Aftermath: 16 - Like an Ill-Sheathed Knife (2028)

::Kiss!::

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

Text iteration: Witching hour.

Additional notes: None.

2028 (Sixteen – Like an Ill-Sheathed Knife)

Hermann sits in his office, looking contemplatively at the lawn in front of UC Berkeley’s Mathematics Building. Finals week has come, and is on its way out. Every day there are fewer and fewer students crossing the campus. The winter holiday is about to begin.

At ten o’clock in the morning, Hermann’s phone chimes. He finds a message from Newton, informing him that his paper has been submitted. Cover letter finalized. Figures formatted and uploaded. The entire thing is officially away. Hermann feels a wave of relief. 

::Congratulations:: he replies to the man’s text. He waits a few polite seconds before issuing a long overdue edict. ::NOW GO HOME::

::Yeah yeah:: Newton replies.

::NEWTON::

::Kiss!::

Hermann rolls his eyes, tosses his phone onto the desk, and returns to algorithm optimization. What a strange way to work, this seems to him still. Arrival at a decent hour? Dedicated time for correspondence? A few hours spent tangling with the math, lunch, and then perhaps a few more hours before giving a class, attending an afternoon colloquium, or consultation with colleagues over tea? Home at a respectable time? Dinner every night? Bed at a reasonable hour?

Absurd. Almost frightening. 

He will, occasionally, wake in a cold sweat, panic-stricken, convinced some crucial task remains incomplete. At such times, it is this life, the one he lives now, that feels like a dream.

Hermann spends an leisurely lunch hour with David Starr at a small coffee shop three blocks from their building. The man, as a general rule, indulges Hermann much too much, especially when it comes to 1) strange applications of quantum theory, 2) enlightenment era philosophers, and 3) descriptions of/complaints regarding Newton’s latest exploits. 

“I literally, Hermann,” David says, finishing the last of his sandwich, “literally can’t believe that you’re spending Christmas with Mako Mori. Can I meet her in person? Aren’t you Jewish?”

“You can, most certainly, meet her,” Hermann replies, “if you think you can hold yourself together, that is.”

“Ummm,” David says, laughing, “not a given. You and Newt are plenty famous, but you’re, like, My People. Meaning you guys speak math. Mako Mori is definitely not My People. I don’t think? I mean, actually, ugh, I’m sure she’s great at math. She is, isn’t she?”

Hermann raises his eyebrows, sips his tea.

“She’s a mathematical genius,” David moans, one hand pressed to his face in dramatic self-abasement. “Of course she is. What am I thinking.”

“Ms. Mori has no special mathematical proclivity,” Hermann replies, taking pity on him, “but can, having grown up where and how she did, hold her own in most arenas, including academics.”

“I couldn’t be less surprised.” David props his chin in one hand and stares into the distance. “She’s like—whoa.”

Hermann rolls his eyes. “As to your other question, yes you do recall correctly. I’m Jewish by heritage, though non-practicing. Ms. Mori is, in fact, Shinto, but finds herself possessed by the unbridled urge to buy presents for her friends and decorate things. Christmas has become, therefore, her favorite holiday. Consumerist nightmare though I tend to find it.”

“Mako Mori buys you Christmas presents.” David shakes his head as though he can’t wrap his mind around something so mundane. “Insanity.”

They walk back to the Math Building through a misting rain that feels like it would very much like to become snow. After lunch, Hermann puts together a shopping list because he can and also because it feels luxurious to do so. The sun makes a reappearance, after he arrives back at his office.

::Are you home?:: Hermann politely enquires of Newton.

::Working on it…::

::Work harder:: Hermann suggests.

In the early afternoon, just when Hermann has begun to make genuine progress on the underpinnings of his new algorithm, Newton calls. Hermann answers his phone with, “Newton, if you aren’t at home, so help me God, I will—”

“Um Dr. Gottlieb?” It’s Jacob.

Newton’s graduate student. His first and best; the one who’s been in the lab the longest, since the rocky fall of 2026. 

This?

It is not a good sign. 

“Jacob.” Hermann steels himself, already suspecting the nature of the call. “What is it?

“Newt had a seizure,” Jacob says without preamble.

“Yes,” Hermann says darkly, already packing his bag, locking his cabinet. “I’m sure.”

That idiot, he thinks, uncharitably. The man is infinitely frustrating. This is the third year in a row this has happened. But will he stay home? No. He has to submit his Nature paper. God forbid he doesn’t go in to work to submit a paper. God forbid he does it from their couch. It isn’t as if the world will end if he stays home, takes Tylenol, and doubles up on his anti-epileptic coverage. 

“It went on a longer than the ones I’ve seen before,” Jacob says. “Four minutes, almost.”

Four minutes? Wonderful. He doesn’t care what it takes, he doesn’t care how uncomfortable it is for either of them; he will not cave to Newton, not this time. The man will stay inside for weeks. He will take any and all anti-epileptics that Dr. McClure decides she’d like to trial for however long she wishes to trial them. All of them. Every single one. Hermann will brook no argument. None.

Newton would try the patience of a saint. The man is lucky he’s so adorable; it’s his sole saving grace.

“Where is he?” Hermann asks. 

“We called an ambulance. he’s on his way to the hospital. Charu rode with him. I’m in my car outside the Math Building. Thought I’d pick you up.”

“Much appreciated, Jacob,” Hermann says, in genuine relief. “Thank you.”

It takes him nearly no time to gather his things, lock his office door. He exits the building, his breath misting in the gray air. Jacob, impossibly young, waits in an idling car, his window down. He waves. 

They believe themselves to be special, Hermann reflects, descending the steps. They always do. His students feel, for Dr. Newton Geiszler, a confusing combination of maximal respect, moderate fear, deep love, vicious loyalty, and fierce protectiveness. 

Hermann is not unsympathetic.

But honestly? Sometimes it’s ridiculous. 

Newton’s last techs at the PPDC had gone without a salary for years, supported by friends or family, until they’d finally been forced to leave. This newest iteration cannot see the legions of mentees who’ve come before. They step into the shoes of the dead, the missing, the lost. So Charu is with him now. Hermann wonders where Lisa is, whether she survived the attack in Sydney. 

Don’t let him ruin your life, he wants to advise Jacob, because he’s feeling particularly aggrieved at the moment. Don’t let him torque your career. Develop your emerging interest in mirror neurons, defend your PhD, move on, do your own science. But Hermann is hardly one to talk. 

“Well,” Jacob says, rolling up the window as Hermann shuts the car door, buckles his seatbelt, settles his briefcase on the floor, “this is the worst. Hi Dr. Gottlieb, terrible to see you again.”

“Hello Jacob.” Hermann smiles faintly. “Likewise I’m sure.”

“This is our fault,” the young man says, grimly wrongheaded. “The holiday party, the Nature paper, he’s teaching six hours a week—he got sick. It was too much. We all got way too drunk and way too drenched when he took us out for a lab happy hour.”

“Jacob,” Hermann sighs. “This happens every year.”

“Still,” Jacob says, readjusting his grip on the wheel, glaring at the traffic in frustration. “We’re having lab meeting without him tomorrow. We already decided. The subject? Ways to Stop Enabling Him.”

Hermann finds himself smiling faintly. “Any ideas?”

“Maybe we stage a walk-out when he makes bad choices. Like, ‘Oh, hi there Newt, you think you’re gonna come to work when you’re sick? Think again. NO SCIENCE FOR YOU’.”

Hermann actually laughs, bringing a hand to his face. “That might work.”

“You okay, Dr. G?” Jacob asks.

“Yes,” Hermann says. 

“I don’t know how you keep your cool through all of this.”

“Practice,” Hermann replies. “What happened?”

“He looked like shit all morning. Sorry. He looked sick. We got the paper in, and I was going to drive him home, but then, of course, the FPLC machine clogged and backed up. Too much myelin in the undergrad’s prep. Anyway, he got distracted with that, argued with me about whether he should go home, I was arguing yes, just FYI, and then—” Jacob breaks off, lifts a hand from the wheel. “Four minutes. Otherwise nothing different.”

Hermann nods. 

Jacob drums his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel as traffic comes, again, to a stop. “Can we, like, keep him inside for the winter?” 

“I make the attempt annually,” Hermann replies.

“What if we move the lab to Florida?” Jacob asks. 

“I would enjoy nothing more. Make an effort to convince him, will you?”

“It will break the Department Chair’s heart into little bitsy pieces, but—that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.” Jacob grins, young and full of optimism. “I’ll get right on that for you, Dr. G. Florida sounds great. I hear you can even go in the water there now.”

It’s only been three years since the breach has shut.

Jacob lived the whole of his childhood beneath the countdown clock—but he doesn’t seem it.

Hermann had been his age when the breach had opened. Younger, in fact. It seems impossible. At present, he can’t recall his own childhood, can’t recall anything but the models, the clock, the shrinking funding, the growing Wall, and Newton.