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Newt wasn’t breathing.
Hermann had rushed into the room as soon as he’d seen Newt’s prone form lying on the floor, the squid cap still on his head and attached to the brain tank. Hermann hastily propped his cane up against the desk but didn’t bother to correct it as it slid to the floor, focusing on Newt as he fell into a clumsy kneel next to him and tore the cap from his head. Newt convulsed, small sounds coming from him as if he was dreaming, and Hermann could think of nothing better to do than strike him across the face to see if that would help.
It didn’t. Newt stopped seizing but didn’t start breathing again, and when Hermann hastily pressed his fingers to Newt’s neck his heartbeat was so faint and weak that he could barely feel it at all. “What have you done...?” he whispered, propping Newt up against his shoulder with his arms around his chest to keep him upright. He raised a hand up to open one of his eyes, seeing the blood spidering across the whites and irises, as well as the blood dripping from his nose and onto his lips. Hermann let Newt lean against his shoulder and took a handkerchief from his pocket, dabbing the blood away from his face. Newt still didn’t move, nor did Hermann feel any discernible breath, in his chest or from his lips.
Anxiety rose in Hermann’s chest like nausea, and immediately he scrambled to his feet again to call for help, getting the attention of some passing medics before going to deliver the news to the Marshall. He knew that Mako and Raleigh were drifting in Gipsy Danger at the moment, and that no one would be pleased with him bursting in, but it wasn’t as if he had any other choice.
“Marshall!” he barked, pushing through the doors. “I need to talk to you.”
Of course, the first words out of the man’s mouth were dismissive and infuriating. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how important a moment this is,” Pentecost said, not even turning to look at Hermann as he hurried toward him. Hermann didn’t have time for this.
“Newton made a neural bridge out of garbage and drifted with a kaiju.”
That caught Pentecost’s attention. He left Gipsy and followed Hermann back to the infirmary, where the medics he’d alerted about Newt’s current state had taken him.
Newt was lying on a cot somewhere near the center of the infirmary, surrounded by three or four medics who appeared to be trying to figure out exactly what was happening to him. One of them had brought in all of his equipment and dumped it on the next bed over, rummaging through it as if for clues. Hermann saw two squid caps, connected by a tangle of wires, and wondered just how Newt had built the thing. They hadn’t given him any equipment for fear that he’d do just this. Hermann would never admit that Newt was more intelligent than him in any field, but he had to admit to himself that he was impressed. Or at least, he would have been, were he not concerned for Newt’s life.
Pentecost stood at the end of the cot, watching Newt and the medics working on him, but none of them really seemed to know what to do. Hermann kept his free hand firmly wrapped around the footboard, his knuckles going white as he did his best not to push them all out of the way and try to figure things out himself. Pentecost looked worried; it was a different expression for him.
“...I’m sorry, Marshall,” one of the medics said, turning from Newt to look up at them both, but mostly at Pentecost. “This is something we’re unfamiliar with. We know how to treat people who’ve drifted for too long, or too strongly, but drifting with a kaiju brain with such faulty equipment... I don’t know if he’s going to make it.”
“No.” Hermann dropped his cane again and pushed the medic out of the way, standing next to Newt and taking his hand in both of his. “Newton, I swear, if you come out of this alive, I will finish the job myself...”
“...Then please, god, kill me...” Newt said weakly, his eyes staying closed and his mouth twitching up into a weak smile. Hermann wanted to slap him, ignoring the part of himself that wanted to embrace him.
“Don’t think that I won’t,” he said, pressing his lips together hard. Anything to keep from showing the fear he was feeling.
Newt opened his eyes, though just barely, showing how red they were, how dilated and unfocused as they looked up at Hermann’s conflicted face. “Don’t worry. I don’t... I don’t think you’re gonna have to.”
“Newton, you know better than to say such things.”
“N-No, I get it. I know.” Newt’s eyes fell closed again, and he took a deep, shuddering breath. His eyelids fluttered, struggling and failing to open again. “Hermann... this is the first... and last time... I’m gonna ask you something like this... but I need your help.”
Hermann couldn’t bring himself to snap a retort back at Newt, not now. “...Yes, of course,” he said, the reality and weight of the situation only just now dawning on him. This was the end. Newt was dying; his stupid little plan had managed to kill him, and now he was giving Hermann a last request.
“I... need you to drift with me,” Newt whispered, his eyes struggling open all the way as he looked up at Hermann. “They have my equipment... it works. It’s not why... I’m here. That was... that was the kaiju. My equipment... is fine. I know things... about the kaiju... that the Marshall needs. But... I can’t tell you. Y-You need to take it from me. You need to drift with me.”
“The two of you don’t know if you’re drift compatible,” Pentecost interrupted them.
“...Yes we do,” Hermann said quietly. He looked back at Newt’s face, at its weakness and vulnerability, and not for the first time he felt as if he was looking into a funhouse mirror. The image was more or less himself, only... distorted. A different form of himself. They had always been drift compatible. “We are,” he said, and Newt gave a slight nod. “We know.”
He was afraid. He’d never drifted with anyone before, not even been in a simulator. He’d always known he could never pilot a Jaeger because of his leg, so what had been the point? But now, here, in their shatterdome’s infirmary, he was putting the infernal squid cap on his head and doing the same for Newt, watching his lab partner’s eyes grow frightened, then accepting, then close entirely. “Push the button,” he said. “I... I have to give you all of this. E-Everything I saw. Y-You’re the... the only one who could make s-sense of it...”
Hermann nodded, his fingers on the huge button that would begin their drift, looking back at all of Newt’s hastily-built equipment. He glanced back at Newt before he pushed the button, sharing with him a look that he hoped said all he wanted to say but didn’t want anyone to hear. How smart he thought Newt really was. How important his work was turning out to be. How all of their fighting and arguing and abrasiveness was because Hermann was threatened that someone may have been as smart as he was, that someone might be threatening the one thing he had that no one else did, that someone might force him to see himself as a person and not a vessel for a brain. He hoped that Newt could get that, if not in their glance, then in their drift.
Hermann pushed the button.
He saw everything at once. Newt at the beach with his parents. Hermann standing on a ladder to reach the chalkboard at his college. Newt laughing with friends and holding up protest signs. Hermann curled up in the corner of his dormitory, his knees drawn to his chest. Hermann didn’t just see things, he felt them, as well; Newt’s joy as he added a new kaiju action figure to his pristine collection. Hermann’s desperation as he stared down at the first B he’d ever gotten in school, the dread of what his father would say. Then, as harshly as everything had come, it was gone, and the drift was silent, but for the whale-like roars of the kaiju to their masters. Masters? Yes, that was what they were. Preparing kaiju for attack. A factory for building exterminators, watching them leave through the breach, waiting an allotted amount of time but never seeing them return successful. Sending stronger, more vast exterminators in their stead, trying and trying and trying again and knowing they would never give up until the planet was colonized. Colonized! A spark of thought from one kaiju that was identical to all of the others. The same goals, the same thoughts. A hive mind. Clones. Damn it all, Newt had been right all along.
Then, suddenly, Hermann felt an emptiness that he’d never felt before. It felt as if a huge part of his mind had abruptly been torn away, leaving only blackness. He tore the squid-cap off with a groan, clamping his hands against the sides of his head. Pentecost was shaking Newt’s shoulders, trying to revive him, but he was gone. Hermann realized that was what Raleigh Becket must have felt when his brother died. That emptiness, that loss. Hermann felt tears burn into his eyes but squeezed them shut. He wouldn’t cry in front of the Marshall, or anyone, for that matter. Gasping for breath, he looked at Pentecost, who had given up on trying to bring Newt back and was staring at him expectantly.
“...Newt was right,” Hermann breathed. “Newt was right about everything.”
And now, Hermann was the only one who would ever know the extent of Newt’s correctness.
After he’d explained as much as he could to Pentecost and the others, Hermann returned to his room. Mako followed him down the hall, moving slowly and seeming almost as out-of-it as Hermann felt himself. “Doctor Gottlieb,” she said, reaching out a hand for his arm. Hermann moved away more quickly than she could.
“I’m sorry, Mako, but I would rather be alone.”
“I know what happened. Just let me talk to you...”
“No, Mako,” Hermann said, stopping outside of his door and turning to face her. “You don’t know what happened, because I don’t even know what happened. All I know is that now, I have more thoughts inside my head than were meant to fit in there. And I need some time to adjust to that. I thank you for being so concerned, but I don’t want your pity.” He turned away from her again and went into his room, shutting the door behind him.
He needed silence, he needed peace, but with Newt’s thoughts and memories still in his head, he wondered if he would ever get much of either again. He closed his eyes, terrified to do what he was about to do, but knew that he needed to. For Newt, if nothing else. He pictured him in his head, his grin and his hand flapping in a talking motion when he thought Hermann wasn’t looking, the annoyance that turned into fondness. Hermann pressed his lips together hard and closed his eyes, leaving his cane leaning against the door as he slid down into a clumsy sitting position.
He had to say goodbye.
He took down his defenses, the invisible wall that kept his and Newt’s thoughts and memories separate, and let them flood through. He saw Newt’s childhood, saw his adolescence and early adulthood, felt his embarrassment and pain and pleasure and joy. It was overwhelming, because each of Newt’s little recollections reminded Hermann of one of his, and it was like an endless chain of memories and thoughts that he didn’t know the end of. He felt like he was getting a tour of Newt’s life, and it ended with meeting him. Hermann saw himself as Newt saw him, and it was a shock at first. Newt had hated him when they’d first met, and Hermann had thought he’d continued to hate him, but that wasn’t the case. The irritation turned into adoration, the arguments turning into light bickering that didn’t have much force behind it. Newt would poke fun at Hermann just to see what he could do to defend himself, to exercise their minds, because they challenged one another.
Newt had been the only person who’d ever really challenged him.
Hermann let Newt’s memories weave through his, becoming permanent in his mind along with his own. He would keep Newt forever now, he thought, all of his theories and notions and the thoughts Hermann used to think were so insane and foolish. They were his responsibility now. He could feel Newt’s presence, a brightness and clarity that hadn’t been there before, and even though the space in his mind where Newt was before he died was empty now, Hermann could have sworn that the blackness was full of stars.
He buried his face in his hands and started to cry.
- - -
"Unscientific aside, Hermann... if you're listening to this... well, I'm either alive, and I've proven what I've just done works... In which case, ha, I won. Or I'm dead... and I just want you to know that it's all your fault, you know. You drove me to this. In which case, I also won... sort of."