Designations Congruent with Things: Chapter 12

Hermann is no stranger to sleepless nights.

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

Text iteration: Midnight.

Additional notes: None.

Chapter 12

Hermann is no stranger to sleepless nights. 

In point of fact, he cannot recall a period in his life predating the perpetual exhaustion infecting his entire sense of self. He traces back along linear stretches in the webbed interrelationships that define his own past experience, his eyes fixed on the off-white ceiling of a hotel room, lit to dusky yellow by the warm spread of the LED lamp on the bedside table. He searches for some episode from his childhood that contains anything of the energy, anything of the true enthusiasm he knows he once felt for vast swaths of his intellectual life, before the time that solution sets, or the lack thereof, had been linked with death on apocalyptic scales, but every time, every single time he makes the attempt, he ends up in foreign territory. The memories that present themselves aren’t his own; they’re too full of recklessness and anxiety and, worst of all, trial and error, a problem-solving method he prefers not to utilize if he has any other choice. There’s something uncomfortably vicarious about this mental exercise, in the accidental hedonistic slide of someone else’s hands over the custom circuitry of a remembered electric guitar he never wired, one he’s never touched at all, never will touch—

Next to him, Newton jerks into a half-seated position. His hands come up, fingers brushing the edges of the sunglasses he still wears, even in sleep.

Hermann flinches, startled. His pulse pounds a fast and painful rhythm through his sensitive right eye.

Newton falls back in a rapid and complete loss of tension that would be much more alarming if Hermann hadn’t been watching variations of this play out for hours without any obvious ill effects.

Hermann pulls in a measured breath and tries to decide whether the man has actually awoken or not, but Newton neither moves nor speaks, so Hermann says nothing.

His own dreams have been difficult to bear in the aftermath of drifting—immersive, exhausting, unbearably intense, and permitting no insight into their own nature. He wakes unsure of whom he is, unsure, at the worst of times, of what he is. Historically, he’d been an intermittently lucid dreamer, retaining or coming to a sense of awareness, of ownership over the random unconscious firings of his own well-ordered thoughts.

Not so, now.

Now, his dreams plunge him back into the Drift, back into a tripled perspective laid down simultaneously but amenable to mental parsing. His dreaming mind pries apart three sets of memories as he sleeps and bricks them down into their own separate neural tracts. 

He’s certain that this is progress.

He’s certain this is a good thing.

It’s necessary.

He’s certain that even though he has no desire to dream of amphibious assault on cities where he’s lived, where he’s worked, where he’s known people, no desire to feel the destruction he’d opposed so long and so tirelessly as if it is the work of his own hands—he’s certain these unwanted memories will, eventually, be unpicked and processed and laid to rest somewhere in the foundations of his mind, where they won’t haunt him anymore, where they’ll buckle beneath the pressure of all he is and all he was—all he’d always been and will continue to be. 

He’s certain that, eventually, the nights he dreams as Newton Geiszler, of the ever-present urgency and blazing neural circuitry, will lose their ontological uncertainty; he’s positive they’ll lose their painful edge, their unusual auditory quality, their exhausting, multicolored spread of forced voyeurism into a history not his own. Hermann’s spent a lifetime dreaming without sound, and he finds the greatest hits of The Superconducting Supercolliders to be a bit much to take at times when he’d like to be resting.

It’s been approximately one hundred and forty-four hours since he drifted in a Hong Kong alley. Of that gross of hours, Hermann estimates he’s spent only thirty of them sleeping, which is certainly insufficient. Sleep deprivation will do him no favors when it comes to memory processing. Nevertheless, despite this realization, despite his own profound exhaustion, he’s incapable of falling asleep.

This is entirely and unambiguously Newton’s fault.

The other man twitches again, faintly this time, in a direct, if unconscious, validation of his own culpability in Hermann’s raging insomnia.

Hermann glares at him, trying to will the man into a sleep state even slightly less agonized.

Hermann now has a borrowed knowledge of human sleep cycles because it’s a topic Newton had taken an interest in at some point. This exogenous information has a foreign and qualitative feel to it for something supposedly grounded in the quantitative solidity of voltage fluctuation. It isn’t nearly sufficient nor complete enough for Hermann to determine, even in an approximate way, what might be occurring in his colleague’s head. He’s formulated two competing theories: either Newton is having nightmares that are waking him when he drops into REM sleep and resetting his sleep cycle, or the man isn’t making it to REM at all, and what Hermann’s witnessing is a long progression of hypnic jerks as Newton's mind panics its way out of falling into anything but the most shallow of sleep states.

Either way, it isn’t ideal.

Newton has, for as long as Hermann’s known him, existed in a state of perpetual sleep deprivation courtesy of unremitting insomnia coupled with intent interest in his work. Newton is hardly singular in either of these respects; the pressure of global annihilation tends to unsettle even the most imperturbable individuals over time. Hermann can personally attest to that. The man is singular in that his capacity to intellectually function in the face of catastrophic insomnia is preserved well past the point he loses other crucial skills, such as impulse control, manual dexterity, and good judgment. This had become apparent to Hermann only a few months after their initial in-person acquaintance, when the man had instigated a confrontation, the underpinnings of which Hermann still, to this day, even post-drifting, does not understand, but that had centered around a perceived slight to polymerases as a class of enzymes. It’d been their first real altercation, meaning Hermann had temporarily dropped his perpetual professional courtesy and Newton had engaged in limited property destruction culminating in an entirely unnecessary table-upending, for which Newton later apologized by showing up unexpectedly at his door with one arm bandaged post-body art acquisition, holding vodka, licorice, and the compiled video footage of six recent kaiju attacks in the most bizarre attempt at intrapersonal conciliation Hermann had ever witnessed in his life. For one thing, vodka and licorice failed to compliment one another, in his opinion. For another, watching footage of urban destruction was not exactly Hermann’s preferred leisure activity, but he’d invited Newton into his room anyway. It had taken the man all of twenty-five minutes and half a shot of vodka to fall asleep on Hermann’s floor in irresponsibly total exhaustion. Hermann had found this an inconvenient, if extremely informative, half-week. 

Hermann knows, with depressing certitude born from a decade of experience, that Newton will likely spend the foreseeable future with raging, uncontrollable insomnia, to the point he will become almost wholly insufferable. The only reason this incipient misery hasn’t already begun is because the man has been pushed to the edge of physical collapse and is potentially still under the influence of whatever was given to him at the PPDC.

Something is overriding whatever cognitive circuitry is waking the man in five to ten minute intervals.

Hermann regrets not asking Dr. McClure about the half-life of the benzodiazepines that had turned up in Newton’s bloodwork. He should have the opportunity to do so shortly, however, as she’d scheduled the pair of them for follow-up EEGs after forty-eight hours. Perhaps, at that time, Hermann will be able to pay more attention to the state of their brain waves, and less attention to a terrifyingly semi-coherent colleague who—

Newton twitches, his head snapping back, his spine arching, and Hermann sits, because he doesn’t care at all for the look of this particular twitch-variant, and he wants to ensure the man isn’t about to start seizing. But Newton relaxes; he doesn’t begin seizing, doesn’t come awake, doesn’t move again, doesn’t make a sound, locked back solidly into whatever his mind is torturing him with. It feels cruel not to wake him, not when Hermann is certain his unconscious mind is creating an experience both immersive and intolerable, if his own nightmares are any kind of metric.

Did you drift again? he thinks, not daring to ask it aloud even now, already suspecting Newton must have done it, they must have asked it of him and he must have given in, not knowing, not having any idea, what it would be like to drift when the Breach was not just closed but annihilated.

He sighs.

He wonders if Newton would be capable of telling him what had happened, should Hermann choose to ask.

He will put off finding out until he can’t stand it any longer.

He doesn’t want to know.

He needs to know.

He needs to know how correct Newton had been about PPDC-sanctioned violations of agency, needs to know how much the man knew going in, how much he actually agreed to and why, needs to know what caused his second seizure, needs to know, needs to be told it wasn’t the Drift that did it, because he wouldn’t have drifted again, not with dead and confused fragments of tissue, cut off from the hive mind of the anteverse, or, worse, with some kind of still navigable mental connection, made possible by quantum entanglement on a macro scale or some other phenomenon that Hermann hopes he’ll never need to understand.

He spends another twenty minutes fruitlessly trying to sleep with the bedside light burning its way into his still painful eye, while Newton twitches beside him at irregular intervals with varying intensity.

After that twenty minutes, he gives up.

It’s four AM, and he can loosely justify his preference for considering this “morning.” 

He stands, feeling as though he might buckle under atmospheric pressure or his own exhaustion, walks to the bathroom, and flips on the shower, uncertain about how he’ll explain the blood on the bathrobe and bed sheets to room service, uncertain whether he needs to do any such thing. He hopes that if Newton can manage an uneventful week and avoid any elevations of intracranial pressure or capillary irritation, perhaps this troubling trend of ruining his clothes by bleeding on them will fade away.

He showers as briefly as possible, then exchanges his bathrobe for his laundered slacks and sweater. He contemplates his toothbrush with narrowed eyes, but doesn’t use it.

When he reenters the room proper, he’s relieved to see Newton looks fine—to the extent a man sleeping restlessly in sunglasses and a bloody shirt with hair plastered into unfortunate and impressive disarray by a combination of dry glue and electroconductive gel is capable of looking “fine”—meaning he’s breathing and he’s neither actively bleeding nor actively seizing. Dr. McClure had been impressively forthright and singularly unhelpful regarding her ability to predict what Newton’s future risk of a seizure disorder might be. When he’d asked about projected odds, she’d replied, “Somewhere between zero and one hundred percent. His particular situation, even relative to yours, has a whole bunch of weirdness-cred, don’t get me wrong, but given he’s had at least two seizures and you’ve had none—he’ll need to spend a chunk of time where his negative feedback loops are getting a pharmacological assist.”

Unfortunately, this means that Hermann will spend that selfsame “chunk of time” watching the man constantly.

Even more constantly than had been his original plan.

Alas, this will likely drive the pair of them to distraction.

You are insufferable, Hermann thinks in Newton’s direction, while retrieving his laptop from the bag against the wall. And you’ll only become more insufferable now that you’re no longer directly required for planetary preservation.

He rights himself too quickly and feels the prickling sensation of an imminent nosebleed, smells the tang of incipient blood. He tips his head and pinches his nose expeditiously enough to avoid bleeding on his recently laundered clothing. He deposits his laptop on the desk and finds a tissue, then moves to stand over the bathroom sink until he’s satisfied he’s stopped his own bleeding. 

He glances at himself in the mirror and finds he looks—

He has looked better.

He’s certain his appearance would improve if he could manage to fall asleep and stay that way for a reasonable length of time, but this seems unlikely to him, not while things remain so uncertain; not while he feels like he has both betrayed and been betrayed by the organization that so recently possessed his wholehearted affiliation; not while he and Newton are unemployed, staying in an American hotel in a city where they have only minimal connections; not while his colleague has had one lucid hour out of the previous seventy-two. 

Their current situation feels unstable in virtually every respect.

Hermann retrieves his computer, returns to the bed, and sits, bracing his back against the headboard.

Unfortunately, this seems directly responsible for Newton jerking into a half-seated position. Instead of falling back, he pushes himself upright, one hand braced behind him, the other coming to his face and running into the shades he is still wearing.

He looks awake. This is not ideal.

Hermann prevents him from removing his eyewear by closing his fingers over the grip Newton has on his borrowed frames.

“Newton,” he says quietly.

The man doesn’t immediately respond, he sits for a moment in the dim light, breathing short and fast, one hand still closed around the lateral hinge of the sunglasses, his fingers icy beneath Hermann's touch. 

“Newton,” Hermann says again, relatively certain his colleague is awake this time.

“Crap.” Newton loosens his grip on the glasses then drops his hand.

“Yes,” Hermann agrees. “Keep these on.” He gives the frames a gentle tug for emphasis.

“But if I keep them on, how am I going to claw out my own eyes?”

Hermann hopes he’s being facetious rather than asking a question in good faith.

“I would not advise such a course of action,” he replies.

“You’re so boring,” Newton slurs, collapsing back to horizontal. “Where’s your bathrobe? I liked it. Freaking stylish. Compellingly—fluffy? You don’t seem like a guy who just wears a bathrobe at the drop of a hat or maybe ever. That happened, right? I feel like it did. I hope it did. I’m not sure what it says about me or our working relationship if I’m hallucinating you in a bathrobe then hoping I didn’t because you were actually wearing one. It says something extremely complicated. Nuanced. Also, this is my bed, why are you here with your computer when there’s a perfectly acceptable alternate bed, like, three feet away? What time is it even? Why are you not sleeping? It’s either dark outside or these sunglasses are really effective. We saved the world, dude, you can take a nap, did you know that? You don’t have to wake up before dawn to do cartographic surveys of the quantum foam anymore, y’know? You can do it after breakfast.”

“I’m extremely sorry I woke you,” Hermann says.

“Are you sorry for your sake or for mine? That can read a few different ways, Hermann,” Newton replies, with an exhausted testiness Hermann finds extremely reassuring. 

“And hence it’s elegant utility,” Hermann says.

“Oh I’m sorry,” Newton replies, even less intelligibly, “are you finding it annoying that the guy whose bed you’ve invaded has decided to talk to you?”

Hermann rolls his eyes.

“Don’t roll your eyes at me,” Newton says.

“I am doing nothing of the kind.”

“You are.”

“I know for a fact you’re incapable of determining any such thing, given our relative positions, your lack of prescription eyewear, and the eighty-five percent probability that your eyes are currently closed.”

“I know, Hermann, okay? I know. You and me? For better or for worse? We have creepily EPIC Rapport. I will always know. I will literally always know when you are rolling your eyes. I will literally always disapprove.”

“Go back to sleep,” Hermann says.

“Tyrannical theorist,” Newton says.

“Eccentric empiricist,” Hermann replies.

“Derivative despot.”

“Neurotic neuroscientist.”

“Freaking faux physicist.”

“Overeducated underling.”

“You wish. I’m not your underling. I take issue with that. I demand insult accuracy. I mean, who are we even, if we’re not accurate. We’re no one, dude.”

“My division was larger,” Hermann replies.

“Yeah, like five years ago, when there was money. My division consistently kicked more ass.”

“Debatable. Will you go to sleep? I’m extremely busy.”

“Lies,” Newton says. “There’s literally nothing to do right now. It’s a pre-sunrise Wednesday—”

“Saturday,” Hermann says. 

“—Saturday, and you don’t even have a job anymore, you don’t have to do anything. Go get your bathrobe, man, and start reading Gödel, Escher, Bach for, like, the eighth time. You know you want to.”

“Shh,” Hermann says. “Stop talking.”

“I’d even let you read it to me,” Newton declares, doing a passable job concealing any hopefulness in his tone, “since I’ll probably never read again, and I like your academic preferences, if only because I assaulted my own brain with them and now have no choice in the matter. My brain is being held hostage by rationalism, Baroque-era music, and Incompleteness Theorems. And Group Theory. The Langlands Program, a little bit.”

“Your eyes will be fine,” Hermann says, in what he hopes is a soothing, sleep-promoting tone. “Be quiet.”

“That time those guys showed Tetris was an NP-complete problem.”

“Quiet,” Hermann says. “Tetris is a waste of time.”

“An NP-complete waste of time,” Newton replies.

“Be. Quiet. Attempt to sleep.”

“Why aren’t you sleeping?”

“I’m not engaging you in conversation right now.” Hermann resolutely opens his laptop.

“I bet it’s because sleeping is literally the worst,” Newton says. 

“Quiet,” Hermann replies, with a sharp spike of empathy he wishes was sympathy.

“Or,” Newton says, theorizing in slow motion, “I’m being bedside-vigil’d. For the second time in a week.”

The second time? Hermann thinks in irritation. Try continuously. For three days.

“Or maybe continuously,” Newton realizes, an order of magnitude slower than usual but getting there all the same. 

“I assure you that’s not the case,” Hermann says crisply. “I’m extremely busy.”

“Lies.”

“Not lies. I’m entering negotiations for a tenured position at UC Berkeley the day after tomorrow, and I’m preparing my talk.”

“Well ‘not-lies’ it is then,” Newton replies agreeably. “You do not waste time, dude.” 

“I’ll need to borrow several of your slides,” Hermann says. “Specifically those pertaining to the mechanics of the drift interface.”

“Sure, presuming you stole my laptop as well as me from the PPDC.”

“Your laptop is government property. Of course I didn’t steal it.”

“You are kidding me,” Newton snarls, snapping into complete alertness. He sits, twisting to give Hermann a glare that’s invisible behind sunglasses. He brings one hand to the side of his head, as if cognitively bracing himself for what he’s preparing to unleash. “You seriously—you prosaic, tedious, literal, perfunctory, accountant. What the HELL, Hermann?”

Hermann is tempted to allow him to continue, if only because he finds this display of unjustified rage infinitely reassuring, but he wants to avoid triggering another episode of epistaxis.

“Will you contain yourself.” Hermann presses Newton back against the pillows, fighting significant resistance. “I have all of your data. I didn’t remove any PPDC issued property from Hong Kong. I was certain that doing so would pose legal and logistical difficulties, which was correct, given the trouble we had passing through Customs. This laptop is mine. I left my primary machine in Hong Kong after transferring my data. I also copied the entirety of your allotted server space onto multiple hard drives, which were not government issue, and which are on the desk not four meters from your current position, so I’ll thank you to calm down.”

Newton is quiet for a moment. Then he says, “Cool. Thanks man.”

“You are quite welcome. Now go back to sleep.”

“I’m sorry I called you an accountant. A little bit.”

“You should be.” Hermann turns back to his screen.

“You can have my slides.”

“Thank you,” Hermann says. 

“You want me to find them for you now?”

“I do not,” Hermann replies. “I want you to go back to sleep.”

“Why are you mentioning the Drift in a talk that should really be mostly about Riemann zeros and the quantum foam?”

“Because I wish to contextualize my role in averting an apocalyptic end to human culture.”

“Rockstar,” Newton says in ambiguous annotation.

“Indeed.”

“Seriously, though, how smart are we right now?”

“Extremely,” Hermann says. “Stop talking.”

“No, I mean, think about it. My knowledge base has doubled. I think about quantum mechanics so much these days. And by ‘these days’ I mean the one hour I was awake earlier. Half my mental metaphors have to do with quantum phenomenology—entanglement, tunneling, spin transfer of quantum information—I haven’t felt this brilliant since Ph.D. numero uno.”

“How nice for you.” Hermann holds to his resolution not to discuss anything interesting. 

“I think my brain likes your metaphors better than mine.” Newton sounds both contemplative and offended.

“How surprisingly discerning of it.”

“Are you literally giving a legit talk on—”

“Monday,” Hermann says, finishing Newton’s slowing sentence. “Yes. To the combined Mathematics and Physics Departments at UC Berkeley.”

“You—realize that could get—a little out of control, right?” Newton sounds like he might fall asleep if Hermann can avoid aggravating him in any way.

“How so?” Hermann opens the graphical image files from his most recent presentation and begins inspecting them.

“Dude, um, five days ago humanity collapsed the—” Newton breaks off and snaps into a sitting position, leaning forward, his hands at his chest, his breathing fast and shallow and audible.

Hermann, fighting down a sympathetic spike of adrenaline, says, “Newton.”

The other man says nothing.

“Newton,” Hermann says again, one hand on the other man’s shoulder.

“Yup,” Newton replies. “Five days since—”

“It was six,” Hermann says carefully. “Six days. But continue.”

“Yeah, anyway, my point,” Newton says, managing to run out of air despite the rapidity of his breathing, “is that you were a key player in that thing we did, and you’re now going to give a public talk? Only eight days later? A lot of people will show up.”

“I’m certain it’s closed-door.”

“Are you?” Newton prompts, still sitting, one hand moving from his chest to his face. “Did you specifically request that it be only the Math and Physics Departments in attendance?”

No.

He had not.

“I’m certain it will be manageable.” Hermann is not certain of anything of the kind.

“Uh huh,” Newton replies, breathlessly and unmistakably skeptical.

Hermann exerts a backward pressure on Newton’s shoulder but meets significant resistance and wonders if the man is bleeding. Again. He persists and gets his hand smacked for his trouble.

“Can you not?” Newton snaps. “I get you’ve been dragging me around like deadweight for three days, but, seriously man, back off.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Hermann replies. “In fact, I think it’s a terrible idea.”

“Backing off? Ugh. You’re a terrible idea. Why do I hang out with you?” Newton pulls his hand away from his face. 

“Are you bleeding?” Hermann asks. 

“No. A little bit? Not really. No.”

Hermann hands him a tissue.

Newton waves it off. “Legit not bleeding,” he decides, after cocking his head and considering his hand at several different distances from his face.

“Will you please,” Hermann says, “lie down.”

“Nope.” Newton struggles free of the bedding and gets to his feet on his second attempt. “That ship has sailed, caught fire, and sunk. Is there coffee?”

“No,” Hermann says, lying through his teeth, knowing Newton’s vision is poor enough that he’ll likely not be able to resolve the coffee machine located on the desk against the opposite wall.

“Let’s go out to breakfast,” Newton says.

“No,” Hermann replies.

“I’m sure there are places open right now,” Newton replies, undeterred and crossing the room. “This is a legit city. It must have legit, twenty-four hour food. It’s not like we’re in Boston, or somewhere full of Puritans. Let’s find a crappy diner. I could go for pancakes right now. But for this? I need my other shirt. The one without blood on it.”

“It’s hanging in the closet,” Hermann informs him, not without reservations. “Consider taking a shower before you put it on.” He eyes Newton’s hair, which is in a state of singular disarray, stiffened into unfortunate angles by dried and flaking electroconductive gel.

“Considered, dude.” Newton visibly shivers as he searches out the handle of the closet door. “Considered and rejected. I can’t see for crap.” 

“I’m aware of that.” Hermann is extremely unwilling to entertain the thought of taking Newton anywhere, but equally unwilling to leave him unsupervised while attempting to locate food and other necessary items. Such as a toothbrush. For himself. “I’m certain this will be temporary, and it does not impede your ability to shower.”

Newton tears open the thin sheath of plastic protecting his laundered clothing and struggles with unbuttoning first the shirt on the hanger, then the one he’s wearing.

“Do you need assistance?” Hermann asks.

Newton shrugs out of his shirt then raises his hands slowly, as if he can’t see at all, toward the shirt on the hanger. “Nope,” the man says, standing there in his undershirt as he searches out the borders of the hanger and peels the shirt free by what is certainly touch alone.

“Are you losing what vision you have?” Hermann shoves his laptop aside and stands.

“Dude, chill. Right now? My eyes are shut behind these shades. I’m not going suddenly blind and acting heroically nonchalant about it. If I go unexpectedly blind, you will be the first to know. I will have an unmitigated freakout that I courteously direct right at you, to the best of my hypothetically sightless ability, okay?” 

Hermann crosses the short space between them and helps Newton pull his shirt over decorated skin, which earns him a startle response and a, “For the love, can you not?” in return.

“Can you not?” Hermann straightens seams before starting on the buttons.

“Um, no,” Newton admits, leaning against the closet and ceding the buttoning work to Hermann. “I cannot not. And you can’t either. Maybe previously you could have notted, but we have EPIC Rapport now, game over, now we both can’t not. Neither of us is able to not?  It’s a bad situation.”

“Stop fruitlessly requesting it then,” Hermann suggests. 

“Noted,” Newton replies. “Later, I’ll shove you into strange beds, just for your information.”

“You can try.” Hermann completes the buttoning job. “Do you genuinely feel like eating?”

“Yes,” Newton says.

“Because I’d rather you not vomit and bleed all over the floor of a twenty-four hour diner, presuming we find one. I’d rather you do that here.”

“Why does this outcome get granted the status of a foregone conclusion?” Newton asks. “I’m one hundred percent improved relative to last night.”

“Arguably, it’s still last night.”

“Is it?” Newton asks.

“It is a quarter past four.”

“That is solid ‘morning’ territory. There are probably fishermen and medical people and construction workers who are eating breakfast right about now. We can chalk this four AM breakfast up to jet-lag-induced circadian chaos and therefore tag it as ‘totally normal.’ At least where you’re concerned. I think I’m straight up lagged. I can’t blame jet-mediated time zone changes for all my current problems. But things are better. Definitely better. I’m not going to throw up, I’m pretty sure. Let’s go be normal.”

Hermann sighs in unmistakable acquiescence.

Newton claps him on the shoulder.