Aftermath: 48 - The Omen Coming On

He flings the flowers along the vector of the wind. They fall, end over end, toward the sea.

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

Text iteration: Witching hour.

Additional notes: None.

2025 (Forty-eight – The Omen Coming On)

On the anniversary of Caitlin Lightcap’s death, Hermann ignores her face, appearing, as it does, all over the newsfeed on his phone. He declines to read the paper. He overlooks the way Newton manages to avoid him in a two-bedroom apartment, taking to the balcony sometime in the early morning, the door firmly shut behind him. 

Hermann’s fairly certain the man hasn’t slept at all.

He’d intended to stay home today, but, looking at the set of Newton’s shoulders, it strikes him as almost cruel to do so. Already, he’s unnaturally invaded a grief that would be private if they’d never blended minds.

So. Hermann makes the drive to UC Berkeley. Hwi turns on the news, and he suffers through five minutes of a Caitlin Lightcap retrospective before he hears her voice. An old recording, from the very early days.

“We were listening to David Bowie,” Lightcap says. “Serge had requested Ziggy Stardust and it was playing as I ran. I wasn’t dressed for it; I was sprinting in heels, and I was praying because what I had in mind was a Hail Mary anyway.”

Hermann flicks the radio off and takes a deep breath.

Borrowed grief loses none of its ache, it seems. An awful, excavated feeling gnaws at his heart. It can’t come from him. Nevertheless, it seems to be his.

Hermann flicks the radio back on.

“Jasper bolted me in,” Lightcap says, and some completely horrendous human being at NPR has inserted Ziggy Stardust’s eponymous track low in the mix beneath her words. 

He switches to the BBC. 

Lightcap again.

“—that’s nice of you to say, but I couldn’t do it without my team. Specifically, the Science Side. They get way less credit than they deserve as a general rule. I love them all. Especially what Serge and I like to call the Dramatic Duo, mostly because of their legendary—um—we’ll call them ‘debates.’ They’re both brilliant enough to blind entire roomfuls of bureaucrats. And, when they’re together, they sharpen one another up.”

“What are their names?”

“Newton Geiszler, who heads K-science, and Hermann Gottlieb, Captain of our Math Team.” 

Hermann rolls his eyes.

“Wait…Math Team?” the interviewer asks.

“Oh yeah. Can’t get by without one. J-Tech keeps trying to steal them away from their applied quantum mechanics, but I do my best to protect their time. If you think about it, the Math Team probably has the most critical role of all.”

“How so?” The interviewer asks.

“Well, I’d rather not spend my entire life fighting kaiju. I want someone to figure out how to shut that demon tear in the quantum foam. I’m hoping it’s Dr. Gottlieb. I spend at least ten percent of my time protecting him from getting co-opted by the thousand other people and agendas that want a piece of him.”

“Oh god,” Hermann murmurs, feeling a chill as he pulls into the UC Berkeley parking lot. “You really did, didn’t you?”

“To do work like that,” Lightcap continues, “you need time. You need dedicated, protected time. You can’t do it if you’re lashed to the countdown clock, like some of us are. You need enough remove to see the big picture. The deep picture. I mean, we’re talking about a threat that emerged from the fabric of existence. The deepest picture there is, or ever will be.”

“You knew that, did you?” Hermann mutters, looping around the parking lot, failing to select a spot. He returns to the road.

“Sounds like an important job,” the interviewer says.

“That’s what I keep telling people,” Lightcap replies. “The Jaeger Program is an epic answer to an epic threat, but people forget it’s a stopgap. We’re trying to cut the problem off at its source. That’s the real goal. My entire job, in a way, is to buy time for Hermann Gottlieb.”

He finds he needs to pull the car over. 

Hwi takes it upon herself to neaten his parking job, then keeps the radio playing as Hermann sits there, staring at nothing but the inside of his own mind. 

“You must have close relationships with your staff,” the interviewer says. “Do any of them worry about you? The work you do is so dangerous.”

There’s a long pause.

“They do,” Lightcap says, reluctance in her voice. “They all do, I know. Each in their own way. But we’ve all shouldered a huge amount of risk. We have to. The stakes are too high for anything else. I accept that I probably won’t see the end of this fight.”

Hermann feels his eyes begin to burn. 

“That’s—I’ll be honest. That’s hard to hear,” the interviewer says.

“Sorry kiddo,” Lightcap replies, quietly. “But there are a lot of good people who work with me who are more than capable of stepping up. If there’s one thing I believe, it’s that science is our way out. As long as enough people keep their heads out of the sand and their eyes fixed on the water—we’ll be okay.” 

Hermann turns off the radio, this time for good. He pulls a pair of sunglasses out of his glove compartment. He gets out of his car. The day is beautiful, with bright sun and a maritime bite to the air.

He begins to walk, choosing a direction at random, trying to look like a man with a plan and a place to go while being possessed of neither. How is Newton coping? Will he go to the Coastal Wall? Will he spend the entire day on the balcony? There’s a strong chance that Hermann will find him outside with the tequila come half past five this evening.

Finding a bench, he sits, propping his cane next to him, resting his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands.

If she’d only lived longer. Six months longer and they’d have gotten, again, the international aid that had maintained their manufacturing supply lines. One year longer and she’d have weighed in on the Coastal Wall like a wrecking ball. Two years longer and they wouldn’t have defunded the American Shatterdomes. Three years longer and they’d have kept their staff. Four years longer and she’d have known of Newton’s plans for drifting. Five years longer and maybe Hermann would have been able to ask her the questions he most wants answered now.

“How would you interpret what he did? The creation of EPIC Rapport? The forbearance of monsters? What does it mean? Did we do the right thing, destroying their network?”

Lightcap cannot answer.

And Newton—well the man had described some kind of extraordinary blending of calculus and rationalism and Leibniz and monsters, taking place in a fiery metaphor of a lakebed. Hermann cannot find much peace in the description.

What happens to a fraction of a hive mind?  

It turns to ash, as most things do. 

Physical ash, belonging to the scattering wind.

Metaphysical ash, belonging to the avatar of Leibniz—now wise and vaguely monstrous, splendidly misunderstood. 

Hermann gathers himself, sits up straight, smooths his hair into an orderly arrangement. He reseats his sunglasses and looks around to see if anyone has witnessed the maudlin display he just indulged in. It seems not. As he’s taking in the street, he notices, directly across from him, a florist’s shop.

Sighing, he stands, caves to a blended impulse, and crosses the road. He’s examining the hours posted on the shop window when the days and times vanish. They vanish because someone has opened the door.

“Hi!” The proprietor, a middle-aged woman with red hair, greets him with a truly improbable amount of enthusiasm. “Need some flowers?”

“You’re open?” Hermann asks, uncertainly.

“For you we’re open!” The woman waves him inside with an expansive gesture. “Thanks for saving the entire world from being eaten by monsters from another dimension, by the way.”

“You’re quite welcome,” Hermann tells her, stepping inside the shop. He’s found it’s easiest not to split hairs about these things.

“I’m a huge fan,” she tells him as she leads him through a maze of flowers, toward the back counter. “Do you realize you’re a walking advertisement for children’s math homework everywhere?” 

This unexpected but not unwelcome turn to the conversation startles a small smile from him, despite the dark cast of his thoughts.

 “I had no idea, but I could not be more delighted.” 

“My youngest? He always wants to play kaijus versus jaegers with his group of little friends and I say, “if you really want to win, do your algebra.”

His smile gains some staying power. “Well. He’s lucky to have you. There’s not enough value placed on mathematics in this world, I can tell you that much.”

The florist nods sagely. “Yeah. I’ll say. Question for you, just one. Sorry. But I’ve always wondered—what did math have to say about that Coastal Wall project, hmm? Because, it didn’t even work and now it’s just an eyesore, screwing up the local ecosystem. What was math’s take on that thing?”

“Math was unimpressed from the start,” Hermann says dryly.

“I figured as much. I’ll tell you this though,” the florist says, leaning against the counter, “if you drive a few hours north, along Route One? You’ll get to some open coastline where the fancy people had their vineyards. Before the radioactive fallout, I mean.”

“Really,” Hermann says.

“Really,” she confirms. “They’re starting to tear it down in pieces.”

“Hmm.” Already he’s wondering if it would be a good or bad idea to take Newton to Sonoma.

“So. What can I do for you, Dr. Gottlieb?” 

Charming as this woman is, there are times when he truly detests being recognized so consistently.

He hesitates, sighs, and then, “I’m looking for something suitable for a memorial.”

The florist gives him a look that sears right to his soul. Of course she knows the significance of the date. Who, other than digital recluses, can escape it? For weeks he and Newton have fielded requests for interviews. Well, Hermann has fielded them. Newton is still, even now, not fully aware of the extent of his fame. 

“I have just the thing,” the florist says quietly. “Wait here.”

She vanishes into the back of the store, leaving Hermann to fret about the idea of Newton spending the day watching Caitlin Lightcap documentaries and crying. 

Perhaps he will go home. 

The florist doesn’t return for almost five minutes. When she does, she’s carrying a bouquet of white lilies, wrapped in paper, tied with string, well insulated against leaking.

“Perfect,” Hermann tells her. “How much do I owe you?”

She sets the flowers down on the counter between them. “Hang on,” she says, ducking down beneath the register, digging through a shelf he can’t see. When she stands, she has piece of paper and a pen in her hand. She sets them on the counter. “You owe me one autograph. To Zach.”

Hermann lifts an eyebrow, takes the pen, and writes: 

Zach,

Do your math homework.

-Hermann Gottlieb PhD

“Perfect,” the florist gives it her blessing. 

“How much do I actually owe you?” Hermann asks.

“Nothing,” she says.

“Nonsense,” he replies pulling out his wallet.

“Hey,” she says, one hand out. “Please,” she says, her voice shockingly full of feeling. “Please let me give you these.”

He looks at her in surprise.

“Are they for Doctor Lightcap?” she asks.

“They are,” he replies, seeing no reason to evade her question.

“Then please,” she says. “I’ve lived here all my life. Selling flowers. My husband died when Trespasser took down the Golden Gate. I’ve never done anything important, myself, but I used to watch her, you know. All the time. The briefings she would do on CSPAN sometimes. Her talks on YouTube. The movie they made about her. She tried so hard, you know? That’s what I loved about her. She tried herself to death. In some of her interviews she would talk about how scared she was—when Sergio D’onofrio almost died, when she jacked into that rig, when she fought Karloff. But she did it all anyway.”

“Yes.” Hermann’s voice is rough.

“Let me help you do this for her,” the woman says. “Please.”

Hermann stares down at the flowers. “Well.” He clears his throat. “She always did enjoy a grand gesture,” He’s amazed to find there is no cut to his words.

“Not sure how grand this is.” The florist ghosts her fingers over white petals.

“Grand enough,” Hermann replies. 

He returns to his car, flowers in hand. He texts Newton and receives a terse reply. He tips his head back against the seat, composes himself, then composes a message.

::I realize today carries some special significance. I’d rather you not be alone—unless you want to be. Do you?::

::Mako has already called me six times this morning::

::That’s not an answer::

::Can’t get anything by you::

Hermann sighs, trying to decide what Newton’s evasiveness imports. The man probably isn’t sure what he wants, exactly, or he’s wondering about Hermann’s own preferences in the setting of EPIC Rapport. He speculates on the issue for so long that he gets another text from Newton. 

::You do you for a while. If I hijack your brain it’s going to be a Feel Bad Night of EPIC proportions, if you get my drift. Go roll around in math for a while. That usually helps::

::Call if you need anything::

He can’t quite imagine the drive back to the Math Building, a day of dodging colleagues and their well-meaning inquiries. 

And so. 

Hermann drives north, to the gap in the Coastal Wall. 

At an abandoned overlook, he pulls off the road. He frees the flowers from their string and paper. He gets out of the car and walks to the cliff’s edge. Below him is a rocky bay with white-laced waves. The wind is at his back. The sea and sky are fantastically blue.

The bones in his face ache as he looks down at the flowers in his hands. A profusion of white. He thinks of Caitlin Lightcap, standing beneath his chalkboards, looking up at the mathematics, smiling faintly, whispering reverently to herself. A count? A prayer? It doesn’t matter. 

“You did so well,” he murmurs.

He flings the flowers along the vector of the wind. They fall, end over end, toward the sea.