Aftermath: 14 - Untangle This (2030)

The sky is overcast, San Francisco Bay’s a Jaeger graveyard, and Caitlin Lightcap’s whistle carries on plutonium-laced wind.

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

Text iteration: Witching hour.

Additional notes: None.

2030 (Fourteen – Untangle This)

The monster that emerges from the bay looks familiar, but as it rends its way through the Coastal Wall Hermann can’t place it. It’s not Trespasser, not Reckoner, not Yamarishi, not any of the forms that are burned into his mind, needled into Newton’s skin.

It’s new.

Stone rips like paper under enough shear force.

“Huh,” Newton says. “Well, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from the human experience it’s this: the monsters we slay come back.”

Hermann looks at him, aghast. 

“They always come back,” Newton says, kindly. “You have to know that. You’re human. How could you not know?”

Hermann looks away. The sky is overcast, San Francisco Bay’s a Jaeger graveyard, and Caitlin Lightcap’s whistle carries on plutonium-laced wind.

“Do you know what they call themselves?” Newton stands next to Hermann, his hands on the rail, watching. “In their own language? How they classify what they are?”

“No,” Hermann replies.

“Catalysts,” Newton says. “It’s interesting we have a word that translates so well, don’t you think?”

“I suppose.” Hermann watches him uneasily. 

The wind is strong. The clouds are low and full of lightning. Newton stands gripping the balcony rail, his eyes improbably green beneath a sky so gray. He doesn’t look at Hermann. He fixes his gaze on the Coastal Wall, on what’s coming through it. The intensity of his expression contrasts with his didactic tone.

“Translation is tricky, as I’m sure you know. You have to choose what to emphasize. What to pull forward. What to push back. ‘Catalysis’ means ‘dissolution’ in Greek; even that’s a compound from ‘kata,’ meaning ‘down,’ and ‘lysis,’ meaning ‘loose.’ Biologically, we’ve come to refer to catalytic activity as tearing something apart, as opposed to, say, anabolic activity, which would be the process of building up. But don’t worry, it gets better.”

“Does it?” Hermann is surprised the man hears him at all, his voice is so faint.

“Yeah, because to ‘catalysis,’ you add the suffix -ist. Well, the ‘i’ gets swallowed, but it’s a suffix that denotes agency. Like specialist. An agent of the special thing. Catalyst. An agent of catalysis. So, that’s nice. But then you stack some additional meaning atop that, because in our modern culture, especially within the biological and chemical sciences, but elsewhere too, a catalyst is something that helps a reaction along, makes it go faster, renders it energetically favorable. So not only does it do the dissolving, it makes that dissolving faster. More likely. More efficient.”

“Ah.”

“Right? That adds an even better layer of complexity, don’t you think? Because they really are biologic agents that pave the way, so to speak, for what comes after. Speed things up, reduce activation energy? Don’t get me wrong though; I have no plan to call them ‘catalysts’.”

There’s a prominent crack of thunder. Hermann twitches.

“I like the word ‘kaiju’ just fine.” Newton cocks his head and lifts a brow as the monster shoves its way through the Wall.

“Are you afraid?” Hermann whispers.

Newton looks over at him, backlit by destruction, by a spectacular electrical storm. The kaiju roars, angry, but beneath that anger, Hermann hears a note of mourning.

“I wish I were,” Newton says, with wistful sympathy. “I really do.”

Hermann jolts awake, breathing hard.

It takes time before he can hear the gentle tap of rain against the window, the cries of gulls, the sounds of distant traffic. He tries to scramble out of bed, but gets nowhere due to the impossible tangle of his bedding, so he settles for levering himself up on one elbow to peer at the Coastal Wall. 

It’s reassuringly intact.

Hermann looks down Newton, who has involved himself in separate tangles with every topologically amenable surface he’s encountered, including three layers of blankets and Hermann himself. The man’s hair is in a state of spectacular disarray. At some point, he’d clamped his hand around a good portion of the material of Hermann’s Supercos T-shirt.

Is he dreaming of what happens to a fraction of a hive mind?

He doesn’t look like he’s dreaming. 

“Newton,” Hermann whispers.

No answer.

Newton is soundly asleep. Mostly on top of him and suspiciously warm. His shirt is damp.

Hermann presses a hand to Newton’s forehead and sighs.

“You consistently defy expectations in all areas. Is it too much to ask that you go a winter without pneumonia? Just one.” He strokes Newton’s hair. “We live in California. It barely ever snows here. You have no excuse for this.”

Hermann drops back against his pillow and wipes a faint sheen of sweat off his own forehead. He presses his free hand over his eyes, trying to forget the dream. The breach is shut. The breach is not just shut but annihilated. All tissue fragments on this side of the portal have been destroyed. Newton is fine, not welcoming monsters with balcony-scene etymology.