III.
The next morning, Patty ascends to the second floor with a grease-stained paper bag from the Bagel Hole.
"Holtzy! Breakfast!" she calls, rounding the corner.
She finds Holtzmann sprawled on the couch, clad only in Star Trek boxers and a wifebeater which looks as if it had been clawed off her body. Casper sits perched on Holtzmann's chest and looks at Patty with his beady black eyes like she had walked in on something private. He seems to be munching on an errant Pringles chip. There are PBR cans littering the floor, an overflowing ashtray, and a pervasive scent of stale smoke, oil and something like cheap perfume.
"Don't look at me," Holtzmann grumbles. She closes her small hands around Casper and sets him gingerly on the floor.
"Baby, you wrecked," says Patty.
Holtzmann stands slowly, pinching the bridge of her nose. If the state of her hair is any indication, Patty bets the engineer is sporting one hell of a hangover. Her torn shirt hangs open, exposing a ratty sports bra and pale skin marred by galaxies of bruises and bite marks that trail all the way up her neck. She glances to Holtzmann's forearm, reading a name and phone number scrawled in red lipstick.
"Who the hell is 'Cookie'?" asks Patty, trying for the life of her to hold in the joke.
"Never heard of her," says Holtzmann, then follows Patty's eyes to her forearm and grins. "Ah, well it seems 'Cookie' was my dessert."
There's the joke.
"You're damn near worse than a man!" says Patty, cackling.
"Hey! Someone say bagels-" Abby surfaces on the second floor, Erin on her heels. They both stop abruptly at the sight.
"Holy Hell," mutters Abby.
"Girl had a wild night," Patty supplies.
"What? Holtzmann!" yells Abby.
"Please, lower the decibel of your judgement. My brain feels like Hiroshima." She makes a whistling sound and an explosion, dropping back on the couch.
"I thought you went home last night," says Abby.
"I did. But, not before I picked up a case and a Cookie, apparently," she says.
Abby tutts, but says no more, grabbing the paper bag from Patty's hand. She selects an 'everything' bagel and a plastic cup of cream cheese.
"You look like Courtney Love and a hurricane had a crack baby," laughs Patty.
Holtzmann pulls a face. "Aw, that's what Mama used to say."
Erin edges further into the lab, trying to ignore the warring jealousy and strange attraction she feels to this rather undone version of the engineer. Christ, Erin had only seen Holtzmann in shorts for the first time last Wednesday, when Holtzmann had lit her pants on fire while testing the new proton shotgun. "Ah, fire crotch!" She yelled and dropped drawer. This was outside, in the back lot of the firehouse. She wears shorts under her pants? is all Erin can remember thinking. Just like she wears gloves under her gloves. There are many layers to Jillian Holtzmann.
Erin digs in her purse a moment and fishes out a travel bottle of Ibuprofen. She takes a seat on the edge of the couch next to Holtz and hands her a few pills.
"You'll need these," says Erin, surprising herself with a calm tone. She pauses, looking at the smudged lipstick on Holzmann's arm, "Who's Cookie?".
"Her dessert ho-" says Patty.
"No one," says Holtzmann, quickly.
"I'll get you a bottle of water," says Erin, standing, her posture stiff.
Holtzmann shoots a rather helpless look in Abby's direction. Abby only frowns around a mouthful of bagel and cream cheese.
Erin realizes around eleven o'clock that night that Holtzmann had yet to be seen. After a morning bagel, she had shuffled to her stereo and put on Jazkamer at full blast. Experimental death metal and industrial clangs kept the rest of the group at bay.
Abby and Patty had both departed in the last hour and Erin feels alone now for first time in a long while, even though she knows Holtzmann is upstairs. Erin knew better than to ask Abby or Patty about Holtz's behavior; she knew what they would say. Give her space. Sometimes she needs to hammer on stuff and listen to loud music. Her tornado needs to spin out on a bleak, flat stretch of solitude.
So, Erin finds herself taking the stairs, one slow step after another.
From the landing, she can hear the thrum of some deep house music, bass echoing through the firehouse's high ceilings. It seems to be dark in the lab, but upon stepping around a large pillar, Erin can see a head of wild blonde hair bent over a workbench. There is only the glow of various machines and a single bar of black fluorescent light suspended by chains above. It throws the engineer's shadow high against the back wall.
Erin doesn't say anything, but Holtzmann looks up, somehow sensing her presence. Her face is covered by large yellow goggles, three magnifying lenses pulled down over her right eye. The bass thrums and low heavy synths drone against brick and cement. Erin cannot seem to manage another step. Holtzmann, in this moment, is truly the mad scientist, untouchable and crazed.
Holtzmann breaks first, spinning on her stool to switch off the music. The wake of silence is deafening.
"Apologies, thought I was alone," she says, pushing her goggles up. The metal snags on a curl of hair and Holtzmann swears, tugging it clear.
"Why? Planning a rave?" Erin blurts.
Holtzmann cracks a smile.
"I'm sorry you had to see me in my underpants this morning," she says quickly.
Erin giggles nervously. "Oh, it wasn't so bad."
"Oh really?" She leans forward, grins roguishly. Then, something seems to occur to her and she straightens, sobers. "I mean, thank you. Er, I mean sorry again. Sorry, sorry, sorry." She tugs at the zipper of her dark green jumpsuit.
"Holtz," Erin deadpans, "It's okay."
"Friendship," Holtzmann mutters.
"What was that?"
"Nothing."
Erin chews her bottom lip. "What are you working on that could possibly necessitate blacklight."
Holtzmann perks up at this. "I…" she springs from her stool and circles around the workbench toward Erin, "I've had something of an inspiration." Taking her goggles off, she beckons Erin toward her. She then slides her goggles down over Erin's eyes and clicks down the the magnifiers.
Erin feels tilted by the view, all yellow tint and purple light and Holtzmann's face so close to her own. This must be what acid is like, muses Erin, Is this how Holtzmann always sees the world?
A gloved palm wraps around Erin's wrist and she can so acutely feel the bare, calloused fingertips pressing into her skin. Holtzmann pulls her to the workbench whereon lies a swath of white cloth.
"Look closely," says the engineer, bending down close to the cloth.
Erin bends, and can now see tiny metal shavings littered on its surface. Some pieces are dark shapes, others are glowing fluorescent. Holtzmann slips a pair of tweezers into Erin's hand. Taking the cue, Erin picks up one tiny glowing particle and examines it. She needs a proper microscope to be sure, but it looks like radioactive material.
"What is this?" she asks.
Holtzmann's voice comes close to her ear, "It's the key to the door."
Erin drops the tweezers and straightens. "What do you mean?"
"I took some sample shavings from one of Rowan's portal devices. It didn't occur to me before, but I decided to look for some simple chemical forensic traces. And voila!" Holtzmann snaps her fingers, "I found the nuclear building block that allowed Rowan to breach the Barrier. It's all so simple, really. You and Abby proved it in theory. And here it was, sitting under my nose all this time."
Erin is floored. "You found the mitosis in a nuclear agitant?"
"And it can be seen by the naked eye, baby," says Holtzmann, "Well, almost naked." She fingers the goggles on Erin's face.
Erin has the grace to blush and pull off the goggles. She slides the strap over Holtzmann's hair until they sit rather comically over one of her eyebrows.
"You're a genius, Holtz," she says, quietly and almost with reverence.
There is a moment where both women are proximally unaware, caught in each other's gravitation. In fact, Erin is about to close her eyes and surrender to nature's strongest force, when Holtzmann suddenly whips away.
"I have a beer in the freezer," she says and wheels toward the mini fridge that sits in the corner of her lab. Erin doesn't even register that there is no freezer component, she feels so off-center. What was that? That connection, like a taut rope, snapped in half.
"Can I have a beer?" she asks, for lack of anything else to say.
Holtzmann does not turn and instead, waves her hand a little manically at Erin.
"I am a human that sleeps," she says.
"Oh," says Erin, deflated, "Okay. Well, I'll leave you to it, then."
"Night, Gilbert." Holtzmann still hasn't faced her and it is so strange and compelling that Erin almost goes to her. Then, she stops, reconsiders, and turns toward the stairs.
"Goodnight, you beautiful weirdo."