My parents abandoned me. My uncle did what he could, but I couldn’t tolerate the German academic hierarchy, so—” He shrugs. “I was raised by academic wolves.”

“That is hardly your fault,” Hermann reassures him.

“Well,” Dr. Geiszler says, shouldering culpability with a philosophic calm Hermann finds intensely stirring. “I could have applied myself more.” He walks forward, approaching Hermann, approaching the rail. “Look at what I’m missing out on.”

“And what’s that?” Hermann asks him.

“I know I’m not what you expected.” Dr. Geiszler looks up at him, all composure. “I know you expected someone older, someone with more gravitas.”

“You have plenty of that to exert should the mood strike you,” Hermann offers. “I’ve seen it.” 

“That’s right,” Dr. Geiszler says. “I can turn it on. And maybe I would, for the right reasons.” He lifts an eyebrow. 

That’s all the invitation Hermann needs. “Such as?” He steps closer.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Newton reaches up to rest his hand on the nape of Hermann’s neck. His eyes burn green in the evening light. 

“Hey.” The real Newton elbows him sharply. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Hermann hisses, shifting uncomfortably.

“You’re glazing over, Dr. Gottlieb,” Newton whispers, quiet and amused. Hermann can feel the warmth of the man’s breath on his neck.

“I was not,” Hermann retorts.

“Were you thinking about math?” Newton breathes suggestively. 

Hermann flushes.

“You were,” Newton continues in the same vein. “All those fascinating topologies? Don’t you just want to run your hands over those incredible spacetime curves? G sub mu-nu equals the quantity eight pi G over c to the fourth times the quantity T sub mu-nu?” He presses his lips together, shuts his eyes, and moans almost inaudibly. 

Hermann will murder this man. He’ll do it today.

“Will you pay attention?” he whisper-snarls, furious, sexually aroused, and furious about being sexually aroused.

“V minus E plus F equals two,” Newton purrs, invoking the Euler characteristic as though it’s a particularly explicit piece of topological erotica.

“Geiszler.” Tendo Choi taps the man on the shoulder from behind with two fingers. He leans forward, whispering, “If anyone is aroused by math, it’s you. Leave Dr. Gottlieb alone and go spend some quality time with a protractor later.”

Newton laughs, one hand clamped over his mouth. 

“You’re bizarre,” Mr. Choi informs the man. “Now shut up before Lightcap calls you out, because she’s looking this way.”