.-.
Beneath
Chapter Two Hundred Twenty-Eight – Stabilization
Loki's footsteps slowed, then came to a stop just outside the Science Lab. He and Paul had already parted ways, with Paul taking the stairs down to the first level. Loki should have done the same, for Jane, he remembered then, was downstairs in the Greenhouse with Macy, not here on the second level, in the Science Lab he'd been heading to without conscious decision.
On the other hand…Jane was downstairs in the Greenhouse, not in the Science Lab. His footsteps picked up again.
"My desk looks the same," he said after strolling over to it with deliberate nonchalance, despite every eye turning his way within seconds of entering. Things were going to have to return to normal here – at least to the extent that he no longer attracted stares and halted work simply by entering a room – and sometimes a little playacting went a long way.
"You weren't actually gone all that long," Wright said, getting up from his desk and approaching Loki. "And what about this place made you think we were all a bunch of neat freaks?"
"The perfect orderliness of the DSL, obviously." Loki's desk was hardly untidy, but he recognized the simplistic attempt at verbal sparring as a form of welcoming his reentry into this group.
"Have you been out there since the quakes?" Austin said from where he still sat.
"No. Why? I thought the buildings had all been deemed safe."
Wright nodded. "Safe, sure, we think. But Olivia was pissed about all the accumulated junk out there that fell everywhere. A couple of servers managed to get damaged from it, and the whole place kind of turned into a hazardous debris field."
"It wasn't already one?"
"Worse of one," Selby put in.
"So now we have to inventory every single piece of junk out there and get it all properly secured and stowed if it needs to stay, or else back in the elevated station or off Antarctica. And hey, I know the perfect person for the task!" Wright continued, sidling up to Loki and slapping an arm around his shoulder.
Loki shrugged out from under Wright's arm. "I'm to do all the chores you don't care to now, am I?"
"Payback for all the chores you already got out of, Bro."
"Wright's just being an idiot," Austin said. "You're not the best person for that job anyway, being even more foreign than Carlo."
"Foreign? Did I miss the day when you all announced you were born in Antarctica?"
"As I recall," Loki said, "didn't you arrive before everyone else, Wright? It seems in fact you would be best suited to determine what belongs where. Bro," he added as an exaggerated supposed afterthought.
"Hard to believe Antarctica doesn't just melt down to the rocks with how much hot air is in here," Sue said, pausing from the typing she'd gone back to. "It's going to be a team effort, all of us who work Dark Sector projects. We were talking about doing it right after Mid-Winter, and another pair of hands would be great. Are you in?"
"Of course."
"Great."
"What about the other labs out there? Did only the DSL draw Olivia's ire?"
"It drew the majority of it," Austin put in. "Ice Cube's newer. Hasn't accumulated as much junk, and the summer squad did a big clean-up on their way out."
"And I'm not a slob," Sue said. "MAPO's in good shape."
"Sue's the closest thing we have to a neat freak," Wright said. "Well…other than you," he tacked on, turning his gaze toward Loki's desk, which held two notepads he'd used for taking notes on Jane's work, a stapler that had been there when he arrived, a small screw that had appeared there after he left, and the provided computer.
"You never put up pictures because you couldn't? Your pictures wouldn't look…'normal' to us?" Carlo asked, hooking his fingers in the air over the word "normal." "We'd know they weren't from Earth?"
Loki gave a shrug. It would always be like this at the Pole from here on out. Weighing whether to brush off a question with a jest or a question of his own, to lie, or to be forthright. He wanted to be forthright, for the moment at least. "There was nothing I wanted a picture of at the time. Perhaps I'll find something now."
"Do you even have photos on Asgard? I mean like ours? Prints you put in frames?" Wright asked.
"Or pics you take on your phone and never bother to do anything with," Sue added, typing paused.
"We have photos," Loki said with a nod. "Portraits. Not quite the same as here."
"Can we see?" Wright asked.
"Phased photo albums?" Carlo said.
"I don't have any to show you."
"See, here's the thing," Wright said. "I think I can safely speak for all of us, everyone in the entire station, when I say we have about a million questions. But I'm not oblivious. It's obvious there's questions you'll answer and questions that are hard red lines. I'm not really a walking-on-eggshells kind of guy, and I think we've all had more than enough drama here for multiple winter seasons. So you want to maybe give us some guidance? Rules of the interstellar road?"
"Right," Austin said, already speaking over Wright; Loki realized then he wasn't sure if Austin had meant "right" or "Wright." "Just list out for us all the most personal, sensitive—"
"I don't mean it like that…but okay, point taken, I guess. Sorry, man. I was trying to make things easier, not harder."
"How about we just follow one rule," Sue said as she settled down on a corner of her desk, the only occupied desk in the Science Lab on which that could done, other than Loki's. "Don't be an ass."
"If I didn't need additional guidance for that rule I'd probably still be with my ex. It's fair to ask where the minefields are. I don't want to step in one like Jane did."
"I thought we weren't going to mention that," Carlo said.
"We don't have to talk about it, but it's dumb to pretend like we weren't all standing right there when it happened."
"Wright, you're the only creating drama right now."
"Burying your head in the sand is not how you avoid drama, Carlo. Lucas, back me up. Or I guess tell me to piss off. I thought I was asking a simple question. I didn't mean to turn it into a thing."
"Piss off, Wright," Loki said with a mismatched satisfied smile.
Wright rocked his head back and forth with a grimace of chagrin.
"Burying your head in the sand sounds unpleasant," Loki said. He didn't particularly care if he made Wright squirm, but he did need to find an appropriate balance. "Messy and gritty and…dirty. And not at all like an effective way of avoiding trouble."
"You don't know that expression, do you," Sue said, giving him an odd look. "Do you have ostriches where you come from?" She shook her head as her gaze drifted. "Why would you? Is your flora and fauna anything like ours? You look like us, so the biology can't be radically different. Life being carbon-based has to restrict some of the…"
Loki met her eyes when they came back to his and simply smiled back. Anyone would have questions; it was only natural, in a realm where until recently no one had known of the existence of life on worlds beyond their own. But he was now living among a group of 49 Janes, whose questions would rarely stop at whether ostriches roamed Asgard's streets. His smile faded when the reflexive thought of Jane stole his attention. 49 Janes who would be here for the rest of the season, but there was only one who was specifically waiting to speak with him. Only one he was actively avoiding like some sniveling coward. The anger started bubbling up again then, and he knew it wasn't cowardice – at least not only cowardice – steering him clear of Jane. He had lost control in the past. Loosed control, flung it into the wind, let his anger lead him where it may. He had boundless quantities of it. He didn't want to unleash that on Jane. At the same time…he did. So, Jane was with Macy and he was here, Sue staring up at him with what looked like embarrassment, an expression he couldn't recall ever seeing from her.
"I'm sorry. Wright's right about one thing. We do all have a million questions. A trillion. We could spend the entire season doing nothing but asking you questions and we wouldn't come close to the bottom of that barrel. I read that asking people questions about themselves is flattering – yeah, I read stuff like that, get over it. But there's got to be a point of overkill."
"To answer at least your initial questions, Asgardian flora and fauna are not identical, but not so different, either, as you surmised. If we have ostriches, I know them by another name. And if they bury their heads in the sand…no. Everyone would have heard of them and they would be the laughingstock of the realm."
"They are kind of funny," Wright said.
"A trillion questions is not the only problem," Carlo said. "Lucas is free to be himself now, but he's also here to be one of us. And if we spend every minute blasting him with questions about Asgard and Vanaheim and so on, then we make him an outsider."
"That's not true…is it?" Wright said, scrunching up his face at the end. "We ask you about Italy. Have we ever made you feel like an outsider?"
"No, but I'm used to working in international groups. And you've never asked me if life in Italy is carbon-based. Or if we have ostriches. We do, by the way, if you're wondering."
Austin nodded once. "Ostriches. In Italy."
"I saw them in a nature park once."
"You mean a zoo."
"No, I—"
"While it's mildly entertaining to watch you all arguing…the entertainment value is truly mild, and vastly outweighed by the irritation value. It's actually quite simple. It will benefit no one to discuss anything about my prior visit to your world. And, though I hadn't considered it before, Carlo has a point. I don't mind questions, but I don't want to be a specimen here only for scientific study, either. I've heard you all ask each other questions about where you're from. There's no harm in that, as long as I'm not singled out."
Wright laughed. "Okay. We can try that out. So, Carlo, is life in Italy carbon-based?"
"I don't know, Wright. Is life in Ohio carbon-based?"
"Some of it, last I heard."
"As long as I'm not unnecessarily singled out, then. And yes, life in Asgard is primarily carbon-based."
"Primarily?" Selby and Austin asked in unison.
"Is that a joke? Because I was making a lame joke about Ohio before. Life there is absolutely carbon-based. Italy, too. All of Earth."
"I gathered you were making a lame joke," Loki said; Austin shot Wright a look and laughed. "I haven't studied your biology. We don't always use the same terminology, even the same concepts, in our scientific studies, such as they are. We cannot compare when we don't use the same terms or know how to equate them. There are some differences, but unfortunately for you, perhaps fortunately for me, I'm not able to explain them."
"Have you ever heard of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?" Selby asked.
"Ahhh…no."
"Really? Sapir-Whorf not big on Asgard?" Wright asked with an exaggerated eyeroll.
"He's been on Earth a while, he might have heard of it," Selby said.
"I hope they don't teach racist crap on Asgard," Sue said.
"It's not racist—"
"Isn't that the one that taught that Chinese people are stupid because Mandarin doesn't conjugate its verbs?"
"What? I don't—. That's not what I'm talking about. It's just the idea that the words you use to talk about things affect the way you think about things. What Lucas said about different ways of talking about biology, and different concepts, made me think of it. We're talking chemistry here, right? You guys all probably did a least an intro to organic chemistry at some point, drawing out all those diagrams of carbon compounds, covalent bonds—"
"Stop," Sue said, "bad memories. I hated organic chemistry."
"I thought it was kind of cool. The map of life. But I bet Lucas didn't have to learn to draw all that."
"Lucky him," Sue said. "Wish I'd gone to college on Asgard."
"So probably they represent it a different way. Or maybe they don't represent it all. I don't know…I just think it's interesting, on a philosophical level."
"How do you represent a carbon atom, Lucas?" Austin asked.
Loki considered for a brief moment, then held up a tightly cupped hand, narrowed his eyes, focused, made a few manipulations, and then threw his fingers open. "I think you mean this?"
Everyone stared, while Wright slowly lowered the notebook and pen he'd been holding out to Loki.
"Is that…what is that?" Wright asked.
"Carbon," Loki answered. "I assume this is what you meant. Carbon in its simplest form while still remaining complete carbon and nothing more than carbon."
"But it's…what, you walk around with a phased 3D image of a carbon atom? What life events prompted that?"
"It isn't an image of a carbon atom. It is a carbon atom. Well…in a sense it's an image. The atom itself is too small for you to see, so I've made a kind of projection of it. We don't make drawings of things like this, we simply look at them."
"Oh. Sure, okay," Wright said, nodding, the others murmuring similar comments.
"Why does it look like a…a hydrangea?" Sue asked.
Loki looked to Sue and felt the carbon atom start to drift from his loose grasp, so he quickly refocused his attention and suppressed a sigh. "What's a hydrangea?"
"A flower, one with lots and lots of petals," Austin said. "Maybe those are just the protons and neutrons? What about the electrons?"
"You want to see them orbiting? Like high school chemistry pictures?" Wright asked, approaching for a closer look.
"Electrons…those are the energy particles, yes?"
"Is that thing moving? And buzzing?"
"Yes. The petals are energy blooms that are constantly shifting. They're caused by the vibration of the electrons." He paused to examine it more closely, doing his best to ignore Wright, whose nose was almost touching the projection. "You've raised an interesting point, Selby. I don't precisely see the atom, or hear it, in the same way I mean when I say I see and hear you right now. I feel it, in a sense…its energy, its shape…and this is how I perceive it. How I was taught to perceive it. The electrons behave in their own way. They move and yet not…you see their effect, rather than directly seeing them themselves. I don't think of it as such, but it is a representation…for matter such as this, though, I think perhaps they cannot be perceived as they truly are, not in the conventional sense. The perception is the representation but it is no less real…or is it? I have always thought that it was. But perhaps I was mistaken."
No one spoke for what felt a long time. Loki wondered if, despite his effort to stick to their terminology and simple language, his musings had still been incomprehensible or had made him sound mad. Looking back on it, he wasn't sure that it didn't sound a bit mad even to him.
"I know exactly what you're talking about," Wright said, straightening up from his inspection, the last person Loki might have expected to say such a thing. Or, on second thought, perhaps exactly the person he might have expected. "I think. Guys, you know the problem with how we have to use the electron's raw wavefunction in calculations, but we can only directly measure the magnitude squared of the wavefunction? So you can have this debate, if we can only measure magnitude squared, then maybe the so-called original wavefunction doesn't really exist, and we're just using bad math. Except that logically, it seems like there has to be an original raw wavefunction, because of what that would mean for an electron's vibration. Which magnitude is the real original one? And yet those debates are just pointless yammering for science geeks over beers, because practically speaking, it doesn't matter, as long as the equations work out in the end. Perception, representation…reality," Wright finished, going from looking around the room at everyone else to fixing on Loki a grin of what looked like sheer joy.
Loki blinked heavily and closed and dropped his hand when he realized the atom had destabilized and escaped with the loss of his attention.
"I think I need a beer," Carlo said.
"I'll second that," Austin chimed in.
"Lucas," Sue began, hesitating for a moment, "I was one of the ones who didn't want you coming back here at first. I guess it's only fair that you know that. And I'm not any good at faking things, anyway, so I don't want to have to pretend about how I felt. But my God, I'm glad you're staying now. As long as you don't get us killed or anything. I realize that sounded flippant, but it wasn't a joke."
"Geez, Sue," Wright muttered.
"It's all right. I prefer directness, too. And you have my pledge that I will do all I can to ensure everyone leaves here alive and well. That also may have sounded flippant, but was also not a joke."
"On that cheery note, how about beers for real?" Wright said. "I won't tell if you won't. The science team is back together again. Well, except for Jane. Where'd she go? And Elliot. Guy picked a dumb time to go outside. Let's radio them and tell them to get their butts back in here. And Lucas can tell us if the raw wavefunction of an electron really exists."
"There's a slight problem with that plan. I—"
"We'll get you something else," Wright interrupted.
"I meant that I have no idea what this raw wavefunction and magnitude squared wavefunction problem is."
"It's so weird what you know about physics and what you don't. I mean, those FLRW equations, man! But whatever, we can explain it," Wright said. "Especially when you can…make carbon? Separate carbon? And somehow keep it stable? So many questions. Everybody in?"
Universal affirmations followed, universal except for Loki, but absent Jane's direction he didn't really have anything else he should be doing. Find Jane, his mind supplied with an internal grimace. Before they do. But he didn't move.
"I'll go see what I can scrounge up that's cold," Wright said. "Coke for you, Lucas?"
Loki nodded. He wasn't quite in the mood for such a sweet drink – he wasn't quite sure he should stay for this, but he felt obligated at this point. Jane was not the only person here, and all of these people mattered in a way they had not before.
"I'll go, too. I've got a few bottles stashed away," Sue said.
"Bottles?"
"Hey, you're back. Man, you have the worst timing. Or the best. You happen to have any cold beer?"
Wright practically dragged Elliot back out the door, while Selby who had hovered on the edge of the group, drew nearer.
"Hey, um, while they're tracking down drinks…could we maybe take a few minutes to—"
"Yes, of course," Loki said, cutting off Selby before the suddenly awkward turn could grow any more so. "We should."
"In that case, I think Carlo and I'll go join The Great Cold Beer Hunt. We'll be back."
Carlo shrugged and followed Austin out, and Loki and Selby were alone.
"Somehow I have a feeling that no work at all is going to get done in the Science Lab today," Selby said with a grimacing smile and stiff-looking posture.
"Remarkably perceptive. You said you've recovered completely?" There was no point in meaningless polite chat; the beer hunt wouldn't take that long.
Selby nodded. "It's weird not having a scar from it. Sometimes it feels more like a dream. Except I don't think I've ever felt that much pain in a dream. I— Sorry. I didn't mean that as an accusation."
Loki shrugged off the apology, mentally if not physically. "I admit I was surprised you didn't oppose my remaining. Or did the others pressure you? I had thought that you of all people wouldn't want me here, and understandably so."
"Nobody pressured me. I was stuck in Club Med for a while with plenty of time on my hands for thinking about everything that happened. I'm aware I don't know everything, but Jane and I talked, she told me some of it, what she could. Looking back, I hardly recognize myself. I was…well, I was being an ass. I was convinced I was going to stop you with that knife. And I didn't leave you a—"
"Stop." Selby stopped, but whatever words Loki had expected to follow of their own accord died on his lips and he was left with little more than the newly affirmed certainty that he disliked Selby. "There's no need to do this."
"Do…? I'm just trying to make peace."
The words came easily this time. "You're trying to be a martyr."
Silence hung heavily before Selby responded. "I don't…think I…"
"It should never have happened. But it did, because you brought a knife, and because I know how to wield one infinitely better than you do. We were both angry." Not just angry, he thought as soon as he said it, Selby nodding slowly, uncertainly. Angry, yes. Enraged. Irrational and half-mad with it. But not anger alone. In that moment he remembered it so clearly he could feel the cold biting into the exposed skin of his face and hands. Jane. Her life hung in the balance. Her death in transit would probably have been the best possible outcome, had Pathfinder been destroyed. She could have been trapped in a nightmare scenario on Asgard, caught in a presumed attempted assassination of Asgard's infant princes with a story no one would ever believe, assuming she would break and tell it in the first place. They would have pressed her hard. She would have broken. In more ways than one. He was retreating from that thought even before it was fully formed; there was no point in following every dark thought into its most shadowed corner. She could have been stuck on Asgard with no way back and not a single ally, or worse, stuck inside Yggdrasil, a mind-shattering terror and desperation without end that he would destroy worlds to avoid being subjected to again. He hadn't consciously thought all that through at the time, but he'd still known it, known he would do anything to prevent it, known it as a shining point of utter clarity amidst the bedlam: he could not let that happen to Jane. It would have been his fault. Again. His fault…and Selby's.
"We were both afraid," he continued. "And we both acted rashly. In a set of circumstances so unique and specific that there is zero chance of it repeating."
"Yeah, I'm sure that's true. I just wanted to try to explain why I'm not holding a grudge. I thought I was trying to protect everybody…I was so stupid. You were…geez, you were really scary out there. But I know now that you were protecting Jane. I know about Pathfinder. Nobody else here knows about that and she swore me to secrecy, so don't worry, I won't tell anyone. And I know you've changed a lot since you first got here. I know none of us are in any danger of you grabbing a knife or that sword and randomly stabbing us."
Only centuries of practice prevented Loki from reacting to the mention of Pathfinder, but as Selby continued, he realized that Jane must have told him about space travel, but not time travel. She must have felt the need to explain something of what happened out behind their jamesway, but she could have easily done that without divulging the much more dangerous secret of time travel.
"My first inclination is not normally toward violence. I do regret what happened. I could have subdued you without using the knife. I wasn't thinking clearly at the time."
"Yeah. Me either, obviously. And same. My first inclination isn't violence. Or my second, or third. I was definitely not thinking clearly. Can I ask you one thing?"
"Of course."
"I don't think it would ever even come up again – like you said, unique circumstances and all, but just in case it—"
"Just ask, Selby."
"Please don't ever approach my wife again, or go anywhere near her. She was really scared. And she doesn't know you're here. She's how I figured it out. When she told me you were the person at our apartment, I got her to take a photo of your picture and e-mail it to me. But I didn't tell her I recognized you from here. I still haven't decided if the right thing to do is to tell her or to not tell her, but if I do, it won't be until I can do it in person. She doesn't pose any risk to you. I don't mean to say I think…I know you didn't physically hurt her. But just…please don't ever approach her again."
Loki nodded, lips pursed. He had caused his own downfall here through his pointless toying with Selby's wife. Not his finest moment. Not one he cared to reflect on or to recall at all. "I swear to you I will not."
"Okay. Thanks. I think everything's good then. Right? I just think we should be able to work with each other without it being weird." Selby paused for an awkward shrug and half-smile. "It can't be all that often that guys who stab each other can do that, but I think in this case…I think we can manage. Don't you?"
Loki nodded again, if this time more tepidly. "Yes, I think so."
"Good," Selby said, nodding enough for the both of them, perhaps trying to convince himself, Loki thought.
"Though I, too, have one thing to ask."
"Oh," Selby said, his surprise evident. He had checked a box, accomplished what he'd wanted to accomplish, more or less the way he'd wanted to accomplish it. He thought he was done and was eager to move on. "Sure, go ahead."
"You don't need to answer me, because you don't answer to me. But are you certain that violence is so foreign to you?"
"I've never done—"
"Hear me out. You've never attempted to stab anyone before; that I don't doubt. I'm not sure I'd trust you to safely chop a carrot with a sharp knife. You have reacted with violence, though. The time you grabbed Jane, dragged her into your room, and shouted at her? You left bruises on her arms."
"I didn't—"
"You didn't what? You put your hands on her in anger. I'm not issuing any new threats," Loki said. The words were carefully chosen to indicate that neither was the old one forgotten, but a reassurance of sorts had been called for; Selby had started to look worried, and not in the way Loki wanted him to. Not about the right person. "It simply seems to me that perhaps your inclinations are not quite what you think they are. Or what you like to think they are."
"Okay," Selby said after a moment. He still looked shaken, but this time with a gaze Loki thought was inward, as it should be. "You have a point. I guess I have some more thinking to do."
Loki nodded, but did not comment further, and had no intention of doing so, not about that. His grounds for criticism were shaky, given he'd done much worse. But Selby's delusions that a turn to violence was such an uncharacteristic aberration – after bruising Jane and grabbing a knife from probably the sharpest set in the station, seemingly without a second thought – spoke to an inability to recognize a darkness lurking within, a darkness plain to Loki if clearly not to Selby. That made Selby a danger to himself and others, and Loki didn't want Jane or anyone else here to be on the receiving end of it the next time Selby came under pressure and it boiled over.
Loki felt no compulsion to fill the lingering silence; he agreed that he needed to be able to work around – if not precisely with – Selby, but he also felt no need to initiate friendly idle chatter. Selby, it seemed, was less comfortable with the silence.
"So…I hope you haven't already forgotten how to play the recorder. Now that you're back, you should join us on some of the numbers."
"I haven't forgotten. Have you all managed to stop bickering long enough to learn them all?"
"Kind of. I think there'll be some winging it. What's music like on Asgard? Anything like ours? The stuff we've been playing?"
"It is not much like here. We have more beautiful and elaborate music for dancing, simpler music for poetry, but then the lyrics are much more complex." Loki was considering a clarification – tavern songs sometimes had lyrics as simple and repetitive as what he'd heard here, and exceptions certainly existed – when a distant sound caught his ear and tugged it far from tavern songs.
A second later, it came again, louder.
"What was that?" Selby asked, just as the door to the Science Lab was flung open, Wright, Sue, Austin, Carlo, and Elliot bursting through it, their arms full.
"What's happening?" Wright said over Austin asking "Is that another earthquake?"
"I don't feel any shaking," Sue said.
"You don't? I did, for a second," Elliot said.
"Yeah, a little rattle," Austin said. "Maybe I heard it more than felt it."
"It's not an earthquake," Loki said, only then opening his eyes from having let them drift closed at the second thunderclap.
"Are we under attack?" Selby asked, eyes fixed on Loki, who immediately schooled away whatever had been on display on his face.
"It sounded like thunder, but we don't get thunderstorms here," Austin said.
"We don't get thunderstorms," Loki confirmed. "But that was thunder, and we do have a visitor. Someone who thinks he, too, has a vote in whether I remain here for the winter."
/
[Insert standard apologies for being slow & MIA here.] :-)
Previews for Ch. 229 "Thunder": Bit of a challenge, since my Ch. 229 doc has about 3 chapters' worth of material in it and I'm really not sure where "actual-229" will end. I think I can safely stick with the fact that the source of that thunder makes an appearance. Shocking, I know!
Excerpt:
"Woah, woah, woah, what's this?" Austin said.
A hand started to encircle Loki's arm and he spun around in a fighting stance, feet on different yellow stairs.
Austin immediately pulled back up a step, hands up and fingers spread; behind him Sue quietly swore.
"What are you doing?" Austin asked.
Loki took a second, no more, to ensure he spoke calmly. He was in no mood to coddle them with reassurances, but he didn't want them to fear him, to think his ire was directed at them. "I'm going to greet our visitor."