Gleams of a Remoter World (Fringe)
Title: Gleams of a Remoter World
By:
vehemently
Fandom: Fringe
Spoilers: through 2.15, "Jacksonville"
Rating: general audiences
This is: a belated birthday present for
coffeeandink.
What is it: Something else.
Summary: It should be funnier, more deranged, more easily dismissed.
The day began early for Astrid. She has done her chores and thought her thoughts and now she is at work, doing good things. She hopes they are good things. She could really go for some good in her life about now.
The basement laboratory is cold, of course. It's always cold this time of year. Astrid has a big pink hat and fingerless gloves that she wears only when nobody else will see. She doesn't like to think that others might not take her seriously. But she still has to type, to set the mainframes to their morning cycles. She still has to work up that report. She can almost see her breath in the air. She wants coffee.
The flask that has percolated overnight is showing promising fermentation, and the agar plates have grown fuzzy colonies in brown and white and violent green. Astrid likes her work, really. She's contributing to the cause, providing hope for humanity. She just wishes the building had heat.
The mail flopping down the chute from upstairs startles her badly. It always does, even when she's just looked at the clock and knows to expect it. Astrid hums something toneless to herself and picks up the envelopes. It's a tidy ritual, sorting the mail, something people do. Most of it is ordinary stuff, regulations from the University and directives from the authorities. Occasionally, correspondence from colleagues, dull arguments and not much insight. Every once in a while, a letter for Olivia.
Astrid recognizes the postmark and the handwriting on the envelope: it's everyone's favorite crackpot. They come two or three times a month, densely-spaced crabbed sentences and way too many capitalized words. They've never called the authorities yet -- he's never actually stated a threat -- but Astrid feels that the letters should be funnier, more deranged, more easily dismissed. It's got all the hallmarks of insanity: the grandiose thinking, brusque shortage of ethics, theoretical breadth, non-sequitur, shadowy references to outlandish plots of kidnap and child-trafficking. But every once in a great while the crackpot will state as fact a hypothesis Astrid has only begun to test, just one sentence in pages of ranting, like a shard of glass hidden in shaved ice. Crackpots who know a little bit are always more disturbing than crackpots who know nothing.
The letters are always unsigned. It's an unlikely forbearance from such an urgent ego.
It takes several minutes and a magnifying glass to scan through the letter. She is puzzling through a bizarre set of stoichimetric equations when Olivia walks in.
"Morning," she says, with preoccupied cool. And then, like an afterthought: "I brought tea." She holds up a packet about the size of an envelope. Its contents whicker against the paper, dried weeds. Astrid can foreknow the contents of that packet without needing to purse it open and smell its faint dust: mint leaves. Real tea has become as scarce as coffee.
Astrid thanks her anyway, and puts a beaker of water on the burner. She leaves her hat and gloves on, because it's Olivia. "We got another letter from the crackpot. I was just going through his physics. He's taking quantum entanglement way beyond anything I understand. My field was linguistics, you know --"
It only takes a few moments to realize that Olivia is not interested in crackpot physics. She is standing by the work-table, hair staticky and her coat still on. She is working herself up to say something disturbing.
Her face is like a mirror. Astrid has thought it many times. She looks up from the beaker of water and thinks it again: her face is like a mirror.
Most of the time, Olivia's face is like the mirror in the front hall, late afternoon on a sunny day. It is easy to look to her for warmth and clarity. There are times when she is far away, like a moon, like a flash from a distant mountaintop, and it is possible to bask in that serious brilliance. Sometimes, though, you can look at Olivia and see nothing but yourself, the startled awkwardness of that gesture you didn't realize you were making, everything stark and backwards.
"What," asks Astrid faintly.
"They arrested him this morning," says Olivia. She blinks through the implications before going on. "They'll probably want all his letters, too. I don't think you have clearance for what's going on."
Astrid pauses. "The crackpot? But we never --"
"I don't know. I think it's got something to do with that building in New York that imploded." Olivia shakes herself and extricates herself from her coat. She hangs it on the peg next to Astrid's. "I don't think I have clearance either. This goes all the way to the top."
The letter is still on the countertop, its acid pages already turning dark from the oils in Astrid's fingerprints. The magnifying glass shows an equation in vast, monstrous detail: the pen-strokes, their imprint on the paper. String theory only goes so far, and then the romantic imagination: a universe where the planet isn't failing, where everything is bright and green and the basement laboratories of Radcliffe University are heated. Just a turn to the left, and all the world's problems solved. Romantic imagination didn't used to be criminal.
"I kept them all," says Astrid, in a small voice. "Two years of letters." They're in a file folder marked Crackpot, alphabetical after Covalency and before Crystal Structures.
The water boils in the beaker, great eruptions of bubbles. The glass trembles atop the heating element, the water is so furious. Astrid only spends a moment with her face above the steam before reaching for the tongs. Olivia comes to help, tips out some of the packet of tea leaves into the steeping pot. They stand side by side and make mint tea and think.
"I recognized the name, from the plaques in the Science Center," says Olivia after a while. "It's Walter Bishop."
"What," breathes Astrid. She watches while Olivia pours out the tea into two battered mugs. "The child-killer?"
Olivia does not fail to query that assumption. "They never arrested him. I don't think they ever even found the body."
"Still." They take their mugs, warm their hands side by side. "Murdering your own son is a pretty good reason to revoke tenure." It's good enough that people still talk about it, almost twenty years later. The biochem undergraduates make ghastly jokes about the things mind-altering substances can make you do. And here he's been all along, forcibly retired and writing delusional letters to junior researchers in his field. Astrid shudders.
"Drink your tea," says Olivia.
Astrid drinks her tea. "How did he know to write to us? We're not on the University books. Actually," she realizes, "he's been writing to you this whole time."
"I have no idea," says Olivia. Her mouth makes the grimace that Astrid is thinking.
"I should make copies, before the authorities get here." Astrid pulls herself together and puts down her mug. The tea is getting cold already, and cold mint tea is a comfort to nobody. "Maybe it's not all nonsense."
Olivia has that glint, the sharp edge of curiosity. She turns to Astrid with narrowed eyes. "Maybe not," she says.
They bustle around each other. Astrid gathers up the papers and taps them into line for the scanner-feed. Olivia comes to her side, eyes narrow, like a fox scenting the winter air. There is no doubt between them. Excitement and fear bloom in Astrid's chest, keep her warm. Olivia's breath touches her ear and neck. It is almost visible in the chilly room.
Their mugs of tea, long since cold, lie forgotten on the countertop.
This entry was originally posted at http://vehemently.dreamwidth.org/13303.html. Comment wherever you like.
By:
vehemently
Fandom: Fringe
Spoilers: through 2.15, "Jacksonville"
Rating: general audiences
This is: a belated birthday present for
coffeeandink.
What is it: Something else.
Summary: It should be funnier, more deranged, more easily dismissed.
The day began early for Astrid. She has done her chores and thought her thoughts and now she is at work, doing good things. She hopes they are good things. She could really go for some good in her life about now.
The basement laboratory is cold, of course. It's always cold this time of year. Astrid has a big pink hat and fingerless gloves that she wears only when nobody else will see. She doesn't like to think that others might not take her seriously. But she still has to type, to set the mainframes to their morning cycles. She still has to work up that report. She can almost see her breath in the air. She wants coffee.
The flask that has percolated overnight is showing promising fermentation, and the agar plates have grown fuzzy colonies in brown and white and violent green. Astrid likes her work, really. She's contributing to the cause, providing hope for humanity. She just wishes the building had heat.
The mail flopping down the chute from upstairs startles her badly. It always does, even when she's just looked at the clock and knows to expect it. Astrid hums something toneless to herself and picks up the envelopes. It's a tidy ritual, sorting the mail, something people do. Most of it is ordinary stuff, regulations from the University and directives from the authorities. Occasionally, correspondence from colleagues, dull arguments and not much insight. Every once in a while, a letter for Olivia.
Astrid recognizes the postmark and the handwriting on the envelope: it's everyone's favorite crackpot. They come two or three times a month, densely-spaced crabbed sentences and way too many capitalized words. They've never called the authorities yet -- he's never actually stated a threat -- but Astrid feels that the letters should be funnier, more deranged, more easily dismissed. It's got all the hallmarks of insanity: the grandiose thinking, brusque shortage of ethics, theoretical breadth, non-sequitur, shadowy references to outlandish plots of kidnap and child-trafficking. But every once in a great while the crackpot will state as fact a hypothesis Astrid has only begun to test, just one sentence in pages of ranting, like a shard of glass hidden in shaved ice. Crackpots who know a little bit are always more disturbing than crackpots who know nothing.
The letters are always unsigned. It's an unlikely forbearance from such an urgent ego.
It takes several minutes and a magnifying glass to scan through the letter. She is puzzling through a bizarre set of stoichimetric equations when Olivia walks in.
"Morning," she says, with preoccupied cool. And then, like an afterthought: "I brought tea." She holds up a packet about the size of an envelope. Its contents whicker against the paper, dried weeds. Astrid can foreknow the contents of that packet without needing to purse it open and smell its faint dust: mint leaves. Real tea has become as scarce as coffee.
Astrid thanks her anyway, and puts a beaker of water on the burner. She leaves her hat and gloves on, because it's Olivia. "We got another letter from the crackpot. I was just going through his physics. He's taking quantum entanglement way beyond anything I understand. My field was linguistics, you know --"
It only takes a few moments to realize that Olivia is not interested in crackpot physics. She is standing by the work-table, hair staticky and her coat still on. She is working herself up to say something disturbing.
Her face is like a mirror. Astrid has thought it many times. She looks up from the beaker of water and thinks it again: her face is like a mirror.
Most of the time, Olivia's face is like the mirror in the front hall, late afternoon on a sunny day. It is easy to look to her for warmth and clarity. There are times when she is far away, like a moon, like a flash from a distant mountaintop, and it is possible to bask in that serious brilliance. Sometimes, though, you can look at Olivia and see nothing but yourself, the startled awkwardness of that gesture you didn't realize you were making, everything stark and backwards.
"What," asks Astrid faintly.
"They arrested him this morning," says Olivia. She blinks through the implications before going on. "They'll probably want all his letters, too. I don't think you have clearance for what's going on."
Astrid pauses. "The crackpot? But we never --"
"I don't know. I think it's got something to do with that building in New York that imploded." Olivia shakes herself and extricates herself from her coat. She hangs it on the peg next to Astrid's. "I don't think I have clearance either. This goes all the way to the top."
The letter is still on the countertop, its acid pages already turning dark from the oils in Astrid's fingerprints. The magnifying glass shows an equation in vast, monstrous detail: the pen-strokes, their imprint on the paper. String theory only goes so far, and then the romantic imagination: a universe where the planet isn't failing, where everything is bright and green and the basement laboratories of Radcliffe University are heated. Just a turn to the left, and all the world's problems solved. Romantic imagination didn't used to be criminal.
"I kept them all," says Astrid, in a small voice. "Two years of letters." They're in a file folder marked Crackpot, alphabetical after Covalency and before Crystal Structures.
The water boils in the beaker, great eruptions of bubbles. The glass trembles atop the heating element, the water is so furious. Astrid only spends a moment with her face above the steam before reaching for the tongs. Olivia comes to help, tips out some of the packet of tea leaves into the steeping pot. They stand side by side and make mint tea and think.
"I recognized the name, from the plaques in the Science Center," says Olivia after a while. "It's Walter Bishop."
"What," breathes Astrid. She watches while Olivia pours out the tea into two battered mugs. "The child-killer?"
Olivia does not fail to query that assumption. "They never arrested him. I don't think they ever even found the body."
"Still." They take their mugs, warm their hands side by side. "Murdering your own son is a pretty good reason to revoke tenure." It's good enough that people still talk about it, almost twenty years later. The biochem undergraduates make ghastly jokes about the things mind-altering substances can make you do. And here he's been all along, forcibly retired and writing delusional letters to junior researchers in his field. Astrid shudders.
"Drink your tea," says Olivia.
Astrid drinks her tea. "How did he know to write to us? We're not on the University books. Actually," she realizes, "he's been writing to you this whole time."
"I have no idea," says Olivia. Her mouth makes the grimace that Astrid is thinking.
"I should make copies, before the authorities get here." Astrid pulls herself together and puts down her mug. The tea is getting cold already, and cold mint tea is a comfort to nobody. "Maybe it's not all nonsense."
Olivia has that glint, the sharp edge of curiosity. She turns to Astrid with narrowed eyes. "Maybe not," she says.
They bustle around each other. Astrid gathers up the papers and taps them into line for the scanner-feed. Olivia comes to her side, eyes narrow, like a fox scenting the winter air. There is no doubt between them. Excitement and fear bloom in Astrid's chest, keep her warm. Olivia's breath touches her ear and neck. It is almost visible in the chilly room.
Their mugs of tea, long since cold, lie forgotten on the countertop.
This entry was originally posted at http://vehemently.dreamwidth.org/13303.html. Comment wherever you like.