Aftermath: 10 - Until Our City Be Afire (2017)

“Newt,” Lightcap says, commanding, stony, an immortal being, a goddess of old. “Stop coughing.”

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

Text iteration: Witching hour.

Additional notes: None.

2017 (Ten – Until Our City Be Afire)

Hermann doesn’t bother knocking on the door to Lightcap’s office. He flings it open and barges in. Stray papers flutter. Lightcap looks up from her computer, startled, then more startled when she realizes that Hermann, of all people, has disturbed her in this way.

“Why would you send him out,” Hermann snarls without preamble. “What could have possibly possessed you to do such a thing?”

Lightcap pushes blonde hair out of tired eyes, says, “What?”

Through the window, Hermann sees the turbidity in the air, obscuring the Space Needle. He says it again, forming words raw. Too angry at her to speak calmly. Too angry, full stop. She’s shouting back at him before she even understands why he’s upset because. That. Is. What. She. Does. 

They’re screaming nonsense words, screaming them, not listening to one another because Hermann hates her, hates her deeply, hates the way her hands press to her side where her stitches must be, hates her hair in the sun, hates her eyes and her voice and her laugh. Hates the way Newton will do anything for her. Literally anything.

Something penetrates. Something must. And then—

“What did you say?” Lightcap whispers, all her volume gone, her voice a child’s voice, her eyes huge. Her hands move to her face, press her temples, come to cover her mouth. She’s so profoundly horrified it nearly inspires pity. 

Nearly. 

“Did you not know?” Hermann repeats a rhetorical question without the rhetoric. He’s no longer shouting, but his rage has not diminished, every word he fires at her has multiple edges, filed sharp enough to cut.

“Know what?” Lightcap asks.

Newton hasn’t told her, then—not between the lines of any song, not among the shards of any broken bottle—that he cannot breathe the kaiju poisoned air. Idiot. The one person who should know is the one he doesn’t tell. 

“He was in Manila.” Hermann enunciates as though she is too stupid to understand. “In Manila. He was exposed.”

“Right,” Lightcap says. “Right. Oh God. Oh no. Oh God.”

Hermann isn’t done. “He breathed that air. It nearly killed him. Have you never wondered why—have you not seen him in the cold? Have you never questioned why he has difficulty tolerating respirators? Have you never asked him about his first JET Force mission? You’ve known him for two years, Lightcap, you drink with him on that infernal dock. How is it he never told you? How is it you never asked him? He’ll do anything for you, anything—”

“Jesus.” Lightcap turns away from him, already unlocking her phone with trembling hands. “Dear Jesus God. Don’t just stand there, Gottlieb, call him. Call him! That hypocritical little fuck and a half. I’m gonna kill him with my bare hands.” 

They both call him.

He answers Hermann with a testy, “What.” Hermann doesn’t respond, just puts the phone on speaker.

“Babyface, hi. I need you back here right now.”

“Lightcap? Why do you—why do you have Hermann’s phone? Is everything okay?” He sounds short of breath.

Hermann exchanges a concerned look with Lightcap. 

“Your science crush is absolutely fine. In fact, he’s glaring at me right now. You don’t sound so good. Where are you?”

“Standing at the corner. Of Smash and Pulverize.”

“Ha. Very funny. Gottlieb and I are outrageously entertained. Can you get yourself back here right the fuck now please? Or do I need to send a car.”

“Why? The—” he breaks off, coughing. 

Hermann and Lightcap wait, standing together. In the doorway comes a flash of color, and Hermann looks up to see Ms. Mori. As soon as he catches her eye, she ducks out of sight.

They wait, but the coughing doesn’t stop. It goes on. Long and horrible. Brutal, even filtered as it is, through respirator and phone speaker. Why is he coughing? It’s probably not Blue. It’s probably some other particulate, small enough to pass the second set of filters. His lungs are terrible. It’s almost certainly not Blue.

“Newt,” Lightcap says, commanding, stony, an immortal being, a goddess of old. “Stop coughing.” 

Hermann has a strange hope that it will work. That, for her, Newton’s airways will cooperate. But they don’t. They can’t.

“Stop coughing, god damn it, Geiszler, you little fucking weasel martyr; I’m going to murder you.” Her hands shake. “One two three four, one two three four,” Lightcap murmurs like a prayer. She pulls out her own phone and looks at Hermann. “Keep him on the line; I’m calling Serge. Find out where he is.”

Finally, the coughing subsides, and Hermann can hear Newton trying to breathe, wheezing through the filter he’s wearing. “Newton, stay where you are. Dr. Lightcap is sending someone for you. We need to know your location.”

“Slight problem,” Newton says. Hermann can barely understand him. Only the consonants come through. “Can’t stay here.”

“Why not?” Hermann demands.

 “Filter’s clogging.”

“I thought these masks were supposed to be drastically improved.”

Newton coughs again. “I’m walking.”

“Where?” Hermann asks it, Lightcap, listening in, shouts it across the room.

“Away,” Newton says. “From the corpse. I’ll read. A street sign.”

“Sooner rather than later, please,” Hermann hisses.

“Aw.” It’s barely audible. “You care. A little.”

“I care about the name of the street you’re walking down, YOU IMPOSSIBLE MAN,” Hermann shouts into his phone.